Innocent Lies (14 page)

“The one . . . the one that really
hurt me?” His face flashed in my mind. The other two were bad. He
was evil. I was still wrapped safely in Ethan’s arms. However, my
eyes were closed. I wanted to block it all out except the love that
flowed from his voice.

“He was my
brother.” He placed his hand on the back of my head and brought his
lips to my forehead. He held the kiss for the longest then rolled
away from me.

I turned back toward Ethan and
snuggled into his arms. I heaved tears as he held me. I wasn’t sure
how long we had laid there when he took my hand and pressed it over
his chest and kissed the top of my head. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t, horrified I would see
him. Occasionally, I saw something familiar in Ethan’s face. Now, I
was scared when I looked at him, I would only see the monster that
left me for dead. I shook my head and hid my face farther onto his
chest.

“Please, Privy, look at me and see
if you can see him.”

I inhaled a gulp of air. Ethan had
the same fear I did. That I could no longer look at him without
seeing that monster. I reluctantly raised my head. Ethan’s face
held an intense almost frightened expression. I reached up and
smoothed my hand over his light stubble. I couldn’t see a trace of
that monster in him. Ethan’s face was slimmer. His eyes were bigger
and warmer. His nose was nearer and more refined. Ethan smiled,
absent from his face were dimples. In every nightmare I had ever
had of that night, I could remember the laughter and those dimples.
I hated dimples. I smiled. It was Ethan I was looking at. Not a
monster, my Ethan.

“See, babe, it’s me not him. I’m
not him. Same dad, different moms. His mom was a bitch. That is why
his last name was Walters and not Asher. His mom was trying to
stick it to my dad. I just hate the fact he turned out like
her.”

I strained to lightly place a kiss
on his lips. In the last few months, I had experienced the best
moments of my life. Each of those moments brought a smile to my
face, and each one not only involved Ethan; it was because of him.
He had poured nothing but kindness, fun, and love into us.
Comparing him to them would be the same as saying I was my mother.
I cringed. No. I wouldn’t, couldn’t do that to him.

“I’ll tell you
everything, answer all your questions. Privy, I,” He paused and
smacked his lips together. “I will . . .” He gulped for air. “All I
want is to be with you.” He lightly kissed my temple.

I squeezed him against me and
kissed his left shoulder. Ethan was dangerous. Dangerous to my
heart. I started to trace the heart tattoo on the middle of his
right breast muscle. I had never seen him shirtless. He had tried
so hard to hide that tattoo and his past. It made a new round of
tears form in my eyes. His heart had been breaking all that time.
He was not the men that were in his life. We both had a broken
heart and at that moment I knew together we could begin to heal.
“Hold me, love me.”

He rocked me against him. I felt
his muscles tighten around me. “My pleasure, Privy. My favorite
thing in the world is holding you. My peaceful miracle.” He lightly
placed kisses from my ear, across my jaw, and down my neck. “My
love, we can’t tonight.”

“What?” I asked and tickled my
finger down his stomach.

“Our normal thing to hide. You shut
it off and go numb or worse run. I clam up and quit
talking.”

“Do you really care about
me?”

“Privy, care doesn’t cover what I
feel for you.” He softly pushed my head over his sternum. His heart
beat with such force, I believed it would pop out of his chest.
“Listen, listen carefully, what do you hear?”

“Your heart?” I
answered.

“Correction, it’s your heart. You
have owned it since I first heard you mumble a word. I tried not
falling in love with you. I can’t. You make it impossible to not
love you.” He stopped and raised my chin and pressed his lip to
mine. “I was there that night, too.”

“What?” Thankful,
my emotions were past numb and possibly even dead. Relieved that I
could just turn it off, I hung my head and kissed the tattoo of the
bleeding heart on his chest. A perfect symbol of my heart, which
could not have taken anymore. I listlessly got up, my hair tumbled
wildly around my face. Ethan gripped my arms and had me pinned
under him.

Ethan’s face had twisted in pain.
I stroked it. He clutched my hand and pressed it firmly against
him. Oh, how I loved him. I didn’t think I would ever let someone
get to me the way he did. I was left with nothing and didn’t care
what happened. Tears spilt down my face as my life flashed before
me. I refused to wipe them away as the realization that Ethan
could’ve killed me and no one would’ve cared.

“I love you.” Even
I heard how lifeless I sounded.

“My love, I love you. It’s always
been you.”

“E, let me go.”

He shifted off me. “Don’t
leave.”

I sat on the side of the bed and
shrugged my shoulder. “Bye, Ethan, all I wanted was to love
you.”

He winced. “Damn it, I couldn’t
love you more.”

I snorted and stood; and rubbed my
hands along my arms trying to ward off the chill seeping in. I
started to pull on my jeans.

“Dylan, they still
want you dead. I won’t ever let them hurt you.” He reached out to
touch me. I jumped backwards. That was goodbye, no need to let
emotions get in the way.

“Go ahead and let ’em. It’s not
like anybody will care.” I snapped the button on my pants and
looked back one more time at the only man I could ever love. The
man that was a brother to the monster of my past.

Outside, I realized I left my keys
in his room. I debated going back after them, but took off walking
instead.

Four hours later

I had wandered around for hours.
The sun started to rise and I was no closer to my apartment than I
was when I first left Ethan’s. I had half expected him to follow
me. I, however, guess I was not important enough to get out of bed
for. Tired, I slid down the side of a dumpster behind the Westside
Mall and tucked my purse under my shirt. I’ve done it before. I
could had lived in the streets. That was not the first night I
walked around trying to figure out where to go. The only thing
different was I didn’t have my mom to protect that time. I heard
the car pull up, but didn’t care enough to look.

“Privy,” Ethan said. Hearing his
voice automatically destroyed me. “I’ve looked everywhere. I was
terrified and I don’t do scared very well.”

I glanced up through my long veil
of hair. Ethan appeared worn and tired, but never more beautiful.
My head hung. The effects from the alcohol still had my head
spinning. I tried remembering leaving the bar. Hopefully, alone.
Surely, the whole night had been an alcoholic induced haze. He sat
down causing me to draw my knees up and wrap my arms around them.
Ethan cradled me in his arms.

“Come home with me. Let me at least
tell you everything. You need to know everything, so you can know
what you face.”

My eyes closed as I swallowed.
What more did I need to know? Maybe, Ethan helped them hurt me.
Maybe, he enjoyed it. Mad, I slung his arm off me. “All I have ever
wanted was someone to care. I thought you cared.”

“Sweetheart, I do care. I love you
and to be honest, I didn’t think I was capable of love.”

“Is this a joke to
you?” I scooted down the wall to distance myself from him. He
respected my barriers and clasped his hands in his lap. I looked
out in the distance. He couldn’t defend what he did to me.

“I was the camper that held you
those three days. I’ve never went a day without thinking about you
since.”

My head turned and I
jumped to my feet. He was crying. He knew who I was. He had fooled
me all that time. I combed my fingers through my hair; my purse
fell out of my shirt. I didn’t take the time to pick it up. All I
wanted was to get away from him.
I broke out in a full fledge sprint. He had me in a bear
hug before I got a breath out.

“I never meant to hurt
you.”

“
You did hurt me.”
You have lied to me
repeatedly.
I wiggled in his
arms.

“I know.” He
released me. “They sent me to Knoxville to find you and kill
you.”

I couldn’t move. My feet were
cemented in place. The ground shifted under my feet as vomit
erupted from my mouth. I felt liquid ricochet against the wall. I
vomited repeatedly until I wondered if it was possible to turn
inside out. Encased in his arms, I finally collapsed against a hard
chest.

“Privy,” Ethan
whispered and slowly begin to rock me.

I fisted his shirt in my hands.
“Are you going to make it hurt?” Who was I kidding? Nothing could
hurt worse than a broken heart.

“Babe, the only thing I’m ever
going to do to you is love you and try to get you to love me back.”
He kissed my temple. I grasped his shirt and buried myself against
him. It didn’t matter, something about being in his arms made me
feel secure.

“Come home with me.”

I simply
nodded.
Go ahead and kill me.
Who would care?

We never spoke on the way back to
his house. I didn’t even think and hardly realized we had arrived
until I felt his hand pull me from the car. He started to hug me,
but paused. I glanced down at myself, splattered with my most
recent hurling. I wanted to clean myself and mostly give my mind a
breather. “Can I clean up first?”

“Yeah,” he
answered.

“Can I borrow some
clean clothes?” I finally glanced at his face. His brown eyes
twinkled. I never cared for brown eyes before. But the contrast to
his pale blond hair and the way his glimmered made them my favorite
eyes ever.

“You can have any
damn thing you want.” Ethan’s eyes closed. I could see the tension
in his expression. Feeling the hardness of his shoulders, he
started to calm under my fingertips.

He led me into the house and
straight to the bathroom. He kissed my forehead. “I need
you.”

Glad to finally have a moment to
myself, I slowly ran the washcloth over my face. I couldn’t even
wrap my mind around all that he had confessed. He was there to kill
me, and that he loved me. Those two thoughts did not
collide.

The creak of the door
frightened me. Ethan poked his head in. “Can I come in?” He held
some clothes in his hand, and worked his jaw back and forth. It was
quite obvious, he was everything but okay. How I stood there calm
and cool was beyond even me. I had grown accustom to not caring,
but this even went beyond that. I cared, but felt safe.
Insane often, Dylan?
He pushed my hair behind my
ear.

“My love, I won’t begin to tell you
all the people I’ve hurt and honestly I don’t care what I did to
them. But you, I would kill myself before I let anything happen to
you.” He held out the clothes he was holding. As if he hadn’t just
admitted to hurting other human beings, he started talking about
the clothes. “It’s a tee-shirt and some jogging pants that are way
too small for me.”

“Do you really love me?” Why I
blurted out that question I’m not sure. But I loved him and would
had over looked a lot to have him return that love.

His knees parted and slightly
bent. He pulled me between his legs and kissed the hollow of my
neck. “What I feel for you goes much deeper than the word love can
ever explain. Change and I will try to explain everything to
you.”

I had hidden my face against his
chest, confused by all he was saying. He kissed the top of my head.
“Change, Privy. I’ll meet you in the den.”

I raised my eyes and they locked
with his. The fear and heartache I saw in his beautiful, almost too
perfect face hurt me far more than any physical blow I had ever
taken. I was accustomed to pain and humiliation. I could shut down
everything and pretend it didn’t really happen to me. It was no
more than a story I was reading. But standing there seeing him
suffer was one pain I could never turn off. It didn’t matter what
he had done he owned me completely. “I’m yours.” I
whispered.

He tilted my chin and softly
placed a kiss against my lips. “Privy, I have never went a day
without thinking of you. I want to be the one to love you. I didn’t
know how and still don’t.”