The group of about eight laughed. Laughed as I stumbled on my feet. My body sore. The trickle of something foreign ran down my leg.
My head dropped, not wanting to meet their eyes.
Oh God.
Help.
I twisted awkwardly, bending over and pressing my thighs and knees together, my arms crossed over my chest.
As if it might shield me.
Shield me from the insults.
From the jeers.
From the laughter.
I barely peeked up, gasping when I saw Janel at the center of it. With Aaron. One of his arms was wrapped around her waist, her body plastered to his side, her hands on his chest. He’d pulled on underwear and was casually draining a beer as if he hadn’t just degraded me in the worst way.
Oh God. No. My head spun with dizziness. Nausea churned in my stomach. I was going to be sick.
I stumbled a step backward, trying to quiet the cries that were tearing from my aching throat. Raking from me like broken glass. “Aaron,” I mumbled the plea.
“Oh, Rynna.” Janel took a step toward me, her blonde hair lit up like a ring of flames from the fire behind her. “You poor, pathetic thing. Did you really think he’d actually go out with you? Did you actually think he wanted you?”
“Oh my God . . . look at all that fat. Dude, did you really just put your dick in that? Not sure how you stomached it.” I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but I couldn’t help but look at Remi, Aaron’s best friend, who was laughing hysterically where he stood by the bonfire.
Aaron looked at him with a grin before he planted a kiss on Janel’s temple. “Like I wouldn’t do anything for my girl. And it was dark.” He hefted a shoulder. “Didn’t make it all that bad.”
Janel smirked at me.
Horror.
It spun around me in whipping, rending lights. The world canting.
Oh God.
Oh God.
“Ah, poor, Rynna Dayne, always such a good girl. But look at her now, nothing but a filthy, fat slut.”
Another string of lights. Flashes from a camera.
Picture after picture.
“Janel,” I begged.
No.
I tried to cover myself, wrenched over as I sobbed.
Janel just sneered. “You should have known better than to fuck with me.”
Then it hit me. A pie. Splattering. Blueberries in my hair, streaking down my chest, dripping on my belly.
Howls of laughter.
“Happy birthday, Rynna,” Janel mocked. She tossed me my dress.
I gasped out in relief, scrambling to gather the fabric that landed two feet in front of me and hugged it against my body.
Jeers and abuse struck me from all sides, and I clutched the material to my chest, as if it might stand the chance to shield me from the torment.
Take it away.
Hide me.
The confession tumbled from me on a downpour of tears. Rex clung to me, horror in his posture as he held me as close as he possibly could.
“I ran home. Mortified. Knowing those pictures were going to be plastered all over the school the next day. Knowing my gramma would see them and know what I’d done. So I ran. I ran and ran and ran and I never stopped running, Rex. Not until I came back here.”
Not until I’d collided with this mesmerizing man.
“Rynna, what’s going on?” The sleepy voice filled with concern hit me from behind.
Torment lashed like the crack of a whip. My eyes slammed closed, and the words trembled from my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Gramma, but I’ve got to go.”
The floor creaked with my grandmother’s footsteps. She sucked in a breath when she rounded me, shocked by my battered appearance. “Oh my lord, what happened to you?” Her voice quivered. “Who hurt you? Tell me, Rynna. Who hurt you? I won’t stand for it.”
Vigorously, I shook my head, finding the lie. “No one. I just . . . I can’t stay in this stupid town for a second more. I’m going to find Mama.”
I hated it. The way the mention of my mother contorted my gramma’s face in agony.
“What are you sayin’?”
“I’m saying, I’m leaving.”
A weathered hand reached out to grip my forearm. “But graduation is just next month. You’ve got to do your speech. Walk across the stage in your cap and gown. Never seen anyone so excited about somethin’ in all my life. Now you’re just gonna up and leave? If you can’t trust me, then you can’t trust anyone. Tell me what happened tonight. You left here just as happy as a bug in a rug, and now you aren’t doing anything but runnin’ scared.”
Tears streaking down my dirty cheeks, I forced myself to look at the woman who meant everything to me. “You’re the only person I can trust, Gramma. That’s why I’ve got to go. Let’s leave it at that.”
Anguish creased my grandmother’s aged face. “Rynna, I won’t let you just walk out like this.”
She reached out and brushed a tear from under my eye. Softly, she tilted her head to the side, that same tender smile she had watched me with at least a million times hinting at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t you ever forget, if you aren’t laughing, you’re crying. Now, which would you rather be doin’?” She paused, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer. “Wipe those tears, and let’s figure something out. Just like we always do.”
Sadness swelled like its own being in the tiny room. Loss. Regret. Like an echo of every breath of encouragement my grandmother had ever whispered in my ear. “I can’t stay here, Gramma. Please don’t ask me to.”
With the plea, my grandmother winced. Quickly, I dipped down to place a lingering kiss to her cheek, breathing in the ever-present scent of vanilla and sugar, committing it to memory.
Then I tugged my suitcase from the bed and started for the door.
Gramma reached for me, fingertips brushing my arm, begging, “Rynna, don’t go. Please, don’t leave me like this. There’s nothing that’s so bad that I won’t understand. That we can’t fix.”
I didn’t slow. Didn’t answer.
I ran.
And I didn’t look back.
“I just . . .” The words whispered from me on a regretful plea. “I just wish I would have come back sooner. I just wish I would have realized it didn’t matter what they’d done to me. My gramma would have never looked at me differently. She loved me, no matter what, and I let them steal eleven years of that.”
Fingers sank into my flesh, rage barely contained. “I want to hunt that little fucker down and kill him, Rynna. Who the fuck would do that to you? And that bitch? Fuck. I can’t even fathom it.”
Aaron’s name threatened on my tongue, the fact that I’d seen him on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant a couple weeks before. But there was no use in saying names. On laying blame. I just wanted to let Rex in, let him see me, understand me, the same way as he’d allowed me to understand him.
“It was a long time ago, Rex.”
“But it doesn’t take away what they did.”
“No.” My head shook, a tweak of hope lifting the corner of my trembling lip. “And you’re right. I spent a long time being terrified of them. Just the idea of ever seeing them again had kept me chained to San Francisco. But maybe they regret it now. Maybe the years passed, and they recognized the depravity of what they had done. Maybe they look back, and they’re struck with shame and remorse and would take it all back if they could.”
Rex touched the side of my face. “You are nothin’ but grace and good, Rynna Dayne. Forgiving them that way.”
“Holding on to hate would only hurt me more.”
It was almost a grin that lit on his face. “Am I allowed to hate them for you?”
I bit my bottom lip, fighting a smile. Again, overcome by him. By that beautiful exterior and the amazing heart beating its own kind of grace underneath. “If it makes you feel better.”
He clutched me to him, burrowing his face into my neck, pressing his lips against my skin. “Yeah, it makes me feel so much better.”
Then he nipped at me, and a giggle slipped out.
Because Rex Gunner made me feel completely free.
I moved to stare down at him, and I swore his eyes saw all the way to the depths of me.