Page 71 of Shamed
Pink-and-black-checkered pillows lay neatly over a thick, white blanket on her bed. A pink candle sits on the small bedside table with a lamp, and a comfortable-looking black chair with a pink pillow on it beside that. There’s also a painting of a black flower with a pink background above her bed.
I’m sensing a theme here.
I settle her onto the end of the bed, then step back, her pouty face looking up at me. “I’ll get you that water, okay? Be right back.”
In the kitchen, I grip the edge of the counter and stare out the window, wondering if I’ll ever feel like I’ve done enough for her, while simultaneously knowing that it’s not my place to be this concerned about her in the first place.
It all goes back to my compulsions, and that ever-present need for repentance.
“Trying to fix something you didn’t do,”my mother had said.
I’m not sure it will ever go away.
But it’s also more than that with Jayne.
At the sound of something dropping, I grab the glass of water, and walk back to her bedroom, coming to an abrupt stop when I see her on all fours, dressed only in her underwear while reaching for something under the bed.
“Jesus. Sorry.” I turn away from her, my eyes landing on a black, fluffy robe hanging beside her door. Quickly placing the glass on the dresser, I snatch the robe off the hook and move toward her, holding it out while looking anywhere but at her. “I heard a noise.”
Jayne scrambles to her feet, giggling as she steps closer in my periphery. “I guess it’s not like you haven’t seen it all before.”
While that may be true, seeing her barely dressed in her place of work and forcing my gaze to stay on her face is very different from seeing her on all fours, in her fuckingbedroom, with all that lush skin on display.
I can feel my control falter, heat gathering in places it shouldn’t.
Iknowshe wouldn’t be comfortable with this if she were sober.
“Or maybe you didn’t see it,” she muses. “I noticed you weren’t looking like other men do.” Her voice lowers a fraction. “Maybe you didn’t like what you saw.”
I turn to her then, my gaze incredulous, because how can she think I wouldn’t like her incredible fucking body? That’s not the reason I kept my focus elsewhere that night, or why I am now.
But it’s then, when I’m facing her and she’s reaching for the robe, that I see them.
Cuts. All over both arms.
My brows shoot up, horror slackening my jaw.
Plucking her hand from the air, I turn it over, scanning the inside of one forearm, then the other. Hundreds, maybethousandsof marks litter her skin.Some are fresh, while others are nothing more than little white lines. Scars from who knows how long ago.
My eyes trail up to meet her wide ones, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she yanks her hand from my grip, laughing nervously while backing away.
“You . . . you weren’t meant to see those,” she chokes out.
No shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jennifer
Mortified.
Disgusted.
Embarrassed.
The growing list of things I’m feeling thismorning.
I hug my blanket tighter, burying my face into my pillow. I’m not sure what time it is, but by the looks of the light shining through my window, it’s around mid-morning.
