Page 194 of The Clinch
Undisputable evidence.
Travis admitted on camera to putting his hands on me while I was pregnant. Admitted I lost the baby. Threatened me on video with witnesses present. Documented. Recorded. Legally admissible.
With the fury turned down enough to think, I can finally see it. Leo didn’t set up a fight. He set up protection. Permanent, documented, indisputable protection. The kind Travis can’t rewrite later.
Leo freed me.
And then he didn’t follow me out.
No footsteps. No door. No hand closing around the moment and trying to make it mean what he wanted.
I can hear the refrigerator humming, a car passing on the street, my own breathing.
Eden watches me, waiting.
I shake my head slowly. “You don’t know that he wasn’t going to?—”
“Did he come after you?”
I stare at her.
No.
“Did he call?”
No.
“Did he send Nate after you with some message about how he fixed everything and now you need to listen?”
No.
Travis would already be at the door, blowing up my phone, or rewriting the whole thing into a performance where his violence became my debt.
You should be grateful.
You should calm down.
You should come home.
Look what I did for you.
The thought makes something cold crawl over the back of my neck.
Eden sees it.
Her voice softens. “He’s not here, Liz.”
I close my eyes.
Exhaustion punches through all the anger, and I feel every hour of this day at once—anatomy this morning, the gym, Travis, Leo’s face when I said “pregnant”and “baby”and “shoved me into the table,” the way he locked down so completely it stopped looking human, the sound the room made after that.
My knees suddenly feel unreliable.
“Hey,” Eden says, quick now.
She reaches for me, and this time I let her.
Only long enough for her hand to close around my forearm and guide me backward until the back of my legs hit the couch.
