Page 180 of Break Away
I looked at my bandaged hand. “Split knuckles. Bruised ribs. Cut mouth. Face looks a little rough.”
“And the other guy?”
I thought about Maddox in the dirt, blood across his face, my fingers forcing his head toward Aura while I demanded an apology she didn’t want.
“Worse.”
“Easton.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I rubbed my good hand over my face. “I think I do.”
“You think?”
The word came out sharply, but there was no judgment in it.
That was worse.
My mother’s anger I could take. Her fear was harder. Her disappointment sat somewhere beneath my skin and stayed there.
“Someone said something disgusting about Aura,” I said. “At The Sin Bin. In front of her. In front of everyone.”
My mother went very quiet. “Was she hurt?”
The fact that she asked about Aura before asking what happened next made something inside me bend.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not physically.”
“I understand.”
“You don’t know what he said.”
“I don’t need details that aren’t mine to have.” Her voice softened. “I know what your voice sounds like when something ugly happened to someone you love.”
I swallowed.
Love still felt like a bruise.
“I lost it,” I said. “I checked on her first, then I went back outside and beat the shit out of him.”
“Easton Wade.”
“I know.”
“Do not say ‘I know’ like it fixes the fact that you put your hands on someone until he was bleeding.”
My jaw tightened. “He deserved it.”
“He probably did.”
That startled me enough that I sat back.
My mother exhaled. “Do not sound so surprised. I’m your mother, not a saint. I have met men. I have disliked several deeply.”
Despite everything, a rough laugh scraped out of me.
