Page 175 of Chasing Hope

After a beat, she quietly confesses, “I hate them for hurting you so much.”

“Same could be said for you, my Dove, but I just don’t know who to send all my hatred toward.”

She sighs heavily. “I know you struggle with that.”

Immensely, more than she could ever imagine. I want to kill who did that to her.

I don’t think she even knows the half of it, how much it haunts me that I don’t know who hurt her, that she won’t tell me. But I’ll never force her.

I just nod because I don’t trust myself not to beg her to tell me. I begged a lot in those early weeks but all it did was make her shut down so I stopped.

Taking a steadying breath, she moves back to the topic of my parents. “I’ll never understand why they did what they did.”

“What, not love me or not care about me?”

“Both,” she answers honestly, not denying the fact we both know.

Shrugging, I look down at our joined hands and at the girl that’s been beside me for it all, the one I told everything to when it came to my parents. “You’ve always been able to soothe me when it came to them.”

“I don’t like your parents.”

Laughing at her declaration, I lean forward and give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I know.”

“No, truly,” she says, anger swirling in her eyes. “I hate them for how they treated you…how they still treat you.”

“It is what it is.”

“Well, it’s not fair.”

Kissing our joined hands, I murmur against her skin, “I know, Dove. Neither is what happened to you.”

Sitting back down beside me, she’s quiet for a moment, lost in thought as she looks at the lights of Denver, the only sound the wind rustling through the mountain trees.

“I know you’ve never told me the worst of what they did to you,” she whispers suddenly.

Another truth spoken.

“How could I?” I say honestly.

“You can always tell me anything,” she murmurs.

“Some things are too dark to share.”

Arching a brow at me, she doesn’t even have to say it. Just one look and I know she’s trying to point out the hypocrisy of those words. Maybe she has a point. Here I am always asking her to share her deepest secret and I’ve barely scratched the surface with mine.

The words, the stories—it all bubbles up my throat, begging to be set free after twenty years.

“You really want to know?”

“Desperately.”

I lean deeper into the pillows, urging Evie to come with me. I can’t see her face while I talk, can’t look into the eyes of the girl I love while hurting her, because what I have to saywillhurt her.

Same as how what she told me utterly obliterated my heart.

Focusing on the city lights, I ground myself by focusing on the feel of Evie tucked into my side, her warmth against my body, and the way everything I went through led me to her.

“Before we moved to Denver, we were in Banff. There was an incident where I went hiking by myself and there was a bear. I was far too young to be out there by myself and my parents never should have allowed me to go. I ran home once I was safe, but it absolutely terrified me. I was shaking like a leaf, had tears streaming down my face, and had cuts all up and down my arms and legs.”