Page 19 of Own

Z: Bring. It. On. big boy.

This fucking guy.

Me: Need Miles and a few guys to come pack up Hesters apartment. Bring everything to the house.

Z: For a man who was still swearing off women a week ago, you’re moving kind of fast. Are you bribing her?

Me: She was fucking assaulted at work, she’s moving in.

Z: Shit. On it.

Thank fuck because I was seriously considering the best way to cut his fucking tongue out. Best friend and closest ally or not, I’m not in the mood for his shit today.

Hester’s whimpers make me look down and wonder what she’s dreaming of. Is it good or bad? Will she tell me when she wakes up? Curiosity gets the better of me, so I slip from the bed and snoop through her nightstand drawer. A girl like her, shy, bookish, so much hidden passion, has to have some sort of journal or diary.

In the first drawer is a notepad, eye mask, lip balm, and an e-reader. I hit pay dirt in the second one. Inside are three journals: one is empty, one is filled with drawings, doodles, and other things, and the last is where she keeps her innermost thoughts.

Holding it in both hands, I move to the overstuffed chair near the window where I imagine she sits and writes in this thing or reads. Violating her privacy will get me in a shit ton of trouble with her, but I need to know more about her. I’ve never met a woman so closed off. She’s embarrassed by her stutter, and it’s a big reason she doesn’t speak nearly as much as she otherwise would.

Sighing, I watch her sleep for a minute before opening to a random page in the middle.

Dear Diary,

Today was a bad day. I could barely hold a conversation with a girl around my age who was talking about a book we both loved. I stuttered through her questions, could barely ask my own. She left before we were even done because she was annoyed with me.

I don’t blame her.

Or anyone else.

On the outside, sometimes, I look normal.

But then my mouth opens, and the stutter runs rampant. I wish I could stop it. I wish I could find someone who relates. Someone who understands.

Chelsea says I need a man to fuck it out of me. I know she’s joking with me; she does that a lot. Says shocking things to make me laugh and forget that I’m broken.

I never know if she likes me or tolerates me simply because we work together. It keeps me from telling her how much I value our friendship.

Sometimes I wish she was right. That I’d find a man who could look past all my flaws. I read all those romance novels where the hero is obsessed with the heroine and loves everything about her. But real men aren’t like that. Nobody is.

I don’t have that type of future to look forward to, and I often wonder why I’m even here. What’s the point?

Christ almighty. The way she sees herself is fucking distressing. Flipping through a few more pages, they’re mostly the same. Hester hates herself because of her stutter. There isn’t much insight into the reason for it, only that she can’t remember a time when she didn’t have it.

I also learn that she grew up in foster care, and the older she got, the worse the homes were. Thankfully, I haven’t read anything about her being sexually abused so far, but there’s enough here to indicate she experienced some form of abuse in a few of them.

The more I read, the more it makes me want to commit murder. To blow a few holes in people who never deserved knowing her sweet soul. But fuck, when I get to the page where she first starts the reading circles and talks about the children she’s gotten to know, including mine, her love and enthusiasm bleed off the pages. Hester is passionate about few things in life, but children are clearly her biggest. It’s beautiful how comfortable she feels talking to them, and her stutter fades away.

She’s truly one of a kind.

The thought makes me sit back, close the book, and watch her sleep. She carries unimaginable pain inside herself, and if I had to guess, it stems from a fear of abandonment. Any kid plunged into foster care, being unloved and unwanted, would feel it.

Hell, I have my own jaded experience with it. The difference is I still had my mother who never left me wondering if she loved or wanted me. She was always enough. That's why I’ve spent years trying to keep the peace with McKenna. I couldn’t handle it if my kids ever thought one of us didn’t love them.

Now I’m in one hell of a predicament because Hester needs me in some seriously complicated ways, and I must deal with an enemy wanting to hurt her and an ex who’s going to go psycho once she discovers my feelings for another woman.

Why can’t shit ever just be easy?

CHAPTER 12