Page 194 of Face Off

“I understand being scared. Fear explains a lot of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. It didn’t erase what those decisions did to Ryan, and it doesn’t erase what yours did to me.”

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”

I turned away because looking at the two women I loved most while realizing how little they trusted me had become unbearable. Through the windows, lights covered the gardens in gold. Guests moved along the paths with champagne in their hands while laughter drifted through the walls from a celebration continuing without us.

“Lance used photographs of me at the lowest point of my life.”

“Yes,” Bliss whispered.

“He handed them to strangers and told them Ryan did that to me.”

“Yes.”

“He took one moment in Flint when Ryan wouldn’t look at me because I had broken his trust and made it evidence that Ryan intimidated me.”

“Yes.”

“He used a bruise that happened after Ryan moved to another state.”

Aura’s eyes filled. “Yes.”

“And you all decided I was the person who couldn’t know.”

Bliss stepped toward me. “You were just getting your store online and stressed with orders and looking to buy the building. Recovery was still new Charm.”

I snapped. “I’m not early in recovery now.”

They both flinch. “We should’ve told you.” Bliss cries and I cant look at her.

“Don’t say that because you think it’ll calm me down.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me when you found out?”

“Because Cade and Easton asked us not to,” she said. “Because Ryan still didn’t want you pulled into anything that your father schemed up. Because your father’s actions weren’t yours, and we knew you would make them yours the second you heard.”

“You were right.”

Bliss’s expression collapsed.

“I do feel responsible. I know Lance made the choice. I know I didn’t hire anyone, take those photographs, or contact Milwaukee. Treatment taught me that I can understand my part without using it to destroy myself.” I pressed one hand against my chest. “I can know Lances choices belong to him and still feel sick over what they did to Ryan as well as me.”

My voice cracked as the photographs filled my mind again. “But Ryan saw me like that. He saw what I looked like when I hit the lowest point of my life, when I had lost so much weight that my body was beginning to fail me. He had to sit across from strangers while they placed those pictures in front of him and blamed him for what he was seeing.”

Bliss covered her mouth.

“I worked so hard to accept that being sick didn’t make me weak or disgusting, but those pictures were private. That was my body when I was barely surviving, and Lance handed it to strangers like evidence. He made Ryan look at what happened to me after he left and accused him of doing it! Do you understand what that feels like?”

The pressure in my chest broke loose, sending my voice through the room. “I am humiliated!”

“We know.”

“No, you didn’t! If you knew that, you would’ve trusted me with the truth.” Tears poured down my face as I looked between them, desperate for either of them to understand what this knowledge has done to me.

Aura moved closer. “We know it now.”

“You have known current Charm for fifteen months. You watched me learn how to feel guilt without restricting food or punishing my body. You watched me build a life, open a boutique, set boundaries with my parents, and tell the truth even when it made people angry.” Tears blurred both women in front of me. “Apparently none of that mattered the second the truth became frightening enough.”