Page 56 of You for Her (The Edge of Retaliation 2)
“It was hard,” I say, getting back to work on cleaning up his face. “Especially when I first went in. I was only young, and I had no support. My family, they aren’t the best …”
“I saw your mom at the trial, do you still talk to her?”
“No,” I say, my voice turning a touch colder. “No, I don’t. I don’t really talk to any of them, including my brother. They left me there, when I needed them the most. I was so young, I was afraid, I was alone. It wasn’t easy.”
“They left you on your own?”
I nod, swallowing at the painful reminder that my family abandoned me in my time of need. “Yeah, they did. They rarely visited, and when they did it was just to remind me of how hard things were for them on the outside. Because of what I’d done. Because of the reputation they now held. My mother made it more about her than me, and she made sure I knew how it had impacted her.”
“She sounds selfish,” Tanner says, no hesitation whatsoever in his voice.
“She was. Because she didn’t believe me. Nobody did. Nobody except Jo, and that’s only because she was in the car with me. She knows me, and she proved how much she loved me by sticking by my side.”
“What about your lawyer? Didn’t they believe you?”
“No,” I say softly, wiping a cut underneath his right eye. “No, they didn’t. It was my word against …”
“Ours,” Tanner finishes for me.
“Yeah, basically. Your family didn’t believe Celia had anything bad happening in her life, they didn’t think she would take her own life, there was no evidence to point to it, so my word was worth absolutely nothing.”
“Ethan believed you.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah he did. I’m thankful for that.”
“Do you love him?”
I blink and my eyes meet Tanner’s, confused. “Ethan?”
“Yeah.”
I think about that, for a long moment. For a time, I thought Ethan could be the one. I thought that he would be someone I could be with forever. I used to imagine life outside of those walls, wondering if we could be together. I mean, we knew each other so well. We got along with little effort, it was natural and easy. I could have loved Ethan, for sure, but I don’t know … It just never reached that stage.
“I love Ethan for the man he is, for the protector he was, for the friend that got me through some of the hardest times of my life. Am I in love with him, though? No. No, I’m not. It just never got to that point with us, maybe too much shared, maybe because of prison, I don’t know, it just didn’t.”
“Nothing ever happened between the two of you?” Tanner asks, shifting slightly toward me so I can wipe the other side of his face.
“No, it didn’t.”
“Did you want it to?”
I exhale. “Why all the questions about Ethan?”
“I want to know my competition,” he says simply, his voice strong and determined.
I blink. “Competition?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
He chuckles. “Obviously.”
“You don’t even like me, Tanner.”
“You’re fuckin’ wrong about that,” he says, reaching up with his busted-up hand and stroking my cheek. “I fuckin’ adore you.”
My heart races and my throat feels tight. “Y-y-y-you do?”
“Yeah,” he confirms. “Yeah, I do. I fucked up, we both know that, I can’t go over it a thousand times. I was wrong, I didn’t know the situation and I didn’t want to see the truth. I wanted you to suffer, but it was a mistake. Biggest mistake I’ve made in a good long time. The longer I’ve spent with you on the road, the more I see that you’re a good person, probably one of the best people I know. You didn’t deserve what happened to you.”
Those words.
God, I’ve wanted to hear them for so long.
My heart squeezes tightly, and I feel like I can’t breathe. Tears burn under my eyelids, and my skin prickles with emotion that has been held inside for so long.
“You have no idea how much hearing those words means to me,” I whisper to Tanner. “No idea.”
“I think I have a bit of an idea,” he murmurs, stroking my bottom lip lovingly before tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry, Callie. From the bottom of my heart, I’m fuckin’ sorry.”
I can’t stop it.
Tears burst forth and roll down my cheeks.
I needed those words, more than he’ll ever know.
“Hey,” he says, sitting up and grabbing me, pulling me into his arms, “I got you.”
He’s got me.
He’s. Got. Me.
I bury my face into his chest, and I breathe him in, my tears soaking his bare skin. He hangs onto me for a long moment, until my tears slow down and my body stops trembling. Only then do I pull back and look up at him. He swipes a tear away with his thumb, and then leans down, his lips brushing mine. I want him, so badly, but I’m afraid. I’m scared. I’m worried that what Jo said is right, that we might never be able to get past what happened, that it’ll rear its ugly head over and over until it destroys us.
