15. Winter

FIFTEEN

WINTER

I haven’t seen Hunter in two weeks.

Quite literally, I haven’t laid my eyes on him in fourteen days.

Not when I searched for him to go to my sonogram across the compound in the medical bay. Not when I tried to give him the latest pictures of our baby. Not when I looked for him to share about the late night August, Ella, and I had and what August confessed about how he’s been feeling about Blair’s death.

Fourteen days have passed.

And I haven’t been able to think of anything else except Hunter. I try, try, try to force my brain to focus on any other topic, but it’s impossible.

I’ve fallen into obsession.

I can’t sleep. I have this unsettled feeling deep in my chest, as if at any moment I could tip over the brink of literal heartbreak. When I breathe, I think of Hunter. When I move, I think of Hunter. When I’m still, I think of Hunter.

And even though I know what’s happening—that I’m flowing down a path of paranoia and perseveration—I’m helpless to stop myself. So every night, I pull his clothes from the closet and cocoon myself with them. I spray his cologne on his shirts and pretend he’s with me. I pretend that we’re back at Amelia Manor, making pizza and playing video games with August.

I allow myself to pretend...and deny the fact that I’m in a dangerous place where the line between love and obsession is indistinct—practically invisible.

I’ve never felt this way about anyone, but I'm familiar with the hallmarks of my mental illness: compulsion, obsession, hypomania.

When will this stop being so damn hard?

My love for Hunter is poisoning me. I can recognize this truth in a distant part of myself—the part that can be rational and objective and self-honoring.

But I can’t stop thinking of him. I can’t let myself feel anything but the pressing, chronic need to have him by me. To see his face. To feel his body pressed against mine.

To be loved by him.

I want him however I can get him, even if that means I have him with an ocean full of darkness.

I was raped.

When he said those words, my heart splintered into a million pieces. When he spilled the parts of his past in that bathroom at the Appleton Country Club, I knew there was more. I could feel it in how his protection of me morphed into something darker in the days following my abduction.

I could sense it in his overwhelming need to control everything.

We’re not dissimilar, he and I. He puts things, people, events into neat little boxes. He forces everything to fit in the parameters he’s set for himself and those around him.

He never wants anyone else to get hurt, even if he’s destroyed bit by bit in an effort to protect them.

My Hunter, my love, is a mess.

And I’m a mess too.

“Not hungry?” Veronica’s voice is soft as she sits next to me. Her plate is nearly clean of the deluxe sandwich and chips Misha’s cook made for her, but I’ve absently stirred the tomato soup for the last fifteen minutes we’ve sat here.

It feels fancy—the chef put it in a sourdough bread bowl, and according to the woman who cooked it, there are notes of smokey fire-roasted peppers and other seasonings that I can’t remember. Paired with it is a crusty grilled sandwich with about four different types of cheese.

“I am,” I say, picking off some of the bread core and dipping it inside the soup. “Sorry. Distracted.” I pop the bread into my mouth and force myself to chew.

Veronica hums and glances over to the short bassinet Summer sleeps in. She rocks it with her foot, sticking her bare toes out from the high-backed barstool she sits on at the kitchen island.

I stop stirring the soup and bring the spoon to my mouth.

The food tastes bland on my tongue; the sandwich is like sawdust in my mouth.

I swallow it, nonetheless.

It took three days for Veronica to see me, but not because she didn’t try. I didn’t allow anyone to see me except Dr. Whitney, and not just because I didn’t want anyone to see the bruises around my neck.

They were startling enough for me to look at in the mirror.

But mostly, I didn’t want anyone to tell me anything I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want anyone to try to convince me that Hunter and I were wrong.

But Veronica damn near broke down my door when she met her limit, and when her eyes landed on me and she morphed into a vibrating ball of fury, I immediately started crying.

I had to physically restrain her from hunting Hunter down and killing him while I choked on my tears.

When she calmed down enough to have a conversation with me, she tried to get me to move into the room she shared with Summer.

I refused.

That started another fight, which ended in her slamming my door and storming off down the hallway as Summer wailed.

Veronica and I have called an unsteady truce. I think it’s because Hunter hasn’t bothered to show his face again.

“Can I ask you something?” Veronica’s voice is still low and measured, and when she speaks, she doesn’t look at me. Instead, she gives all her attention to her sleeping daughter.

I put the spoon down. “Sure,” I say.

With a deep breath, she breaks her gaze away from Summer and turns to me fully. With her eyes locked on mine, she asks, “Do you think you’re safe here?”

I swallow, a knot forming in my throat.

Do I think I’m safe here? What is safety, anyway? Am I safe anywhere?

“I haven’t been truly ‘safe’ since my parents died, Veronica,” I reply, not answering her question.

She blinks long and slow. With another breath, she presses on, repeating herself. “Do you think you’re safe here?”

I bite my lip, and the tears that are ever-present spring to my lower eyelids. “Veronica, c’mon.”

She slides away from the table in a snap. “No, you c’mon, Winter!” she whisper-shouts.

I bring my pinky nail to my mouth since I’ve bitten all the others off.

“Winter, you are a smart woman. You are a resilient woman. And you’re being abused. You’re being stupid about staying here.”

She takes her plate from the counter and scrapes her food remains into the hidden trash can. “I don’t know what to say to get you to understand that you’re in the wrong place to be real.” She shakes her head as she spins to the deep sink. Her dishes fall into the basin with a clank .

Summer twitches in her bassinet, cracking an eye open with a grumpy side-eye.

“It’s more dangerous out there,” I murmur, and she laughs.

It’s a sharp crack in the otherwise silent kitchen.

“Do you really think so, Winter? Can’t you see what’s happened? You’re back to where you were a decade ago—hiding away, locking yourself in, thinking you’re safe from the outside world when in reality, the most dangerous threat is here within yourself.”

The tears crest and fall now, and my stomach churns at her accusations.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“Do this for me,” she offers, crossing her arms tight across her chest. “I want you to catalog all the shit that’s happened to you in the past year. How many of those things have Hunter Brigham as the root cause?”

I swallow and look away from her.

“Nope, don’t avoid the question, Winter,” she demands.

“Stop it, Veronica!” I shout, and Summer begins to wail. I reach for her instinctively, but Veronica reaches her first, stepping in front of me so I can’t touch the baby. I bring my hands to my chest, stunned, flopping back onto my stool.

Veronica shushes Summer while she bounces her on her hip. Summer plants her face into her mother’s shoulder.

“First, the man lies to you about being engaged. Then he does nothing to keep you protected—really protected—when he knows he’s being chased by some affluent goons. Then he knocks you up. Did you all have a conversation about this, at least? Like, you know how babies are made, and I’m sure that Genevieve would have told you that getting pregnant while still recovering from a huge trauma is a bad idea.”

My leg starts to pop up and down with agitation. But the idea knocks on the door where I’ve firmly placed it: That Hunter did bring up the idea of pregnancy, and I didn’t say no.

But I didn’t give an enthusiastic yes, either.

I shake my head, nausea threatening to bring back up the pieces of sourdough and soup.

“Then he gets you involved with the fucking mafiya and puts you into a situation where you have to kill people. Murder, Winter!”

“I did what I had to do,” I mumble through numb lips.

“Sure, but why did you have to do it? Because of Hunter, that’s why. And now…” She puts her hand on Summer’s head, looking at the ceiling, and I’m startled when she starts to cry. “And now he’s hurt you. Really hurt you, Winter.”

I bring my hand to my neck. It’s so hard for me to say that…I didn’t hate the bruises. I didn’t hate what we did.

I didn’t hate it at all.

Shouldn’t I have hated it?

Confusion makes my head spin.

Veronica sucks her teeth. “Hunter Brigham must have some magical dick if you’re allowing yourself to be manhandled by him.”

I push away from the table and stand, mirroring her pose.

“My sex life with Hunter is none of your business, Veronica, but to set your nerves at ease, I fully consented to everything that happened that night.”

“Just like you consented to getting knocked up?”

“Yes!” I yell. “Just like that.” I’m vibrating, shaking, unsettled. She keeps bringing this up, and every time she does, I feel….

“Winter, little miss doctoral degree in psychology, you know that you could not consent to shit in your state.”

“I was of sound mind?—”

“You were depressed and traumatized?—”

“I was a full participant in that and everything that’s happened since.”

“No dick is worth this, Winter!”

“Well, at least I have someone who cares about me!” I snarl. Veronica’s head snaps back as my words land, and disgust and hurt war on her face.

“I—I’m…I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, shame causing me to flush, because I know that I really did mean it that way. I don’t want to hurt my best friend, and somehow that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Veronica’s face slips and her mask returns. She’s troubled by this…troubled by me and my decisions.

Why is this even happening right now? What the hell am I even doing right now?

“Veronica—”

“However the fuck you meant it doesn’t matter.” Veronica shifts Summer to her other arm. “Here’s the bottom line. I’m out. Are you coming with me or not?”

My brows furrow. “What do you mean ‘you’re out?’”

She sighs shortly. “I mean that I’ve thought about it, and I don’t feel safe here. And neither should you. So I’m leaving with Summer. I’ll ask one last time: Are you coming?”

Leave Hunter?

The thought starts up a buzzing inside my head.

I can’t leave Hunter.

Even though he’s all but thrown you away?

I shiver and shake my head. I can’t say the words, but my mind only accepts one truth. No, I’m not leaving Hunter.

Even if he’s all but left me.

Veronica is silent as I contemplate my world ending, and she sighs, heavy and long.

“Fine,” she bites out.

“Where the hell do you plan on going?”

“Don’t worry about that,” she says. “The fact is, I need to think about me and Summer. And if you’re not going to save yourself, well…” She shifts Summer higher. “I can’t save you if you don’t want to be saved.”

The weight of the silence between the two of us makes my chest ache, and when she brings me into a crushing one-armed hug, I feel the fingers of panic start to clutch at my throat.

“I love you, Winter. Please love yourself.”

She leaves the kitchen without another word.