Chapter 19

And if that tree is rotting and mutated, what does that make the apple?

Does he really believe he's just like his dad? So much of what Roman says is a game, but the level of violence he's describing from his childhood is heartbreaking, and as cruel as Roman can be, I could never imagine him harming a child.

I pull my knees up to my chest, and rest my head on them. "I don't believe you."

He lifts a brow in question.

"How are you like your dad?" I clarify. "Tell me. I'm dying to know."

He just laughs and shakes his head, like my naivety is amusing to him. "When I see something I want, I'm relentless. I crave control at all times…"

I've been in enough therapy to recognize trauma when I see it. "All of that is understandable for a kid who had absolutely no control growing up. Makes sense."

Of course he would want to control anything and everything around him. It's so much safer that way. My therapist would say it's his way of trying to protect himself in an uncertain world.

He looks away again. "But more than that, I crave—" He cuts himself off, and just stares out into the distance. Whatever else he craves, it obviously distresses him, or worries him.

"Pain?" I ask, the memory of how he curled his hand around my throat, and the glint in his eyes when he did it. And when he whipped me with that belt…

He twists his head to look at me, and what I see in his eyes guts me. Shame. It's the first time I've ever seen Roman truly vulnerable. He's usually filled with confidence, commanding whatever room he happens to be in at the time. He practically owns the entire-fucking-universe. And yet, here he is beside me, open and vulnerable. It's a side of himself that I'm sure he doesn't show many people, if anyone.

The pain in his eyes is too much, though, and I decide to make light of it, if only to prove to him that his confession isn't going to send me running for the hills. I will run, eventually, but not because of this.

I grab his throat, right below his jaw, and bring my face close to his, nose to nose. I squeeze his throat a little. "If it's pain you want, I'm happy to deliver."

I have to admit, I love having this strong, muscular guy at my mercy. It's pretty empowering, actually. I never thought I'd be that kind of girl, but Roman is awakening things inside me, twisted things.

In one fluid motion, he grabs me by the waist and flips me onto my back on the sand. In less time than it takes to suck in a breath, his wet body is curved over me, his hand on my throat. "It's your pain I crave, Little Rabbit"

I suck in a breath and fight off the panic of being pinned down, unable to get up. Pain is one thing, but entrapment is something else completely. At least, in my own twisted brain.

My first instinct is to fight him, and I do for a second, pushing at his chest, and trying to twist out from under him. But the harder I fight, the tighter his hand grips my throat, and I freeze.

Old traumas come raging to the surface, and I can actually feel my physical self, and my mental self separating. I think I'm trembling, but I don't really know. Everything is numb. I can't even scream. My eyes flutter closed, and I can feel tears streaming down my face, but I'm not controlling any of that. It's like my spirit and my physical body are on two completely different planes of existence.

Seconds, or minutes, or hours later, I don't even know, I feel fingers stroking my face. I guess I came back into my body at some point, because I command my eyelids to open, and they actually do. Roman is crouched over me, but no longer pinning me down.

It takes me a second to completely come-to, and I expect to hear either anger or pity from him, but again, he surprises me. He's always surprising me.

His face is dead serious, but devoid of judgment. "Are you going to tell me what the fuck that was?"

I blink and sit up, rubbing my temples. I have a pulsing headache all of the sudden. "Nothing."

He's still crouching in front of me, studying my face, like he can figure out what's going on by looking into my pupils. "Okay, what we"re not going to do is pretend that didn't just happen. You went fucking catatonic, Lux."

How do I explain something I don't even understand myself? He's pinned me down before, and I haven't reacted that strongly. I'm guessing it's because we were in the midst of sex, and I was distracted? I don't know. There's so much of my own brain I still don't understand completely.

All I know for sure is that trauma is complicated.

I struggle to put what just happened into words, but I come up empty. He just shared a piece of himself with me, and I appreciate that, but I'm not ready to recount the toughest moment of my life. I haven't even told Bree all of it.

Shaking my head, I glance down at the sand, anything to avoid his questioning gaze. "Sorry," I whisper. "Just forget about it."

I don't know why I'm so afraid to talk about it. Nothing about what happened was my fault. Dr. Cunningham has made that clear. But I don't know, maybe I'm afraid Roman will look at me differently. Like I'm damaged and broken. Like I'm a victim.

"That's not how this works," he says. "You're going to tell me what caused that reaction."

I swallow, and my eyes flick up to meet his. If there's one thing I know about Roman, it's that he's not going to let this go. I might as well tell him, and get it over with.

"Okay," I say on a breath.

He settles back down next to me on the sand, then pulls his legs up, his arms clasped around them, like he's bracing himself for what I'm going to say next.

I blow out a breath, and try to steady my racing heart. "Fuck this is hard. Okay, um, last year I was kind of dating this guy…" My stomach tightens, and I suddenly feel like I need to be sick. I swallow past the bile rising in my throat. "And everything was cool at first. But…um…" I can feel Roman's eyes burning into the side of my face, and I struggle to get the words out. "...a few weeks into it, I realized our relationship wasn't working, so I broke it off…"

Shit, this is where it gets tough, so I decide I'm just going to rush through it and give Roman the abbreviated version.

"And, um, he didn't like that. He made threats, and started stalking me. The police wouldn't do anything about it, of course, because he hadn't actually hurt me or anything. Eventually, there was an incident, though, and he was arrested."

It was a horror-filled five months. The crazed look in his eyes when I told him to leave me alone will stay with me for the rest of my life. It was terrifying, and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

There are a few seconds of agonizing silence before Roman finally breaks it. "An incident," he repeats, his voice completely devoid of emotion. Not curiosity. Not disbelief. Nothing. Completely deadpan, and I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

So much for the abridged version, I guess.

"I came in from a night out. It was the first time I'd gone out in months, but I felt safe, because I was with people. Bree and my other friends even walked me to my door. When I came in, grandma was asleep, so I just went straight to my room. I noticed my window was open a crack—the window casing is old and warped, so it takes a lot of force to close the window completely. I thought maybe my grandmother had opened it, so I closed it, and started getting ready for bed…"

I pull in a heavy breath.

"He was, uh…in my closet. He'd been waiting for me to come home, and, uh…shit got crazy."

I spare a glance at Roman, and he's watching me intently. I can't tell what he's feeling though. Pity? Disgust? Nothing at all? God, I just want to run into the ocean, and remove myself entirely from this conversation.

"What happened, Lux?" he asks. "What did he do?"

My thoughts are cast back to that night, and my lungs immediately constrict. Just remembering what happened makes me feel like I can't breathe. And my heart is beating so fast, I start to feel dizzy.

In a panic, I rise up onto my feet, and start walking. I just need to feel like I have that freedom to move, to get away if I need to. I don't even care if Roman is following me. But he is, I can hear him calling my name as I walk away.

I feel a hand on my elbow as he pulls me to a stop, and forces me to turn and face him. "Lux, please. Tell me what happened."

"Why?" I ask, tears cold against my cheeks. "Why do you need to know? It doesn't matter. It happened, and that's it. Drudging all this up isn't going to help anything."

"If you want me to understand–"

I wave my hand, cutting him off. "I don't. I don't give a fuck if you understand or not."

"Fine." His voice is soft, but still firm. "I want to understand. Help me understand, Lux."

We're standing in the middle of the beach now, wind whipping around us, catching in my hair. It's cold, but I barely feel it. I barely feel anything. And yet, somehow, I find the same strength I found the night I made the police report.

"I don't remember everything. Some of it's a blur," I admit, pausing to swallow past the thickness in my throat. "He waited until I was undressing for bed. I'm only guessing he was in my closet, because he lunged at me from behind. He immediately restrained me, held a knife to my throat, and threatened to kill me if I didn't..."

Fuck, bile is rising in my throat. "I must have screamed at that point, because my grandmother came rushing in. When she saw what was happening, she disappeared to find her phone and call the police. But that just…I don't know, caused him to snap. He held a knife up to my throat, and threatened to kill me unless I admitted I loved him."

Desperate to end the story, I lift my arms. "So, yeah, I freak out a little when I'm restrained now. Yay. A fun new feature of my personality." There's no humor in my voice, just that dry sarcasm I rely on whenever shit gets uncomfortable.

Roman's eyes narrow at me, but I notice he doesn't reach out to comfort me, and I'm not sure if I should be thankful for that, or offended. "So what happened? How'd you get away?" he asks evenly.

"I was convinced I was going to die that night. I didn't see any way around it, so I just…gave up." A sob escapes my throat when I admit that. It's probably the most painful part of the whole ordeal—the fact that I'd allowed myself to be defeated so easily. "He beat me, tried to rape me, but I guess my crying was too distracting. He just kept telling me to admit it, admit that I loved him."

I stand there choking back sobs for a second, before I finally gather myself enough to speak again. I wipe the tears away, and face Roman again. "I was angry at myself for a long time, because, ultimately, I'm the one who invited him into my life. It took a lot of therapy, but I came to ExU to start over."

"What happened to the guy?"

I shrug one shoulder. "The police showed up, and after a few hours, I talked him into surrendering. I told him we'd have a shot at being together again if he turned himself in and owned up to what he'd done. He took the bait, thank God, and he's in jail now, awaiting sentencing."

Roman nods once, and glances toward the ocean. When he looks back at me, his expression is completely unreadable. "I need to get going, or I'm going to be late for class."

A lightning bolt of pain strikes me right in the chest. I just poured my heart out to him, and dug up the darkest moment of my life to satisfy his curiosity, but he has class?

I swallow past the shards of glass in my throat, and nod. Then I watch as he turns and jogs back to his surfboard, tucking it under his arm, and heads toward the path leading back up to the house.

As I watch him disappear, I can't help but wonder if I've finally managed to scare off Roman Rush…