23. Winter

TWENTY-THREE

WINTER

" T ell me what happened," he repeats, settling more on the bed.

His eyes blaze like the fire in the hearth, and I feel more heat coming from his body next to mine than from the fireplace.

Everything in my body tells me to lean into him—to trust what I've learned about him.

How he cares about his son.

How he caught me in the grocery store. The tender touches and quiet care he's shown me every day…even when it feels like he's as unsure what to do with the feelings developing between us as I am.

Yet still, I curl in on myself, pulling my hand from beneath his. "It doesn't matter what happened. I got triggered by some old shit. It was so long ago, and I?—"

"Winter," he says gently, cutting me off. He reaches out and wraps his hand around mine. I realize I'm biting my nails. The taste of blood registers on my tongue. I don't need to look down to know that I've bitten them to the quick again.

With cautious movements, he lets go of my hand.

I give him a bewildered look when he kneels on the floor. When I hear him make kissing sounds and pat the soft rug beneath the bed, I realize he's coaxing Kitty out of the hiding place he's found.

When Kitty appears, Hunter stands with him, giving him reassuring rubs on his ears and belly. After a moment, he places my dog back on my lap. Kitty wastes no time hopping up to place his body against my chest, resting his head on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Kitty," I whisper into his fur. I don't want to look at Hunter.

I'm embarrassed and angry and…wounded.

"I haven't had a night terror like that in years."

I pause to search my memory. The last one was the day Veronica moved for college. The nightmare kicked off a three-day period of sleeplessness. Staying awake for seventy-two hours contributed to all the stuff that happened later.

"It's been a really long time. I don't think Kitty's ever seen me have one," I say with a chuckle. It's devoid of all humor.

I gather the courage to look at Hunter, to assess his face, even if looking him in the eye is impossible.

When my eyes land on his chin, I see his lips are quirked slightly to the side. It's a soft look.

"Winter, I'm going to sit over there," Hunter points to the wingback chair in the corner of the room near the fireplace, "and I want you to tell me everything. I want to know everything about you. And based on your reaction at the store, I know there's more to your story. Something threatens you, and I won't tolerate you being threatened."

He's standing over me, but I don't feel intimidated by him. Still, I avert my gaze.

I'm quiet and take a moment to glance around Hunter's room. The Xanax I took a few hours ago is still heavy in my system, but I still take note of the massive space. The ceilings soar at least twenty feet, and the walls are painted a forest green except for the exposed red brick wall shared by the firepl ace. The king-sized bed beneath me is bigger than the average mattress, and I'm surprised his sheets and comforter are white. There's a camel-colored duvet thrown at the foot of the bed.

Hunter grabs a glass from the side table near the fireplace and presses on a panel near the set up. Camouflaged in the wall is a fancy drink fridge, and Hunter pulls out a glass bottle of water. He pours some in a glass and hands it to me before sitting on the fabric-covered chair. The gas fireplace runs. I still don't feel warm.

"I know it will take a lot to earn your full trust, Sunbeam. But I want you to know I'm here to carry your secrets and hurt. I want all of it."

He stretches a leg out in front of him, leans back into his seat, and looks at me. Waiting.

At the certainty in his words, I feel the pain in my throat unravel.

"Why do you call me Sunbeam?" I question.

He smiles and doesn't answer for a long moment.

"Because you glow like the sun. That was my first thought when I saw you in my foyer." His mouth quirks up in a rueful smile.

I find myself smiling back, but I feel lost when the smile falls from my face.

"It's a lot, H."

"That's okay, Winter. I am a lot." He traces the pattern on the arm of the chair in slow movements. "Tell me."

I breathe in and out and close my eyes. When I open them, my gaze immediately collides with his.

You can trust him. Telling the truth will not hurt you.

"My parents' car accident was on the New Jersey Turnpike. They were driving home from a weekend in New York—The Hamptons. A semi lost control in the rain and ran right into them. They died on impact and were both flung from the car. "

Hunter simply says, "I remember the news when your mother died."

"It was all on CNN and MSNBC. Up until then, she was getting ready to run for the Senate, but then, she died. All these paparazzi were trying to take pictures of me coming out of school, and it was…it was a terrible time in my life."

"That does sound like a terrible time. More than enough to traumatize someone, especially a young child."

I swallow, feeling the searing tingle in my sinuses that tells me tears are imminent.

"What else happened, Winter?"

I take a large gulp of water.

"I was sent to live with my father's sister and her husband. My mom was an only child, and her parents died when I was really little. My other grandparents were too old to care for a kid. They were in their eighties when my mom and dad died," I say.

"I was sent to live with my aunt Margurite and uncle Louis. They lived in Bethesda but decided to move into my parents' house to keep things consistent for me. So they sold their house in Bethesda and moved into my parents' house in Arlington…along with their son, Adam."

I look down at the glass again and am dismayed to learn it's empty. When I glance at the oversized glass water bottle, Hunter follows my eyes. Slowly, he stands from the chair and moves to pour more water into my cup. Just as smoothly, he returns to his seat.

"Drink," he says.

I immediately take another large sip.

"Keep going, Winter."

Swallowing, I say, "I eventually got into a new sort of normal. Veronica has been my best friend since forever, so I always had the Lance family as a support. But my aunt and uncle were just…there, ya know? They weren't ever overly affectionate, but they'd been that way even before my parents died. We didn't see them often, just on holidays and big events like my mom's swearing-in."

We both sit silently for a few seconds, nearly a full minute, before Hunter says, "Keep going, baby," in a low, quiet voice.

My eyes snap to his, and in that moment, I come to terms with telling this man about the most horrible point in my life.

"Adam, their son, was twenty. He'd tried to go to college but flunked out his freshman year. He went back to live with my aunt and uncle a few months before my parents' accident, and rather than moving out when they sold their house, he decided to move with them to Arlington."

I lick my dry lips, feeling for the cracks.

"Adam and I never really talked much. He is seven years older than me, and even though we didn't have the biggest family ever, he didn't want to hang out with a little kid, you know?

"When he moved in, he was always in a strange mood. Like he was angry to be in my parents' house, but also, he was living rich because of all the money and extra cars my parents left behind. So it was confusing. He was confusing."

I take a chance and look at Hunter. His face is impassive, but his eyes are a little glassy and very focused on me.

"I— I was a little dazed by him at the beginning. He was a popular guy when he was in high school. A fairly talented basketball player. He always had a girlfriend, and I admit I—I had a c-crush on him." Admitting this part took me years to get through with Genevieve. The guilt I harbored that I invited everything I went through still lingers.

"It started with little things. I thought they were accidents. I'd trip over his foot, or he'd break a glass in the kitchen, and I'd step on it. But then his hurting me got more intentional. He'd grab me and squeeze until I had bruises, and he'd say?—"

I love how fragile you are, princess. I could snap your bones with such little force .

I stop as a cold shot of adrenaline rushes ice to my face. "He'd say all kinds of things."

My eyes are closed now, but I open them again to ward off the flashes of images steeped in terror and pain.

I feel Hunter stand before I see him do so. When I look at him, his back is to me as he focuses on the fire. After a big breath, he turns around and runs his free hand through his hair.

"What else, Sunbeam?" he says. His features are tight.

"You know, H, it's okay. It was all bad stuff. More bad stuff. We don't have to revisit it. And he's gone—long gone from here." I move to place my glass on the nightstand and sit up on the edge of the bed. Instantly, he's right in front of me, crouching down.

My body sways toward his, an ever-present effect of the intoxicating energy that is Hunter Brigham.

"I need you to tell me everything, Winter…" he whispers, his voice raspy. Then with slow, intentional movements, he places his hands on my arms.

I shiver.

He must mistake my movements for anxiety rather than a confusing mix of desire and shame. He moves back to stand in front of the fire. "I need to know what I'm dealing with," he says, schooling his features back to an open, undemanding mask.

"Why, Hunter? I promise I'll leave before any of this touches August or you. I'll go back and never leave again."

I'm spiraling. The hurt, elemental part of my brain screams at me to flee. But the conscious part, the part tied to my heart, wants to stay here and be protected by this man. I want to lay all the pain and ugliness at his feet. I want him to willingly pick it all up, so I won't have to carry this baggage alone anymore.

"Why?" he rasps. "Because you matter to me. Because you' re important. Because I want to help you—to keep you safe. And I can only do that if I know the whole story."

I gently sway from side to side as the effects of the medicine and the rush of adrenaline seep out of my muscles.

"Okay," I say. Okay. Here we go.

"It didn't take long for Adam to start coming into my room and abusing me. First, he'd touch me—my breasts, then my…" I search for the right word to say, "vagina."

Clinical, but good. Clear.

"Then he'd have me perform acts on him. Sexual acts. But he was angry because I couldn't do it right. He would hurt me so bad. He'd be so rough that I thought I'd choke and die. Then he started raping me."

The gentle clinking of glass pulls me out of the dissociative state I feel myself drifting toward.

Water appears in my cup.

Hunter sits down next to me on the floor, clears his throat and nods at me as if to say, keep going. He reaches forward, putting the glass bottle on the nightstand.

I take a steadying breath.

"He raped me for months whenever he felt like it. The middle of the night was the most common time. But then he'd started doing it during the day whenever we were home alone. Sometimes when we weren't. He became obsessive. Possessive."

I clear my throat. It's tight and dry, and I sip the water, holding it in my parched mouth for a second before swallowing.

"I'd resigned myself to get through it until he either went away or I left the house for college. Yes, that was a far time away at that point because I was, what, thirteen, going on fourteen when it all ended? But whenever he did what he did, he threatened me. He told me that if I told anyone, he'd kill me. And I believed him. He had a knife and he'd make sure I saw it every day. And to make his point, he'd cut me. "

My hand goes to the side of my calf where a particularly long, thin scar still hides in plain sight. I battle my brain to stay in this moment. To replace the sensation of my blood spilling hot over the steel blade with the warmth of the fire and the feeling of the mattress cradling my body. I wiggle my bare toes, grounding myself against the plush material beneath my feet.

I am here. I am safe.

"Like I said, I'd accepted it all. Until one day, I got sick. It was the beginning of the school year. I was so stressed because I'd just started high school. I was at school and not feeling well all day and the day before. In third period, I'd rushed to the bathroom in so much pain. I sat on the toilet, and so much blood came out. My mom told me about periods before she passed away, but I hadn't had one until then, even though Veronica and my other friends started getting theirs around age ten. I passed out in the bathroom stall. Veronica found me when I hadn't returned to class after fifteen minutes. If she hadn't, I would have bled to death."

I've been staring at the fire for God knows how long, and I risk looking at Hunter. His breathing is shallow, but his eyes are fixed on me.

"You were pregnant," he says.

"Yes. Five months along, the doctors said. After they got me to the hospital and I woke up, they told me I'd had a baby girl, but she'd died inside me long before I'd gotten to the hospital."

I pause. I swallow.

"The doctor said it just like that. He didn't try to be sympathetic or sensitive when he delivered the news. Just, ‘your baby died. Sorry about it.' They gave me an emergency C-section because the placenta had detached, and I was hemorrhaging to death." I let out a dry laugh. "Death would have been one way out, right?"

He doesn't laugh back .

"The nurses weren't kind to me. I mean, I guess I looked like a fucked-up stereotype. I was a black girl from D.C. who was not even fourteen years old and pregnant. They weren't overtly rude or hostile, but…"

"You needed someone to lean on."

"Right. I needed…softness? Compassion? They sent in the social worker, which is routine in these situations. My aunt and uncle were in the room when I woke up, and they were not happy. They kept asking me who I'd been with, how long had I been ‘whoring around,' as my aunt put it. I was answering the social worker's questions, and my aunt and uncle kept interjecting. I was clamming up. Finally—her name is Shawna, the social worker—she had them leave the room."

I release my tensed muscles and run my hands up and down my legs over the linen-covered scars that remain—one of the physical reminders of what I went through.

"She looked at me when we were alone, and without saying a word, she hugged me." I force my eyes to look at him again.

"It had been so long since I had a real hug. My aunt and uncle never hugged me. Veronica did, but this one was different. It was as if my mom were there. So I told her everything. After that, the police got involved, and they did DNA testing on the remains and confirmed that Adam was the father."

"The state took me out of my aunt and uncle's home. But they still lived in the house—my parents' house—until they died a few years back. I was sent to live with Veronica's family. That was the best thing that could have ever happened to me."

I take a big breath, not really ready to share what happened in the aftermath of everything. But I do it anyway. Hunter's scent wraps around me, and I'm grateful for his presence, right next to the bed rather than across the room. I'm feeling warmer. His proximity grounds me .

"After everything that happened, I really struggled." I look down at a spot on the floor, not wanting to meet Hunter's eyes. "It was so…anti-climactic, you know? Like all this drama, and when he was sentenced it was like, what happens now? I started to get really sick. My anxiety was bad. Really bad."

He puts his hand on my cheek, turning my face to meet his. "There you are, Sunbeam. You can look at me."

I settle my eyes on his mouth.

He takes my hand and kisses my fingers.

"I went from having panic attacks all the time to much worse. I was having panic attacks several times a day. Then I couldn't leave the house. I couldn't leave the house at all." I flick my eyes up to his. "I finished high school virtually to the best of my ability. But I...I couldn't leave the house for years."

He rubs my hand with his thumb. "What changed?"

I crack a small smile. "Veronica left for college. She stayed nearby, but when she left her parents' house to move into the dorm...I spiraled." I close my eyes against the memory of trying to leave the Lance house. In my sick brain, I planned on showing up at Veronica's dorm to show her that I could make it without her. I felt abandoned, even though Veronica never left me. Not in the way I felt. As soon as I stepped over the threshold of the front door, I blacked out. I woke up in a bathtub, soaked in blood. I'd dissociated and harmed myself badly.

"I went to the hospital for a little while. It took a few weeks for me to get stable. I was…not well when I went in. But then I met my therapist. And I started to come out of it all. I started to heal."

"And then you decided to help others." He grins at me.

"Yeah," I say quietly. "But it took me several years to get to that point."

He doesn't say anything else. He kisses my palm .

I take a deep breath, feeling the stretch as I inhale as much air as I can to compress my diaphragm.

I exhale with a therapeutic sigh and Kitty moves to snuggle in next to me. My hand plunges into his fur.

"Adam.… He's serving time right now. I've been a little stressed because he's up for parole again." I fight against the swell of anxiety that settles in my stomach. "But he got twenty years. He still has time on his sentence. I thought I saw him. In the grocery store, I mean. I bumped into a man who looked just like him, but it couldn't have been him because?—"

Adam is in prison.

"It wasn't him. My nervous system just needs to calm down." I look at his hands. They're clasping mine again. "This helps," I say, and I rub my thumb against the rough skin of his wrist.

"Winter," he says, pulling me up to stand. I sway a little bit. My muscles twitch. "I am so sorry you went through that."

I shrug. An accustomed response. "It's okay. It happens. It happens every day, actually."

"No, Winter. It's very much not fucking okay. And I'm sorry." He reaches a hand up to my cheek, and with a gentleness that feels opposite to the hardness of his body, he caresses my skin. "I'm sorry you were unprotected. I'm sorry you were hurt. I'm sorry you were cast away. I'm sorry you had to defend yourself and grow up far faster than you ever should have. I'm sorry that your brain was forced to create an isolating and stressful defense mechanism to keep you safe from harm again. I am so sorry, Sunbeam. You are so brave. You've saved yourself. You're living. But you have something now that you didn't have then. You have me."

I look into his eyes, and with every word, I feel the tears well up and crest over my eyelashes. For all the pain, humiliation, and torment I've experienced for decades…I know I'm abundant ly lucky to have this man in my life. He's here. He's with me.

Mine.

"I know I just told you some fucked-up shit, Hunter. But could you kiss me again?" My lips tremble.

He smiles at me.

"I'll kiss you again and always, Sunbeam."

And then his lips crash into mine.