Dear Ava(27)

The sound of a piano playing jolts me awake. Beautiful and flowing, the notes are a familiar tune, Demi Lovato’s “Skyscraper”, a song about a girl people think is made of paper but who is tough with her sharp lines; she’s a high-rise with broken windows but still standing, and no one can tear her down.

The player is skilled and intent, catching the low notes with the faster higher ones, the music executed with precision yet layered with emotion. Someone knows how to play. I ease up and stare toward the stage, at the black baby grand front and center.

I suck in a breath, feeling rocked. His head is tilted low, his fingers moving delicately and swiftly over the white and black keys. He’s dressed in that vented white practice jersey, his football pants on, ready for practice.

Not thinking much about what I’m going to say, I stand up and walk toward him.

He’s oblivious to me, the intensity of the notes he plays consuming him.

Who is Knox Grayson?

He ends the song and throws his head back, eyes closed as he drinks in those final notes, his lips slightly parted.

Clarity tiptoes in my head, my dream merging with the truth.

“You found me at the party.” My voice is low but enough to pop his eyes open.

He jerks up from the piano stool. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re playing my song.”

“It’s not your song.”

“It is!” I call out, my own confusion combined with what Dane told me pricking at me. “I sang it at the party and you were thinking about me when you played it so don’t pretend with me. You found me, put me in your car, and took me to Piper’s.” Placing my hands on the stage, I heave myself up and sit on the wooden floor, glaring at him. I’m not sure if I’m ready to rip his head off or hug him.

He just stares at me, emotion working his face, fists clenched, until he slowly shuts it down, composing himself with deep breaths. His gaze rips away from me. “How do you know I took you to Piper’s? I didn’t… You never contacted me or asked me.”

I cross my legs and tug at my skirt. “I just remembered it. It’s weird, the more time I spend at this place, the more the memories come.”

He buries his hands in his hair. “Ava…”

I swallow, looking away from his chiseled, beautiful features. It hurts how much he’s ignored me for the past two days, and now this.

“I’m glad you found me, okay, but you didn’t take me to the hospital. Maybe if you had, they might have found something in my system besides alcohol. I can’t be sure, but my gut says someone did do something to my drink. Maybe then everyone would believe me.”

He walks over and sits down next to me, keeping just enough distance between us so that he doesn’t touch me. Ha. I’m sick of that, for sure.

His face is troubled. “Ava…please believe me…I didn’t know you’d been assaulted. I saw you at the party earlier in the night, and I assumed you’d had too much when I found you.”

“Why did you come back?” I ask sharply.

“Dane.” He bends his head for a moment. “He doesn’t know when to stop, and I keep tabs on him. After I took Tawny home, I went back to look for him, but I found you. Just you.” He whispers out the last part. Grimness flashes over his face. “I didn’t know…how bad it was for you. It never entered my head that—”

“Didn’t you see that…” I stop, mentally pushing myself. “I didn’t even have underwear on!”

He shakes his head and says gravely, “I was just shocked to see you. I didn’t look there. I saw you on the ground and assumed you were trashed. I didn’t know where you lived—”

“So you took me to Piper’s and rang the doorbell.”

He swallows. “Right. I thought you’d sleep it off. Then, the next day I heard you’d gone to the hospital.” His face hardens. “I had no idea. You looked okay to me. Sick maybe, definitely drunk. As soon as I knew the truth, I went to the police and told them how I found you and took you to Piper’s. I felt terrible. If I had known—”

I shake my head. “The police never told me that! Why wouldn’t they?”

He gets a pained expression on his face. “The police here know who signs their paychecks, Ava. It’s a small community run by rich men. Liam’s dad is the mayor, my dad owns half the town, and you…you don’t matter to them, not when it comes to protecting the people here.” He stares down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”

The detective’s words come roaring back. “Miss Harris, is it possible you consented to sex? Your behavior at the party was, well, indicative of…”

I breathe. Big inhalation. Long exhalation.

“The police questioned me for hours,” he continues. “They had a timeline for everyone who was there and who they left with, but because I’d left early, I couldn’t help with those alibis. If it’s any consolation, they looked at me harder than anyone. I looked suspicious because I picked you up. Then my dad showed up and the cops let me go.”

A harsh laugh comes out of me. “I’m no one in this town, but the rest of you…ha. I’m no one. Just a nobody girl.” He doesn’t respond, and I push on. “Dane said the team suffered. He said you questioned everyone personally and hired a P.I. for me.”

He starts, and I study him intently, trying to catalogue every expression he gives me. He’s such a brick wall, and like always, I want to knock it down. “He told me about your mother. I’m sorry about what happened to her. Is that why you hired a private investigator? Guilt for not taking me to the hospital?”

He whitens, his shoulders tensing. “Shit.”

“You don’t like to talk about what happened to her, and I get it. It’s not pleasant, I imagine, seeing someone unravel and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

“She had a lot of issues before she was assaulted, Ava.”

I inhale. “I hate it when you call me Ava instead of Tulip, you know. You’re putting distance between us. Even now, when I know you aren’t the big bad Shark you want me to think you are.” I huff out a breath.

He grows quiet. Then, “Can you forgive me for not taking you to the hospital? For not—” He stops, his top teeth biting down hard on his bottom lip.

“What?”

His lashes flutter against his cheeks.

“Just say it. Please.” I don’t know why I’m begging him, but he’s so close, so close to telling me what I sense is just right there.

“For not staying, okay? I should have stayed, but I left because…”

“You saw me kissing Chance.”

He closes his eyes. “If I’d stayed, maybe—”

That moment plays back in my head, when Chance said he loved me and Knox was standing right there with Tawny. The anguish on his face…

Was it real?

I shake myself, pushing that away for now.

“It wasn’t your fault, and I never want you to feel guilty for something you had no control over.”

“But…I didn’t even do the right thing when I found you! It drives me crazy!”

I’ll kill him with my bare hands.

Moments tick by.

“I’m starting to think no one really knows you. You hire a private investigator, you fight with Liam over me…” I murmur, shaking my head.

Tentatively and carefully, he reaches out and touches my hand. “Don’t you know me, Tulip?”

My body tingles at the use of my middle name combined with his hand, and dang, it’s such a simple thing, but…

“You’ve told me more than the cops ever did.”

My frustration ebbs away, leaving bitterness and regret, yet in the end, I can’t blame anything on Knox. I went to that party. I let my guard down. I own that.

“Thank you for taking me to Piper’s. You might have saved my life. I seriously entertained the idea of a coyote getting me,” I add, trying for levity, but he doesn’t laugh. “Anyway, I could have choked on my own vomit out there in the woods.”

His jaw tightens.

I sigh.

“I’m not mad at you.” I stand up.

He stands, gray eyes holding mine.

“But I can tell you can’t make up your mind about something when it comes to me. You’re holding back.”

He crosses his arms. “Trust me, that’s a good thing.”

“Is it?” I cock my head. “Tell me, what else have you done for me lately? Someone paid for my housing, and you were the one who came out of Trask’s office before I went in—after I’d just told you I wasn’t in the dorms. Was that you?”

He drops his eyes and paces around the stage.

“Knox?”

He waves me off and plops down on the piano seat. “I blamed myself for not staying at the party and making sure nothing happened to you.”

“Uh-huh. We’ve established that point. You’re not answering my question.”

He nods. “At the same time, I got all this information about you from the P.I.—how you grew up, how your mom left you with a baby, how you beat the odds and managed to get a scholarship to Camden. You’re a bright star in this shitty place. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”