Ruined. It was ruined.
“Very.” The word came out flat and unconvincing.
Blue flashed as he glanced at her, but she turned her head away, looking out the passenger window once more.
Another tense silence fell.
“Don’t let him take that from you,” said Isma’il, roughly. “Don’t let him ruin that for you.”
Lily closed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You told me last night. Your coach. What he did to you the night you won. Pretending you do not understand will not make the memories go away. Neither will pretending it does not matter.”
“I don’t want to talk about—”
“That moment was your triumph, but you are letting him take it from you.”
Anger twisted inside her, escaping her rigid control. “I’m not letting him take anything. And you know nothing about it, so don’t you dare presume to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.”
“You cannot run from it forever, Lily. You cannot pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Hot, angry words crowded in her throat. She forced them down. “I’m not.”
“Then, why do you keep denying it?”
“I—” She stopped, the words sticking in her mouth. And from somewhere, other words came out, hoarse words. “Because admitting it happened makes it real.” Turns me into a victim.
More silence and she wanted to reach out and snatch the admission back. Armor herself once more in denial. But it was too late. Far, far too late.
He stayed silent, his attention on the road ahead of them. Not looking at her.
And somehow that made it easier to say, “It did happen though. Dan stole my victory. He stole my medal from me.”
Abruptly, Isma’il jerked hard on the wheel, the car bouncing over some rocks to come to a halt before the flat, rocky desert surface began its transition into dunes. Then, he turned, blue-green eyes blazing into hers. “That medal is yours,” he said fiercely. “All your effort. All your hard work. And he can only take it from you if you let him.”
Lily’s heart squeezed tight inside her chest. “But that’s the thing. I did let him. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t protest. I let him take it, because I thought I was in love with him.”
Isma’il went still. “You were sixteen. What does a sixteen year old know of love?”
“Enough to want to be kissed. To be touched.”
The look in his eyes went hard. “And how old was he?”
She didn’t know why she was talking about it. She didn’t want to, didn’t want to revisit it and yet, she couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming out of her mouth. “Thirty. He was thirty. And he knew I was in love with him.”
“You blame yourself.”
“No, I never—”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, I know that. Of course—”
Isma’il’s hand reached out, cupped her cheek, a gentle touch that made her whole body go tense and still. “It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated, sounding out each word with careful emphasis. “You were sixteen, Lily. And whether you were in love with him or not, what he did to you was wrong.”
No one had ever told her that, because she’d never told anyone. Oh, she’d known in her heart that Dan had done something he shouldn’t have, but always there had been the secret fear she’d led him on in some way. Courted his attention without meaning to. That because she’d had a crush on him, she’d asked for it.
There were tears in her eyes and she hated them, because she knew it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t need him to tell her that.
Don’t you?
A terrible sense of exposure crept up on her. The realization that her guard was down, that she was vulnerable again.
Lily jerked away from him, her cheek burning where he’d touched her. Her eyes burning with unshed tears. She pulled on the door handle.
“So?” She struggled to get her voice going. “I guess we’re here then.”
* * *
Isma’il curled his fingers around the lingering warmth the touch of Lily’s cheek had left in his palm. He’d forced her into the admission, pushed her, and he knew it. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. The flat sound of her voice as she’d talked about what should have been a triumph had made him so angry. The thought of what her coach had taken from her. It made him want to kill the bastard.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked her about the medal in the first place, but he hadn’t been thinking straight. The approaching dunes and their attendant memories had made him tenser than he’d thought. And being in close quarters with her, inhaling her scent . . . that had been difficult too.