Trust in Me(104)

            “Shit,” I growled, and my muscles tensed even further. A ball of ice formed in my chest. Telling her was a risk. She could think I was a violent person and walk away, but I needed to be honest, especially if I expected her to be.

            I was scared shitless.

            Closing my eyes, I said, “I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”

            “What?”

            I scrubbed my hand along my jaw. In for a penny, in for a pound or some shit, right? “I tell you that you should trust me and that you can tell me anything, but I’m not doing the same thing. And eventually you’re going to find out.”

            Avery hurried around the coffee table and sat on the edge of the couch.

            “What are you talking about, Cam?”

            I could lose her, I realized, but I had to tell her the truth. “You know how I told you we all have done shit in our past we aren’t proud of?”

            She nodded. “Yes.”

            “I can say that from firsthand experience. Only a few people know about this.” I paused. “And it’s the last thing I want to tell you.”

            “You can tell me,” she said, scooting closer. “Seriously, you can talk to me. Please.”

            I didn’t know where to start. It took me a few moments. “I should be graduating this year, along with Ollie, but I’m not.”

            “I remember you telling me you had to take some time off.”

            “It was sophomore year. I hadn’t been home a lot during the summer because I was helping coach a soccer camp in Maryland, but whenever I did go home, my sister . . . she was acting different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was super jumpy and when she was home, she spent all her time in her bedroom. And apparently she was rarely home, according to my parents. My sister, she’s always been this bleeding heart, you know. Picking up stray animals and people, especially stray guys. Even when she was a tiny thing, she always buddied up with the most unpopular kid in the class.” I smiled at the memory. “She met this guy. He was a year or two older than her and I guess their relationship was serious—as serious as they can be when you’re sixteen. Met the kid once. Didn’t like him. And it had nothing to do with the fact he was trying to get with my little sister. There was just something about him that rubbed me the wrong way.”

            I dropped my hands to my knees as I felt the familiar anger building inside me. “I was home over Thanksgiving break and I was in the kitchen. Teresa was in there and we were messing around. She pushed me and I pushed her back, on her arm. Not even hard and she cried out like I’d seriously hurt her. At first I thought she was just being dumb, but there were tears in her eyes. She played it off and I forgot about it for that night, but on Thanksgiving morning, Mom walked in on her in a towel and she saw it.”

            Avery took a deep breath, and I shook my head. “My sister . . . she was covered in bruises. Up and down her arms, on her legs.” I closed my hands into helpless fists. “She said it was from dancing, but we all knew you couldn’t get bruises like that from dancing. It took almost all morning to get the truth out of her.”

            “It was her boyfriend?” she asked quietly.

            I swallowed hard. “The little fuck had been hitting her. He was smart about it, doing it in places that weren’t so easily noticeable. She stayed with him. I didn’t know why at first. Come to find out that she was too scared of him to break up.” Unable to sit still, I stood and prowled toward the window. “Who knows how long it would’ve continued if Mom hadn’t walked in when she did. Would Teresa have finally told someone? Or would that bastard have just kept hitting her one night and killed her?”