Page 144 of Just One Kiss

She wiped his cheeks dry.

“They told me I blacked out. They said it was a fit of rage.” He pulled away from her. “I thought I was a monster, just like him.”

She moved to the ground, on her knees in front of him so their faces were level, forcing his gaze. “Look at me.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want her to see him like this.

“Do you agree that I know you better than most people know you?”

He nodded.

“Then my opinion matters more than most people’s, right?”

Another nod.

“In all the years I knew you, I never, ever once thought you were anything like your dad. He’s vicious and mean and you’ve always been tender and good and kind. That’s why it hurt so much when you left, because we were meant to be together, Josh. You and me.”

He reached up and touched her cheek, cupping her face with his hand. “I don’t deserve you.”

She shook her head. “You’re not your dad. You’re nothing like your dad.”

“Then how do you explain the anger I felt that night?”

Carly let out a wry laugh. “I explain that as being human.”

“You would’ve never felt that way.”

“Are you kidding? Josh, a baby crying has got to be one of the worst sounds on the planet. I think it could be considered torture. What you felt was normal. The difference is, you protected Jaden that night. You laid him down and walked away.”

He shook his head, unsure how to reconcile the person he’d always believed himself to be with the person Carly was telling him he was.

Josh held her hands in his own, drawing them to his lips then his forehead, where he quietly willed away the pain of the past.

“What’s going to happen to my dad?” he asked.

Carly straightened. “I think they’ll arrest him.”

“It won’t stick,” Josh said. “She’ll never go through with it.”

“She might, with our help. She’s going to stay with me for a few weeks, just until she can figure things out.”

He shook his head, pulling away. “No, this is not your problem. You’ve got enough to deal with. You don’t need this too.”

“What if I want to deal with it?” she asked softly. “What if I want to be here for you while you sort it out?”

He stood and moved across the room, staring out the window at the lake. He didn’t belong here—how could he when everything had turned upside down? He couldn’t stand by and watch his mom lose her nerve or his father smugly get away with what he’d done—again.

He couldn’t stomach it. And he didn’t want Carly or Jaden anywhere near it either.

Jaden—oh no.

“Does Jaden know?”

Carly shook her head. “No. Not yet anyway.”

Josh rubbed his temples. He never wanted his son to know any of this—where he’d come from, the kind of life his own father had lived. He didn’t want Jaden exposed to it or embarrassed by it. It was humiliating. It was why they’d all kept it a secret all these years.

Some shame is simply too heavy to speak out loud.

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