Page 93 of Untouchable
She’d known her mother would be angry and disappointed, which was why she’d been trying to avoid her. Her mother’s entire life had been shaped around this one grief, this one loss, and even her daughter had been made a victim of it. This was the last thing Kelly was equipped to deal with now. “I needed some space. I don’t think you understand how hard this thing is for me to do.”
“Why is it hard? So you had to fuck him. You’ve used your body before.”
“Not like this.”
Her mother was peering at her with a scary sort of scrutiny. “You’ve fallen in love with the monster.”
The tone was horrified, outraged, utterly betrayed, and it felt like a physical blow. Kelly winced and looked away.
“Ungrateful, disloyal little bitch,” her mother muttered.
And that just made Kelly angry. She stiffened in her chair and glared back at her mother. “You can call me anything you want. It won’t come close to what I think of you. Did Jack Martin tell you that Caleb might not even be guilty of Dad’s murder? I bet he did, and you just ignored it. Well, you can continue your narrow,foolish vendetta if you want, ignoring the fact that you might have been going after the wrong person from the very beginning. You can also ignore any flicker of humanity you have left in your cold, dead heart. But I’m not willing to do so. And I don’t think Dad would have wanted me to. I’m not going to bring a man down if he isn’t guilty of the crime.”
“He is guilty. You’re deceiving yourself because you don’t want him to be. But what do you think will happen when he finds out what you’ve been doing? There’s no sappy romantic honeymoon waiting for you. You know what he’s like now. You know it more deeply than anyone. And do you think he’ll have mercy on you after you’ve betrayed him so completely, when he’s never had mercy on anyone who has ever stood in his way?”
It was true. Kelly knew it was true. If Caleb ever found out what she’d done and why she’d done it, his hatred would burn hotter toward her than it had ever burned for anyone before. No one had ever betrayed Caleb the way she had.
But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t after a happy ending here. She’d never been after a happy ending. She knew what she wanted now, what she needed, the only thing that could possibly allow her to take a step forward after today.
“I’m not looking for mercy,” she said, standing up because she’d finally decided. “I’m not looking for grace or forgiveness or love or rosy sunsets. Those things belong in a different world than this one. But I want the truth, and I think I might be able to find it. And I want to heal, and I’ll never even start unless I can dig down deep to the very first wound. For that, I need real answers.”
Her mother looked surprised and a little confused, and she stood up so she was on a level with her daughter. “If you tell Caleb the truth, you’ll never get any answers. You’ll never get anywhere at all.”
“I know that. I’m not going to tell him the truth.” She felt full of confidence now, direction, a bleak sort of peace. Full of anger and heartbreak and grief. “Not that truth anyway. I’m going to go back to him. I’d rather be all the way broken, if it means that one day I might be whole, than keep living this half-broken life forever.”
“So youaregoing to go back? You are going to do what we planned?”
“I’m going to find out the truth.”
“Even if it means breaking him?”
“Even if it means breaking myself.”
That evening Kelly and Reese were watching TV again, and Kelly was trying to come up with a way to return to Caleb.
She’d crushed him a couple of days ago, and he might not want to forgive her. He might not want to take her back.
But, if she was ever going to get to the truth, she needed to figure out some way to reconcile with him.
She’d come up with nothing but a lot of silly ideas that would never work, when there was a knock on the door.
Reese got up to look through the peephole. She came back to the couch with the strangest expression. “I think it’s for you.”
Frowning, Kelly got up and went to look, then understood the reason for Reese’s strange expression.
It was Caleb. Standing right outside the door.
Kelly froze in a moment of pure terror but took a few breaths and centered herself. She hadn’t conjured him with her thoughts. He just happened to have chosen this moment to turn up.
Kelly opened the door, feeling sloppy and unattractive in her faded jeans and white T-shirt, with bare feet, no makeup, and her hair pulled up messily with a clip at the back of her head.
Caleb was standing in the hallway, calm and composed. He looked characteristically handsome and sophisticated in another one of his business suits. He’d probably come over after work.
“Hi,” he said softly.
Kelly glanced at the floor, then back up at him quickly, trying to think but only aware of a wash of pleasure, comfort, and excitement at his presence. “Hi.”
“I know you said you needed some space,” he murmured, his expression revealing nothing but a questioning mildness, as if he was reining in powerful feelings. “But you said maybe we could work it out later, and I was hoping that later could be now.”
