Page 90 of The Devil's Tattoo
“Jason and I…” I began, but he placed a finger over my lips, silencing me before I could go anyfurther.
“You don’t have to,” he whispered. “I’m not mad at you for not telling me. I understand why you didn’t. You stood up to him. I caved when it came to my ownconfrontation.”
“I want to,” I saidfirmly.
“You’re stronger than you realize, Zo. You put me toshame.”
“I need to tellyou,Will.”
“If it’s whatyouwant.”
I took a deep breath, wrapping my arm around his familiar body. I needed familiar to get through this. I hadn’t told the entire story to anyone since I lay in the hospital with Dee by my bedside. I never told my parents the whole truth. They didn’t need that kind of worry. So much time had passed that I wasn’t sure if I remembered how it went. I’d been out of it mentally for alongtime.
“I knew something was wrong the moment he came home,” I explained. “He was different. He couldn’t look at me. I asked him what was wrong, and he just laid it out there. He’d been seeing another woman behind my back for six months. I’d been oblivious. I washappy.” I stifledasob.
Will’s hand tightened on my waist, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’tneedto.
“My first mistake was to slap him in the face. Then he told me that he was in love with her, and they were getting married. Thenext week. My second mistake was to punch him in the face. I was soangry…”
“It wasn’t a mistake.” Will’s voice was quietandthin.
I silenced him with a finger over his lips, and the tension set in his jaw was unnerving. “Then hehitme.”
His eyessqueezedshut.
“My reaction was to run. He’d never raised a hand to me before. Ever. I was terrified. He came after me, of course, and grabbed my arm just as I was about to go down the stairs. I yelled at him to let me go, so he did. I turned, and that was when I felt his hand onmyback.”
“God,Zoe.”
“I remember everything. I remember falling down onto the concrete below. I remember screaming. I remember the sound my arm made when it broke.” Tears began to spill out ofmyeyes.
“The scar on your arm,” he said, tracing the lines of mytattoo.
“I had to have surgery. It wasn’t healing, so they had to fix it. I couldn’t deal with seeing it, so I had ittattooed.”
“It doesn’t look like asurgicalscar.”
“I broke it so badly the bone wasstickingout.”
He drew in a sharp hiss. “Bloodyhell.”
“Mrs. Cooper downstairs heard my screams and came out. By that time, Jason had already run off. She called an ambulanceandDee.”
“That bastardranoff?”
“I could’ve called the cops. He could’ve gone to jail. But there were no witnesses. It was my word against his, and I didn’t have the kind of money it would have taken to fight it in court. I had no choice but to let it go. It was a week or so before I got out of the hospital, and in all that time, Dee and my parents were the only people who came to see me. It wasn’t until I went home that I found out Jason had been telling lies to everyone. I tried to tell them the truth, but they were quick to brand me the jealous ex-girlfriend. I got hateful emails and messages. I deleted my Facebook account, got a new phone number and email. I had to fall off the face of the earth or end up in some psycho hospital. They seemed to forget the part where Jason had blatantly cheated on me. They all sided with him and believed the story that I’d justfallen.”
“EveryonebutDee.”
“Dee was the only friend I had outsideofhis.”
“If I ever see that bastardagain…”
“It’sover,Will.”
“What about the otherwoman?”
“In the beginning, I tried to find her to talk to her. Tell her the truth. But I couldn’t find her, and nobody would talktome.”
