Page 92 of It Happened on a Sunday
“He nearly killed her.” Sly shifts beneath me, but he makes no move to lift me off his lap, so I stay right where I am as he continues. “He abused her for years, and I didn’t have a fucking clue. When we graduated, he went to the Grizzlies in Seattle and I went to the Twisters, so it’s not like I saw them in person very often. And when I did, she always seemed fine. A little quieter than she used to be, maybe, but fine. Except for the bruises itturned out she hid under makeup and long-sleeved shirts. I still can’t figure out how I didn’t see it.”
“Because she didn’t want you to.” I stroke his hair back from his forehead, then burrow closer for comfort—whether for him or for me, I don’t know. Maybe for both of us, and for his sister, too. Because I know what it’s like to cover bruises no one’s supposed to see, to hold my breath and smile through something that should have broken me.
“It went on for years, Sloane.” His voice cracks, and my heart cracks right along with it. “I found out after a game we played against him. It was a home game, so Lucia came with him for the weekend to hang out with the fam. As far as I could tell, everything was normal.”
He shakes his head like he still can’t believe it. “It was my first year as starting quarterback, and it ended up being a brutal loss for the Grizzlies. He seemed okay with it when we went to dinner that night, even joked about it. But it turns out he wasn’t…and I didn’t have a fucking clue.
“After dinner, they went back to the hotel he insisted they stay at instead of my house and…and because I embarrassed him in a playoff game, he beat the ever-loving hell out of my baby sister.”
Chapter 40
Sly
Sloane tenses against me, and I half expect her to push me away. Or to at least turn away because she can’t stand looking at me.
God knows, some days I can barely stand to look at myself.
Every time I think about Grant, about how fucking wrong I was and how it nearly cost Lucia her life, I hate myself more. For not knowing. For not noticing. For not stepping in.
For setting them up in the first place.
“How the fuck did I not see it? We were on the same team,” I plead. “We shared a dorm room freshman year and an apartment with Marquis every year after that until graduation. How the fuck did I not know he was a monster? And that Lucia was paying for my ignoranceevery single day?”
Sloane doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t turn away from me, either. Instead, she listens, softly stroking my hair as I release years of poison and self-loathing.
“I took everyone out to dinner after the game, laughed when our younger sisters ribbed him about not getting the job done. The fact that they’d made the Super Bowl the year before instead of us was something he lorded over me for a year, so I didn’t mind doing the same to him, and neither did anyone else in the family. Except for Lucia, of course.
“But the fact that she was on his side didn’t matter to that son of a bitch. He beat her within an inch of her life and then left her on the fuckingfloor”—I struggle to take in a breath—“while he went out drinking with his teammates.
“She laid there for an hour before she could crawl to the phone and call me. I tried to get an ambulance, but she told me if hecame back and found out she’d called anyone, he’d kill her. And she believed it, too. After everything that had happened, after everything this bastard thatI had introduced her tohad done to her, she still asked me to keep her safe.”
“Of course she did,” Sloane tells me as she cups my face in her hands, smoothing her thumb over my scar. “She knew you’d take care of it. And you did.”
“I would have taken care of it years earlier if I’d known. One call, that’s all it would have taken, and I would have had my ass on a plane to Seattle to get her. But she didn’t call until it was too late. Until she had no other choice.” The guilt builds, a violent, bitter pressure that has nowhere to go.“She didn’t think I could protect her.”
“That’s bullshit,” Sloane tells me in a voice so harsh that I can’t help but pay attention. “I don’t know your sister, but I know you. And I am one hundred percent positive that she knew you would come get her if she called you. It’s why she called you and no one else in that hotel room, and it’s why she didn’t call you when she was in Seattle. It’s why she didn’t tell you what was going on. Because she understood that once you knew, everything would change.”
“So why didn’t she call me? Why didn’t she let me—” I break off, unable to say the words.
“I don’t know. I’m sure she had her reasons. But I’m almost positive that not trusting you wasn’t one of them.”
I shake my head, start to say more, but Sloane holds me in place with her hands and those bittersweet brown eyes that refuse to relinquish my gaze. “You need to hear what I’m saying. I’ve never lied to you, Mateo, and I don’t plan on starting now, so listen up.
“Men like that twist your mind, make you hate yourself and believe you love them, too. Your sister was probably scared he’d hurt you or terrified you’d kill him and end up in prison. Ifshe’s anything like me, maybe she was ashamed, too…” I want to interrupt—to tell Sloane that neither of them did anything wrong—but I don’t. Because she, like Lucia, already knows. That’s just how abusers make their victims feel.
She leans forward, pressing her forehead to mine. “You’re her big brother. When she needed you—when she really needed you—she called. And you came.”
“I was supposed to protect her—”
“Youdid,”she tells me, unwavering.“When she called for you, you came.”
Her words cut through the fog of rage and regret, slicing straight to the center of everything I’ve been trying to bury. It doesn’t erase the guilt, doesn’t make it vanish.
But it does something else. It fills me with awe.
How can Sloane trust me like that when I can’t even trust myself?
This woman who’s survived so much damage at the hands of the men who claimed to love her. This woman who’s had to invent herself over and over again because of what the men in her life have taken from her. This woman who’s held her head high through all the lies and rumors and bullshit that have been slung at her.
