Page 34 of Secrets That Bind Us
I want her soul.I want her soul.I want hersoul.In e e dit. I clutch tighter, grasping at the body she allowed me to worship. Every kiss, every touch, every soft sigh bounces in my mind, b r e a k i n g me. But I would shatter a million times for her. I know it. I can feel it in every beat of my heart. The one she owns.
She sobs. “Oh, God, help me.” Her voice cracks, and the shattered pieces of her soul hook into mine like talons. She caresses my head, and when I look up at her, she’s looking at the ceiling for strength, tears gathering at her jaw as they continue their steady pace down her throat. But she still doesn’t look at me. “You’re going to have the best life, Dean.”
“No.” I grit out between clenched teeth. “Not without you, baby. Not without you by my side, reading to me, teaching me how you need to be loved.Not without you as my wife, wearing my nana’s ring. A mother to my children. Savannah. Noah. I have it all planned out. You’ll be a best-selling author, and I’ll be in the NFL, and our kids will know what a real family is. And I won’t ever want anyone but you and them.Ourfamily. Damn the jersey chasers. Damn everyone that isn’t us, because it is us, Verity. It’s you and me. Look at me, baby,please.” I beg her good heart- herbeautifulheart- to please listen to me.
And she does. Mascara running from her wet lashes down her rosy cheeks, brows furrowed. But it’s no use. I’ve somehow gone and fucked it up– pushed her away again.I can see it in her vacant eyes.
Dean Carson, forever the fuck up.
I wish that wasn’t true. I wish, I wish, I wish to God I was different. “Let me prove it. Please, baby.” I sniff, kissing her tummy. The place that will one day grow my babies. “Please?”
“Okay, Dean, okay.”
But I know it’s a lie. I let myself believe it. Because for her, I’ll be the man she needs me to be. Marriage, kids– that’s all for later. For now, all I can do is prove it.
Except when we get back to school, Verity isn’t anywhere to be seen.
I learn from the rumor mill that her dad beat them both, spent a few nights in jail, and was bailed. Even Mrs. B looks concerned.
Verity doesn’t answer my calls. Every now and then, she’ll reply to my texts. But other than that… it’s silence.
When she comes back, all she does is study harder than ever. Escorted by Micah. Zoey. Evan. Evelyn. Mrs. Bryant. The principal. Jake sometimes picks her up, and she goes straight home. But she’s mostly around Micah. I don’t even see her in the cafeteria or the library. There’s always a textbook in her hands– classes we aren’t taking.
Winter break comes and goes, and it’s still silent. I enter my first legal race in the spring and only win two-hundred bucks. But it feels good.Honest. I play baseball during the Spring season, and where she normally plays softball, she doesn’t this season. I keep my head down, keeping my grades up to make sure that if I don’t get a football scholarship, I can still get partial grants. I’ll follow her anywhere.
I look up schools in New York and Jersey – even Massachusetts.
I pay attention.
She looks exhausted, gaunt. Miserable, but determined. I learn later she’s been eating her lunches with Mrs. B. Why? I have no clue. All I know is, she’s no longer in any junior classes except AP English.
It’s like she’s disappearing in front of my very eyes.
“And then what, Dean? I’m going to New York…”
Chapter Sixteen
Noah
Present Day
Noah Huntington wasexactlylike other six-year-old children. He loved to play, color on rainy days, and consistently tell his mother he did not need a nap when he absolutely did. He also loved his gerbil, Clifford. But out of all of his favorite things, Noah Huntington loved tolaugh.
He especially loved to laugh with Mommy, Aunt Zoey, and his very cool big sister, Savannah. He adored it when his mother was silly and danced to old rock songs she played while she cleaned or had toshake it outwhile writing her books for adults –notchildren – because they were not appropriate, no matter that he got olderevery day.
Mommy’s old house was big, and so his room was big now, too. Bigger than his old room in New Haven, and because it was summer when they moved, he still hadn’t made any new friends. His backyard was too big, and he didn’t want to play in the barn because Mommy said it wasstill under ‘struction so it was best just not to.Noah Huntington felt like he hadn’t laughed in a very long time.(No matter that he had just been tickled to death by Savannah).
Excitement filled him when he spotted a girl in the tall, budding sunflowers in the back portion of the field that was fenced off. Mommy said they would be blooming soon, but it didn’t look like it to him. To him, the buds looked trapped.
A new breeze in the tall stalks caused them to move lazily, drawing his attention back to the girl waiting in them.
Finally! A friend!
Sneaking downstairs and outside was easy stuff. Uncle Eli and Mommy were having a business discussion loudly in the study behind the living room that ‘nected to Mommy’s even bigger room. He didn’t understand why she needed such a large room- she didn’t haveanytoys.Just books and work stuff. Sometimes, Mommy was very boring.
Once he was out on the back porch, he ran past the trampoline, the new pool, and the swing set Uncle Evan installed at lightning speed thanks to his new light up shoes, and went straight to the fence, where he stopped immediately because there was something wrong with his new friend.
She was shivering, and her hair looked a little wet even though the sun was shining and it was hotter than testicles. Her skin was a little gray, but that didn’t matter. At his old school, he hadlotsof friends with different-colored skins and the only one he didn’t play with was Adriana because she was ugly on theinside. But maybe if Noah had looked just a little closer, instead of being so excited over the prospect of having a new friend, he may have noticed she was a bit dirty and looked unwell.Tilting his head to the side, Noah recognized her from the picture books Mommy had found in the attic before the ren… um…renservationson their rooms had started. She looked like Noah’s Mommy when she was little.
