Page 58 of Your Second Chance
I got in the car, and before I started it, I looked over at her while she wrung her hands in her lap. “Did you do coke, too?”
“Once,” she admitted. “In the photo I presume you saw.”
“Oh.”
I loved going to a pub. I loved a good party, but I was as straight as they could come, never doing anything to jeopardize my career.
“I don’t do it now. I only did it the one time. I was... trusting. I was promised an escape, and it turned out to be a nightmare.” She sniffled. “I lost my virginity the moment after that photo was taken.”
“In a public loo?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I hate myself for it.”
“The only man you’ve ever slept with is the one whose baby you’re carrying?”
She huffed out a breath. “I guess when you say it like that, then yes.”
Oh bloody fucking hell. I shook my head, gripped the wheel, and turned toward Richmond after starting the car. I needed to process all this. I knew she was complicated—she was pregnant, for God’s sake—but this was another level.
She’d told me it was only once, and I believed her. But seeing how low he’d driven her, how much pain she must have been in to even try it once—it tore me apart.
I hated him for that. Hated that her marriage had left scars so deep she’d reached for something that could’ve destroyed her. What if it ever happened again? What if one day it all got too heavy, and she thought she had to carry it alone, like she had back then?
That was the thought that terrified me. Not that she’d done it once, but that she’d ever feel that desperate again.
The entire journey, I was consumed with the image of her broken, hurting—and the fear that if I wasn’t enough, she might slip that far again.
“Did he hurt you?”
“By hurt, you mean rape?”
Fuck. Fuck. My heart pounded so hard, I thought it might collide with the walls of my chest. It hurt, like it was pinching, and maybe because it was stuffy in the car. I rolled down the window, bringing fresh air in.
“He didn’t sexually assault me. I technically consented to it.”
“You were high. You had no idea.”
She looked down at her hands. “I-I can’t talk about this, Ollie.”
“We always talk about heavy stuff.”
“I-I can’t talk about it because I don’t know how to,” she whispered. “Because I’m terrified of saying the words aloud.”
Her voice cracked, fragile and raw, and it hit me right in the chest. I didn’t push her. I nodded, pulling up to her apartment. She needed the space to process, and honestly, so did I.
“I’ll call you,” I said as I shifted the car into park.
Her wide, glassy eyes turned to me, surprised. For a moment, I thought she might say something, but instead, she looked down and reached for the door handle. “Oh,” she breathed. “I had a nice time today.”
She stepped out quickly and shut the door behind her. Watching her walk toward the entrance, my chest felt heavy with all the things I couldn’t say.
Before I could let doubt creep in, I turned the car around and headed toward Will’s place.
22
ollie
“You mean to say that you’re falling in love?—”
