Shame (Ruin #3)(44)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

Tristan was sitting on the couch talking to Gabe in hushed tones while Wes stood by the window on his cell.

All of their expressions were grim.

I quickly slipped into my room and tossed on a pair of skinny jeans and a black hoodie then brushed on some lip gloss.

By the time I returned to the main living area, both Wes and Gabe were gone.

“They left?” I asked, shivering but not sure why.

Tristan shrugged. “They had some business they needed to take care of. Besides, they aren’t invited.”

I cracked a smile at his haughty attitude.

“Just you and me?”

“Yeah.” Tristan nodded slowly, his eyes drinking me in. “Just you and me.” There was that stupid trusting hand again. I took it. I gripped it. I embraced it and closed my eyes, trusting him completely and hoping I wasn’t making a giant mistake by doing so.

“Alright.”

He wrapped his arm around me and kissed my head, whispering, “It’s going to be okay. I swear it.”

Maybe it made me naïve. But I believed him. In that moment. I believed him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

They said he was still alive, though his back had broken on impact, along with one of his legs. Freaked out, I watched the EMTs work on him. I heard someone shout that they were losing him, and I did something no human being should ever do. I turned and walked away. —Mel

Tristan

KEEPING MY HANDS from shaking was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Every time I saw the look of hurt cross Lisa’s face, I wanted to pull the steering wheel from the car and throw it, but who would I aim for? Taylor was dead, and, honestly, it felt like I was too.

My chest hurt with each breath.

For her to go through what she’d gone through.

To even, for one instant, think I could reveal who I was? What I was to her? No. That couldn’t happen. My father had had things right when he said it needed to stay a secret. It did. For her sanity, it truly did. I would take it to my grave and feel no guilt whatsoever about keeping the demon in his prison of hell. The only loose end was Gabe and Wes. But it wasn’t my own guilt that had me confessing; it was my need to protect Lisa at all costs, even if it meant they had to eventually protect me from her.

I was still worried about what had set him off the edge, worried because I’d been diagnosed with something similar. Then again, my own father functioned just fine, though he seemed to be just as heartless and callous as his sons.

“This isn’t a Ferrari,” Lisa whispered.

“No.” I barely got the words past my dry lips. Licking them wasn’t helping; I was a nervous wreck as we turned the corner to my house. “The Ferrari is parked, just waiting for you to take it for a ride.”

She didn’t smile.

And it killed me, literally made me want to pull over and do anything and everything in my power to get her to smile again. To get her to realize that it wasn’t her fault, regardless of her involvement in that stupid website; it wasn’t her fault that she’d been taken advantage of. Nobody deserved to be raped.

“Alright.” I put the car in park and hit the garage opener. “Now, you are going to have to pick a color…”

Lisa’s eyebrows furrowed. “Pick a color? What? Like you have a car lot—” Gasping, she covered her mouth with her hands as the lights clicked on, revealing not one Ferrari, but three — along with a few other cars and toys that I rarely used but had looked nice at the time. Now it all seemed pointless. The money, the lies — all of it.

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “What are you waiting for?”

“How?” she rasped. “How do you have three Ferraris? No, scratch that. Why? Why do you have three?”

“Too much money.” I sighed and tapped the steering wheel. “And too much freedom when I came into it.”

“Red.” A ghost of a smile appeared on her face. “I think I like the red.”

“You can’t just pick a Ferrari from thirty feet away, Lisa. You have to touch it, caress it…”

“Am I buying it dinner later?”

“Hell, no.” I opened the car door. “You don’t want to make me jealous, do you?”

Her smile fell. Just like that.

As if the idea of me being attracted to her wasn’t even a valid one anymore, but stupid, an impossibility.

One I was more than happy to tackle, even if it killed me.

Lisa slowly walked up to the garage and went to the side of the red one. “I think I like this one. Yeah, I want to drive this one.”

“Alright.” I went over to the spot on the wall where I kept my keys, grabbed them, and tossed them in her direction. “Just one thing before you get in.”

Lisa fingered the keys and shrugged, her shoulders slumped. “What?”

“I don’t want to get in the car with Lisa.”

She stiffened.

“And… I don’t want to get in the car with Mel.”

Her shoulders slumped even more as her lower lip trembled.

“But you?” I said with a clear voice. “The woman standing in front of me… scars and all… shame… and all? I would really, really love to get in a car with her.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Let me tell you about her,” I whispered, walking around the car. “She’s beautiful… like stare-so-hard-you-run-into-a-wall beautiful.”

She let out a pathetic laugh and cried harder.

“She’s brilliant…”

Another step toward her.

“Has this crazy blue streak in her hair that I honestly think fits her really well. It’s a part of her past mixed with a part of the present.”

Her clear blue eyes lifted to meet mine from beneath thick black lashes.

“Her lips are an addiction, in and of themselves. One that any man would be insane to give up.” I cupped her cheek.

Those beautiful eyes fluttered closed, and another tear escaped. It slid down to meet my palm.

“And she is one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”

Lisa shuddered. “She’s a stranger. I don’t know that woman.”

“All you have to do is look in the mirror, Lisa, and you’ll find her. I think I’m falling for her… this girl I want to take a ride with, this girl I’m trusting my Ferrari with. I want to be with her. I want her to trust me. I want to chase those demons away, and really, most of all, I want to help her discover who she is, because I imagine she’ll fall in love with that person almost as much as I have.”