With Every Heartbeat

I was still going hard when Noel held up his hands, begging me to stop. He flopped down on the indoor track, collapsing onto his back, and panted hard. Ten was curled up on a pile of floor mats, fast asleep, but Asher was still playing away on his phone.

“Man, you gotta stop or you’re going to collapse.”

I wasn’t even close to collapsing. But I sat beside him anyway, wishing for…I don’t know what. I wanted to see Zoey. The only thing I knew could calm me right now would be to pull her into my arms and bury my face in her hair. I need the smell of her hair, the warmth of her breath on my neck, the softness of her skin under my fingers.

But after what I’d done to Belcher and what I could’ve done to Cora, after knowing all that violence was still in me, yearning to get out, I was too afraid to go near her. What if I scared her? What if she thought I was just like Ernest K. Blakeland?

Besides, she had to hate me for walking away from her earlier? I was so ashamed; I didn’t even know how to start to apologize to her for that.

“Why can’t I stop wanting to hurt someone?” I didn’t mean to mutter aloud.

I think Noel was still panting too hard to have heard me, but Asher lifted his face.

He finally put his phone away and hopped to his feet, looking wide awake. Then he strolled over to sit with us. “Hamilton,” he said on a sigh, situating himself into a lazy sprawl. “You’re not your dad.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “What?”

He motioned to my bare torso where I’d taken off my shirt over an hour ago. “Your back. All those scars. You were beat a lot growing up, right? Well, my dad hit me too.”

I wasn’t expecting him to say that, but I shook my head. “No. My mom did that. I never knew my dad.” My mom probably hadn’t even known who he was.

Asher merely waved an unconcerned hand. “Mom, dad, whatever. My point’s the same. You’re not her. We’re not them. Your mother’s violence is not inside you, and what you just went through tonight has nothing to do with her. You did all that shit to protect someone you love, to get justice for your girl, not because you’re an angry asshole who wants to strike out at the first person in your path.”

Fear sprouted in my stomach. “But what if Zoey thinks I’m like that? Her dad hit her too. What if she hears what I did and thinks I’m like him?”

Asher shook his head. “She won’t. Trust me. To Zoey, you hang the moon. She loves you, man.”

I shuddered and about lost it. “I want to see her,” I admitted. I had been telling myself to stay away. Every awful thing that had happened to her was become of me. But I couldn’t help it. I had to see her. “I know I shouldn’t. She probably hates me, but I just...I gotta see her.”

Noel nodded and clasped my back as he groaned and crawled to his feel. “I’ll take you.”

Asher ended up taking off then, but Ten and Noel came with me to Noel’s house. We found Zoey curled up on Caroline’s bed with her head in Caroline’s lap, while a drowsy Caroline sat up against the headboard and stroked Zoey’s long, blonde strands. I stood in the doorway, just watching her sleep in the fetal position as if trying to escape all the nightmares haunting her. Then she whimpered and began to cry in her sleep.

Tears slid down my own cheeks. My chest felt like it was on fire. Caroline murmured a few words to soothe her, and Zoey settled, but I didn’t. I choked out a sob and glanced at Noel and Ten on either side of me.

Ten had been strong enough to stay away from Caroline even though he wanted her. He knew he was no good for her, just like I was no good for Zoey. With Cora being her sister, my past with my first girlfriend would always be there, between us. I didn’t need to put that kind of drama in Zoey’s life. I had caused this to happen to her.

But no matter how much I commanded myself to walk away and leave her in peace, I couldn’t do it. Zoey had taught me what true love really was, and no way could I abandon that. Maybe I could get her to forgive me.

I went to her and crawled onto Caroline’s bed to pull her into my arms.

Caroline sent me a tired, grateful smile and got off the bed to go give Noel a hug. Then all three of them moved out of the doorway.

Zoey stirred against me, burrowing into me and settling her ear against my heartbeat. “Quinn,” she murmured sleepily.

I kissed her hair and stroked her back. “I’m here.”

“Love you,” she mumbled sleepily. I don’t know if she was still too asleep to know what she was saying or if she honestly knew she was talking to me. But the words moved through me anyway.