Maybe One Day, page 6
“Levi, stop. I don’t want this.” My words sounded like they’d been pushed through a grinder.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t wait. You’re just too beautiful—I have to get a closer look at you.” One of his hands landed on my upper thigh, yanking me closer. Disgust crawled up my spine, tingling everywhere he touched. “I didn’t think Jace was ever going to let you out of his sight.”
At the mention of Jace, adrenaline pulsed through my veins.
I remembered that his truck was parked nearby—that was if he hadn’t bailed on Piper and me already. It was a chance I was willing to take. Hell, my only chance. There was no way I could go back inside. Grabbing me again would merely be a reflex for Levi if I tried to get past him.
If I could just get my body to goddamn move, I might be able to make a run for it. Even though heading in the opposite direction wasn’t ideal, I realized it might be my only shot at escaping.
When I felt Levi’s hand push the hem of my skirt higher, I squirmed away, snapping my legs together as tightly as I could.
“Get off me,” I begged, my voice wavering.
My body must have finally registered what was happening, how close his fingers were to my underwear—how, at this moment, I would do just about anything to get away from him—because, without any brain involvement whatsoever, I propelled my head back into his chin with surprising force. It collided with a sickening crunch, but I didn’t feel it. I hoped I’d at least knocked out a few of his teeth—they were probably already half-broken from opening my beer earlier.
Levi released me on impact. He doubled over, clutching the side of his face.
“You fucking bitch!” he hissed. “I’ve been nothing but nice to you. I can’t believe you did that.”
The second it dawned on me that I was free, I sprinted across the overgrown lawn.
Even though my legs felt like they’d turned to jelly, I somehow reached Jace’s truck. Relief exploded in my chest, because even though he’d stormed off, he hadn’t left me here.
Hastily, I fumbled around in the dark for the door handle on the passenger side, half expecting Levi to reappear and grab me again. With trembling hands, I located the lever. I had to tug it a few times before it finally opened.
Thank God Jace always forgot to lock his Chevy.
Climbing into the truck, I slammed the door shut behind me, promptly locking it and stretching over to lock the driver’s side, too, for safe measure.
When I caught sight of my panic-stricken face in the rearview mirror, it sliced through my resolve like a shard of glass. Reality came crashing back in. Not only was I miles away from home, I also didn’t know where the hell Jace was, and I don’t think I’d needed him more in my entire life.
There was no stopping the tears as they leaked out, coming from a place inside me that was so bottomless and dark. I’d only cried like this once before—the night of the accident. I supposed this was what happened after you’d been plunged so deeply into terror and then had to claw your way back out. I was a wreck, gasping for air.
Fumbling for my phone in my back pocket, I tried calling Jace.
It went straight to voice mail. I’d forgotten his phone was dead.
Damn it.
Just as I was about to speed-dial Amelia—my emergency contact—I heard a loud knock on the opposite window. My whole body went rigid, and I clutched my phone to my chest, trying to hide the light of the small screen. Fear pounded a wild rhythm through me, and I held my breath, hoping the shadows in the truck obscured me.
The prospect that Levi was peering inside at me, wanting to finish what he started, extracted a low whimper from my mouth.
I nearly died with relief when I saw it was just Jace, his face and cupped hands pressed up against the glass. He squinted inside, trying to locate me in the dimly lit truck.
“Hayley, are you in there?”
I reached out to unlock the driver’s-side door. Knowing he’d found me before Levi had, that I was safe, made me cry harder.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, I—”
Jace heard me, saw me, and realized something was wrong.
Horribly wrong. He didn’t finish. The rest happened quickly.
He climbed inside the truck and his arms wrapped around me, crushing me against him until I could feel every inch of his warm body—a solid wall of comfort I found myself sinking into.
“What the fuck happened?”
I couldn’t talk. The tears fell faster, soaking my cheeks.
“Someone told me they saw you with Levi.” His breath feathered over my collarbone. “Did he do something?”
When I didn’t say anything, Jace drew back to look into my eyes. His throat bobbed with a gulp. “What did he do, Hayley?”
I opened my mouth and then immediately shut it. The minute the words left me, there would be no taking them back. No way to know how they would affect me. Or Jace.
His arms loosened a fraction, but I wanted him to keep holding me. I imagined myself curled up in my bed back home in Port Worth—my safe haven—and I imagined being with my parents. I didn’t care if that made me weak.
“I swear”—his gruff voice coaxed me from my thoughts, which had begun to spiral—“if he even laid a finger on you, so help me God.”
Mustering what little scraps of composure I had left, I replied in the form of a broken whisper. “He grabbed me.”
“Did he—?”
“No,” I croaked out. Still, Jace’s eyes were haunted. The more it sank in, the more I realized it could have been a lot worse. I’d actually been lucky. “He didn’t, but he tried. I stopped—I fought back. I was able to get away.”
His jaw clenched, and he abruptly smacked his fist against the steering wheel. “I’m going to fucking kill him!”
Anger contorted his face, and I knew I had about five seconds before he flew off the handle. Jace had always been ridiculously protective of Amelia and me, but this was something else entirely.
My fingers locked around his forearm in a death grip—a valiant effort to keep him safely inside the truck for as long as I physically could. “I’m okay. Shaken, but okay. You can’t go after him. Do you understand me?”
Silence greeted my question, which forced me to hurl a stern, don’t-you-dare look at him.
“Damn it, Hayley. That piece of shit has to pay. You can’t just expect me to sit here and do nothing.”
“I never said that.” I knew what had to come next—who I would’ve called if Amelia didn’t answer. “But if you really want to help me right now, you’ll drive me to the nearest police station so I can report it. Putting the guy in the hospital is not going to achieve anything.”
Jace exhaled a long, slow breath, like my words had deflated him and his inability to act rationally. “You’re right. I’m sorry, the last thing you need is me making this worse. I just hate that he touched you. I don’t know what I would do if he’d . . .” He trailed off. “If anything had happened to you.”
“Well, it didn’t. Nothing else happened, and I’ll be fine. As much as I appreciate it, you don’t need to protect me.”
Jace stared down at me like he was trying to read me inside out, and the air between us instantly shifted, crackling and charging on a molecular level. For the first time in my life—terrible timing and all—he was looking at me the way I’d always fantasized about.
I was suddenly hyperaware of how close we were. Unlike my encounter with Levi, our proximity felt comfortable, good. Jace’s arm was still around my waist, and his hand was lightly cradling the small of my back as if he wasn’t ready to let me go yet. It was like the thought of something happening to me had finally cracked him open, a sudden vulnerability seeping out.
As he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers grazed my cheek. Everything stopped, like someone had hit the Pause button. He brushed his thumb under my eyes, wiping away fresh tears. We stared at each other, silently assessing, scarcely breathing.
Jace had never touched me like this before. Not once in the entire time I’d known him.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and lingered there. Any doubt I had about how Jace felt about me faded as I let myself hope.
Just when I thought he was about to say or do something—something that had the potential to heal all the trauma we’d experienced—two bright headlights shone in our faces, and he instantly jerked back, shielding his eyes.
Sheer disappointment slashed at my heart as he pulled away.
The car idled beside us, its engine shuddering before falling silent, and then Jace and I were drowned in darkness once more.
He shifted farther away from me on the adjoining seat, clearing his throat. His lashes lifted and his pale eyes sharpened on me.
“Shit, I don’t know what I—”
I braced myself for the speech I was about to receive, but it never came. Jace stopped short, noticing that Piper had stepped out of the car that had parked next to us.
Sliding my gaze in her direction, I squinted out the windshield as she said something to the driver of the other car before slamming the passenger door shut. She approached the truck, and Jace elbowed his door open. The overhead light flicked on, and the instant Piper spotted me, her shoulders slumped.
“Oh, thank God. I couldn’t find you. I got my roommate’s friend to drive me around the property. No one had seen you since you went outside earlier, and I heard something about Levi, that he—”
“I’m okay,” I interrupted, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
I wanted to take a scalding hot shower back at the dorm, crawl under the covers, and never surface again. Not only had Levi just tried to attack me, but I also had absolutely no idea what was going on between Jace and me. Both were contributing to my mounting anxiety.
“I think Hayley and I are going to head out,” Jace told her. “Do you have a ride back to campus?”
Piper nodded and leaned into the truck. She stretched over Jace until her hand reached my leg, which I’d been jiggling up and down. When she squeezed it, something indecipherable flashed in her hazel eyes. “If something did happen, I hope you’re planning to report it, but there’s no pressure. I’m here for you, and so is Jace,” she said softly. Piper eased out of the truck, a thin-lipped smile ghosting across her pretty face. “But I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “And I think we’re going to do that now. Right, Jace?”
“Right,” he confirmed quietly. He turned to his best friend.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of her.”
“I know you will.” She dipped her head. “See you later.”
Piper must have picked up on the tension radiating off both of us because she barely stayed for a minute. She mouthed something to him before heading back over to the other car. I watched in silence as they drove past us, a cloud of dust kicking up as the car sped off down the gravel track that led from the farmhouse to the main road.
There was a beat of awkwardness, and I didn’t know what to say. Naturally, I was nervous, and when I was, I babbled. A lot.
Jace knew that too.
“So, do you think we should go to the police station now? Or should we just, like, go in the morning?” I asked, my voice rough with restrained panic. “Maybe I should sleep on it . . . but it’s probably better I get it over with, right? I mean, what would you do?”
“I would report it tonight, if it were me.” A shadow slid across his profile. Then a soft, tentative smile replaced it, catching me off guard. “As adorable as you are when you’re nervous, Hayles, you don’t have to be. I know what you’re doing, and you don’t have to fill the silence. It’s just me.”
My cheeks flushed. “I know, but I don’t know how to be around you right now, and I feel awful about our fight earlier. You know that I didn’t—”
“I know. I feel like shit too.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “But let’s just focus on you right now.”
I ignored the way my heart faltered a little at his words. “Okay.”
I nodded as he turned the engine on, buckling myself in. I didn’t move over to the passenger side of the seat, not wanting to waste the opportunity to stay close to Jace. His denim-clad leg was touching mine, and I needed human contact. I needed him.
I took his advice and enjoyed not having to speak just for the sake of it. We lapsed into a comfortable silence. As glad as I was to be leaving the party behind, the realization of what I was about to do weighed heavily on me. Fidgeting with my fingers, I kept checking the illuminated clock on the dash, wishing I could freeze time and stay in Jace’s Chevy forever.
“You good?” he asked, hooking a right as we neared the local police station. He’d clearly picked up on the fact that I was losing my cool. Not to mention, my head was really hurting.
“Yeah,” I lied, and then I reminded myself that this was Jace—the boy I’d harbored feelings for since I was thirteen. And technically, he was that one person who I should try to be honest with.
I looked away, blinking back more tears. “Actually, no. Not good.”
I was impressed that I wasn’t totally breaking down in front of him. Usually, all it took was for someone to ask me how I was doing—always when I was visibly scrambling to keep it together—to rupture my resolve.
“I can’t imagine what you went through,” he ground out. “As difficult as this is, I know you can do it. You’re the strongest person I know, Hayles.”
“I don’t know about that,” I whispered, shifting my gaze out the window, away from him again. He was becoming increasingly difficult to look at. Aside from his ridiculous good looks, the expression on Jace’s face was so sincere, so revering, it made my insides hum.
“I do,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. His faith in me was palpable, and that helped my dwindling confidence, the festering self-doubt. “I know you’ll get through this.”
The parking lot at the police station was practically empty this late at night, but the fluorescent lights inside the building and the dark figure behind the desk indicated that they were always open.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure I was ready to report this. A sudden wave of nervousness swept over me, and my stomach clenched. I needed to focus all of my brain on what was about to happen, on everything I was going to have to tell them.
Levi would probably get away with it, anyway. And what happened if he tried to hurt me again when he found out I’d gone to the cops? Worse yet, what if he succeeded?
Every fiber of my being wanted to run, to avoid reliving the fear, to avoid having to verbalize everything. The moment I did that was the moment it would be real. I couldn’t take it back.
I told myself that while there was no guarantee that Levi would be charged, the thought of him doing this to someone else terrified me more, especially if they weren’t able to fight him off.
My mind made up, I went to open the passenger-side door when Jace’s hand found mine in the darkness of his truck. Our fingers intertwined, and his thumb smoothed over my skin in a rhythmic circle. Nothing had ever felt so right.
His eyes, a hazy swirl of gray, narrowed slightly as he studied me, really looked at me. “I’m here, and I’ll stay as long as you need me to.”
Understanding burgeoned in that instant. I realized that it wasn’t about being ready to report it. Truthfully, I might have never been ready to do that. What mattered, what made all the difference in the world, was that Jace was here—just like the night of the accident—and he wasn’t going to leave me.
six
Tension had been knotting my stomach since we’d arrived at the police station, and it only tightened its grip as we were processed and escorted into a private interview room. My hands were shaking, but it wasn’t because I was cold—Jace had ransacked his truck earlier, giving me an old pullover to wear. I inhaled deeply, willing the woodsy scent of his cologne to ground me. The ceiling fan whirred noisily above us as we waited for the officer to return.
“You can do this,” Jace assured me, currently occupying the chair beside me. He was making a really difficult situation more bearable—again—and I was eternally grateful. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, it was easier to see the concern that had settled into the striking lines and sharp angles of his face.
“I want to go home,” I whispered, lowering my gaze to the untouched Styrofoam cup of coffee that had been placed in front of me.
My response did nothing to ease his worry, but I didn’t have the energy to pretend I was handling this well. I felt numb from top to toe. Jace reached over to squeeze my hand. This was obviously hard for me, but I understood that it wasn’t easy for him either.
Making a formal statement was official and scary, but there was no point where I genuinely questioned what I was doing or saw it as a mistake. Making a formal statement was also something Jace and I had done before, together. After talking with the police when my brother had died, there was a morbid familiarity with the process we were about to embark on for the second time.
As I waited for the officer to return, I twisted my fingers tightly, almost cutting off the circulation. As calm as I was trying to be, there was still a god-awful tightness snaking around my torso, suffocating me, until I couldn’t suck in a breath deep enough. I wanted to get this over with.
When the door finally opened, I straightened in my seat, ignoring the sting of pain in the base of my skull—where I had cracked it on Levi’s jawbone.
“Sorry for the holdup.” The officer sat down in front of me, and I registered the polished name tag on her uniform with r. bedford engraved in big block letters. She was a tallish woman, willowy, with short black hair. The shadows beneath her eyes suggested that she frequently worked the night shift. “So, Hayley, again, my name’s Officer Bedford, and I’m going to ask you a few questions now, just so we can establish what’s happened and work through things from there. Is that all right?”
I nodded.
“Fantastic.” She unzipped her leather folio and flipped to a new page in her notebook. “When you’re ready, it would be great if you could describe what happened, when, and where, as that will paint the clearest picture for me.”
