Atone by Beth Yarnall Read Free Book Online Page A

doesn’t love him. She tries to tell him that she
does
love him, more than anyone
ever,
but he doesn’t believe her. He draws her in deeper with his promises and their shared secrets. He makes her feel special and wanted. He’s everything. She can’t live without him.
    And then the last entry…He wants her to get a tattoo…
    All of the air whooshes out of me like someone just punched me in the stomach. His MO hasn’t changed since he was
my
everything. The flattery. The sympathetic ear. The only one I can trust. The isolation. The secrecy. The innocent touching that leads to more and more and
more.
The absolute control of my world. The mark I got for him that
still
mars my body.
    I shove away from the desk, saliva pooling in my mouth. I can’t breathe. Dots fill my narrowed vision. I’m too late. Beau says something, but I can’t hear him. My ears roar with the blood pumping too hard and fast through me.
    He has her. I’m too late. Too late.
    Beau shakes my shoulders. His lips move, but I can’t make out what he says. The world tilts. I grip the arms of the chair to stay in it. Bile rises up the back of my throat. Beau pushes my head down between my knees. He’s saying something. He rubs my back with one hand while pulling a trash can close with the other. I still can’t get enough air, but the nausea lessens.
    He has her. He has her. He’s going to brand her.
    Beau eases me upright and studies my face—for what, I don’t know. He makes a motion for me to stay put. I can’t move. I still can’t pull in enough air. The more I try, the less there is. He comes back and puts a paper bag over my nose and mouth. The sides of the back suck in, then puff out with each of my breaths. I blink away the dots and focus on Beau’s worried face.
    His coaching voice comes back to me. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
    I take over holding the bag, keeping my eyes on his. He kneels in front of me. His gaze roams my face like he’s looking for something or trying to find an answer to an unasked question. I can’t tell him. I can’t talk about it. I don’t have the words to express how disappointed I am in myself that
He
can still get to me after all this time and how fresh the memories still are. I knew this was a possibility. I should’ve been better prepared. Imagining Marie going through what I lived through brings on another wave of nausea. She’s in the honeymoon phase and she has no idea that her world is about to be ripped apart.

Chapter 7
Beau
    Thank God Vera’s color is beginning to return. She watches me with haunted, wounded eyes. I brush the hair back from her face. It’s soft. She’s soft. On the outside and the inside. She’s not nearly as tough as she tries to make people think. I put my hand over hers and lower the bag. She’s open in a way I imagine she hasn’t been for a very long time, if ever. I
see
her agony. It strikes an answering chord within me. Her pain is an ache in my chest. She lets me look. She lets me see her. The hope shining in her eyes rips and tears at me until every feeling I’ve ever had pours out of me and pools at her feet in a big, sloppy mess.
    What’s left behind is stark and cold and empty. I’m left with nothing, and it’s everything. She sees me too. I reach for her, and she comes into my arms willingly. We hold on tight. There’s nothing outside this room. There’s nothing except her and me. The feel of her is an out-of-body experience. I bury my face in the side of her neck and inhale. I was right—lemons and something soft and feminine. She’s a resting place to hide in, away from the rest of the world.
    I wait for the guilt to come, and it doesn’t disappoint. It slips in between us and pushes us apart. I find myself pulling away from her, shoved back by my memories of Cassandra and the promises I made to her…the promises I didn’t keep. The image of Cassandra smiling up at me that final night overlaps Vera’s confused face as I back