Devon nodded against his shoulder.  “It should have been, but I saw it as a romantic gesture.  I saw it as a way to get back to the way it had been.  He popped open the bottle of champagne while I stripped down for him.  I thought it was going to be that kind of night.  It felt like we were finally back on the right track.

“But then, he started asking questions about my professor and why I was going to see him.  I told him that I had tutoring, of course, and that my professor wanted to congratulate me for a job well done this semester.  It was an odd conversation.  I mean, he didn’t like that I had tutoring, but that week off had put me so far behind that I had to use every opportunity to get caught up.  He didn’t believe me.

“He grabbed my arm and squeezed as hard as he could, forcing me backward against the bed.  He begged me to tell him the truth.  I cried and cried and cried, telling him that I had told him the truth.  There was nothing more for me to tell.”  Devon took a deep breath and then continued.

“I felt like the bones in my arm were going to snap, but the pain evaporated when he yanked a candle off the table and held the flame to my skin.  I screamed where it touched me.  He said he would stop when I told him the truth.  I tried to tell him that I was telling the truth, but he slapped me across the face so hard that I saw spots.  He told me I was lying.  Whenever the flame neared my skin, burning wax was dribbling down my body.  He said that if I didn’t tell him, then I didn’t leave him any choice.  I couldn’t convince him, and the pain was blinding.  He moved the flames to the area, uh…just above my…” Devon pointed down to her nether region.  She blushed but continued.  “The feel of my flesh burning so near all those nerve endings was the most intensely painful thing I’ve ever endured, and soon, I blacked out.”

Garrett reached forward and threaded his fingers with hers.  She didn’t know where it came from, but it was a sign of strength.  Devon sighed and used her other hand to pull down the front of her tiny sleeping shorts.

“See,” she said, pointing at the scar right above her sensitive skin.

“Fuck,” Garrett grumbled.

Devon pulled her shorts back up, ashamed by the conversation.  She had made him think she was cheating, so she had pushed him over the edge.  Still, even she could see that his punishment was excessive, and her realization had spurred her to action.

He had violated her trust, the one thing she had given over to him completely without him ever having to ask.  He had taken everything they’d had and torn it down brick-by-brick for his own deluded sense of control.  He had beaten the trust out of her. He had ruined their sex life, ruined their relationship, and ruined her.

“When I woke up, he was gone.  A couple days later, I was on the first train to Chicago.”

GARRETT DIDN’T MOVE for what felt like forever.  Devon wanted to see his reaction.  She wanted to know that he didn’t think any differently of her.  She wanted to know a lot of things, but she wasn’t brave enough to look up at him.

She felt his heavy sigh and the shift of his body toward her.  She breathed him in.  Her mind was still wondering too many things.  She couldn’t believe she had told her story.  It had been a secret for so long.  She hadn’t wanted to risk someone finding out.  What would people think of her…of him?  What would they do?

Her mind closed off to that thought.

“Devon,” he said finally.

He pulled her toward him and circled his big, strong arms around her.  She tensed, unsure where this was coming from.  Was he pitying her?  She didn’t need his pity.

“I hope you see your strength the way I do.”

Strength?  I ran away.  I wanted to yell that at him.  I’m not strong.  I’m weak.  I couldn’t face my fears, so I ran.

She didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t let her go, so she relaxed into his embrace, accepting it for what it was.  They were both in a rough spot, separated from their lives.  Devon had run, and Garrett had faced his problems head-on.  Either way, it had ended with them sitting in the same room.  So maybe facing her problems head-on would have turned out the same way.  Or maybe she wouldn’t have ended up unconscious. Instead, she would have ended up dead.

That thought made her break the embrace.  She stared forward at Garrett.  She felt the tears on her cheeks, hot and uncomfortable.  She hated crying, especially in front of people.

Garrett reached up and pushed her hair off her face.  She sniffed as the tears fell faster from his affection.  She didn’t need someone to care for her.  She could take care of herself.  That thought made her cry harder.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

His thumbs brushed under her eyes like he had done when she had woken up from her nightmare on the couch.  She couldn’t stop her tears, and his help only made it worse.

She didn’t know how she had any tears left.  Hadn’t she cried enough?  Or were these tears of a different nature?  Her throat constricted, and she coughed.  She had never once thought that running away was the right thing to do.  It was impulsive.  It was something Hadley would do.  Devon was always the rational one who wanted to work things out.  She had stayed with him well past the point she should have.  And for what?  To be frightened and accused of things she hadn’t done?  To be hit, burned, and left unconscious?

The whole time she had been in Chicago, she had felt like a coward.  She felt like running away from her life was the cheap way out, and the only reason she hadn’t returned was out of fear.  Now looking at it from a flip side, she understood that running wasn’t the right option.  It was the only option.

“How did you go through all of that alone?”

Devon shook her head.  She really didn’t know.  She never felt all alone until she left.  “I don’t know.”  She hiccupped through tears.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said, stroking her hair.  “Is this what your dreams were about?”

Devon closed her eyes.  She couldn’t face those dreams.  He had been haunting them for months.  She couldn’t escape him even when she had run away.

“Devon, you have to face him eventually,” he said.

She thought he meant to sound reassuring, but she wasn’t reassured.

“Yeah,” she said shakily.  “I know…eventually.”

“You can’t hide out in Chicago forever.  Doesn’t school start again in August?”

“Yeah, it does.”

Garrett squeezed her shoulder and pulled her in closer.  “Don’t you think it would be better to get it over with than to wait another month or two?”

“Did you not hear what happened?” she whispered frantically.

“I heard, Dev.  I’m just saying that you are so afraid of this, and sometimes, you need to face your fears.”

Devon shook her head.  “It’s not about facing my fears.  Well, it kind of is.  Okay, it is, but you don’t understand.  You don’t know what he’s like,” she said, her hands shaking violently.

Garrett took her hands in his and held them to keep them from trembling.

“If you knew…if you only knew…”

“Then, tell me.  Who is this guy?  Who can have this much control over you?”

Devon stared down at their hands intertwined in her lap.  She had told her story and left out the most important detail.  It was the one detail she was sure people would find hard to believe.

Who would really believe that the perfect couple would ever be entirely dysfunctional?

“Hard to believe,” she began, preparing for his reaction.  “My boyfriend, Reid.”