Veiled Innocence

Chapter Twenty-Two

Past…

Standing in front of the mirror the next morning was a sorry excuse of my usual self. My hair was a mess, and my lip was split, swollen and bruised.

This cover was now worn. Ragged around the edges.

Grabbing the concealer, I opened it and started to apply what I hoped would be a decent cover-up job, but ten minutes later, it looked no better. I arranged my hair in a messy tangle, trying to hide the obvious flaw, but nothing could hide it. My bottom lip was an obvious eyesore.

Mom would not be happy.

Maybe if I was extra quiet I could avoid her and get by without having to lie about what really happened. She wouldn’t believe the truth anyway; denial was a powerful emotion.

I picked up my school jacket as I left my bedroom and spotted Grayson’s pen. I snatched it up and slipped it into my skirt pocket.

I needed to talk to him today, and this was the perfect excuse.

Present…

Standing outside Doc’s office the next morning, I notice I’m early for my scheduled session.

I didn’t sleep at all last night. My mind had been too busy. Too distracted.

You need to trust me.

Why? Why did I need to trust him?

I keep thinking back to those final days with Grayson and my current sessions with Doc.

Did they ever meet? How did Doc get the pen?

Last night I’d done nothing but think about it.

What did it all mean?

Well, I wasn’t going to get any answers standing out in the hall.

I knock—one, two, three—but this time, I make sure not to count out loud. I’m aware of my actions.

“Yes? Come in.”

Doc’s voice filters through the wood, and I feel apprehension take hold.

Do I really want the answers I’m searching for?

I push open the door and look inside.

Unlike in our sessions, Doc isn’t facing me. He’s hunched over his desk, which is up against the back wall, writing in a journal. It doesn’t surprise me that he keeps one. He seems the kind—old-fashioned.

“Addy?”

I close the door and step farther into the room.

“How’d you know it was me?”

He places his pen down then spins his leather chair in my direction. “How could you stay away?”

Frowning, I step closer.

“What do you mean?”

Doc gestures to the pen in my hand. “How long did you think about that last night?”

“I didn’t stop.”

“Exactly.”

Confused, I raise my hands as if to say—so?

Doc stands and moves around his desk to stop in front of me. “Are you ready to talk?”

I look up at the man who’d stepped in and filled my father’s place a few years ago. He is the only other person in my life, I’m discovering, that I really do trust.

I shrug, still not one hundred percent sold on divulging information.

“What do you need from me, Addy?”

“I need to know how you got this.”

“That’s easy,” he answers. “Grayson gave it to me.”

Past…

I made it to school in record time. I was early.

After I parked my car, I climbed out and scanned the lot. He wasn’t here yet. That was good.

I smoothed my denim skirt down and rushed inside, making my way to the main building. With my head down to avoid eye contact, I walked quickly to my first class, hoping to make it without any kind of—

“Addison, can I please see you for a minute?”

Interruption.

Miss Shrieve. Great. Just what I didn’t need this morning.

I came to a stop in the hall and pivoted to look at her. Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of my face. I wished I could disappear, but I was trapped, and when she lifted her arm, I automatically flinched away.

“Who did this to you?” she asked softly, then stepped to the side of the hall, waiting for me to follow.

“It’s nothing,” I assured, not wanting to get into it.

I wanted to go to my history class and wait for Mr. McKendrick. I may have been ending things, but right now I was feeling anxious, and he was the only person who could calm me.

“It certainly is not nothing.” Miss Shrieve took a deep breath and then let it out on a sigh. “What exactly happened yesterday with Jessica?”

Holy shit, she knew about yesterday?

Did Grayson tell her?

“Nothing,” I replied hurriedly, thinking to myself, please let this go.

“Addison? You need to start talking. Your behavior lately…you know you’re going to be suspended this morning, don’t you?”

My stomach knotted at the thought of my mom’s reaction to that news. She may not use her hands, but when it came to showing her disappointment, she could be as vicious as my father.

“Well, if you won’t tell me, maybe you’ll talk to Principal Thomas. Come on, Mr. McKendrick will meet us there.”

Betrayal.

The second she said his name, I felt it.

It didn’t matter that he’d told me it could come to this. The emotion was there just the same. Following silently, I came to a standstill when we entered the main office, and it was empty. He wasn’t there.

I followed Miss Shrieve’s gaze as she looked at the clock on the wall—8 a.m.

“Wait here,” she instructed and made her way over to Mrs. Howard, Principal Thomas’s secretary.

Angry, I reached into my pocket and gripped his pen like I wanted to snap it in half. The pounding in my head was from my anxiety kicking in, as any calm I usually got from him morphed to fury.

His betrayal cut deeper than the gash on my lip.

“Looks like it’s you and me, Addison. Mr. McKendrick won’t be here today.”

Seething, I stood and made my way over to where Miss Shrieve was standing.

Why he would do this to me? Why would he leave me to face this alone?

I took a seat in front of the Principal’s large desk and faced the balding man behind it. The clock in the hall became louder, drowning out the ringing in my ears.

Tick, tick, tock.

All sense of calm was gone.

He’d left me here, and that was when I realized I truly was alone.

Present…

“What do you mean Grayson gave it to you?”

“Why don’t you sit down, Addy,” Doc suggests as he sits.

“I don’t want to sit down!”

I can feel the beginning of hysteria starting to grip me but what did he expect? All along he’d...what?

“Did you know Grayson?”

“Sit down, please.”

Planting my ass in the usual seat, I sputter the only thing that makes any sense. “Did you and he...talk about me?”

“No.”

Not able to sit still, I bounce back up to my feet as I point the pen at him.

“Stop being so fucking cryptic.”

“I’m being honest. You’re the one who has been cryptic,” Doc points out and glances at the wall calendar. “For sixteen days now.”

“I know how long it’s been.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!” I shout, frustrated at not getting the answers I think he holds.

“Are you ready to start talking to me like an adult? Trusting me?”

Pacing back and forth, I shake my head.

I’d once promised never to talk about this with anyone. Knowing that if I did, it could ruin the one person that I loved.

But does it count as a broken promise when that person is gone, and I’m all alone?

Past…

Suspended for five days.

Mom had been called at work, and I had been ordered to get myself right home. She would deal with me tonight.

I ran out to my car, and as I neared it, I noticed there was a note on my windshield under the wiper blade. Picking it up, I unfolded the paper to see the words: ONE, TWO, THREE, FREAK written in bold letters. Jessica.

I scrunched it up and unlocked the car, climbing inside. I looked out at the kids running around the track and angrily slammed the door shut.

There went my track year at school and my perfect run of being the star everyone expected. Principal Thomas had told me I could make it up and still compete if I worked extra hard, but at this point, all I wanted to do was give up.

Starting the car, I pulled out of the lot with every intention of driving home.

That, however, was not where I ended up.

Work just wasn’t in the cards today.

All night I’d lain in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to decide where exactly everything had gone wrong. When was the moment that I’d truly lost my direction and not been able to turn back? Managing in the process to let down the man closest to me.

All I kept coming back to was the moment I first saw her.

That was when.

Dad had written, I understand, but somehow I doubted this was what he had in mind when he wrote it. He’d probably been thinking love on a grand scale, not on a scale that could potentially put his son behind bars.

Something needed to change. I needed to change.

So instead of going to school this morning, I’d gone somewhere else entirely.

I’d just gotten out of the shower after returning home when there was a loud knock on my front door. I pulled on a pair of jeans and slicked my hands through my wet hair. I really didn’t want to deal with people today.

I didn’t bother with the peephole before I opened the door.

Although I shouldn’t have been shocked to see her, I was surprised by how she looked as she stood scowling in front of me. Her hair was tangled all around her face, and her bottom lip was puffy and split open. She didn’t look anything like the girl who’d driven away from me yesterday afternoon.

White-knuckling the door, I tried to imagine telling her to leave. I tried to picture a time in my future where I wouldn’t think about her and wonder where she was, or how she was doing, or even worse, whom she loved. Instead, I stepped aside and Addison stormed into my house.

The tension in the air was palpable.

I’d gone to her last night with one goal in mind—to end this. We needed to stop the madness we’d gotten caught up in, but now as she stood in front of me, all I could think about was touching her one last time.

Driving home, I’d been determined to forget about Grayson, or Mr. McKendrick as I’d been thinking of him today.

Where the hell had he been?

Just calling in long enough to say—sure, suspend her—before disappearing was bullshit. It was the coward’s way out, and halfway home, I found myself making a U-turn.

I parked in my usual spot and made my way to his front door. I knocked three times and tried to keep my anger at bay, deciding that I would just end things and get out of there.

However, that decision flew out the window when the front door opened, and standing in front of me was a virtual stranger. Sometime between last night and this morning, Grayson had transformed.

Gone was the long hair I’d grown accustomed to, and in its place was a clean-cut version of my teacher. The stubble along his jaw was still familiar, and as he moved aside and I barged in past him, I couldn’t help but look him over a second time. The change was so unexpected it almost broke through my anger, but then his eyes dropped to my lip and I remembered my shitty morning. I steeled myself against any curiosity and instead, fired both guns.

“What the fuck was that this morning?”

“This morning?”

“Yes. You know? When I got suspended.”

Grayson closed the door and latched it before stepping closer to me. Without answering my first question, he inspected me and asked, “What happened to your face?”

“What happened to me?” I questioned, my voice climbing higher with each note. “What the hell happened to you?”

He said nothing as he made his way past me and walked through the house to the kitchen. I followed silently, since that was what he was going with, and waited. He opened a top cabinet and pulled out a bottle of alcohol.

Reminded of my father, I backed up a step. He turned and asked again in a tone that was not to be argued with, “What happened to your face?”

I touched my lip, grimaced and answered, “My father.”

“Your father did this? When? Last night?” He paused and placed the bottle on the counter. Walking over to me, he gently grazed my bottom lip with his thumb and said, “You need to report him, Addison. Or I will. What fucking irony.”

“What do you mean?”

“My father died yesterday. That’s why I wasn’t at work.”

His words were delivered with such a sense of detachment it was as if he were talking about a stranger. If it hadn’t been for the dramatic change in him, I would have thought he didn’t care.

That wasn’t the case though, and as I started to put it all together…his lack of presence this morning, the physical change in his appearance, and the alcohol sitting on the counter—I could tell that Grayson was wanting to escape.

“Do you want to—?”

“No,” he interrupted, and I knew exactly how he felt.

I’d never wanted to talk after Daniel had passed either.

“I’m sorry—”

“Stop talking,” he said, walking me back until I hit the kitchen counter.

“Okay.”

As the edge dug into my back, Grayson’s hands came down beside me, caging me in. Pushing forward, he leaned me back slightly until his body was pressed flush against mine.

“I came to end things with you last night, but you ran away.”

Even though I’d been planning the same, to hear the words from him hurt.

“Then end it,” I taunted, pushing my chin out. I’d be damned if I showed him he could hurt me worse than even my father’s blow.

Grayson lowered his head until his stubbled cheek rested against mine and his lips were at my ear.

“I...” he started and then stopped.

I slid my fingers into the short strands now covering his head.

“You?”

He scraped his teeth along a line from my jaw to my chin. Then he lifted his head and looked me right in the eye as he sucked my bottom lip between his.

The sharp bite of pain that came from the cut on my lip made me wince, until his tongue came out and soothed it in a gesture so incredibly intimate, I felt my entire body tremble. Then his anguished words met my ears.

“I can’t.”

Breathing became difficult as he brought a hand to my chest and placed it over my heart. He held my full attention as he began to lightly tap—one, two, three. One two three.

“I need…”

I waited, wanting to hear it—needing to.

His other hand trailed a path around my waist, stopping at the top of my skirt. “I need to feel alive again.”

The word alive was so foreign to me, especially since the last few years I’d felt anything but. However, here with this man, I’d never felt more so as he continued to count my beating heart just like I had done his.

“I need everything.”

His eyes came back to rest on mine and as his fingers curled under my shirt, I replied, “Then take what you need.”