34

“Zan called,” A.J. said. “He’ll meet you outside at quarter till.”

“’Kay.” Kasia pulled her hair up, put on Tatuś’s hoodie, and hid the shadows under her eyes with concealer. She looked like she hadn’t slept since he’d taken off for Charleston.

She sipped her tea and picked at some dry toast.

Loud footsteps sounded outside, and Kasia peeked through the blinds. Zan was almost to the door. Pulling her boots on, she yelled bye to A.J., hefted her backpack, and left.

“Good morning,” Zan said. “That’s the best sweatshirt I’ve ever seen.”

He must be a Chicago fan. “You’re chipper. So your sister’s all right?”

“Bailey’s…great. Still not a hundred percent, but on her way.”

“What happened again? Have you already told me?”

He tugged off his skullcap and scratched his head. “We haven’t talked about it all, no. I went down to testify in a trial against her husband. Assault and…a lot. But they put him away. You’d like her. She’s got rock-solid faith. Sort of mind-blowing to me with all she’s been through.”

“I’m glad.” He’d never talked with her about faith before—his or anyone else’s. “Zan, forgive me for never asking, but…are you a believer?”

He jerked his chin back. “Huh. I’ve never heard it that way. Uh, yeah. I am. Only recently though. It’s taken me a while to come around.”

That news truly did brighten her day, even with…everything else. “How recently?”

“Yesterday.” They stood outside the door of her lecture hall.

A smile broke through. “That’s really great news. I needed to hear that.”

He touched her arm. “It’s good to see you smile. Don’t walk back without me, all right? I’ll be here just after. Even if I have to leave my class early.”

“I’ll wait.” She nodded. He left once she was inside.

She chose a seat near the far wall. Creative Writing. Not how she wanted to spend her morning.

The professor cleared her throat. “We’ll begin with poetry today. When we let our emotions, the aesthetic beauty of nature, or any universal theme lead us, the words tend to flow more easily. I think you’ll be surprised…”

The silver-haired professor droned on. Symbolism, Truth, Love, Beauty.

Kasia doodled in the corner of her notebook. Trees of every season—some with leaves, some in the process of changing colors, a few skeletal silhouettes. If I’m supposed to let emotion and beauty lead today, go ahead and give me the F.

Another memory of Blake rushed into her head.

And finally, a poem came after all, and she scribbled as the professor’s voice competed with the radiator at the back of the room.

I lived in the summer…

Inhaled the warm air

Soaked in the sunshine

Danced through meadows

Savored the scents of wildflowers

Reveled in lazy-afternoon freedom

Gazed at crisp, sun-bright colors

Steeped in strength, until

He brought the autumn…

To chill me with the breeze

To steal my daylight little by little

To sap the life out of me

To wither me with decay

To blind me in a haze

To paralyze me slowly

To draw out of me all that was my own

To make me brittle

And now it’s winter…

And I am frozen

I stand in the gloaming

Overcome by grey

Brittle and broken

Glazed with ice

Breathing in emptiness

Numbed by barrenness

Quieted by the stillness

And spring might never come.

~*~

Zan’s class let out early, and he jogged over to meet Kasia, scoured the handful of faces he passed. He didn’t want any more surprises from Blake.

The door opened, and students filed out—a trio or couple here and there, a lone student on a cell phone…no Kasia. Zan peered into the lecture hall.

Kasia sat in a desk against the wall, her head in her hands. He walked over and slid into the seat next to her, nodded at the professor as she left, unconcerned.

“Hey.”

Kasia’s head shot up, her gaze so empty, he almost hugged her on the spot. But he was the one who wanted that.

Today clearly needed to be about her. “Want to walk around, enjoy the leaves?”

She stood.

He held the outside door open and followed her into the autumn chill, snugged his skullcap down on his head.

Hey, God. How about a little wisdom here?

He tried to read what she needed. He was so new to this praying deal. Sometimes he’d walk beside her, and other times she pounded forward. He let her go, stayed in her shadow.

She stopped suddenly. “You mind a real hike?”

“I’m up for whatever.”

“I want to climb the ridge. To my thinking place. There’s this tree up there.”

“Go. I’m right behind you.”

She took off with such determination he backpedaled. “Are you sure you want me up there with you?”

She spun toward him, her mouth open. “Yes. Please—I don’t want to be by myself right now.”

He nodded.

She veered off the pavement and strode straight into the woods. A trail was marked, but definitely not well traveled.

Twenty minutes later, they reached the ridge, and she marched up to a towering tree, leaned against it, and gazed out at the valley below. Zan hung back, slightly out of breath. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. Her arms hung limp.

He found a spot at her side against the giant oak and leaned against the trunk. His arm bumped hers.

“You said the rock wasn’t the first time he’d hurt me.”

“I remember.” A cold blast of air whipped around them.

“I didn’t understand, but I do now.”

“Why? What made the difference?” He moved to face her, stood so his body would shelter her from the cold.

“I remembered something last night. You were right. He hurt me a long time ago.”

She studied the dead grass at their feet like there’d be a quiz on it, twirled a strand of hair around her finger.

“I wish I’d been wrong.” He watched her go to work on her lip. “If you ever need to talk, you know I’ll listen, right?”

She finally looked into his eyes, then nodded. “I know. But if I tell you, you won’t stay.”

“I’m willing to prove you wrong any time you feel like unloading.”

Her finger twisted and twirled—wrapped her bronze curl tight and then pulled it straight down. She set it free, then started the process all over again. A few times.

Finally, she inhaled as if she were about to jump into a lake, and her expression went blank. Like she’d switched off her emotions.

“Blake raped me.”

Zan felt the words like a kick in the gut. Fury pumped so hard through his veins he could hear it. He fisted his hands in his pockets, willed himself to breathe. Took air in through his nose and slowly released it. Breathed again.

Meanwhile, Kasia went on as if she were reporting the weather. “I remembered my first visit to his house. His parents served a little wine, and I’d never had any before…I guess I don’t have much tolerance.”

She offered a wry smile, and Zan wished it would go away. That kind of smile didn’t belong on her. The finger that had played with her hair stilled, turned a bright purple-red.

Zan reached up and unwound the lock of hair from it. He kept her hand in his, rubbed her finger to get the circulation going. At least, that was the plan at first. But as she talked, eyes wide open, expression blank, he just couldn’t let go.

“I told him I wasn’t ready, and he got angry. Said we’d been together long enough that I needed to show him I loved him.”

Zan clamped his back teeth down. Of all the manipulative clichés.

“When I realized he was determined to…finish, I begged him to stop.”

Zan’s eyes burned at the word begged. She still stared at the ground.

He swallowed the acid in his throat and looked away. Barely bit back the rage. He needed to scream, track Blake down, make him beg for mercy. He pictured Kasia begging, terrified and unable to stop Blake. Bailey’s battered face flashed into his mind too.

Please don’t tell me there was any more. To watch her stand there and relive it—especially when she was numb to the sick tragedy of it all—was too much. He sniffed and rubbed her hand.

A single hot tear broke free from Zan’s eye. For her.

“And now you think I’m a weak, disgusting whore. So, I get it if you want to take off.”

“I’m staying.” As if he could walk away.

She finally allowed her gaze to turn his direction, and the bitterness he saw pressed on his heart. She honestly did expect him to leave, and she was steeling herself to cope alone. He couldn’t have stopped the tears now if he wanted to.

“Wait. What are you doing? Stop that.”

He dried an eye with the back of his sleeve.

“Why are you crying?” she asked.

“Because you’re not.”

Kasia blinked, swallowed. “I wish I hadn’t remembered.”

He rested his forehead on hers. “But now that you have, you can deal with it. My sister said God showed her, in chunks that she could handle, so she could give them to Him. One at a time.”

Kasia met his gaze.

“He beat her until she was unrecognizable. Bailey said the only way to let go was to face it head-on. Ignoring the pain doesn’t make it stop.”

“‘Chunks that she could handle’? I can’t handle this one. What if I…what if I remember more? What if I’ve buried other things that hurt?”

“You might have.”

“I don’t even want to deal with this.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek, refused to offer some useless platitude.

“Maybe it was lonely and numb, maybe even fake, but it was comfortable.”

God, make her see. “Kasia. Have you ever broken a bone?”

Her face wrinkled in confusion.

Yeah, it was abrupt. But stick with me.

“Yeah?” She waited.

“Before you got a cast, the doctor reset the bone, right?”

“Sure.”

“Well, imagine you broke your leg and there was no one around to reset it. Desert island. What would happen?”

“I guess the bone would heal itself.”

“In the wrong position though.”

“So…bent up, then. Ugly.”

“You might even get comfortable with it eventually. You could still do what you’d always done. Only with a limp.”

“Which would probably make climbing difficult.”

He nodded, let a half-smile win for a heartbeat. “And dancing.”

She shrugged, but he caught a faraway look in her eyes before she dropped her gaze to the ground again.

“I think your heart works the same way. You can shut out the memories and keep going, but you’ll have to live with a heart that’s healed wrong.”

“I don’t know. I’m sort of a fan of numb at the moment.”

“Kasia, you’d be able to dance again.”

For a moment, hope filled her eyes and then flickered out just as quickly. “What if I’m too afraid of the pain?”

He needed her to see how serious he was. He cupped her face in his hands, ducked enough to gaze evenly into her eyes. “You deserve to dance—and climb. And if you’ll let me, I’ll help you.”

Jayce might kill him, but he meant it.

Besides, they weren’t going in such different directions anymore.

He tucked a curl behind her ear. “I’m not going anywhere. If you wake up and need to unload at three in the morning, I’ll listen. If you get angry, I’ll take whatever punches you need to throw. When you’re finally ready to cry, I’ll hold you if you’ll let me. And when you’re ready to dance, I’ll be there.”

~*~

Kasia stared into those dusky blue eyes that held the same fire as her daddy’s. He meant every word.

She wanted to hug him and cling to him, believe for all she was worth.

She wanted to run. He might expect something in return. Sure, he’d been wonderful so far, but he was a guy.

God, clear my head. Help me to watch for the things I missed…with Blake. To walk every step with my eyes wide open.

“I don’t have any expectations,” he blurted out.

“What?”

“Well, I don’t expect you to tell me everything. You don’t have to tell me anything. And I don’t expect to be the only person in your life that matters. I mean, I know you’ve got A.J., Jayce, your family. Just whatever. If you need me, say the word.”

“All I know for sure right now is I have no idea how any of this will work. I don’t know how to be your friend. To be anybody’s. I hardly know how to be myself.”

“I get that this feels like your whole world right now, but it’s not. Please remember you’re more than this, and”—he stared off over the valley—“God can bring you through this. Stronger.”

She could only pray that was true.

~*~

Zan was the last person who should offer free consultation on what God would do. Yeah, he trusted God, but his faith was wrapped in the acknowledgement that God can—probably does—disagree with people on what’s best.

A sobering thought.

They followed the trail back down in weighty silence.

At the edge of a large boulder, Zan climbed down backward, the roots and stones beside it his footing and handholds. He offered Kasia a hand, and she took it, used the same footholds as a precarious staircase.

Back on a level trail, he caught her eye. “After you.”

She paused and her mouth quirked into a sad smile. Her fingers tugged at his hand, kept him at her side.

She didn’t let go. Her hand felt slight—not weak, but small and soft—against his. Like it belonged there. The hardest part of all this was—again—trusting God for someone he cared about. While he watched her hurt.

Or shut down and choose not to hurt.

But God came through for Bailey. He would come through for Kasia too. Somehow.

That much Zan knew.

Never in his life would he be able to forget this day. The smell of decaying leaves, the thud of their feet on the packed-dirt trail beneath them, the rich hues of the treetops nearby and at a distance in the valley below—Gamecock garnet, Vanderbilt gold, a hint of Clemson orange.

The day Auburn described being raped.