Confess: A Novel (29 page)

She glances down and nods. I hate seeing the shame in her expression. That should be the last thing she’s feeling right now.

“Did you call the police? Do you want to call them now?” I begin to lift off the bed to get the phone for her, but her eyes widen and she begins shaking her head back and forth.

“No,” she says. “Owen, I can’t report this.”

I pause for a moment, just to make sure I heard her right. I release her and sit up straighter, facing her directly. My head tilts in confusion.

“Trey attacks you in your own apartment, and you aren’t going to report him?”

She looks away, more shame in her expression. “Do you know what would happen if I reported him? Lydia would blame me. She would never let me see AJ.”

“Look at me, Auburn.”

She turns her head and I take her face in my hands. “He attacked you. Lydia may be a bitch, but no one would ever blame you for reporting something like this.”

She pulls away from my hands and shakes her head softly. “He knows I slept with you, Owen. Of course he’s going to be angry after finding out I cheated on him.”

I close my eyes. My heart is beating so hard; I think it needs out of this room. “You’re
defending
him?”

The silence that follows crushes me. I stand up and walk away from the bed, toward the window.

I try to understand it. I try to make sense of it, but it makes no fucking sense at all.

“You didn’t report him for breaking into your studio. It’s the same thing.”

I immediately spin around and face her. “That’s only because I’ve ruined my credibility, Auburn. It would look like a pathetic act of revenge if I blamed Trey for that. He’d get away with it, and I would only make things worse for myself.

“You, on the other hand—he physically
attacked
you. There’s absolutely no reason in the world why that shouldn’t be reported. Not reporting it will make him feel like it’s an invitation to do it again.”

Rather than argue with me, she calmly stands and walks toward me. She wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face into my chest. I wrap my arms tightly around her in return. I’m suddenly a lot calmer than I was a few seconds ago.

“Owen,” she says, her words slightly muffled by my shirt, “you aren’t a father, so I can’t expect you to understand my decisions. If I report him, things will only get worse. I have to do whatever I can to keep my relationship with my son intact. If that includes forgiving Trey and having to apologize to him for what happened between you and me . . . then that’s what I have to do. I can’t expect you to understand that, but I need you to support it. You don’t know what it’s like to give up your entire life for someone.”

Not only do her words physically hurt me, they also terrify me. Even after this, she still doesn’t see how dangerous that man is.

“If you love your son, Auburn . . . you will keep him as far away from Trey as possible. Forgiving him is the worst choice you could make.”

She pulls away from my chest and looks up at me. “It’s not a choice, Owen. If it were a choice, that would mean I have other options. I don’t. It’s just what I have to do.”

I close my eyes and take her face in my hands. I press my forehead to hers, and I just stand there with her. I listen to her breathe, and I try to make sense of her words. She’s telling herself that I don’t understand because I’ve never been in her position. She thinks all the mistakes I’ve made in the past were made out of selfishness, rather than complete selflessness.

We’re more alike than she thinks.

“Auburn,” I say quietly, “I understand completely that you want to be with your son, but sometimes in order to save a relationship, you have to sacrifice it first.”

She pulls herself from my grip. She takes several steps away from me before turning around. “What relationship have you ever had to sacrifice?”

I lift my head slowly, looking at her with everything that I have. “Us, Auburn. I’ve had to sacrifice
us
.”

I
’m sitting on the bed with him, trying to absorb everything he’s saying, but it’s hard. “I just . . .” I shake my head. “Why didn’t you just tell me all of this from the beginning? Why didn’t you tell me that Trey knew they weren’t your drugs?”

Owen sighs and squeezes my hands. “I wanted to, Auburn. But I barely knew you. Telling anyone the truth could have jeopardized my father’s career. Not to mention the fact that Trey was threatening to cause trouble and the last thing I wanted was for you to have issues as a result of my relationship with my father.”

If I thought I was through with Trey earlier tonight, I’m
definitely
through with him now. I can’t believe he put Owen in this situation because he felt threatened by him. This whole time, I’ve been trying to see the good in Trey, but I’m starting to question if he even
has
any good in him.

“I feel like an idiot.”

Owen shakes his head adamantly. “You can’t be so hard on yourself. I should have told you sooner. I was going to, but after finding out you had a son, I realized just how much you had at stake. It made things complicated, because it was too late for me to go back and say the pills weren’t mine, and there was no way Lydia and Trey would have allowed you to be with someone like me. We were stuck.”

I fall against the bed and clasp my hands together over my stomach. I stare up at the ceiling, more confused about what to do than when we walked in here.

“I don’t trust him. Not after this. I don’t want him around AJ anymore, but if I tried to take them to court, Lydia would be furious. She would use my visits with AJ against me and I may never get to see him.”

The reality of my situation begins to hit, and I bring my hands up and press my palms against my eyes. I don’t want to cry. I want to remain calm and figure out a way around this.

Owen lowers himself beside me on the bed. He slips a hand to my cheek and urges me to look at him.

“Auburn, listen to me,” he says, looking down on me with complete sincerity. “If I have to come clean about my father and take Trey to court, I’ll do it. You deserve to be in AJ’s life, and if we continue to allow Trey’s threats to affect our decisions, he’ll never stop. He’ll never allow us to be together and he’ll do whatever he can to keep you from AJ unless you’re with him. It’s all about the power with people like him, but we need to stop allowing him to have it.”

He brushes away one of my tears with his thumb. “Whatever needs to be done, we’ll do it together. I’m not going anywhere. And you aren’t speaking to Trey again without me there, okay?”

His words are filling me with a mixture of relief and dread. It feels so good to know that he’s on my side, but the thought of confronting Trey terrifies me. But it’s the only choice we have at this point. We either have to work it out like adults, or I’ll fight him in court.

And I won’t stop until I win.

Owen pulls me against him and holds me quietly for so long, I fall asleep. The sound of the shower wakes me up, and I immediately look around the hotel room in an attempt to regain my bearings. When the haze clears and the events of the entire last day play out in my mind, I surprisingly feel a sense of calm fall over me. It’s amazing how you don’t realize just how alone and scared you were until you have someone by your side to support you. Owen has sacrificed so much for his father, and now he’s doing the same for me. He’s exactly the type of man AJ needs as a role model in his life.

I check my phone and find several missed calls from Trey. I don’t want him suspicious or showing back up at my apartment tonight, so I shoot him a text.

I need some time alone, Trey. We can talk tomorrow, I promise.

I don’t want him to think I’m as angry with him as I am. I just want to appease him for now until Owen and I can confront him together.

Okay.

I breathe a sigh of relief with his response and set my phone down. I stand up and walk toward the bathroom, but I pause when I catch sight of Owen in the hallway mirror. The bathroom door is open slightly, as is the shower curtain. I see glimpses of him as he washes his hair, but it’s enough for me to know I’d much rather be in there with him than out here alone.

I’m suddenly nervous and I don’t know why I’m nervous. We’ve done this before.

I take off my shirt and lay it on the dresser, followed by my jeans. I take a look in the mirror and am embarrassed to see mascara streaked beneath my eyes. I wipe it away and then take a step back. There are faint bruises in various places on my body from the struggle with Trey and it almost makes me want to change my mind about what I’m about to do.

I don’t, though. Trey has kept Owen and me apart enough, so I push the thought of him out of my head completely. I don’t want to think about him again until we’re sitting in front of him tomorrow.

I walk toward the bathroom and pause just outside the door. I slip off my bra and then my underwear. I debate whether or not to turn the light out. The one time I was with Owen, it was dark, so my insecurities were almost nonexistent. However, he’s never seen me like this before. I’ve never seen
him
.

That last thought actually gives me the courage it takes to enter the bathroom.

“Auburn?” he says from the shower. He’s questioning whether or not it’s me walking in here right now, so I guess it proves we’re both still a little on edge tonight.

“Just me,” I say as I shut the door.

His head appears from behind the shower curtain, and the smile that’s usually affixed to his face when he sees me vanishes when he sees
all
of me. My cheeks instantly flush and I reach next to me and flip off the light switch. I thought I could do it, but I can’t. No guy, not even Adam, has ever seen me undressed with the lights on. I didn’t realize just how much I lacked confidence.

I hear him laugh, but I can’t see his face in the dark.

“Two things,” he says, his voice firm. “Turn that back on. Get in here.”

I shake my head, even though he can’t see it. “I’ll get in there, but I’m not turning the light back on.”

I hear the shower curtain slide open and then wet feet splash against the tile floor. Before I know it, an arm is wrapped around my bare waist and the light is back on. His face is directly in front of mine and he’s grinning. He leaves the light on and lifts me up, carrying me to the shower with him. He stands me inside the shower and I immediately cover what I can with my hands.

He takes a step back until we’re a couple of feet apart and I can’t help but notice how confident he is, standing completely naked in front of me. He has a right to be confident. Me . . . not so much.

He tilts his head back far enough to wash the soap from his hair, but not too far that he can’t see all of me. His eyes roam over me while he rinses his hair with a satisfied smile.

“You know what I love?” he asks.

I keep my arms and hands in front of me, covering myself, and I shrug.

“I love it when you wash my hair,” he says. “I don’t know why. It just feels better when you do it.”

I smile. “Do you want me to wash your hair?”

He shakes his head and turns around to rinse the soap off his face. “I already washed it,” he says, matter-of-factly.

I can’t help but stare at the back of him now.
Flawless.

I tense up even more, knowing just how
not
flawless I am. And I don’t feel this way because I have a case of low self-esteem, and I’m not pretending to be self-conscious just so he’ll compliment me. It’s just that I’m a girl who has had a baby, and bodies don’t look the same after having babies. My stomach is covered in faint white lines and the scar from my cesarean is front and center, right above what should be one of the most attractive areas to a man.

I won’t even talk about what pregnancy does to breasts. I close my eyes just thinking about it.

“It’s kind of like when someone makes you a sandwich,” Owen says.

My eyes flick open. He can see the confusion on my face, and he laughs.

“When you wash my hair.” He says it like it’s an explanation. “Sandwiches are the same way. I could use the same ingredients and make my sandwich the exact same way as someone else, but for some reason it just tastes so much better when I’m not the one who makes it. Just like when you wash my hair. It feels better when you do it. It also styles better.”

Here I am, almost shaking I’m so nervous, and he’s casually discussing sandwiches and shampoos.

He takes a step forward and places his hands on my elbows, turning me until I’m under the water. “I want to wash yours,” he says, grabbing the travel-sized bottle of shampoo that’s now half-empty.

He tilts my head back and runs his hands through my hair as the water saturates it. I’m not like him—I can’t keep my eyes open while his hands are in my hair, so I let them fall shut. He lathers my hair, and I’m not sure what feels better, his fingers massaging my scalp or the part of him that’s pressing against my stomach.

“Relax,” he says as he begins to rinse my hair.

I don’t relax. I don’t know how.

As if he knows this, he moves closer. His closeness actually puts me more at ease. It’s when he’s several feet away and I’m under the scrutiny of his gaze that I’m the most nervous.

He begins to work the conditioner into my hair this time, and he’s absolutely right. I’ve had my hair washed by other people before, a result of being in cosmetology school. And it does feel good, sort of like a massage. But this is more. His hands are so much more.

His lips press softly against mine and he kisses me. His hands move from my hair to my arms, and he pulls them away from my body, wrapping them around his waist until we’re flush together. I finally open my eyes and look up into his as he begins to rinse the conditioner out of my hair.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he says with a slightly wicked grin.

I smile. “I don’t ever want to wash my own hair again.”

He kisses my forehead. “Just wait until you taste my sandwiches.”

I laugh, and the tenderness that enters his eyes at the sound of my laughter makes me realize that this is what I want.
Selflessness.
It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they’ll get more pleasure from the way they make
you
feel, rather than the way you make
them
feel.