Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

Nicholas shouldn’t have seen that.

I felt my heart pounding faster and faster till it reached a fever pitch. When he finally looked me in the eye, I could see he was completely lost. And frightened. I didn’t like seeing him that way.

“It’s not what you think,” I said, taking a step back. This was what I’d been running from since the beginning, the thing I didn’t want him to know…

“Then explain it to me, Noah… Honestly, I’m trying to understand. I don’t think I’ve ever tried so hard to do anything, but you’re not making it easy for me.”

I felt ashamed because this was something so private, something that should matter to only me…and I didn’t want anyone judging me for it. Least of all him.

“What do you want me to say, Nick?” I shouted, trying to keep the tears gathering behind my eyelids from streaming down my face. “He was my father…”

“He tried to kill you,” he replied, confused. “He beat your mother, Noah. I don’t get it. What’s there to miss?”

His expression made my heart crack. He wanted to put himself in my place, but it was painfully clear he couldn’t, and that was what divided us just then and what I feared might permanently tear us apart.

“You’ll never get it, Nicholas, because even I can’t control what I feel. I don’t miss him. It’s something else… I feel guilty for things ending up the way they did. In his heart, he…he did love me once.”

“You can’t look at it that way, Noah,” he said softly but firmly. “None of that was your fault. The problem is you’re just too fucking good! You’re incapable of blaming him because he was your father, and I get that, right? But you aren’t to blame for what happened… He was the one who signed his own death sentence the moment he put a pistol to your head…the moment he laid his hands on you that night, ten years ago.”

I shook my head. I had no idea how to explain myself, how to explain what I felt inside. Everything was so contradictory… He had hurt me… But what about all the times he’d held me, the nights he’d taken me with him to the track and we’d driven at top speed…when he’d taught me to fish…when he’d taught me to tie a figure eight…?

Nicholas closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine. “You’re still scared of him, aren’t you?” he said, then looked at me. “Even though he’s dead, you’re still scared of him. You still believe you owe him something, you feel guilty, and that makes you come here. That’s why you bring him those flowers he doesn’t deserve.”

My lip started trembling… Of course I was scared of him… I was scared of him more than I was of anyone. Fear was almost everything he meant to me.

I didn’t realize my hand had risen to touch my tattoo until Nick grabbed it and pulled it away.

“Why’d you get it?”

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but it was pointless. I knew why I’d gotten it, of course, but could I tell Nick? I saw my reflection in his pupils. And yet there was some essential part of me that was totally absent from that reflection.

“When you’re tied too tightly to someone…it hurts when you break free, but it’s either that or you’re trapped forever. And I’m one of those who’s trapped forever.”

Nicholas looked baffled. I think that was the first time I had ever seen him at a loss for words.

I hugged him. I didn’t want him to feel like that, especially not because of me. It wasn’t right for him to have to worry about this.

“I think you need help, Noah,” he said.

I pulled away. “What do you mean?”

He paused, cautious, then continued speaking. “I think you need to talk to an outsider, someone impartial…someone who can help you try to understand how you’re feeling. Someone who can help with your nightmares—”

“You do help me,” I cut him off.

He shook his head, suddenly sad. “I don’t, though… I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to get you to understand that there’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”

“When I’m with you, I feel safe. You help me, Nick. I don’t need anyone else.”

He brought his hands to his head, as if trying to decide what to say next.

“Do it for me,” he said. “I need to see you happy if I’m going to be happy. I need you not to be afraid of the darkness, of your dead father, and I especially need you to stop thinking that you should love him or defend him because, Noah, your father was an abuser, and no one can change that, not you or anybody else, understand?”

I shook my head slowly… I felt lost… I didn’t know how to tell him that the first time I’d ever admitted those feelings aloud, the thing I feared most was happening: he was judging me.

“I’m not crazy,” I said, pushing him away.

“Of course you’re not, babe, but you’ve been through things most people can’t imagine, and I don’t think you know how to deal with it… I just want you to be happy, okay, Noah? I’ll always be by your side, but I can’t fight off your demons. You have to do that on your own.”

“By seeing a shrink?”

“A psychologist, not a shrink,” he corrected me gently. “I went to one, you know? When I was a kid… After my mom left, I started to have insomnia, I wasn’t eating or sleeping…I was so sad, and I just couldn’t get over it on my own. Sometimes, talking to a person you don’t know helps you see things from a different perspective… Do it for me, Freckles. I need you to try, at least.”

He seemed so worried about me…and I knew, deep down, that he was right. I couldn’t go on like that. I was scared to be in the dark, scared of those nightmares following me every night…

“Please.”

I looked at him for a moment, and all at once, I felt thankful that I had him there. I knew without him, I’d never dare make that decision.

“It’s fine. I’ll go.”

He had edged over to me by then, and I felt the sigh of relief blowing from his lips as he bent over to kiss me.

I didn’t want to go back home. My mother would be enraged, and the last thing I wanted to do was face off with her.

“I fucked up, right?” I said, rubbing my face as we went back in his car.

His fingers grazed the nape of my neck as he looked straight ahead on the freeway. “That’s one way of looking at it, probably, but at least you said it.”

I looked over at him, thinking about how real it was now: we were going to live together; the deal was done, and soon. If I wanted, I could grab my things then and there, walk out the door, and start a new life with him.

Nick parked close to the door. The senator and his daughter must have gone because the only cars there were Will’s and my mother’s. Mine was back at the cemetery… Nick hadn’t wanted me to go back alone and said he’d send Steve to pick it up the next day.

Not wanting to get out, with a knot of anxiety in my chest, I leaned my arm into the door and my head into the side window. What a horrible day it had been.

“Come here,” Nick said, pulling me over until I was on his lap with my feet in the passenger seat. He squeezed me tight, and I rested my cheek against his neck.

“Everything’s going to be fine, babe.”

I closed my eyes and let his words soothe me.

“As for Sophia…I know I shouldn’t have acted that way, but she’s the girl who got Jenna out of jail, and you never even mentioned you worked with her…”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Noah. I have no feelings whatsoever for Sophia or for anyone except you… How could I even think of hurting you?”

I nestled my face closer and kissed his collarbone. He smelled so good…and I felt so safe in his arms…in those strong arms that protected me and that cradled me softly, as though afraid I would break.

“Stay with me tonight,” I whispered, knowing that meant he’d have to confront his father in the morning.

“Of course,” he said, and I felt a huge weight lift off me.