“Jesus,” Maverick seethed.
“I knelt there for two hours, praying aloud, crying, shaking. My mother tried to intervene, but Dad told her it wasn’t her place to question him. He sent her out of the room.”
“And she left?” Maverick asked, aghast. “Left you there alone with him?”
“She and Martha have always been better with the obeying part.”
Maverick lifted Ella from the couch, pulling her onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her. “You’re too far away.”
She huffed out a light laugh, even though she agreed. “Way too far away.”
“Finish it,” he said.
“After three hours of praying, he asked me who you were. I didn’t want to say because I was too afraid of what he might do, so I stayed quiet.”
Maverick shook his head. “You didn’t need to protect me. You should have told him.”
“In the end, I did. At that point, I’d been on my knees for over four hours. I… It hurt,” she admitted. “A lot.”
Maverick closed his eyes, and she got the sense he was trying to control his emotions.
“I told him your name. Then he wanted to know where we’d been. What we’d been doing. How long I’d been seeing you. I hesitated after every question, tryingso hardnot to break, but he wouldn’t let me get off my knees. Nothing to drink or eat. No trips to the bathroom. Nothing. After seven hours, the pain was so excruciating, I would have sold Gigi down the river.”
“Seven hours,” he whispered, as if the words physically hurt him.
“I told him everything…about our lunch breaks, going to the cabin. That we’d…” She shrugged sadly. “That was when he pulled one of the kitchen chairs over, told me to sit. It took me nearly half an hour just to pull myself up from the floor. My knees, my legs—they didn’t work. The whole time, Dad watched me struggle. Told me I deserved the pain. Once I was sitting at the table, he put a piece of paper in front of me.”
“The letter.”
“He told me what to write, dictated while he stood over me, making sure I used his words exactly. I’m so sorry, Maverick,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “I was barely cognizant of what I was doing, so I didn’t think about how you might interpret the words, how much they’d hurt you.”
“Jesus, Firefly. Don’t you dare apologize to me for that. I can’t…” Maverick raked a hand through his hair. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“For what?”
He bent his head low.
She hated the misplaced guilt. Cupping his cheek, she forced him to look at her. “You didn’t know.”
“But I should have.”
“How? I told you precious little about my homelife. I was afraid to, because the last time I shared details about my dad’s abuse, it was with Gigi, who confronted him. Right after that, Dad moved us across the country. I was so afraid if I shared too much with you, he’d uproot us again.” She scoffed miserably. “Of course, he did that anyway.”
“I still should have known you wouldn’t write that letter. I should have gone straight to you.”
She shook her head. “We were seventeen, Maverick. What the hell could either of us have done?”
“I would have run away with you, would have gotten you far, far away from that fucking abusive asshole.”
She could tell he meant every word. “I wouldn’t have gone with you. Your life, your family are here. Gracemont is your home and where you’re meant to be.”
“My home isyou.”
Ella waited for Maverick to correct the tense, certain he meant to use the wordwas. But he didn’t.
Instead, his gaze held hers captive, letting her know just how serious he was.
She kissed him softly, desperately wanting those words to be real. Then, she finished what she’d started, the rest of the words falling out quickly.