My fingers trailed up and down the bumps and ridges of Shay’s spine. I wanted to commit every piece of this moment to memory. Burn it into my brain so I’d never forget. I’d never felt Shay so relaxed, so at peace. But each second that passed, a little more tension snuck back into her muscles. As if her body were trained to revolt against any kind of true closeness. Walls that had been in place for so long took time to break down fully.

I brushed her hair away from her back, trailing my fingers down her spine again. “Want to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”

She didn’t pull away when I asked, and that was a victory of sorts. Instead, she seemed to burrow deeper against my chest. “How do you always know when something’s messing with my head?”

“Right now, I feel it. The slow tightening of your muscles. You were practically boneless thirty minutes ago.”

She laughed. “And I think you know why that is.”

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “So, tell me what’s changed.”

Shay let out a slow breath. “A million worries invading my brain.”

I moved my hands to her head, massaging her scalp as if I could clear away those worries with my fingers. “Tell me about them. Sometimes, if you give them voice, they lose their power.”

“I wish it was that easy.”

“Try.” I squeezed the back of her neck. “Tell me the biggest one right now. Go.”

“That he’ll hurt you.”

The words seemed to tumble out of Shay’s mouth before she could stop them. I froze. “That who will hurt me? Michael?”

She nodded slowly against my chest. “He’s done it before. Every time I got close to someone growing up, something bad would happen. A lot of times no one could prove it was him, but I always knew.”

“What do you mean something bad?”

Her fingers started tracing swirls on my pec. “When I was in fourth grade, and he was in third, a new girl moved to town. Jill. She and I really hit it off. We’d hang out at the playground every day after school. Michael would come with us most of the time. One day, I’d gone to get snacks from my mom, who always sat on one of the benches to read while we played. I heard a scream. We rushed back to the jungle gym, and Jill was lying beneath the monkey bars, screaming and crying. Her arm was so badly broken, the bone had pierced the skin.”