This time her smile spread across her whole mouth, and I had to do everything I could not to stare at it.
“I have some triggers, and I’m not exactly comfortable outside of my house, but I’ve prepared myself mentally for today, so I’m getting there. Your movements are slow, and you explain yourself before you do something, and I appreciate that. It’s more than most people do, and it makes a big difference.”
Relieved, I dipped the needle back in the ink, taking my time so I could calm myself down. I wasn’t hyper or agitated, I was dumbfounded, and I needed to find my center so I could talk to Sienna without rambling or scaring her.
“I’m glad that helps.” I went back to working on the outline, trying to figure out what to ask next. There was a pressing question I wanted the answer to, but I didn’t want to make what’d happened to her about me. It was so fucking far from that. “How badly did she hurt you?”
“Um,” she hummed. “The pencil went in six times until the tip broke off it. They removed it from just above my kidney and fixed the damage she’d done, but it took a while to recover because I got an infection after surgery. That’s why I have the break in the ECG reading on my wrist. It got… close.”
Looking at the tattoo on her wrist again, I shook my head and swallowed down the nauseousness. “Am I right when I say that your family moved away after it?”
“Yeah, we went to Utah to stay at Mom’s parents’ farm, and I was homeschooled while I recovered. After that, I was always… Well, I was scared of the world, but after a lot of therapy and time, I can cope much better now. I just need to prepare myself when I leave the house on my own.”
“What about getting stuff from the store?”
“I can go to it, but most of the time I order online and collect it all and some stores can deliver it to me.”
I couldn’t imagine living with the fear of even going to the store. What Hazel had done was narrow the world down for Sienna, making her afraid of doing what I took for granted whenever I left the house every day.
I couldn’t hold it back anymore, I had to know.
Lifting the machine back up, I straightened and looked her in the eye. “You said she did it because you stood next to me in class and smiled at me?” When she nodded, I ground out, “Do you resent me for it? If I’d known, I’d have done everything to stop her, even if it meant lying down on top of you. I hate that she—”
“I don’t resent you, not even close. I admire you for going with what you believed in and breaking up with her after hearing what you thought was just a rumor. Her friends all tried to cover it up for her because they were afraid of what Hazel would do to them if they didn’t. You stood with your morals, and none of it was your fault to blame or resent you for what happened.”
Clenching her jaw, she stared down at her tightly clenched hands. “We could never figure out how she managed to do it with hardly anyone else around or seeing it. And then the priority became my recovery mentally and physically, followed by the cover-up and acquittal. Not a lot of people used morals through it, but you did.”
“I swear, I would have done something if I’d known. I also wouldn’t have let her friends cover up for you if I’d known what’d happened or even close to it.”
Back then, I was the guy who didn’t want to be a jock but who was popular in high school even though he was art obsessed. Because of that, Hazel had targeted me, spreading around the school that we were dating before I’d even said yes when she’d asked me out. At the time, I’d figured it would be easier to have just one girlfriend instead of a new one every week, so I’d let it run on, even though I hardly paid her any attention after eleventh grade.
Truth be told, I’d started to detest her, finding her maliciousness too much to handle. But every time I tried to end it, she’d act dramatically and then sneak into my house in the middle of the night. I figured I’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar and had let it continue, knowing it would definitely end once we graduated.
If I’d known any of this, I’d have done something. I couldn’t even understand why the police hadn’t questioned me to see if I knew anything. I’d have to ask Nico Mayson to see if he could find anything out for me about it. His niece was married to Wes, so he hung out with the club a lot and was good at helping us with stuff.