“What did you do?” I asked through the lump in my throat. My heart began to beat so loud in my ears that I wouldn’t have heard him if he’d responded. Every emotion and memory that I’d been trying so hard to ignore came flooding back, leaving me on the edge of some kind of panic attack.
“Kara,” Draco said, reaching for me.
I stumbled back, bumping my hip hard against the doorframe.
“What did you do?” I asked again.
All I could think was that I’d done it again. It had been five years since the first time, and I’d been so careful since then. One slip, that was all it had taken.
“Oh God,” I murmured. “Oh, God. What did you do?”
“What?” Draco asked in confusion, reaching for me again. “Kara, what?”
I stared at him, a million things racing through my mind. Whatever it was, we’d take care of it. I wasn’t a kid anymore. We’d run if we had to. We’d go somewhere far away. We could hide. People did that all the time. The club would help, wouldn’t they? They’d help this time. They had to.
“Baby,” he said, pulling me against his chest. “Breathe.”
One arm banded around my back while the other hand cupped the back of my head, pushing my face against his neck.
“Breathe, Kara,” He said against my hair. “It’s okay, baby. What’s wrong? Whatever it is, I’ll fix it.”
My hands shook as I lifted them to the small of his back.
“Shh,” he said, holding me tighter. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. I knew that it wasn’t. What had he done? What secret had he unearthed? I pressed my hands against his back harder, curling my fingers into his t-shirt.
“We have to go,” I said, almost in a daze as I pulled back a little. “It’s okay. We’ve already packed the important stuff. Let’s just go.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked in confusion, jerking his head back to look at me.
“We can just go,” I said, pulling away completely. I turned and swiped my toiletry bag off the counter, ignoring the still full bathtub. “Come on. We can just go now.”
Later, much later, it would be almost funny when I remembered the look of absolute confusion on his face as I’d hurried past him to grab my bag from my room.
“I’m ready,” I said, turning to face him with my bag slung over my shoulder.
“Ready for what?” he asked, stopping me in the doorway. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Let’s go,” I said, nodding. “We can figure it out later, okay? Whatever it was, we can figure it out later. Let’s just go now.” My words were frantic. Why wasn’t he moving? We needed to go. I wiped at the tears of frustration running down my face. When had I started crying?
“Baby, I’ll go anywhere with you,” he said soothingly, his hands out in front of him, palms up. “But you gotta tell me what the fuck is happenin’ right now.”
I stopped, staring up at his battered face.
“We have to go before the cops come,” I replied as calmly as I could, my voice wobbling. “Hurry.”
Draco’s expression moved from surprise to shock, and as his eyes closed, to understanding. When he opened them again, I had to force myself not to look away.
“Cops aren’t comin’, sweetheart,” he said softly.
“You—” I looked at his hands again. “You—”
“Curtis,” he explained, making my shoulders droop in relief. “No one’s callin’ the cops.”
“Oh,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“Jesus, Kara,” he replied.
“Okay,” I said, slowly setting my bag down on the ground. “That’s okay, then.”
My voice hitched, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to hold the noise inside.
“Come here,” he said, his hands hanging at his sides.
I shook my head.
“Come here, baby.”
I shook my head again as a sob escaped through my fingers. I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. Relief and fear and embarrassment had me frozen to the spot.
“Goddamn it,” he breathed, striding toward me.
The toiletry bag dropped from my fingers as he lifted me off my feet, turning to sit on the edge of the bed with me in his lap. I sobbed into his neck and wrapped myself around him, clutching at his back and shoulders.
“Fuck, Kara,” he said, one hand around my waist. He threaded the fingers of his other hand through my hair, holding me just as tightly as I was holding him.
“You have to be careful,” I cried against his neck. “You have to—”
“Shh,” he soothed. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“I can’t—”
“Calm down, sweetheart,” he said, pulling my face away from his neck. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
I knew he believed it, but I didn’t. Because if the day had proven anything, it had proven that I wasn’t as good at keeping secrets as I thought I was. If something as simple as an argument had me flying off the handle at Curtis, then a fight had the chance of bringing everything I’d hidden to the surface.