“I didn’t, no.”
“It’s his story to tell, and I don’t want to break any confidences, but I urge you to talk to him about it.”
“You sound and look so serious,” she said, her tone hinting at worry.
I merely nodded. “But back to my original request. Will you please tell me what happened with Balance of Light that I don’t know? I need to reconcile what I saw and felt while there with the truth. It’s obvious that most of what I experiencedwasn’tthe truth. And it’s clear that it shaped who you are now. I’m really enjoying getting to know you, Lark, and I want to understand more.”
She rubbed her forehead as if she were getting a headache and then took a deep, slow breath while closing her eyes.
When she raised her gaze and her green eyes clashed with mine, I saw the war inside her. I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and took her hand across the table. At first, I expected her to pull away, but as she often did, she surprised me by gripping my fingers instead.
“I’m not exactly sure where to start, so I’ll just start at the beginning and try to weave this into what youdoknow. I only ask you one favor.”
“Anything. Always,” I said.
“Just let me get it out. This is going to be really hard on me, but you have earned a bit of my trust since we reconnected. But I need you to understand that they’re still looking for me. And they’ll likely never stop. Because of that, everyone who knows the truth is in danger, too.”
I sat and listened as she relayed the tale, my anger rising with every second as I saw the tension in her shoulders, and my disbelief now off the charts. I had to make her stop for a minute at one point to order another round of drinks because I didn’t think I could hear any more without something to dull my reaction a bit. The way her body telegraphed her trauma was like a knife cutting into me, again and again.
When she got to the last day and the torture that had occurred and the things that had been said before she left for good, I was barely holding it together.
“Goddamnit, Lark.” I almost knocked over my water glass in my outburst.
She seemed a little taken aback by my eruption and palpable anger, and I saw her shield slide into place, her flight response at the ready.
“No.” I closed my eyes and huffed out a breath. “I’m not . . . I’m not angry with you. Well, I kind of am. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me about the hell you were enduring? You know I would have helped you.”
“Do I?” she asked, her voice almost cold. Maybe even a little bit hurt.
“Of course, I would have done something. I . . .” I almost said that I’d loved her. “I cared about you. So much. We were best friends. I knew that things were different for you being the daughter of Mother Superior and living in Father Lionel’s household, but I had no idea it was that bad. I had no clue what you were going through. I had no idea that things had gotten so twisted. There were always things about the belief system that I bucked against, certain things I didn’t understand. But this? This is something else altogether. I could fucking murder them.”
“Nobody but the inner circle knew that stuff, Kholt. Don’t take that on. And until the end, he was very careful to hide the evidence of his abuse—as was I. And you know what they say. Those in a cult don’t realize they are.”
“Why do I have a feeling there’s more?”
“There is. . . .” she hedged, her hands shaking. “But it doesn’t directly impact me. They’re just things that I witnessed. And right now, I’m too raw to go there. Can you respect that?”
“Of course, I can fucking respect that. I don’t know how you told me what you did without losing it. Turner told me he thought you were one of the strongest people he knew. I agreed without even knowing any of this. But now . . . I’m honestly in awe.”
She just stared at me, and I looked back. I tried to read her thoughts in her eyes—vulnerability paired with a little bit of pride at my praise?—attempting to get to the core of this new amazing woman. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. Just when I thought I had maybe said something wrong, she spoke up again.
She shook her head as if to clear it. “That was terrifying, Kholt. Balance of Light cannot find me. You understand that, right?”
I nodded, my stomach twisting into knots at what she must be feeling. I was feeling plenty on my own.
“But it was also super freeing. I’ve wanted to tell that story for nineteen years. Now that everybody currently in my life knows, I feel like a thousand-pound weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And I’m really glad you were one of the people I could confide in. I’m not too proud to admit that I missed you.”
I reached out and took both of her hands across the table again. “I missed you so damn much. I didn’t understand why you left. And it hurt that you didn’t say goodbye. When I pried, nobody would ever tell me anything. They always talked shit about you, but never with any detail or context, so it never, ever made sense. I was so confused. That night at Irene’s was a beautiful surprise.”
“Always so smooth. Still thestud Kholt, huh?” she said with a smile, lightening the mood a bit.
I laughed and shook my head. She’d called me that back in the day and it used to make me turn as red as a tomato. I kept the blush at bay tonight. Barely.
“I try,” I said with a shrug.
I glanced at my watch. “Are you ready to get? We have a bit of a drive back to the city, and it’s pitch-black out there now.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”