I touched my cheek where Carson had hit me, but my mind wasn’t on that or the pain or how much I was bleeding. Everything just out of my vision seemed to be moving faster than what I was looking at. Who I was looking at.

“Carson,” I whispered.

A screeching noise redirected my attention. Kevin climbed to his feet slowly, knocking over a desk, one hand putting pressure on his ribcage. His face was a bloody mess. He staggered towards the door and then turned to look at me with nothing but venom in his eyes. “I hope you’re not with him for his money, Laney. Because that’s all going to be gone soon.” The voice I used to be in love with was now ugly and nasal. I hoped like fuck that his nose was broken, and he’d speak like that for the rest of his life.

“When did you turn into such an asshole?” I shouted, stepping between him and Carson. “This was all your fault.”

He craned his neck to look at Carson behind me. “You should find out more about the people you’re fucking. This isn’t the first time Bennett has beaten someone for no reason. I saw the guy he fought, set some of his bones. Bennett’s people paid him so he wouldn’t go to the cops.” He spit out blood and wiped his lip.

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but it made sense, explained a few of the things Carson had said. I didn’t care, though. Carson wouldn’t hurt anyone without a damn good reason. Asking him would have to wait, though, because I couldn’t turn my back on Kevin.

“How much do you think he’s worth?” Kevin asked. He talked about Carson as if he wasn’t there. As if he meant nothing. “Since this is the second time he’s done this, I should get double what the other guy got, don’t you think? Bennett is pretty important, right? Helps sick kids or some bullshit like that. Great. Now he gets to help me.”

“Don’t start anything, Kevin.”

“It started the second he touched me.”

“You have just as much to lose as he does.”

“I have nothing to lose, Laney. Nothing.”

Everyone has something to lose. The question is what you’ll do to keep it.

As he turned, he shoved a chair sideways, breaking it and a few other pieces I’d been working on. He didn’t say anything as he left, leaving me with Carson.

At least, it looked like Carson. He had his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, curled into himself, his head low. He was looking at me but I wasn’t sure if he could even see through all the water welling in his eyes.

I was afraid to touch him, afraid even my fingertips would shatter him. We stared at each other in silence for a while, long enough for my heartbeat and breath to slow down. I don’t think his did at all.

“Carson?” I moved slowly, talking to him. “I’m fine. I’m okay now.”

He flinched when I reached out to him but I didn’t stop until I was right in front of him.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, running my hand across his face. I pulled my hand away when he grimaced. I knew his reaction wasn’t just about me or even mostly about me. This was years of pent-up fear coming to the surface because of one accidental slap. Kevin had hurt me far more than Carson did, but Carson was the one paying for it, maybe for everything.

“Carson, what should I do?”

He met my eyes and spoke slowly. “Run.”

“Well…” I swallowed. “I’m not going to do that. So what else can I do?”

“Stop loving me.”

I inhaled sharply. The word neither one of us had ever used, the admission I was too afraid to make, spoken in the worst possible moment.

“I told you…” he said. “ I told you I would hurt you. Now do you believe me?”

“No. It was an accident. I don’t—”

“It doesn’t matter if it was an accident or not. It happened. Because I couldn’t control myself.” His voice dropped to almost a whimper. “I couldn’t stop it from happening, Lane. I tried so hard, but I couldn’t stop it. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no reason to be.”

He pushed away from me and stood, clearing his throat. “The reason never matters. Excuses never matter. What happens does. And what happened is that I hit you. I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

I didn’t know what to say, knowing that anything I said would be wrong—emotions were running too high for an actual conversation. Yes, he’d hurt me. And he’d saved me. How did he miss that part?

It was an accident. Heat of the moment, eyes seeing nothing but red. The stuff he was shouting wasn’t about me or even Kevin. He’d been somewhere completely different until the moment he’d started seeing again, the moment he’d realized it was me.

He went into the storage area. I followed part of the way but stopped in the hallway, hearing him open the mini-fridge and slam drawers and mumble to himself. I leaned against the wall and tilted my head back.

He jolted to a stop when he came barreling into the hallway, almost running into me. He held a plastic garbage bag of ice and a clean rag. “Don’t put your head back—you’ll swallow the blood.” He came close, checking my face, gently touching me, caressing my jaw.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

“I seriously doubt that.” My voice sounded different, changed by damage that was all Kevin’s fault.

“I wasn’t talking about the way you look.” He cleared his throat, stood straighter. “But you’ll be beautiful that way too, once the swelling goes down.” His tone was timid, lifeless—so unlike Carson. “You’re going to bruise a lot, but I don’t think your nose is broken. Lean forward a little. It’s going to hurt but you need to pinch it to make it stop bleeding.”

With my back still to the wall, I did what he said until my nose stopped bleeding and the throbbing was numbed by the ice pack. The whole time he stood two feet from me, leaning against the other wall, watching and waiting with his arms crossed over his chest, expressionless.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

I saw where this was going, what he was thinking, from the guilt in his eyes. “Stop it. He did this to me, not you.”

He let out a single bitter-sounding chuckle. “I hit you, Lane. Me.”

“It was an accident.”

“What about next time? Are you going to say that again next time? Am I going to say it to you?”

“There won’t be a next time. It was an accident for shit’s sake.” I reached out but he yanked his arm away before I could touch him. “How can you not see what I see in you?”

He backed up a step. “You keep hoping I’m someone else. Trying to pretend I’m something I’m not. I’m a frog, Lane. I’ve always been a frog and I always will be one. If you don’t get away from me now, I’ll kill the life you have in you right now.” His hand lifted up as if he was going to touch me but then stopped. “I love the life you have in you, Lane. But I’ll end up taking it away, destroying it, turning you into a person you don’t want to be.”

“That’s bullshit.” I shook my head. “You keep telling yourself it could never be good, it could never be great. Well, guess what. It is. You are. You’re great and you’re not broken and you won’t hurt me. The only person you’re hurting is yourself. Over and over in some stupid, useless kind of penance. And it will never end because you’ll never let it. You’ll punish yourself until there’s nothing left to punish. For something that’s never been yours to pay for. You aren’t your father.”

His lip curled in distaste, probably because someone was finally throwing the truth in his face and he couldn’t avoid it, ignore it, or find something to distract him from dealing with it this time.

Why is someone else’s pain so much worse than your own sometimes? To see someone you love punish themselves and think they deserve it?

“You shouldn’t have given me a second chance.” When he straightened and ran his fingers through his hair, I knew he’d stopped listening.

“If I hadn’t, I would be sobbing on the floor because you wouldn’t have been there to stop Kevin. And no one would be here for me, taking care of me and letting me know I’ll be okay.” My body tightened as I tried to hold it together long enough to say what I had to say. “And no one would be breaking my heart because they won’t believe they’ll be okay, too. Because we can make sure you are.”

He shook his head. I swear, if his prick of a father wasn’t already dead, I would have given the bastard a prize. If his goal had been to truly fuck up his son’s thinking, he’d won.

“Damn it, Carson!” I shouted. “I’ll give you a second chance and a third and as many as it takes. Because you’re not a frog. You’ve never been one and never will be. Stop punishing yourself before there’s nothing left of you. Because then there will be nothing left for me to love. And I want to love you.” I paused and took a breath that softened what I asked for next. “Please let me love you.”

His whole body trembled, fought itself, maybe because he couldn’t decide which way to go. I didn’t know what else to say, how to convince him that he wasn’t who he thought he was. He’d saved me and I wanted to return the favor. I just didn’t know how. So I waited for him to do something, anything that would tell me where he stood, where I stood, where we stood.

I wasn’t leaving. But he was.

“I can’t,” he said, pushing off the wall and heading for the door. “I’m sorry, Lane. I’m really, really sorry. Lock the door behind me. Make sure you call the police and get a restraining order against your ex.”

I knew I’d watch him walk away eventually, but I didn’t think it would be like this. “Carson, please. Don’t—” My last word was severed by the slamming of the door. I stood there, undecided, unsure. A minute later, I flipped the deadbolt. There was a much bigger chance that Kevin would come back than that Carson ever would.

I found my phone under a workbench, slumped into a chair, and called the police. But what Kevin had said kept ringing in my ears.

Carson did have a lot more to lose than he did. How could I hurt the person who’d done so much to help me? I hung up after the first ring.

And then I cried more than I’ve ever cried before.

I was in love and it hurt and it wasn’t going to stop. Because I would never give it up. Because he was worth everything.