Page 106 of The Heart Breaker

“You smell like cigarettes,” she mumbles.

I rub my thumb over her hip. “Thought smoking might make me relax enough to actually knock out.”

She lets out a sleepy little scoff. “Doctors everywhere would be so proud.”

My mouth twitches.

Then she tips her head back a little on the pillow and looks up at me. “Why can’t you sleep?”

Every instinct I’ve got tells me to shut it down and to tell her it’s none of her business. Instead, I just lie there with her looking at me, and for some reason, I can’t make myself give her some bullshit answer.

“My dad,” I say.

Her face changes immediately, the last of that sleepy smile fading as she waits. I look past her instead of at her, toward the dark wall, because that’s easier than saying this while she’s watching me.

“He’s a piece of shit,” I tell her. “He liked to take his anger out on me.” My throat goes tight and I grind my teeth before I keep going. “I never knew what was gonna set him off. He just lost it.”

My hand tightens on her hip. I can still remember feeling the knot in my stomach when he came home in one of his bad moods, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. My mom died when I was seven, and not long after that, home stopped feeling safe.

“When I was a kid, I used to think I could fix it somehow,” I say. “Thought if I stayed quiet enough, stayed out of his way enough, maybe he’d leave me alone.” I let out a rough breath. “Didn’t matter. Guys like that don’t need a reason.”

I glance down at her, at the line between her brows. “I used to lie there listening for him,” I say instead. “I was always a light sleeper, so every little noise woke me up. After a while it just turned into… not sleeping at all.”

She lifts her eyes to mine. “Is Sophie still there?” she asks. “At home with him?”

“Yeah.” I swallow down the helplessness I feel whenever I think about her still being stuck in that house. “I tried to take her with me once, but he threatened to call the cops. Said he’d have me arrested for kidnapping if I ever took her again.”

I still remember the look on her face when he came to get her. The way she saw him and everything in her just… dropped. She looked back at me while he took her, and I had to stand there and let it happen because there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

It killed me, watching her realize she wasn’t getting out after all.

Her brows dip. “How did you not lose your shit?”

A short laugh slips out of me, and I drag a hand over my jaw. “What do you think the boxing gloves are for?” I tilt my head. “I needed to get this anger out somehow.”

She huffs out a laugh.

“I applied to be her guardian my senior year of high school,” I continue. “Stayed out of trouble, filled out the paperwork, got all my shit together, did everything they wanted from me.” My teeth grind together. “I was close.”Too close. “But it fell through.”

I can’t look at her. Can’t look into her eyes as the memory comes back to me and the frustration builds all over again.

“My dad left before my first birthday,” she blurts out, and my brows pull together.

I look down at her as she catches her bottom lip between her teeth, staring at our hands, which have somehow ended up tangled together between us.

“I don’t remember him. I was too young, but…” She shakes her head a little. “I miss him. Which sounds stupid, I know, because how do you miss someone you never even knew? But I do.”

I stay quiet, rubbing my thumb over her hand.

“My mom remarried when I was sixteen,” she murmurs, keeping her eyes down. “And my stepdad is great. He really is. But… it’s just not the same.” She swallows hard. “All I’ve ever wanted was a dad.” The words come out shaky, and it guts me because Aurora never sounds like this. Never looks like this. “I see girls with their dads and it just…” She breaks off, blinking fast, her fingers tightening around mine. “Why?”

That one word damn near guts me.

When she looks back at me, her eyes are wet. “Why didn’t he want me?” she whispers, her voice breaking on the last word. “What did I do that made him not even want to know me?”

I move before I even think about it, sliding my hand up to her jaw and tipping her face up. Our noses are nearly touching by the time I smooth my thumb over her cheek, catching the tear before it can fall.

“You didn’t do shit,” I tell her. “You were just a kid.”