Page 86 of Beautiful When He Breaks

He exhales through his nose and tips his head back against the couch. “No,” he says honestly. Then, after a beat, “But better.”

That’s enough for now, because the truth is out. Blakely is finished even if the official end hasn’t hit yet. The whole fucking room just proved to Julian that what was done to him doesn’t make him broken or any less ours in any way that matters. If anything, it has just made every person in this house more dangerous on his behalf.

Julian told the truth tonight, and the room held.

27

Julian

Nobody looked at me with disgust.

Nobody flinched or blamed me. Nobody mocked me or made it dirty—not that I thought they would, and it should help more than it does.

Instead, I’m sitting in here with my skin buzzing too tightly, every nerve still lit up from finally telling them, and all I can think is that this is permanent now.

They know. Every one of them knows. Tomorrow, when I walk into the kitchen, every stupid, ordinary thing in the house will happen in the shadow of the fact that they know what was done to me.

My mind keeps trying to tell me that they’ll look at me differently, that they have to, even though nothing in the room tonight suggested disgust. Shame doesn’t care about evidence. Shame just wants a place to live.

I’m sitting there turning that over and over when Eli stands in front of me and says, “Come on.”

I look up at him, still feeling half stripped, and blink. “Where?”

“Upstairs.”

There’s no room in his voice for argument, but it isn’t hard either. It’s just direct in that Eli way that’s gotten sharper lately. He holds his hand out for me, and I stare at it for a second longer than I should. I don’t know what he sees on my face then. Maybe all of it: the nerves, the shame, or the fact that even with him next to me, some part of me is still braced for the aftershock. Whatever he sees immediately softens him.

“Jules,” he says more quietly, and that alone nearly takes me out. “Come with me, please.”

I get up before I can think too hard, but Eli doesn’t say anything until we’re in his room with the door shut behind us. The second the latch clicks, all the noise of the house dulls to a distant hum. Mrs. Alvarez left a few minutes ago, and Mila is asleep in her bassinet. She’s got one tiny hand up beside her face, looking absurdly peaceful for someone who has ruined all our sleep schedules for three straight months.

The lamp on Eli’s nightstand is on low, throwing warm light across the bed, the dresser, and the chair with the duck blanket draped over it. The room feels safe in a way I don’t know how to accept tonight—safe and close and too honest.

I stop just inside the door and let out a breath that sounds wrong the second it leaves me. “They know.” I laugh once, but it’s hollow. “They all fucking know now.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Julian.”

I shake my head and start pacing because standing still feels impossible. “No, I know this is good. I know this is what needed to happen. I know I’m not supposed to be losing my mind because they were good about it and nobody said anything stupid and Killian basically has Blakely’s execution already scheduled for after the season.” I drag both hands through my hair and keep moving. “I know all of that. I just—fuck.”

The word cracks a little at the end. I hate that.

Eli stays where he is for a second, just watching me. “Then what’s wrong?” he asks softly.

I stop pacing long enough to look at him, and there’s too much in me to sort cleanly. “They’re going to look at me differently now.”

His face changes immediately—sadder, maybe, because he hears exactly how much I mean it.

“No, they won’t,” he says.

I laugh again, already halfway to angry and not even sure at whom. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he says, taking one step toward me, “because I know them and I know you, and none of them just heard that story and walked away thinking less of you.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, they know now,” I say, and my voice drops lower without my permission. “They know I let it go on. They know he got in my head, but I still went back and didn’t stop it sooner. They know I’m the kind of person that can get trapped in something like that and then keep showing up for it like a fucking—”

Eli is in front of me before I finish the sentence.

He gets both hands on me at once, cupping my face in his big hands. The contact stops the whole spiral hard enough that I forget what I was saying.