The Hardest Part (7 page)

"
Actually, I should be going, too." Reed echoed my thoughts. My eyes cut to his.

Reed and Brandon shook hands while I walked over to Lexi and wrapped my arms around her for a hug. I squeezed harder than I probably should have; I just wanted to hold her and never let go. She hugged me back, and it took everything inside me to hold in a sob. I would have to save that for later when I was alone. The second I let her go, Reed moved in and wrapped his arms around her.

"
I would like it if you kept Peters and Warren close the next few days. With the news of the charity event coming out tomorrow, I'm not certain how crazy things are going to get," Reed said in a low voice.

I assumed those were the names of The Hulk and Hercules
—
the two men who drove Lexi to and from our self-defense class.

"
I will." She agreed. "I actually have extra security with Brandon around, and when Emily's around, you know." She turned to us and smiled.

I returned her smile before following Reed out the door.

"
Can I give you a ride home?" he asked as we made our way to the elevators.

"
No, I'm fine, but thank you." I could barely look at him. Every time I glanced in his direction, I was reminded of the things Lexi had told me, and it hurt too much. What he and his sister had been through… no one should have to go through something that horrific.

"
It's late and it will make me sleep better tonight knowing you got home safely."

How could I resist that?

"
Okay." I glanced over at him. "A ride would be nice."

A black SUV sat running in front of the building. Reed opened the back door and I climbed in before he followed after me.

"
Brooklyn?" Reed asked.

"
Yes, that's right." I wondered how he knew.

"
Lexi told me." He smiled gently.

The driver and I exchanged a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
"901 Routon Street."

I sat back in the seat and folded my hands into my lap, squeezing harder and harder with each second that passed. My eyes were focused out the window and my nerves grew with the lingering silence. Even though the silence was torture, for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a word to say.

"
She told you, didn't she?" Reed finally asked in a gentle voice. I turned to look at him. "She told you about that night." He swallowed deeply, almost as if he were trying to push his emotions back down.

Not knowing what to say and afraid of what emotions were displaying on my face, I turned to look out the window again, watching the city lights blur by us.

"
You're the first person she's told," he added.

I turned to him again, not really understanding what he meant by that.

"
In two years since it happened … she hasn't spoken to anyone about it?" I asked, confused.

"
She's talked to lots of people. The cops, therapists, me… but she hasn't been able to tell anyone the details of what really happened. It was too much for her."

My chest suddenly felt heavy, like I was now sharing this horrible burden with her. I couldn't blame her for not talking about. The things she told me… they were horrific. Then I wondered,
why would she tell me? We've only known each other for a few months.

"
Earlier tonight, when Lexi laughed out loud," he said, "I haven't heard her laugh like that since before it happened. It felt so good to hear it again."

There was a strange urge for me to reach out and grab his hand. For some reason, I found myself wanting to comfort him. Even though he wasn't there the night of the attack, he had suffered a great loss, too.

"
She's been better the last few months. I think I owe a lot of that to you. She started to change once she started that class."

I sat there quietly and listened as he spoke. I didn’t know what I had done to earn Lexi's trust, but I was glad she felt like she had someone to talk to. I was glad I could be that person for her.

"
It's one of the reasons I decided to come back to New York." He continued. "Before, it was too difficult to see her. It broke me every time I looked at her. A few months ago, when she called me, she sounded different. She sounded happy. She mentioned the class she was going to and the people she’d met." His eyes drifted to look out the window.

"
I'm so sorry for what happened to your family." The words came out of my mouth before I even realized what I was saying. I just felt like I needed to say
something
.

His eyes glossed over like his mind went somewhere else for a minute. Guilt filled me; I regretted saying anything. I should have just kept my mouth shut and let him talk.

"
I've been so closed off the last couple of years. I left her here, all alone. I thought I lost her."

"
She's been doing really well." Before I could even think about what I was doing, my hand moved across the leather seat and grabbed his. It felt strong and warm. "You lost your family that night. It's understandable that you ran. I'd run, too." His head turned toward me, but his eyes were drawn down to our joined hands. My eyes quickly followed. I wasn’t sure why I had reached out to touch him. It wasn’t like me to touch someone I barely knew. I just wanted to try and ease some of the pain that he was so clearly feeling. It felt like the right move at the moment, and looking at my hand on top of his, it felt right now, too.

The car pulled to a stop in front of my building and I gently pulled my hand away, instantly missing his warmth.

"
Thank you for the ride," I said, looking at him for only a second.

"
Thank you for allowing me a much more peaceful night’s sleep." He smiled.

"
Goodnight."

"
Goodnight, Emily." His voice was sad, distant.

After I was safely inside my apartment, I slammed the door behind me and locked it. I leaned up against the wall, sank down to the floor, and burst into tears. The tears came out in deep, heavy sobs. I hadn't allowed myself to cry since the night I left Vegas. I kept telling myself that crying was weak and I wasn't weak anymore, but the things I heard tonight were just too much.

An hour later, when I finally pulled myself up off the floor, I took a long shower, knowing there was no way I was going to be able to sleep right away. With the stuff Lexi had told me tonight, I wasn't sure I'd sleep at all. Instead, I made myself some tea and then sat on my bed with my laptop open. I swirled the bag of chamomile around in my cup, trying to resist the urge to look up the Alexander family on the computer.
Do I really want to know more? Do I need that kind of horror in my life?

The cursor blinked on the search engine over and over until I finally had the courage to type the words,
Alexander family, New York City
.

Four beautiful faces popped up on my screen. Two of them looked familiar, Reed and Lexi, but even then, they looked different. In this picture, Reed and Lexi were smiling. They were happy. The right side of Lexi's face matched the left, no traces of scars from a fire. Her eyes were brighter and not full of the sadness that was accustomed to her eyes now. Reed's physical features hadn't changed much, but his eyes were colder now, missing something that, more than likely, he would never get back.

I could only look at the picture of the older man and woman for a split second. It hurt too much. Instead, my eyes scanned over the screen and I clicked on the article in the
New York Times
.

I
T WASN'T
my alarm clock that woke me up in the morning. It was the feeling of hands being wrapped around my neck, choking me. The harder I fought, the tighter the cold hands squeezed. It was as if I could feel the life being sucked out of me. I fought to open my eyes and when they finally popped opened, there was only darkness. My heart raced and I tried to focus. I tried to remember the moves I'd been taught in my self-defense classes.

"
You're dead," Jake's voice rang loudly in my ears; his face finally came into view. He stood over me, his dark, soulless eyes looking down on me. He let go of my neck and I started taking in a few gasping breaths. His arm reared back and I saw his hand coming toward me, hard and fast. I was frozen in place. I couldn't fight back. I was weak and pathetic, just like he had told me so many times before. Just before his hand made contact with my face, my eyes popped open, for real this time.

Gasping for air, I flew up in bed, drenched in sweat. My eyes moved around the room as I desperately tried to prove to myself that I was at my apartment in New York, not in Vegas with Jake. The small, white lamp on my nightstand was glowing, allowing me to see my room clearly. It was still difficult for me to fall asleep in complete darkness. My eyes moved across my room, seeing my clothes from the day before slung across the chair in the corner and my makeup scattered across the dresser in front of me. Jake would’ve never allowed our room to look like this. He was too much of a control freak to let things not be in perfect order. When the realization finally hit me that I was safe and Jake was nowhere in sight, I fell back on my pillow and let out a long, shaky breath. It must have been the articles I read last night.

As I lay there, I stared at the ceiling. My eyes traced every crack and watermark above. It was something I did over the past few months when I couldn't sleep. I tried to forget about my nightmare and about Jake, but then my thoughts drifted to Lexi and her family and then finally how things felt between Reed and me last night. Did I make a mistake in grabbing his hand? Was it too much? It was just a small gesture meant to give him comfort, but there was no doubt I had felt the connection between us. Deep down, I knew whatever I was feeling was wrong. It wasn’t the right time for me to start having feelings like that for someone and especially not for someone like Reed. His life was complicated and way too public.

I knew I was already in too deep to totally back out now. Lexi had told me things that she hadn’t told anyone before. She trusted me.

My mind drifted back to the things I read in the
New York Times
. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing it was a mistake to look up their story and an even bigger one to sit there and read about it for over an hour. However, once I got started, I couldn't stop. The stories on the Internet weren't nearly as descriptive as the story that Lexi told me, but the newspapers did speak more about the attackers, something Lexi had failed to mention.

According to the investigators, the attack on the Alexander family wasn't random, but they weren't targeted for any personal reason. They had been chosen because of their success and wealth. The investigators ruled that the motive was robbery and nothing more. If the Alexanders had just returned home a few minutes later, Lexi's parents would probably be alive and Lexi wouldn't have had the scars on her body, or the scars that lay beneath her skin's surface.

There were three attackers, and all of them were career criminals, but in all of their past robberies, they had never committed murder. The detectives believed that was even more reason to deem that the Alexanders just came home a few minutes too soon. After a two-week manhunt, the three men were finally found and arrested.

It made my stomach turn trying to imagine what Lexi had gone through those first couple weeks, knowing the men who killed her parents, and tried to kill her, were still out there.

According to the papers, there were three trials, one for each of the perpetrators. It was reported that the trials were long, graphic, and pure torture for Reed and Lexi, but the both of them sat through all of them, determined to see justice for their parents. All three men were convicted and were now serving life sentences with no chance to see freedom ever again.

After tossing and turning for the rest of the morning, I knew there was no way in hell I was going back to sleep. I got ready for work, eager to get to the office, more determined than ever to make this event amazing for Lexi, and for Reed. I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted it to be beautiful.

"G
OOD MORNING
… er, maybe not," Isabel said after taking one look at me when I walked into the office. "Are you okay? You don't look so good."