Worth It

“I just didn’t recognize him,” I argued. “He looked so different, and acted so different. The last time I saw him, he was eighteen, and I swear he’s grown, like, four inches, and about a million new muscles. His hair was longer then, and he just...he wasn’t like he is now. Not at all.”

“So you knew him before he was arrested?” Aspen asked.

I sighed. “I was the reason he was arrested.”

“Wait.” Noel held up a hand, shaking his head. “He told us he’d served time for rape and murder.”

“Yeah.” I sniffed and wiped at my wet cheeks. “I was sixteen. He was eighteen. Our families hated each other. When my brothers caught us together, that was it. End of story.”

Aspen shook her head, slowly. “How is that even remotely the end of the story? And how did he get six years for statutory rape when you two were so close in age? I’ve heard of guys barely getting a slap on the hand for it, but never six years.”

“And where did the murder part come in?” Noel asked. “Who’d he kill?”

Falling back in my seat, I hugged myself. “Look, I don’t know most of those answers. They hauled me off, and I barely got to see him one last time before the sheriff arrived and took him away. But I assume my father threatened him or his family somehow to get him to confess to a forcible rape, because that’s what the idiot did, which gave him four years. And then, a few weeks before he was due to be released, he killed two men on the inside. I assume it was self-defense, because he’s not a murderer. I don’t know how he only ended up with two years for that. I just know he’s out now, and I have no idea how it happened, because he was supposed to have over twenty years left.”

“Wow,” Aspen murmured. “And you’re just now telling me all this?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you.”

After blinking a few more times and then blowing out a breath, she nodded. “It’s okay. I haven’t exactly told you everything about myself either.” A blush of guilt crossed her face before she blurted, “I was Noel’s teacher.”

My mouth fell open. “Huh?”

“In college. I was his English professor. He was my student.”

“But...” I shook my head. “How is that possible? Are you even older than him?”

While Noel barked out a laugh, Aspen blushed. “The point is, I understand your silence. We both needed more time before unloading our bigger secrets on each other.”

Boy, was she right.

“I still can’t believe you and Parker...” Noel blew out a breath and shook his head. “Wow. You’re just...not a couple I’d ever imagine paired up.”

I swallowed, a little crushed to hear that. “He’s a completely different person now than he was then.”

“So he didn’t rage out and destroy property back when you knew him?”

I winced. “So you heard what he did to the break room, huh?”

Noel lifted his eyebrows. “No. I was referring to what he did to Pick’s office Thursday night.”

After he told me how Knox had given Ten a black eye and destroyed Pick’s desk and computer, I covered my mouth with my hand.

Maybe this was why he kept pushing me away.

“You know,” I said. “After some soldiers come home from war, they’re all messed up from being so constantly in fight-mode, thinking of nothing but survival and focusing on the enemy. Maybe...maybe prison was just a different kind of battle.” Glancing at Aspen, I cringed. “He didn’t have that scar before he went in. And he killed two people while he was there. It couldn’t have been pleasant for him.”

She sent me a sympathetic look and patted my hand. “Sounds like you could be on to something.”

“Which means you need to stay away from him,” Noel said, his voice stern. “If whatever happened to him left him this unstable, then he’s a danger to himself and everyone around him.”

I frowned and opened my mouth to defend him, but then I remembered Ten’s bruise, the wildness in Knox’s eyes when he’d been terrorizing the break room. And I remembered the last words he’d said to me last night, that he couldn’t ever be with me, not that he didn’t want to be with me. That he couldn’t.

Maybe he felt the same way that Noel was suggesting, that he feared he was so unhinged he might be a danger to me.

I slumped into my chair, not sure how to overcome an obstacle like that. I remembered what Knox was like when he went into his protective mode, and he was fierce about it. If he thought he was guarding me from himself, there may never be a way to break through his stubborn resistance to convince him he didn’t need to.