Beautifully Broken

“You don’t want to know. Trust me. It wasn’t really a dream. More like a memory.”

“About some guy named Steve?”

“Stephen,” I correct. “He was my boyfriend during freshman year. It was a really bad break up. He’s the reason why I don’t date.”

“Well, now I really want to know.”

I sigh. “Gavin, please…don’t. I don’t like thinking about it, let alone talking about it. I like the way you look at me now. That would change if you knew.”

He brushes his fingers through my hair. “Kat, I promise that nothing you can say will change how I feel about you.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I argue. “I already told you…I’m damaged goods.”

“And I already told you…I don’t care. I want to know what makes you tick. Whatever happened back then, obviously still affects you now. You’re already thinking about it—or at least your subconscious is. I want to know you. If possible, I want to help you. I can’t do that if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

His sincerity is obvious but I still hesitate. Not many people know the truth about what happened—not even Bree or Dylan. Sure, they’ve all heard rumors at one point or another—the whole town has. But the only people who know the true extent of my living nightmare are the people who were directly involved. Since I was a minor at the time, my name was hidden from the media. It didn’t stop the speculation, though, once a quarter of the soccer team wound up in jail and I became pregnant.

Since Stephen and his friends were old enough to be tried as adults, they weren’t spared in the least. Neither was my foster father, Pete. It wasn’t that hard to connect the dots, especially since his wife, Judy was incredibly vocal about blaming me for his arrest. She couldn’t accept the fact that her husband could be such a pervert. She went from doting mother one minute to woman scorned the next, publicly shaming me, trying to convince everyone that I put him up to it, despite piles of evidence to the contrary. The only reason Gavin is so clueless is because he’s new to town. I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before he hears something.

I sigh deeply, accepting the fact that I’d rather have him hear it from me than anyone else. I roll over, thinking that it would be easier to get it all out if I don’t have to face him. Gavin allows me to look away but he doesn’t tolerate any distance. He scoots right behind me and wraps his arms around my midsection.

“When I was fifteen, I lived with a really great foster family…people that I thought were great anyway. They were the only solid examples of parents that I had ever had. I had been with them for about six months before my world was turned upside down.”

“What does that have to do with Stephen?”

“I’m getting to that,” I reply. “Please, Gavin. Just let me say this before I change my mind.”

He kisses the back of my shoulder. “I’m sorry for interrupting. Please go on.”

“Anyway…one night the Andersons were gone—Judy and Pete. They were going to be away all night so my boyfriend, Stephen, convinced me to invite a few of his friends over. They were drinking and doing something similar to Ecstasy. I had been slowly sipping on a beer but that’s it. Until Stephen drugged me.”

I feel Gavin stiffen but he doesn’t say a word.

“I was mad when I figured out what had happened…but a little while later, my anger melted away. Stephen and I started fooling around and it felt really good. I know now that it was the drugs enhancing the sensations, but I didn’t consider that at the time. All I know is that I wanted him. I was a virgin but I thought he loved me. I was prepared to give him my virginity right then and there. When he began undressing me, one of his friends said something, reminding me that we had an audience. I told Stephen I wanted to stop but…he didn’t.”

Gavin tightens his arms around me. “What do you mean he didn’t? He didn’t want to stop?”

“No, he didn’t. Neither did his friends.”

I hear his teeth grinding. “Kat, I really need you to finish this story because I’m imagining all sorts of horrible things that I hope to God aren’t true.”

“Your imagination probably isn’t too far from the truth. It took me a while to see it this way…but the night I lost my virginity…I was raped. By four high school boys.”

His head falls between my shoulder blades. “Jesus.” He kisses my back and adds, “Kat, I don’t know what to say. All I have are useless platitudes.”

I laugh mirthlessly. “Oh, just wait. It gets worse.”

“How could it possibly get worse than that?”

“My foster dad, Pete, had an internet-based business that wasn’t very…legal. He was busted for distributing child pornography during a state-wide sting. There were a bunch of videos online—naked, private videos. I wasn’t his first victim. It turns out, he’d been recording their foster daughters for years. He had hidden cameras in the shower, my bedroom, and the basement. I’m sure you can imagine some of the content considering we were all at the perfect age to discover our hormones. What we thought was private…wasn’t. The entire incident with Stephen was caught on camera and released with the lovely title, Virgin Gangbang. Pete turned me into an amateur porn star and I had no clue. According to the feds, my series was very popular.”

“Fuck,” Gavin says.

“Oh, there’s more.”

“Are you kidding?” He is incredulous.

“I wish,” I say. “Like I said before, I didn’t see it as rape at the time. Afterwards, Stephen had convinced me that I wanted it. I had to have wanted it because I was wet…and I came. A lot. I never fought them off—never even tried beyond muttered protests. I just laid there in a dream-like state taking them into my body. Every part of my body, Gavin. In retrospect, I know it was the drugs, but I continued having sex with Stephen for weeks until the video surfaced and the police got involved. I was blinded by my desperation to be loved.”