I placed my palm against the glass.
In the minutes since I’d left my apartment a downpour had descended upon us.
The rain beat against the glass, the sky a stormy dark gray, and the leaves blew around dangerously from the wind.
Caelan didn’t say anything, but I felt him behind me.
He might have hurt me in the past, but I felt safer with him than I ever had with anyone else.
His presence reassured me and gave me the confidence to speak.
“You know I was adopted,” I whispered, my throat catching. “I always knew I was adopted. It was pretty obvious,” I shrugged. “I look nothing like my adoptive parents. They’re good people and they loved me like I really was their daughter. I always felt wanted and cared for. There were times where I missed my birth parents, where I wondered what my life had been like if they’d lived…” I wet my suddenly dry lips with a flick of my tongue. “I wondered that a lot as I got older,” I huffed. I watched the rain beat against the glass for a moment, marveling in how cold my hand had become from the rain-slicked surface. “They have a son, Marcus. He…never liked me, to put it simply,” I laughed. “He wished I never came along and disrupted his perfect life. Suddenly, he wasn’t the center of his parent’s universe and he didn’t handle it well. He was four years older than me.” I tapped my finger against the glass and closed my eyes. Tap. Tap. Tap. “It started out with typical childish pranks at first. It didn’t take long till they escalated.” I swallowed thickly. “When I was eight he pushed me out of our tree house. I wonder if he hoped it would kill me,” I snorted, shaking my head as a disgruntled smile settled on my lips. “I ended up with a broken collar bone. He told his parent’s it was an accident. They believed him, of course, and I was too scared to tell them the truth. I thought if I did, they’d toss me to the side. After all, I wasn’t their biological child.”
I took another deep breath and turned away from the window. I sank down on the floor, drawing my legs up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them protectively. I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and roll away. I was good at hiding. It’s what I’d done my whole life until…well, until.
“I slowly pulled myself away from them, from my adoptive parents. I thought if I didn’t care about them, if I stayed away from family activities, that Marcus would eventually grow bored with terrorizing me. I was wrong,” I mumbled as Caelan sat down across from me. He listened carefully to every word I said like it was precious. I was surprised by how intent he was. He didn’t appear to be bored just…concerned. Caelan Gregory concerned? It was a laughable concept. My oh my how things had changed since summer.
“Marcus was very popular in school, and he always made sure that everyone hated me. I had no parents and then I had no friends. I was alone, just the way he wanted. With no one to trust and no one to talk to about my problems.” I picked at the hole in my jeans to have something to busy myself with. “He made me hate myself. I thought about killing myself at least once every single day. The only thing that stopped me,” I finally looked up at Caelan once more, “was that then, I’d be letting him win. I couldn’t give him that satisfaction.” My lower lip trembled and tears began to leak out of the corners of my eyes. I wiped them away, my breath coming out shaky. “He took everything from me. Happiness. Love. Friendship. Hope. Even my virginity,” I said the words steadily, waiting for a reaction, but he didn’t flinch at my words. “When I was twelve years old, just a little kid, he held me down and he raped me. I cried, I screamed, I bit him. He didn’t stop. He didn’t care. And you know what he did?” I sobbed, unable to keep my emotions in check any longer. “He fucking laughed at me. He laughed! When he was done, he told me it was my fault that he had to do it and not tell anyone, because they wouldn’t believe me and they’d hate me even more. So, I didn’t. Not then. Not the next time. Or the next. I eventually lost count. I eventually stopped fighting him too. I gave in to what was unavoidable, because he’d already accomplished it—he destroyed my soul.”
Shaking all over, I wiped my tears away, my hand coming away wet.
“I dreaded going to my room at night, just waiting for the knob to twist. I never knew when he’d come, so I’d lie there, staring at the door, praying that it didn’t open. And when it did, my heart would stop. In those moments, I’d wonder why I hadn’t ended my life yet.” I let out a soft laugh that held no humor. “You were right when you said that staying alive is the punishment. It really is. Every day of my life was a fucking nightmare. There were so many times where all I could think about was the different ways I could end my life. I could hang myself, maybe even drown in the swimming pool, or jump off the roof. The possibilities were endless. But I never did it.” I leaned my head against the wall, trying to regroup. “The rape went on for years, even after he went to college, when he returned home he was back at it. Sometimes,” I closed my eyes, “it still feels like his hands are on me. I guess I have him to blame for my need for rough sex. He always hurt me, so having someone be…gentle…it just seems wrong now. I feel like I need to be punished over and over again. Sick, I know.” Caelan watched me closely, but didn’t say a word. I appreciated that. He was going to let me get it all out. “He turned me into this person that…” I paused, frantically searching for the words to describe myself, and coming up empty.
“You don’t even know?” Caelan supplied, his voice no more than a whisper.
“Yes, exactly,” I nodded. “If he hadn’t hurt me, over and over again, I wouldn’t be so fucked up. But then again…if he hadn’t done that to me…I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Caelan shook his head. “Here isn’t a very good place.”
“I think it is.”
He shook his head once more, muttering unintelligibly under his breath. Finally, he looked me in the eye, and said, “There’s more.”
Of course he wouldn’t pose it as a question. He could see straight through me. I was always able to keep my thoughts and emotions in check—no one being able to see what lurked behind the depths, but Caelan he saw it all, even more than what I meant to show him.
“I…I finally got the courage to tell them…my adoptive parents and my boyfriend.” I frowned, looking down at my hands that were clenched tightly into fists. “No one took it well. My parent’s called me a liar and told me to get out of the house. My boyfriend, Brandon,” I forced his name past parched lips, “he never looked at me the same after that. It was like I was suddenly…tainted or something. He made me feel dirty and like I wasn’t good enough. We grew apart, but didn’t break up. I don’t know why,” I snorted, shaking my head. “I loved him, I did, but I was never in love with him. I was too foolish to see the difference. I craved the stability a relationship provided, but we weren’t good for each other. I was too damaged and he was too concerned with upholding his public image—because Lord knows he was a fucking prick behind closed doors. I would’ve left him, eventually, but catching him with my best friend was the final straw. I couldn’t keep torturing myself over something that was never real.” Tracing my finger along a groove in the wood floors, I continued, “So, I packed up my stuff, sold what wouldn’t fit in my car, and left. I didn’t tell anyone where I went. I didn’t want word to get back to him.”
Caelan nodded in understanding.
“My parent’s haven’t tried to contact me once since I told them. I guess I should have expected it. He is their flesh and blood. But it hurts, you know? They raised me as their child and when I finally worked up the courage to tell them the truth, they called me a liar and an attention seeker.” I rubbed my fingers over the raised scar on my arm. “I wish I was lying about it. No one should ever have to go through something like that.” Leaning my head against the wall, I said, “Everyone in my life who I should’ve been able to trust and believe in, has let me down. It really fucking sucks. But you have to deal with it.”
Caelan was quiet then, and so was I. The only sounds that filled the apartment was the quiet whir of a floor fan in the corner and t
he symphony of our breaths.
I kept waiting to see the pity in his eyes or—God forbid—loathing. I hated myself more than anything. I didn’t need other people to too.
Without speaking, he slid across the floor to sit beside me. One arm wrapped around me and with his other hand he coaxed me to rest my head on his shoulder. I was surprised by the comfort he offered. Caelan wasn’t the lovey dovey affectionate type and we weren’t a couple. But he knew I needed this.
Silent tears streamed from my eyes.
I always tried to keep everything bottled inside, but it could be really hard. Sometimes you had to let it all out.
“Do you ever hear from him?” Caelan finally asked.
“From Brandon?” I sniffled, wiping away the moisture from my cheeks.
“No,” I felt him shake his head, “from Marcus.”