“It wasn’t that bad,” she said softly, but her eyes said differently. “He pulled me into his lap, made some lewd gestures and pretty much said I should call him when I turned eighteen.”
“How old were you when it happened?”
She swallowed. “Fourteen.”
I shook my head, my stomach rolling with the threat to overturn the dinner we’d eaten. “I did nothing,” I whispered, ashamed. “I stayed with him and I didn’t come to your defense and I… I was young and scared and confused,” I tried to explain, but it all felt weak and pathetic. “I am so sorry.”
In a flash, Mallory had dried her hands on a dish towel and framed my shoulders with them, bending her neck until I looked her in the eyes.
“Listen to me,” she said sternly. “You do not apologize for him. You understand? It is not your fault. What he did to you, what he did to me, what he did to anyone — it is on him, not on you.”
My eyes welled with tears, but I sniffed them back, unable to respond. It was true what I’d said about not knowing everything. I only had pieces of the puzzle I tried to put together for years. Randy was good at hiding things.
He was good at manipulating me to think I was crazy, too.
But I knew he’d done something inappropriate to Mallory, something that had made everyone in that underground casino that Patrick Scooter liked to run out of his house laugh and jeer and encourage him to push more. But I didn’t know how old she was — just fourteen.
He was twenty-one at the time.
“You are not responsible for his actions. Do you hear me?” she said, pulling me back to the moment with her.
Mallory waited until I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if I agreed.
“I know we have both been through a little bit of hell with that man — you much more than me, I’d imagine. But, as sick as this sounds, I’m not sorry for what he did to me. He opened my eyes that night, Sydney. He gave me a backbone, and for the first time in my life, I started standing up to what was wrong, and standing up for what is right. And look at you,” she said, shaking me a little. “You are an incredible mother, and a bad ass athletic trainer — on a team of men, might I add. I can tell just by looking into your eyes that you are stronger because of what you have been through. Am I wrong?”
I rolled my lips together. I didn’t have to answer.
“You and I?” Mallory whispered. “We are fighters, Sydney. We are warriors. Survivors. You never have to apologize to me, okay? You just have to keep fighting. That is what you owe me — not an apology, but a fight. Because if we don’t fight? Then he wins.”
I swallowed, and Mallory glanced over my shoulder at the dining room before she forced a smile and pulled me in for a hug.
“Now, pretend we were talking about baby stuff,” she whispered through that smile, pulling back on a chuckle. “God, thank you. It feels good to talk to someone who’s been through this stuff.”
“Uh-oh,” Jordan said, grabbing for the whiskey on the counter to refill his glass as he smiled at us. “Baby talk, huh?”
“The good, the bad, and the very ugly baby talk,” Mallory confirmed, and she winked at me as I tried to school my features.
When Jordan’s eyes met with mine, I knew I was doing a terrible job.
I somehow managed to get through the rest of the evening, but when Paige had had her pie and it was halftime on the late game, we took the opportunity to leave — much to her dismay. Jordan could sense that something was off, and I could feel how badly he wanted to touch me, to hold me, to reassure me.
And I wanted the same.
I hugged everyone goodbye — getting an extra-long hug from Jordan’s mom — and Jordan promised to be back bright and early in the morning to help with wedding set-up and final preparations. And of course, the guys would be going out for what Noah claimed would be a “tame” bachelor party tomorrow night.
When we were piled into the car, Jordan and I listened to Paige go on and on about the football games and about every one of Jordan’s brothers and the girls and his mom, too. She talked a lot about Betty, who she wanted to hang out with more, and I smiled and asked questions when appropriate, letting her run the conversation until we pulled into the drive, with Jordan watching me with worry in his eyes the entire way home.
When we got there, I took Paige upstairs and got her ready for bed. She was already softly snoring by the time I shut out her bedroom light after reading to her for not even ten minutes, and I tiptoed down the stairs, finding Jordan on the couch.