"You need to,” he says and walks over to stand in front of me. “There are so many holes in her story it’s not funny. And frankly"—he shakes his head—“I’m not sure I want to know them. But for her, for right now, you need to be strong."
"I can tell you what isn’t in those stories." I look at him. “There is no one tucking her in at night and telling her good night. There is no one telling her that they love her. No one kissing her when she got hurt. No one protecting her. No one." My voice drops to a whisper. “She had none of that." My heart shatters when I get the full picture.
"I know,” he says. “Trust me, I know, and I am going to be real with you right now. I don’t even think we heard the worst of it."
I swallow down the bile coming up my throat. “It’s a good thing that son of a bitch is dead," I say, my hands going to fists at my sides. “It’s a good thing they’re both dead because …"
"I know,” he says, slapping my shoulder with his hand and squeezing it. The love from him is apparent, love she never felt. “Now we need to get in there and listen to the rest of the story."
I nod and take a deep breath before turning around and walking back into the room. My eyes go to hers as she avoids looking at me. “Okay, if it’s alright," Jacob says, “I’m going to just ask you some timeline questions. Just so we can clear up some things and make sure you weren’t involved."
"You’re kidding, right?" Mayson says with his hands on his hips.
"Isn’t it enough?" I say, my voice not coming out as soft as I wanted it to. “Didn’t you get everything you were looking for?"
"It’s fine,” Willow says. “But I have a question." I look at her and see she is afraid to ask it. “There was a black backpack."
"I have it," Mayson says. I can see her eyes fill with tears, but she blinks them away as fast as they come.
"Would I be able to get it back?" she asks and holds her breath.
"I’ll bring it to you tonight,” he says. She looks down, and I see a tear fall on her hand.
"You said that your mother met Benjamin," Jacob starts, and she nods.
"They met at a bar, I think, or a party. I have no idea,” she says. “He came home one day and never left. They would get high together, drink together. I tried to stay out of sight. They let me go to school for a bit, but then, well, a teacher noticed the bruises and started to ask questions. They yanked me out and homeschooled me. I managed to do online classes and graduated at sixteen." I smile at her. Even with everything stacked against her, she managed to do all of that.
"Do you know when he changed his name?" he asks, and she nods.
"Oh, yeah,” she says. “He had a roaring good time. Then the high left, and I couldn’t find his new credit card, so he broke four of my fingers." She holds up her right hand. “I had to use popsicle sticks and tape to get them back to normal. Listen, I know you are trying to piece stuff together, and if you haven’t figured it out, it wasn’t good. Nothing in the last eight years was good." She sounds tired, tired and frustrated, and at the edge of a breakdown, but she refuses to let anyone see it.
“He would use my mother against me. If I didn’t do what he wanted, he would hurt her. At first, I protected her." She looks down. “Then …" She laughs as tears stream down her face. “Then she would sell me out. Tell him things I loved so he would keep them from me. Like water. Like a bed. Like food. Like a shower. They would dangle a simple shower in front of me until I gave in and gave them whatever it was that they wanted." She holds her head high. "Things were calm for two months. The credit cards would then be maxed out, and he would have no money until another one would come in. And then the rent was due, so we would have to be ready to move in the middle of the night."
"Your mother passed away," Jacob says, and I look at her.
"Rosalie is not my mother," she corrects him. “A mother doesn’t treat a child like that." I don’t know if I can stand much longer. I look over at my father, who can feel that my strings are about to snap.
"When Rosalie passed away, where were you?" he asks, and I see her look down and then up again.