“Don’t you dare apologize,” she cut in, her voice razor sharp. “I’m sorry means absolutely f**king nothing to me.”
My mouth hung open as I shook my head, which was stupid, because it wasn’t like she could see any of that.
“You’re a f**king lying whore. Because of you—”
“Hey! Seriously. You’re calling me a whore? You have to see how messed up that is.” My hand tightened around the phone. “Honestly, every single disgusting message you have sent me is messed up. And I don’t even understand why you’d do this.”
“Why?” Her voice turned shrill. “Are you f**king serious?”
“Yes!”
There was an audible breath. “Tell me on thing. What was true? What you told the police or what Blaine told every one?”
I sucked in a breath.
“Which is it, Avery? Because if it was true, why did you drop the charges knowing what he was capable of? Because you had to know that there was something wrong with him and that he’d do it again.”
My shoulders caved in and I whispered, “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand completely. Either way, you’re a liar.” Molly’s breath crackled over the phone. “Do you know why I wanted to get in contact with you? Because I needed to talk to someone who’d been through what I had been through and I thought—” Her voice cracked. “It doesn’t matter what I thought or why I did. You didn’t even take the time to read a single, f**king email. The least you could do is to tell me the truth.”
I closed my eyes, resting my forehead on my palm. My head was still spinning from what happened with Cam and this blew my mind. There had been so many emails from accounts I didn’t recognize. Many with my name as the subject or Blaine’s. And I hadn’t opened them because I hadn’t wanted to deal with it, but I never thought it was her.
Then again, would that really have changed anything? Would I have opened them and reached out to her? Legal aspects of the non-disclosure aside, would I?
I’d be lying if I said I thought I would.
“Are you there?” Molly demanded.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat, lifting my head. The ball in my chest unraveled a little. “I didn’t lie.”
“So it was true?” Her voice sounded closer to the phone. “And you dropped the charges.”
My body tensed like a coiled rope. “Yes, but you—”
“Why would you do that?” Her voice was raw. “How could you? How could stay silent this long?”
“I—”
“You’re a coward. You cling to your silence because you’re a coward! You’re still the same scared, fourteen year old girl pretending to be over it years later!” she shouted, and my ear popped. “This happened to me because you didn’t tell the truth. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but that’s the truth. And we both know it.”
Molly hung on me.
I sat there, staring at my phone. Anger still boiled inside me, but some of what she had said had sunken through the red haze and it made sense.
“You cling to your silence because you’re a coward! You’re still the same scared, fourteen year old girl pretending to be over it years later!”
She was right.
God, she was so right. All these years and I had never uttered the words since that night. I was too scared to tell anyone, to even tell Cam. And that was why he’d walked out of here, because he had also been right. I hadn’t let go of the past and there was no future unless I did so. All I’d been doing this entire time was pretending—pretending to be okay, to be completely happy, to be a survivor.
And I wasn’t a survivor. For too many years, I’d been nothing more than a victim on the road.
Molly didn’t know the whole story. Probably wouldn’t change anything if she did, but surviving and being a survivor were two different things. That’s what I’d been doing this whole time. Just surviving, waiting for the day when what Blaine had done to me would not tarnish everything that was good in my life.
I dropped my head into my hands. Tears welled up in my eyes.
Instead, there were things I could’ve done differently. I couldn’t change what had happened to me, but I could’ve changed the way I reacted, especially now when I was so far away from those who had hindered any attempts to overcome it. But to be honest, it was more than that. It had always been more than Blaine. It had been my parents—it had been me.
The only way I could truly move on was to confront what had happened, to do something I had been punished for doing in the first place.
It wasn’t the past that was coming between us.
It was the present.
Cam had been right.
Suddenly, I shot to my feet. I was moving before I knew what I was doing. It was when I stood in front of Cam’s apartment door that my heart leapt in my throat. It was probably too late for us, but if I told him—if I could explain myself—then that was a start. Either way, I owed it to Cam.
I owed it to myself.
I knocked and heard footsteps a few seconds later. The door swung open, revealing Cam. His eyes immediately closed and his mouth opened, and I knew he was going to tell me to leave.
“Can we talk?” I asked, voice cracking halfway through. “Please, Cam. I won’t take up much of your time. I just—”
Cam’s eyes flew open and then narrowed on me. “Are you okay, Avery?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Part of me wanted to turn and go back to my apartment, but I refused to allow myself to run. Not anymore. “I just need to talk to you.”
Taking a deep breath, he stepped aside. “Ollie’s not here.”
Relieved that he hadn’t shut the door in my face, I followed him into the living room. Cam picked up the remote, muting the TV as he sat on the couch. “What’s going on, Avery?” he asked, and his tone suggested that he didn’t expect me to answer truthfully, and that hurt.
It hurt because he had no reason to expect me to be upfront about anything.
I sat on the edge of the recliner, unsure of where to start. “Everything.” And that was all I could say at first. “Everything.”
Cam scooted forward, twisting the cap he wore backward. An adorable habit that said he was paying attention. “Avery, what’s going on?”
“I haven’t been honest with you and I’m sorry.” My lower lip started to tremble and I knew I was seconds from losing it. “I’m so sorry, and you probably don’t have time for—”
“I have time for you, Avery.” He met my gaze with a steady one. “You want to talk to me, I’m here. I’ve been here. And I’m listening.”
As he held my gaze, fight or flight kicked. Instinct. Run. Don’t deal with it. But Cam kept holding my gaze and something unlocked inside me. It wasn’t easy, but the words were tumbling up. I wouldn’t run.
Calmness settled over me and when I took a breath, it came out slowly. “When I was fourteen, I went to this party on Halloween,” I heard myself saying, sounding as if I were in a tunnel. “I was there with my friends. We were all dressed up and there was this guy there. It was his house and… and he was three years older than me and friends with my cousin.”
I took another deep breath, my gaze dropping to my hands. “He was really popular. So was I.” A dry, humorless laugh came out. “That might not seem important, but it was. I never thought someone like him could do—could be like he was. And maybe that was stupid of me, like a fatal flaw or something. I don’t know.” I gave a little shake of my head as I looked up. “I was talking to him and I was drinking, but I wasn’t drunk. I swear to you, I wasn’t drunk.”
“I believe you, Avery.” Cam closed his eyes briefly as he steepled his fingers under his chin. “What happened?”
“We were flirting and it was fun. You know, I didn’t think anything of it. He was a good guy and he was a good-looking guy. At one point, he pulled me into his lap and someone took our picture. We were having fun.” I laughed again, another harsh sound. “When he got up and pulled me into one of the empty guest rooms that was on the ground floor, I didn’t think anything of it. We sat on the couch and talked for a little while. Then he put his arms around me.” I rubbed my hands together continuously, hoping to ease the knots forming in my stomach. “At first I didn’t mind, but he started doing things I didn’t want him to. I told him to stop and he laughed it off. I started crying and I tried to get away from him, but he was stronger than me, and once he got me on my stomach, I couldn’t do anything really, but to tell him to stop.”
Cam had gone very still. The only way I could tell he was breathing was because of the steady thrumming of the muscle along his jaw. “Did he stop?”
“He didn’t,” I said quietly. “He never stopped no matter what I did.”
A moment passed and Cam straightened. He looked like he wanted to stand but changed his mind. “He raped you?”
Closing my eyes, I nodded. Talking about it, it was almost like I could feel Blaine’s hands. “I am still a virgin.” I forced my eyes open. “He didn’t touch me there. That’s not how he… raped me.”
Cam stared at me, and I saw the moment he understood. Comprehension flared in his eyes. His hands closed into fists in his lap. The muscle is jaw sped up. “Son of a bitch,” he said, lips thin. “You were fourteen and he did that to you?”
“Yeah.” The knots in my stomach grew.
Another moment passed and Cam thrust his hand through his hair. “Shit. Avery. I suspected something. I thought that something like that might have happened to you.”
I wrapped my arms around my waist. “You did?”
He nodded. “It was the way you acted sometimes. How jumpy you could be, but I’d just hoped it didn’t go that far. And when you told me you were still a virgin, I thought that was the case.”
That was an understandable assumption.
“Avery, I’m so, so sorry. You should have never had to go through something like that, especially at that age…” His jaw clenched down and he looked like he was going to stand again but stopped. “Please tell me that mother f**ker is in jail for this.”
“He is now.” I focused on the muted TV. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.” When I didn’t say anything, his spoke again and his voice sounded strained. “What else, Avery? Please talk to me, because I’m seconds away from booking a flight to Texas and killing a mother f**ker.”
I rocked back, pulling my knees to my chest. Knowing that I owed him everything, I took another deep breath. “After he stopped, I really don’t think he had a clue that he’d done anything wrong. He just left me there on this couch and when I could get up, I knew I needed to tell someone. I knew I needed to go to the hospital. I was in so much…” I squeezed my eyes shut as a shudder rocked through me. The following minutes after Blaine had left me had been as horrifying as the attacked. “I couldn’t find my friends, but I found my purse, and I ended up walking out of the house and I kept walking until I remembered I had my phone with me. I called 911.”