Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jenna
“Holy shit, what are you, some kind of master Connect Four champion?”
I laughed. “Tyler’s five years younger than me. It’s one of the few games we could play together.”
“Ask me a question.”
Hmm. I knew he was going to ask about Brian, but still, maybe if I made his questions less personal, he’d spare me. “If you could spend the day with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?”
“That’s easy. My team. I’d give anything for another chance to see them. Talk to them, tell them how I check in with their families, and that I’d do anything if they needed me. Apologize.”
“Liam,” I whispered, reaching across the table for his hand, my throat tight and my heart heavy.
“I love that you take care of their families, and they’d love that too, but you have nothing to apologize for.
You did everything you could to keep them safe for as long as you were with them. You’re allowed to leave.”
He shrugged, his eyes shiny with tears he didn’t try to hide. “We were a team.”
I couldn’t just sit there while he looked like that.
I walked around the table and wrapped my arms around him.
He leaned his head on my chest, his arms around my waist. I ran my fingers through his hair, and after a long moment of him being more open and vulnerable than I would have expected, he tilted his head up to look at me, his eyes dry but swirling with emotion.
“Thank you, Firefly.” He straightened up and brushed his lips against mine in a quick kiss. “Want to play again?”
“Sure. I’ll go easier on you next time,” I teased.
“Don’t be so cocky. Maybe I’ll beat you.” Liam’s confident smirk was cute, but even though he played like he was drawing up a wartime battle plan, I still beat him easily.
“What’s your dream vacation?” I asked.
“Italy, with you.”
Happiness bubbled up in my chest. With me! “Have you been there before?”
“Twice. With my family when I was a teenager, then with my team when we were in northern Africa and got a week’s R and R.
It’s incredible. There are these spas on the coast with beautiful beaches and hot springs.
There’s so much history to explore, and the food is so fresh and delicious.
I’ll take you to Pompeii and to the street vendors in Naples where I had the best pizza of my life. ”
“That sounds amazing.”
“It is. I loved it with my family, and I loved revisiting those memories with the guys. I…” His voice faded, and he dropped his gaze to the table.
When he met my eyes again, it was with a grimace.
“I’m sorry. I’m going on and on about my happy childhood memories, and you’re waiting to tell me the exact opposite. ”
“No way. Never apologize for the good you’ve had.
That’s what made you the person you are.
I’m sure not everyone on your team had happy family vacations to revisit, and it’s a gift that you shared yours with them.
You couldn’t help what happened before or after you were with them, but I have no doubt that when you were there, not only did you do everything in your power to keep them safe, you also used your positivity to lift them up. ”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, because that’s how you make me feel.”
“Firefly…”
“I’m serious. Can you imagine if everyone was screwed up? Us screwed up people need people like you who can show us how it’s supposed to be. Never feel bad for that.”
He took my hands in his big, warm ones and squeezed gently. “Thank you, Firefly.”
I swallowed. Despite my intentions, things were getting deep. “Want to play again?” I asked to break the tension.
Liam agreed, and near the end of an intense game, he dropped his red piece on top of mine.
I could block his win by going next to it, then he’d block my horizontal trio, and then I’d probably win with the diagonal setup he seemed to have no idea about.
Or…I could pretend not to see it and get his first question over with.
Was winning worth the anxiety churning in my gut?
I dropped my piece on top of his. He put his in the next column over for the win.
“I won,” he said, watching me carefully. I had no doubt that he knew I gave it to him, and also no doubt that he was going to make the most of his question.
I nodded. Waited. Panicked. It’ll be okay. Liam won’t think it was my fault—well, probably not. Although, maybe it wouldn’t matter anyway. It was so impossible to breathe past the giant lump in my throat, I might die before I had to tell him.
“Was it your neighbor?” he asked softly, jumping right in.
I nodded.
“One person or more?”
“One,” I croaked out.
“Breathe, Firefly. You’re doing good.”
I nodded and sucked in a shaky breath. Then another.
“What was his name?”
“Brian.”
His fists clenched, like now that he had a name, he had a person to fight. “How old is Brian?”
“Six years older than me.”
He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “How old were you?”
“It started a little before I turned seven. That’s the first I can remember at least.” I knew that because on my seventh birthday I had a Jasmine cake and I wished for a genie to make Brian go away, but when I blew out my candles and opened my eyes, he was still sitting next to me.
Liam’s hand tightened almost painfully on mine, then quickly gentled again. His jaw was clenched, a muscle in his cheek ticking, but his eyes were soft and sad.
“It’s okay. It wasn’t that bad. He never raped me or anything like that. It was mostly just a lot of touching,” I assured him, rushing to get the ugly words out.
“The word just has no place here, Firefly. I’m glad it wasn’t worse, but whatever it was, it wasn’t just anything. There is no threshold for abuse that is acceptable.”
The words settled deep into a place inside me that had needed to hear them for so long, and suddenly, the pressure in my chest morphed from dread to a desperate need to let it all out.
I wanted to tell him everything. If I told him.
..if he knew...knew me and what I was and wasn’t okay and why, maybe I’d be okay with more. With everything, maybe.
“I’m sorry. That was more than one question.”
Crap, I was quiet for too long, and now he was backpedaling. But I didn’t want to take any of it back. I wanted to barrel full steam ahead.
“Actually, I’d like to tell you more. If you want to hear it, that is.”
“I do. I definitely do. Do you want to stay at the table or go to the couch?”
Sitting at the table was too stiff, too much of him looking straight at me. “The couch.”
Liam led me to his living room, and we sat, angled to face each other. He took both my hands in his. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah.” I blew out a heavy breath and tried to figure out how to start.
“He...um, it started slowly. At first it was just tickles and little touches. Like he was playing, but it felt…weird. I didn’t understand why, though, not right away.
He’d do it in front of our parents too, and no one else thought it was weird.
He’d tell me to sit on his lap while we were watching TV, and even though I didn’t want to, I did. I don’t know why I didn’t say no. I—”
“Because you were a kid,” Liam interrupted. “A little kid.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’d sit on his lap, and I’d feel something poking my backside. I didn’t understand what it was in the beginning, but then once he started…doing more, I knew exactly what it was.”
Liam’s hands tightened around mine, but I kept going. If I stopped, I might not get the nerve to start again.
“Sometimes I said no to him, but sometimes I…” Oh God, of all the things I could have said, why did that come out?
“Nothing was your fault, Firefly. Nothing you say will ever make me think it was.” Oh, how badly I wanted to believe him.
“Sometimes I just did what he wanted. I didn’t want to.
I didn’t like it. But it was…easier. I was so confused about everything, and it just seemed easier to go along with him than to make a big deal of it.
I didn’t want to have to tell them what we did—what I did—and how it felt.
That was scarier than just doing it.” I choked back a sob and closed my eyes for a long moment.
“I thought something was wrong with me for how it made me feel. Brian liked it, obviously, and our parents thought it was cute how close we were and how he was always happy to see me. I was so much younger, I worried I was just being sensitive. That’s what my mom said when I tried to tell her.
But then it got worse, and I knew it was definitely wrong, but I was nervous to tell anyone again. ”
“You told your mom, and she didn’t do anything?” Liam asked, his voice dangerously tight.
I shrugged but didn’t look up. Couldn’t bear to see the look in his eyes.
“When he touched me, it was...” Damn, it was hard to force these words out.
“At that point, it was just...touching. He didn’t.
..penetrate me...or do anything that actually hurt me.
When I told her, I guess it didn’t sound like anything. ”
“How old were you then?”
“Nine.”
“She thought it was okay for a nine year old to be fucking touched?”
I flinched at the venom in his voice. “I...I didn’t know how to describe it. I was confused about what was happening, and my mom’s reaction just confused me more.”
“I’m sorry, Firefly,” he said, his voice gentle. “I’m furious at her. Not you. Never at you.”