Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Salvador cupped his hands over his exposed genitals, straining to breathe. “It’s not what it looks like,” he choked out.
Ransom clutched his throat harder. “The hell it’s not,” he said.
Behind them, Saoirse crawled off the couch and hastily threw on Salvador’s shirt. It dwarfed her, running past her thighs. She was rushing to button it and settled for clutching it closed over her chest with one hand.
“Did he force himself on you?” Ransom asked, turning to look at his sister now that she was half clothed.
Her hair was mussed, her cheeks red and splotchy.
The sight of her made him grip Salvador’s throat harder, and this time, Salvador abandoned any attempt to cover himself and instead tried to pry his neck out of Ransom’s grasp. The veins in his forehead were bulging.
“Stop it,” she pleaded. “Just stop it; you’re hurting him. You’re going to kill him.”
She was looking at Ransom like he was the villain in all this, like he was the aggressor. Like he was scaring her.
Ransom seemed to recover himself then, and he let Salvador go. Salvador slumped forward onto his knees on the floor, coughing and gasping for breath. Saoirse tried to go to him, but Ransom held up his hand in warning, and she stopped, stood still where she was.
“Put your clothes on,” Ransom said to Salvador. “And then get the hell out of my house.”
Behind them, Saoirse let out a yelp like a wounded animal. “You can’t do that,” she said.
Ransom ignored her. He couldn’t even look at her.
“Please, just let me explain,” Salvador said, his voice hoarse. “It’s not what it looks like. I care about her. We’re not just—we’re in love.”
“She’s a child!” Ransom said.
Saoirse tried to go to Salvador again, but Ransom stepped into her path. “Take one more step in his direction,” Ransom said, “and I swear to God I will call the police right now and have him arrested.”
Saoirse froze again. She started to cry.
Salvador picked up his trousers, which lay crumpled on the floor, and hurriedly put them on.
He retrieved his belt off the couch and threaded it hastily into his belt loops, looking around frantically for his shirt.
His eyes fell on Saoirse, and an awkward silence settled as he realized she was wearing it.
“Go,” Ransom hissed. “Leave.”
Salvador opened his mouth to protest, but Ransom took a step toward him, and that was all the threat he needed to turn and make a beeline toward the door.
What the hell just happened? Ransom thought. His heart was hammering in his chest, as if he’d just sprinted a mile. He felt dizzy, lightheaded.
The whole thing felt to him like a sickly, out-of-body experience, a nightmare: watching this full-grown, half-naked man flee and his disheveled sister weep, gasping for breath.
One thought kept echoing in his mind: Salvador was a predator, and Ransom had invited him into his home.
If Ransom had his way, he would have Salvador arrested on the spot, but he knew if he did, he couldn’t keep it out of the papers.
It all came down to this: even in his own house, he could not protect his sister.
“Stop crying,” he said to Saoirse. “He’s a predator. He doesn’t deserve your tears.”
Saoirse’s face was screwed up into a tight knot of fury.
“Where do you get off, treating him like he’s done something wrong, like he’s some sort of criminal and I’m some sort of—some sort of hapless victim in all of this?
” Saoirse said. “I came on to him, Ransom,” she went on, pressing her hand to her chest. “Me. I was an equal player in the whole thing. At least acknowledge that.”
Ransom shook his head. “No,” he said.
Saoirse was only seventeen—too young to give her consent. Salvador had abused his power. Ransom couldn’t see it any other way.
“I put him in a position of authority, and he used it to prey on you,” Ransom said.
“You’re twisting it in your mind into something that it’s not!” Saoirse cried, exasperated. “Salvador didn’t . . . prey . . . on me. He loves me.”
“He doesn’t love you,” Ransom said. “He loves what you can do for him.”
“That’s not true,” Saoirse said.
“It is,” Ransom said. “He did this all the time at school. He’d pick out girls. They were never the prettiest or the most popular. But they always had money. He would give them attention, and they would buy him things.”
“You’re lying,” Saoirse said. “You’re just saying that to hurt me.”
“I’m not,” Ransom said. “I just never thought he’d have the gall to do that here, under my roof, or I never would have brought him here.”
He reached out to touch her shoulder. He only wanted to comfort her, but she roughly shrugged him off.
“Stop it,” she said. “Why do you always do this? Why can’t I have anything that’s mine? My wants? My desires? Even my mistakes, you take ownership of.”
“Saoirse, I’m not—”
“No,” Saoirse said.
A sudden calm seemed to grip her, a quiet gravity.
She reminded him of their mother that time Theo had briefly flirted with the idea of majoring in theater, and Birdie had pursed her lips and said sternly, “We’re not theater people, darling.
Why be the jester when you can be the king?
” And Theo, quite unlike himself, had dropped it.
“I’m not some porcelain doll you need to keep on a shelf for fear of breaking,” Saoirse said.
“I’m not a puppet whose strings you can pull, or a parrot who will say exactly what you want me to.
I’m a person, just like you. And just like you, I’m going to love who I want to love, and do the things I want to do, and say the things I want to say. ”
Ransom just looked at her; for once, words eluded him.
“And I know you can’t accept that right now,” Saoirse said, “but one day, very soon, you won’t have any choice in the matter.”