61. Matteo
Matteo
You’d think I’d burn a hole in the soles of my shoes with the amount of pacing I’ve been doing.
I haven’t stopped moving since the moment I watched Evie and Kieran walk into the woods.
My beautiful Dove’s feet as slow as ever, her shoulders heavy, her eyes dull, as if someone had stepped into her ocean and ripped the lifeforce from it.
Caleb, unlike me, hasn’t moved an inch.
A few times I’ve had to check his chest to make sure he’s still breathing.
He’s been like this since the moment Kieran broke the news about the other girls. It wasn’t until then that Caleb looked at all of his messages. I haven’t even dared to pick up my phone, though my chest grows tight at the thought of everything waiting for me.
The only time Caleb moved his head or even so much as blinked was when her scream came from the forest. If it wasn’t for Kieran’s warning that he was going to encourage her to let it all out, I would have gone sprinting.
It hasn’t been hard to put the pieces together. The idea he approached me with about the website to help kids have a voice against their abusers, and now how he knows what Evie needs. My heart breaks for him.
I’m trying not to think about it, to think about how these two beautiful people had to go on living their lives as if the most heinous act wasn’t committed against them. My mind is already at capacity.
There’s so many questions to be asked, conversations that need to be had, and yet here I am, silent.
Because what is there to say? No amount of talking will fix this.
The only thing that there is to do is take him to court.
Even that’s out of our hands now that the investigation is underway, although hopefully with the public scrutiny, there’s a fire under the detectives’ asses.
I suppose that’s the only positive with this becoming public. That, and the knowledge Evie wasn’t the only one.
It’s horrendous that she had to be violated again for that to happen, though. That justice isn’t as black and white as we all had hoped.
You hear things online every day, tragedies that occur every second around the world, ones that make you shake your head in pure disbelief that people get away with what they do.
And yet, you still don’t fully feel the impact, never truly believe that the system designed to protect you will fail you…
until it happens to you. Until you’re watching a loved one crumble under the weight of humanity’s darkest depravities.
I’ve never felt as hopeless as I do, have never felt so useless in the face of adversity. The most I can do is be there for her, help her heal her shattered heart, and I will. I’ll show up every day and help her mend what he broke. I’ll do it myself on the days she doesn’t have the strength.
I’ve contacted lawyers. I’ve reached out to her therapist to schedule an appointment for when we’re back in town. I even tried setting up a Zoom meeting so Evie could speak with her during all of this, but she didn’t have the energy for it.
I don’t blame her.
I’m so consumed by my own thoughts I don’t hear them coming. My head snaps up at the creak of the front door. As Evie steps through, Caleb finally snaps out of his frozen stupor and stands.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until her blue Antarctic eyes lift to mine and a rush of air escapes me in one fell swoop. All it takes is a look, a single glance, and I know my Dove is exhausted from flying and ready to land.
Before I can say anything, Caleb beats me to it, stepping in front of me as he asks hesitantly, “Do you…do you know?”
Something shutters over Evie’s eyes, an emotion I can’t decipher. “Yes,” she says flatly.
Caleb’s hands are fidgeting at his sides, his weight shifting from foot to foot. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She stares at her brother then, and whatever she finds has her gaze softening. “And neither are you.”
Kieran steps up beside Evie, cocking his head at Caleb. “Come on, man, we’ll go for a walk ourselves.”
Caleb just snorts at him. “I’m not going to scream.”
Kieran’s brow quirks. “No, but it sure as shit will feel good taking a baseball bat to a dead tree.”
He pauses.
Evie must sense his hesitation because she lays a gentle hand on her brother’s forearm. “Go. Matteo will take care of me. You don’t need to stay glued to my side.”
“I never want to leave again.”
Evie’s smile is sad as she whispers, “It’s over now, Caleb. What happened was a long time ago. He can’t hurt me physically anymore.”
No one in the room misses her distinction. He can’t harm her physically, but emotionally? He can and he is, every day he continues this fucking tirade.
Stepping forward, I clap him on the shoulder. “I’ve got her. Go take care of yourself.”
Caleb turns and looks at me, the war raging through his mind evident. I try to convey that I’ve got this, and though it doesn’t fully soothe the worry coursing through him, it’s enough that he lets out a heavy sigh before wrapping Evie in a quick embrace.
“Okay, I won’t be long.”
“Take your time, Caleb.”
The walk out the door isn’t easy for him, judging by his slow, unsteady steps.
This is the first time since Evie’s birthday, besides him being arrested, that he’s left her side, and his reaction tells me everything I need to know about my best friend.
Evie isn’t the only one breaking; I think her heartache is just more noticeable.
Caleb’s guilt is eating him from the inside out, leaving him nothing but a hollow shell.
Kieran must be thinking the same I am. We dip our chins at each other, a silent conversation that we will both do our best to help our friend—a brother in every sense—in whatever capacity we can.
And that Evie isn’t the only one we need to be worried about.
Sitting on the bathroom floor, my back to the vanity sink, one arm up on my knee, I gaze at the beautiful woman I’m lucky enough to call mine. She has her chin on her forearms, where they rest crossed on the edge of the clawfoot tub.
Over the last twenty minutes, we’ve done just this, staring at each other as she slowly comes back to herself, trying the techniques her therapist supplied her with to come back to full consciousness after dissociating.
Tilting her head, putting her cheek on her forearm now, she whispers in the quiet steamed bathroom, “Kieran said thirteen women have come forward.”
My heart pinches at her matter-of-fact tone. That we can talk so casually about something so horrendous because she’s been programmed to be used to it.
Swallowing thickly, I run a hand through my hair. “While you were with Kieran another two stepped forward with similar stories.”
Evie closes her eyes slowly, taking a steadying breath before focusing on me again. “Similar stories?”
Nodding slowly, I explain, “They all seem to be the same.”
“Young girls.” Evie’s tone is devoid of any emotion, her eyes starting to get that faraway glaze again. “Small…vulnerable.”
“Yes.”
“How did he keep them quiet?”
Pursing my lips, I give myself a moment to formulate the best way to express what I’m about to say next. “I received a call from the detective on your case. It’s best that for now you don’t hear the stories from the other women. He had an MO, if you will, and if you hear what they said—”
“They can say we orchestrated it,” she finishes for me.
I give her a tight-lipped smile. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” She shakes her head. “It’s not just about me anymore. It’s about all the little girls he hurt and getting justice for them. He was a soccer coach for little league teams for…years. I imagine there’s far more than fifteen.”
“Most likely.” Heaving out a sigh, I say earnestly, “I’m still sorry all the same. Perhaps when this is all over you girls could talk. It might help since they know how you feel.”
Grimacing, she wraps her arms around her body, lying down in the tub so her hair fans out in the water. “Not sure any of them would want to hear from the daughter of their rapist.”
My eyes close of their own accord at the guilt I hear in her voice. “Dove…”
“No, Matteo. If that were me, I’d want me dead.”
“They don’t blame you.”
“You don’t know that.”
I can’t help but sigh as I relent, “No, I don’t, but I hope they wouldn’t.”
The room falls silent until I hear a barely audible whisper. Moving forward, I place my chin in my hand, my elbow on the tub, as I ask, “What, my Dove?”
Keeping her body submerged beneath the bubbles, she turns her head to me, her voice cracking as she confesses, “I was relieved when he told me.”
Before I can school my expression, I frown. “Relief?”
“I know, right? It’s selfish to feel relief.
I felt everything alongside it—anger, rage, fury.
Guilt that it was my father that hurt other little girls, confusion because he told me—” She clears her throat and goes on.
“Told me that I was special, but beneath all of that, there is this undeniable relief and I can’t stop thinking about how much of a god-awful person I must be to feel that.
Because if it wasn’t just me, then it means there’s nothing wrong with me. It means that it wasn’t my fault.”
“It was never your fault.”
“You don’t understand, Matteo. For over ten years of my life, the man who was supposed to protect me instead molded my mind to suit his needs.
He brainwashed me into thinking that what he was doing was love.
It may have hurt, it may have made me feel disgusting and wrong, but he told me it was love.
He told me that I tempted him, that I deserved it, that I must’ve worn dresses to tease him throughout the day and that it worked. ”
My heart is hammering wildly in my chest, so wildly in fact that when she pauses to catch her breath, I fear she can hear it.
“I was six when he said that, Matteo. Six, and he was telling me my pink floral dress teased him all day and it was my fault that he had to have me.” Ripping her eyes off mine, she stares at the ceiling and I’m glad for the reprieve because it allows me to blink away the tears I don’t want her to see.
“I could see so clearly that what he was doing was wrong, and yet when it was happening to me, he made me believe it was my fault. So yes, I am an awful person that I feel relieved there were more victims because it means it wasn’t me all along, that it was him and it was a pattern.
That he’s depraved beyond measure and I never did anything growing up to warrant it. ”
“That doesn’t make you an awful person.”
Sitting up, Evie brings her face close to mine, eyes void of life. “Then what does it make me?”
Lifting my hand slowly so she can track the movement, I gently brush a strand of wet hair behind her ear, my heart galloping as she nuzzles her cheek into my palm. Waiting for her eyes to connect with mine, I whisper, “Someone who had their wings clipped far too young.”
“What if I don’t have the strength to grow them back?”
“I believe you do.” I rub my thumb back and forth on her cheek. “You’re the strongest person I know, Evie. If anyone were able to not only survive but thrive after this, it’s you.”
“Your faith in me is strong, Valenti.”
Quirking a brow, I can’t help but tease, “You last naming me again?”
“The seriousness of the conversation demanded it.”
“Mm-hmm,” I hum. “Look, no one is telling you what you do or don’t have to do.”
“He’s left me no choice.”
“Yes and no. Yes, he’s backed you into a corner. Yes, he’s a fucking psychotic prick, but at the end of the day, you have choices. You always have a choice, Evie, and I think that’s important to know considering.”
She looks at me then, truly looks at me, before pulling back with a blink. “You really think I can nail him to the wall?”
“I think you can do more than that. I think you can ruin him.”
Nodding along, she bites her lower lip. “Let me think on it. A lot has happened over the past two days.”
“Fuck me, it’s only been two days,” I say heavily as I lean back.
Snorting, Evie stands from the tub, leaning over to wrap herself in a towel. “Feels like two lifetimes.”
Rising, I hold out another towel for her hair, savoring the small twitch of her lips at the gesture. “I know what you need right now.” Stepping back, I open the bathroom door, calling over my shoulder, “Wait there for me!”