Chapter 33 #3
I try to picture her, a young girl conjured in my mind with dark hair, that same pouty mouth and sloping nose—not yet with any of the fire that she had to learn along the way.
My chest aches, grappling with the knowledge that this spectacular woman didn’t have the beginning she deserved.
She didn’t have the loving parents or the security to just be a kid.
Instead, she had to carve her own path, transforming herself from carbon to diamond under immense pressure.
And god damn did she become magnificent in the process, but I’d trade all of that in a heartbeat for her to have had a softer start.
“My senior year, I got an invite, and I couldn’t believe my luck. I felt like finally the kids in our town might be giving me a chance. Except it was all just a cruel joke, designed to make me look stupid when I arrived and get turned away.”
She lifts one shoulder and drops it, and I understand this part of her story to be anecdotal. Every cell in my body knows that what follows will be worse. Much worse.
“I was devastated, as you would be at that age, and her brother found me crying at the end of their driveway. He was nice at first…he invited me back in and apologized for his sister being such a bitch…” She sniffs, shaking her head.
“I don’t know if he slipped something into my drink, but the next thing I know, we’re in a bathroom and h-he’s—”
Her voice cracks and her eyes glisten, her throat working hard to swallow. A new lens slots over her, asking me to help her reclaim that part of her…in a bathroom, no less.
“You don’t have to say it, baby.”
“No, I do.” Her eyes flash to mine, swirling with burning fury and determination.
“I’ve held it in like a shameful secret for so long, and I refuse to—” A dry sob catches in her throat, and I sit back in awe when she grits her teeth and gathers everything she has, a tear streaking down her face and dripping off her jaw as she confronts her darkest demon.
“I refuse to be ashamed because some asshole raped me.”
My heart grows and shatters all at the same time, admiration and sorrow flooding my system in equal measure.
Veneration for her strength. Heartbreak for her pain.
Warring with each other. Tangling into one beast and morphing into something darker—something that wants to march out of this office and put that slimy little fucker into the ground.
My eyes sting, heat rising to crackle like static over my skin.
“Baby girl,” I whisper as she shakes with emotion, silent tears slipping down her face. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.” My hand trembles as I slide it around her neck, my own breath coming in short, shallow draws. “What happened next?”
The story never ends there. When someone violates you, you don’t sail off into the future as a functioning and joyful person.
Something was taken from you, something that you can never take back, and that leaves a mark.
Fear, anger, shame—all of these things we carry like albatrosses around our necks.
For me, it was secluding myself away in my workshop for weeks on end, fixing things because I couldn’t fix myself.
“I went to the police, told them everything, and they called his dad.” She huffs out a breath, staring at my chest and shaking her head slowly. “Can you believe that? A young girl confesses that she’s just been assaulted, and they call the father of the guy who raped her.”
I cement my jaw together to prevent myself from letting out the torrent of curse words that rattle around my head, and I make a mental note to find out who those cops were and take away everything they love in life…one by one.
“They left me in the interview room for hours, no support, no offer to take me to the emergency room. And then he was there, Jeremy Rénir Senior…laying into me for lying about his son.” Her umber eyes climb to mine, incredulous and fiery.
“No one believed me, not the police, or my school—and of course everyone knew. Rénir Junior told everyone who would listen about the foster care slut that gave it up to him without a fight. The one who was too drunk to even warn him she had her period.”
Her hesitation earlier about blood now makes perfect sense. It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to leap up and start pacing just to do something with this fraying dark thing inside me that wants to tear the world to pieces listening to her story.
“But I did fight, Chase. I need you to know that.” She grits her teeth, tears flowing. “That’s what was so infuriating, because if the police just believed me enough to check, they would have found my claw marks all over him.”
I swallow roughly, nodding. “I have no doubt that you did.”
“I spent my last two years in that town being universally hated and accused of being a liar, so the moment I could afford to leave…I did.”
I tuck a strand of stray hair behind her ear, eternally grateful that fate sent her my way. She shivers, her long lashes fluttering shut momentarily before she whispers. “Why was he here?”
I draw in a slow breath through my nose and draw the back of my knuckle along her sharp cheekbone. “I don’t know, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t come here again.”
And that’s a fucking promise.