Chapter 8 #3
“He said it was fine and not to do a postmortem on my performance.”
“See? You obviously did what you needed to do for the case. It was fine.”
“I don’t really think it was.” Gideon sounded so tired it actually hurt me to hear.
“Do you…” I hesitated since the idea of following through on the suggestion made me sick. “Do you want me to come to court with you tomorrow? Just so I could be there for support?”
“No. I don’t want you to do that.”
He sounded so firm that I didn’t try to argue. Instead, I said, “The jury is going to understand why you’re so angry with them. They’re not going to think you have a vendetta against them for no reason.”
He let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“And we weren’t together when you did all your work undercover. They’re not going to think you’re out to get them because of me.”
“I am out to get them.” His arm tightened around me.
“Yeah, but the jury will see there are legitimate reasons for it. It’s not going to affect the outcome.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It just wasn’t good enough.”
I turned around in his arms to look at him. His eyes were closed, his head leaning back against a cushion. I reached up to stroke his face, his hair. “You’re not perfect, Gideon. You can’t be perfect.”
“I don’t want to be perfect. But I shouldn’t have… I needed to…” He trailed off, strangely inarticulate.
“You needed to what?” I breathed.
He didn’t answer.
I caressed his face some more in the silence, the strong lines of his jaw, his cheekbones, the curve of his forehead. I tangled my fingers in his hair so I could stroke his scalp. “Gideon,” I said at last. “Please tell me why this is eating at you this way.”
It took a long time for him to answer, but he finally did. “Because I keep failing you when you need me.”
My whole body jerked with sudden tension. “What?”
“I feel like I’m never able to do what you need me to do.” The words were hoarse, slow, like they resisted being spoken.
“What are you talking about?”
He cleared his throat, and his eyes were still closed, as if that were the only way he was able to admit it.
“I couldn’t stop that abomination from happening to you when I had the chance.
And then I couldn’t keep them from letting the bastards plead out on the rape with a minimal sentence, just because we need them for the fucking case.
And I can’t… I’m not allowed to kill those bastards with my hands, which is what I feel really needs to happen.
And now I can’t even… I can’t even give compelling testimony so you can see some sort of justice done—to the gang, if not to the specific men. ”
My hand had lowered so I was clinging to one of his shoulders, my body pressed in the gap between his body and the back of the couch. “Gideon, you don’t need to—”
“Yes, I do!” His eyes flew open, suddenly intense instead of exhausted. “Yes, I do.”
My lips parted in surprise, and I couldn’t say anything.
“What happened to you is just wrong. It’s so wrong that it can’t be accepted. It can’t be minimized so it can fit into a reasonable understanding of the world. It’s just so wrong. It needs to be made right. It needs to be… paid for.”
My eyes were burning now in response to the depth and power of his emotion, his conviction.
I could barely speak through the feeling lodged in my throat.
“I don’t think that can really happen. I don’t think this can ever be fixed.
You just can’t save me from this. It’s horrible, sickening, but sometimes it’s just that way. The wrongness just… just is.”
He kept shaking his head as I spoke. “I can’t accept that. It’s just so wrong. It can’t just be left there. It needs… it needs to be answered. I need to at least give you that.”
Looking at him then—this good man, this strong man, this man who really knew how to love—I understood something I hadn’t before.
I understood it in a flash of insight that left me breathless, so the words came pouring out.
“You have answered it, Gideon. You’ve already answered it for me.
Think about all the days between that night and now.
All this time, you’ve been giving me the answer to what they did to me—to both of us—in that house. Every time you give yourself. For me.”
His whole body was starting to shudder, something powerful he couldn’t hold back.
Tears were streaming down my cheeks, but I didn’t wipe them away. “I really think that’s the only answer for it. And, Gideon, I wouldn’t have that answer without you.”
He made a rough sound in his throat and pulled me into a hug. He shook so helplessly I was terrified as I wrapped my arms around him. He wasn’t crying, but it still felt like he was breaking in my arms, like I was barely holding him together.
I ended up going to court with him the following day to support him as he finished his testimony. I just ignored his continued insistence that I shouldn’t have to face such a thing.
I wasn’t going to not be there when he needed me.
There were wounds in his life, in his soul, that needed an answer too.