Page 76 of Because of Dylan
“He was grooming you. I’ve read about cases like these dozens of times. Men like him are smart, they’ve done it before, and they prey on kids and people who can’t defend themselves.”
“And I was the perfect victim.” I know she's right, but it doesn’t make me feel any different. “And do you want to know what's the worst part? Once I figured out what was happening, when the touches started feeling intrusive and making me uncomfortable, I told my mother. I told her he was touching me. I told her I didn't like the way he looked at me. And you know what she did?”
River shakes her head.
“She slapped me. She called me a liar. She said I was trying to steal her man. She kicked me out of the house. I was thirteen then. It was the middle of winter. She wouldn’t let me back in the house. I stayed huddled in a corner against the wall, shivering for hours. Until he came home and let me in.”
I hit myself in the chest with a fist. “And I was fucking grateful because he let me into the house. I hated how he made me feel when he touched me, but I was grateful because he also saved me. He saved me in so many ways. He fed me, he bought me clothes, he showed me kindness and kept my mother away from me when she went into one of her rages.”
I take a step back, needing to put some distance between me and River. Between me and the memories. “And as much as I hated him, I also loved him because he was the only good thing I had, until I didn’t. Until he changed, and I blamed myself for it too. How fucking messed up is that?”
I swallow the boulder that parked itself in my throat. My body is so stiff it feels as if my bones will crack. I squeeze my eyes shut. I had no choice. What could I have done? Run away? To where? Tell someone? I tried. She didn’t believe me.
“They had a huge fight. But he convinced her I was confused, none of the things I said were true, that it was just teenage fantasies. He promised her he would keep his distance from me so I wouldn't feel that way anymore. And she believed him. But he lied. He continued to touch me. He threatened to kill her if I said anything again. He said he would kill her and make it look like I did it. That I’d go to jail and far worse things than him touching me would happen.”
River takes a step toward me. I both want and don't want her to get any closer. I know she's trying to comfort me, but to have anyone touch me right now is too much. I put my hands up, and she stops. Tears run down her face, but she doesn't get any closer.
“He’d get me drunk. Force me to drink alcohol. Lace hot chocolate with vodka and touch me, but he said he was saving the best for my sixteenth birthday because that was the legal age of consent. He said if I ever told anyone it would be my word against his, and my mother would take his side. My age didn’t stop him forcing me to touch him back.”
I need to move. I need to get away. I turn away from River, take a step. Stop. Turn back. I’m moving, my feet taking charge, pacing in a chaotic loop. Back and forth I go, shaking my hands as if doing so could expunge the dirty feeling along with the words. When I finally stop, River is watching me with a hand pressed against her mouth and a stream of tears on her face.
I heave in a long breath. “By then I knew the only way to get away from him was to leave. But where could I go? I had no one. I didn’t want to be another runaway just to fall in the hands of someone even worse than him. I needed to finish high school first. I put so much effort into getting the best grades possible. I knew that getting a scholarship was my only way out. I was terrified he wouldn’t wait until I was sixteen. But I wasn't going to give him the one thing he wanted most.”
River takes a step closer. “What was that?”
“My virginity. He liked to talk about how and when he would take my virginity. That he’d never had a virgin before. I would be his first, just like he would be my first. But I wasn't about to let him have it. A few days before I turned sixteen, I found a boy from school who was nice enough to me and lost my virginity to him.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, Becca.”
“As bad as it was, it was a thousand times better than having him touch me because it was my choice.” I thump my chest.
“Did he find out? About the boy?”
“Oh, I told him. It was my birthday. He gave my mother God knows what. She blacked out. And she didn’t wake until late the next day. Telling him was a gift to myself. I told him with great glee that he would never be my first, that he could never have that piece of me.”
“What happened?”
“He kept his promise of what he would do to me when I turned sixteen. No one came to help when I screamed or when he yelled. No one came to stop him from beating me or trashing the house. I was lucky he didn't break any bones. And he was lucky it was summer, and I didn’t have school, so there was nobody to see the marks on my body.”
“Oh my God, Becca.”
“It took nearly a month for all the bruises to fade away. Oddly enough, he stopped touching me after that. I was tainted.”
“What happened after? Is he still with your mom?”
“No. He died several months after that. Overdose.”
“I thought you said he never got high.”
I smile. “He did that day.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
We stand lookingat each other. River holds her fisted hands against her stomach. I know she wants to hug me, share my pain.
My skin crawls at the thought of allowing anyone to touch me when the confession still lingers on my lips. While his face floats like a ghost in the empty space between us. The aversion is a physical presence. It attaches itself to my back and neck, and its weight crushes me. I want to scream and run and rip at my own flesh to get rid of it.
No more.
