We mutually break and he brings one hand to my cheek. "You sleep okay?"
"Yeah," I say softly. "I'm good."
He smiles, takes my hand, and leads me into the kitchen. I lean up against the counter while he puts the kettle on to boil. He doesn't bother with coffee for himself, and I know he's already had his one cup for the day as evidenced by the empty mug in the sink. I watch him in silence, admiring the way his T-shirt pulls across the muscles of his back, his trim waist, and his fantastic ass in his jeans. I flush with desire, which seems more pervasive and consuming than it ever has before. I think this may be because Beck and I are very different to each other this very morning. Right now, he knows almost everything, and he didn't run.
He took care of me and continues to do so right now as he makes my tea.
When he has it prepared with just a small splash of skim milk, he turns and hands it to me. "What do you want to do today?"
It's a given he's not going in to work. I know he's not going to leave my side until he fully understands everything about me, why I came into his life, and what my agenda is. I also know, deep down, he's not prepared to handle what the fallout will mean as far as JT is concerned. I expect Beck's emotions are going to be bubbling with unexpressed fury by the time I'm done, and I brace myself that I'll need to control him so he doesn't act out rashly.
I know enough about Beck to know his relationship with JT is over, and I'm worried about the fallout regarding The Sugar Bowl. While bringing JT down is still on my agenda, I also feel an overwhelming need to make sure Beck is protected when it all shakes out.
"We should talk," I tell him before blowing on my tea to cool it.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I need to know everything."
I need to know everything. Every last sordid detail so I can truly understand Sela and there will be no more walls and secrets between us. I need to hear the absolute truth, and then I need to move quickly to make things right.
Still, my stomach rolls with anxiety, as I know what I'm getting ready to hear is probably going to destroy me. The pain I bore for Caroline was different. I was her rock...the pillar of strength she used to get through her ordeal.
Sela's done most of that without me. While it's obvious she has an agenda with regard to JT, shit got ripped open wide yesterday and I know she's hurting again. Not only because of what happened to her, but mostly because of the callous way in which I handled it.
Turning from me, Sela walks into the living room. She puts her cup of tea on the coffee table and sits on one end of the white suede couch, curling her feet up underneath her. Legs bare, her breasts outlined against my T-shirt that dips low from the V-cut, she looks stunningly sexy. Yet I feel terrible for looking at her that way. I have no right, really.
Not right at this moment.
I follow her into the living room and she watches me as I round the couch. But rather than sit next to her, or even on the opposite end, I walk over to the window again. Tucking my hands into my pockets, I stare out over the bay, and I find comfort in the distance, which is odd, I know.
My internal instincts push me to walk over, pick Sela up, and settle her on my lap. I want to wrap my arms around her, open my ears, and let her pour her heart out in the safety of my embrace.
Yet I need these few feet between us complete with a coffee table barrier. Because although I want to wrap myself around her so she knows she'll never get hurt again, I've also got a rumbling vibration of violence settling deep in the pit of my stomach now that I know she's getting ready to lay it all out.
I turn my head over my shoulder and look at her. She smiles at me in understanding, leans forward, and pulls her cup of tea into her hands. When she curls it in toward her chest to hold the warmth against her, she murmurs, "Where do you want me to start?"
My heart cramps as I turn to face her fully. I rock up onto my toes, rock backward in a move of nervous energy. "From the beginning, I guess."
Sela takes a sip, looking abnormally composed. She leans forward, sets the tea on the table, and leans back against the cushions. With her hands folded in her lap, she tilts her chin up and says, "I was sixteen. It was my birthday."
My breath rushes out between my teeth, making a hissing sound. Her eyes soften and she gives me a knowing smile.
She fucking smiles at me to give me comfort.
My heart squeezes again, and I almost take a step toward her, but her next words stop me dead in my tracks.
"It was my fault, really."
"No fucking way," I snarl, my hands coming out of my pockets and clenching into fists.
She holds her hand up, palm out to me in a sign of quiet. My mouth snaps shut.
"Just listen," she whispers.
I force my hands to unclench, and so they don't do it again, I hook my thumbs in my pockets and lock my knees for stability.
"My boyfriend had just broken up with me the day before. He was a few years older and thought I was just a kid. I was hurt, as only a sixteen-year-old could be who had all kinds of silly, romantic notions in her head and was eager to prove herself as a woman."
I can't stand it. Laying this...this...blame on herself. I turn slightly from her and take a few paces while she talks.
"I went to the mall with my best friend the night of my birthday. Met a cute boy."
"JT?" I can't help the growl coming out of my mouth as I pivot, pace a few steps the other way as I stare at her.
She drops her gaze to her lap and shakes her head with a wry smile. "No. Just a cute boy that I foolishly thought would be just the ticket I needed to prove that I was worthy of notice. I left my bestie behind and went with him and some friends to a party. We got stoned on the way there. My first time ever smoking pot, and I was out of it. Had no clue where they even took me, but it was a huge mansion and it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. Filled with young people, mostly college students. I had a cute boy with his arm around my shoulder, I was stoned out of my mind, and laughing my ass off. I thought it was the best thing ever."
I halt because her last words have an ominous ring to them.
"What happened?"
She lifts her eyes to mine. "The cute boy found a prettier girl than me, and soon I was left all alone. That pissed me off, hurt my feelings. Made me feel terrible and lonely. I thought about leaving, but then..."
Sela hesitates, gives a slight cough, and continues with more strength in her voice. "But then I had the attention of another cute boy. Older. College age, I guess. He flirted with me, told me how beautiful I was. Talked about college and frat parties, and hinted that maybe we could go out together. So I turned the flirting charm back onto him. I batted my eyes, stuck my chest out, did whatever I could to prove that I could hang with an older crowd. That I was mature and worldly, and it was so stupid, but I even thought...screw the boy I'd come with. He was just a boy. This was a man. A college guy that was interested in me. I even thought about how he'd take me to spring dance, and my ex-boyfriend would be so jealous. I let him kiss me, and rub his hand on my ass. I pressed into him, and although I really didn't know what I was doing, he liked it and it made me bolder."
"Not your fault," I whisper hoarsely, and she gives me an accommodating nod.
"Maybe not," she whispers back. Another clearing of her throat, and her voice is strong again. "At any rate, I don't know how much time passed. I was given beer. We hung out. We danced. I was having the time of my life and all I could keep thinking was that this was the best birthday ever."
She stops, her story hitting a wall. Her gaze drops back to her lap and her fingers work in a nervous twining around each other. I wait her out, knowing that she's getting to the horror part of her story, and I swallow against the bile building up in my throat.
When she finally looks at me again, her eyebrows are drawn inward in frustration. "Then I don't remember much of anything. Bits and pieces. Tiny flashes of images, sounds, smells."
"I don't need details," I tell her softly. Begging her, perhaps, no
t to tell me the details.
"But you do," she argues simply, and doesn't give me room to argue back. "There were three of them. I can't remember a lot, but I'm sure there were three."
"Sela," I whisper. A simple statement of remorse and pain that three men violated her. This was worse than I ever could have imagined.
She pins me with a direct stare, her chin coming up higher in a pose of absolute defiance of the horror that befell her. "The first one took my virginity. I was so out of it I don't even think I felt pain, but I remember him grunting on top of me. The next one wanted me to suck his dick, but was afraid I'd bite him, so he raped my ass."
"No," I wheeze out, the air burning my chest as it's expelled.
Her chin goes higher. "Then JT was on me while someone else held me down. I remember panties stuffed in my mouth so I couldn't scream, but honestly...I didn't have the strength to. I just laid there...and took it."
I hunch over, hands to my knees, and stare at the floor as I swallow hard...willing myself not to scream or throw up.
"I only have flashes...snippets of scenes. He pulled out of me, removed the panties, and came in my mouth. Put his hand over my nose and mouth and made me swallow it. That is one of the clearer memories."
I lurch upward, the room spinning and my vision going dark for a moment until I become focused on the front door to the condo. I bolt toward it, snarling, "I'm going to fucking kill him. Going to beat him to a bloody pulp."
Sela flies off the couch and steps in my way, hands coming firmly to my chest. I look down at her, see the strength and resistance in her eyes, and my hands clap to her wrists. Not in an effort to push her away, but with burning need to pull her into me. My arms wrap around her upper back and I hunch my shoulders so I come protectively around her.
"I'm going to kill him," I whisper, my throat burning and tears stinging my eyes.
"No, you're not," she says softly, her own hands moving to my lower back and pressing in. She rubs slow circles, willing me to calm down. But all I can imagine is my fists pummeling into JT's face, until his nose breaks, then smashes, then becomes obliterated until he starts to drown in his own blood. I'm going to hold my hand over his nose and mouth and I'm not going to let up until his lungs suffocate with blood.
"Calm down," she murmurs, rubbing harder at my back. "You need to hear it all."
"I can't," I croak out, sniffing in deeply and blinking my eyes to clear the wetness.
Sela leans back, far enough so she can look up at me. "Let me get it all out, Beck. You haven't heard the worst."
"I can't," I implore her. Because it will only fuel me to come up with something even more heinous to rain down on JT's head.
"Please."
"Sela."
"Please, Beck," she says, then wraps a delicate hand around my wrist. She leads me to the couch, and my leaden legs don't move for a moment, so she pulls on me harder. I follow numbly and she pushes me down onto a cushion, crawling right onto my lap to straddle me. My arms encircle her lower back automatically, hers going to my shoulders as she looks down at me.
"Somehow I got home. JT put me in a cab, paid the driver, I suppose. I was out of it, not really sure what happened to me...just those flashes that I described to you. I was starting to feel pain; I had bruises starting to form and while I was still stoned and drugged, I had this sort of deep understanding that I had caused this to happen."
My body tightens but she continues, not letting me rebuke her for the blame game again.
"I got a utility knife out of the kitchen drawer. Went into the bathroom. I hated myself so much for what I'd let happen to me--for being stupid enough to even go with strangers to that party, for flirting and pretending to be a big girl--that I cut down into my left wrist."
I suck in a startled breath before grabbing on to her wrist, twisting it so I could see. I had seen it before, I realized. My thumb grazes over the small, inch-long scar that cuts at an inward angle. It's thin and red with a slightly raised and bumpy edge, but it's so small I never would have connected it with a desire to end one's life.
"I didn't try hard enough," she whispers, and I raise my eyes to hers. "I pressed down, and the minute it punched through my skin, I regretted it. There was a lot of blood, but it wasn't a large cut and I didn't hit a vein. I was still high as a kite and I fell to the floor, I think more wigged out over what I'd just done than anything. It woke my parents and they found me quickly. Called an ambulance."
"Christ," I mutter, looking back down at the scar.
She's silent, giving me a moment to collect myself. I consider everything she's told me. A brutal gang rape, the loss of her innocence, and a brief, desperate moment where she thought to end the pain forever. But the strength she must have had, to pull herself back from the brink before she could do irrevocable harm.
"No one realized I was raped until the doctor examined me. My parents were freaking out I had tried to kill myself, not having a clue about what really happened. They obviously tended to the wrist first, but once they realized what had happened to me, they used a rape kit. The police came and I was interviewed for what seemed like forever. They found Rohypnol in my system, which is why I don't remember much."
Still holding her wrist, stroking the scar, I ask, "I don't understand. This was ten years ago. Why wasn't JT arrested?"
"Because I didn't know who he was. Couldn't even remember much about my attackers other than vague features. Color of hair, maybe an idea of how tall they were. I didn't even know where the mansion was located. They tried to investigate as best they could. Contacted local cab companies to see if they could find who drove me to my house, but they couldn't come up with anything."
"Then how did you know it was JT?" I ask, not in a disbelieving way, because I trust fully that Sela knows he was involved.
Sela's hands move, dislodging my own so she can lace our fingers together. "I was hospitalized involuntarily because of my suicide attempt. It was a pitiful attempt, but it was enough to hold me. It was the first of three hospitalizations that happened over the next few years. I drove myself crazy trying to remember details. Drove myself to absolute breakdowns fueled by guilt and self-loathing for even putting myself in that situation. I barely graduated high school. Lost all my friends because I couldn't stand to have them looking at me, wondering what was going on inside my deranged mind. I became paranoid, worried I'd get attacked again, so I hardly ever went anywhere. My parents circled in closer, became almost obsessive in their protection of me. I tried counseling and group therapy, but none of it helped. It's like I kept filling up with all of these horrible feelings compounded with helplessness at not having resolution, until I'd just snap and get committed again, although I never tried to kill myself after that first attempt."
"How did you survive?" I ask her pleadingly, because I need her to get to the part where she tells me she pulled through.
She gives a shrug and a light laugh. "I just...gave up trying to figure it all out. Also, I took some really good antidepressants, but eventually I just had to move on. It helped when I enrolled in college, gave me a new focus."
"But there came a point when you figured it was JT?" I prompt her.
"Yes," she says with serious eyes. "A little over six months ago. I was watching an entertainment news show, and JT was on it. They were doing a piece about The Sugar Bowl."
"And you recognized him?" I guess.
Her eyes turn a darker shade of blue, her lips flatten out in a grimace. "No. I recognized the tattoo of the red phoenix on his rib cage. It was one of the things I distinctly remembered that night. One of the other guys had one on his wrist too."
This news jolts me so hard I come flying up off the couch, clutching Sela by the hips so she doesn't fall off. I quickly set her on the floor and take three steps to the side, away from her. My mouth hangs open in disbelief, and my left arm comes up across my chest, over my right shoulder, where my fingertips press into the area where the top of my phoenix tattoo resides.
She watches me carefully, knowing the impact this is having.
"I wasn't there," I croak out, thinking the reason she's watching me is to see if there's culpability.
Immediately, her eyes grow apologetic and she steps toward me quickly. I step backward but that doesn't stop her. She barrels into me, hands coming up to clasp to the sides of my head. She presses her fingers in and holds me tight. "I know you weren't. You couldn't. I know you, Beck, and I know you'd never do that to a woman."
"It's why you ran," I murmur. "The morning after we met. You saw my tattoo...when I was in the shower. Didn't you? So you thought then that I might have."
"It was before I knew you, Beck," she chides me. "Yes, it freaked me out, but by the time you came to my apartment the next day, I had reasoned it out. There's no way a man who gave me my first orgasm...made me feel safe and secure enough to let go, could ever do that to me. I don't understand the connection with the tattoo, but I know it doesn't revolve around rape. I know it in my heart."
Beck pulls away from me, takes another step back, and his hand covers his mouth as he looks at me with wild eyes. He reminds me of a spooked animal, but I knew the tattoo connection was going to send him in a tailspin.
"You've done nothing wrong, Beck," I say softly, hoping to calm him down.
He lets out an almost hysterical bark of a laugh as his hand drops. "I kicked you out of our condo when you told me you were raped. I...I...took the side of a gang rapist over yours, and fucking threw you out in the hallway like a piece of trash."
"Easy, baby," I coo as I walk up to him. "You need to let that go."
"Fuck," he cries out in a deep bellow of misery as he looks at me with tortured eyes. "How could you even trust me? I'm a fucking friend and business partner to a rapist; I didn't believe you when you told me when JT--"
"You believe me now," I say firmly as I take one more step into his space and place my hands on his chest. "And you apologized for that crap that went down yesterday. You had reason to be pissed at me. I broke into your office, Beck. I betrayed your trust too, yet you've let that go. You have to trust that I can let it go too."