When Jake peered into her eyes, she was surprised to find him still looking . . . uncertain, unconvinced. “But is there . . . anything else, honey?” he asked.
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because what you just told me sucks, but . . . I think there’s gotta be more.”
More
. Lord. The simple word suddenly felt like a chisel chipping away at her flesh. Because she’d thought maybe the story about Kevin would . . . be enough. To explain things, to satisfy him, to make sense of it all to both of them. But it wasn’t, and the rest of it played at the edge of her brain now—the really bad stuff. The unfathomable stuff. The stuff no one knew because it was too awful for anyone to believe.
She
didn’t want to believe it.
So she pushed it away, like always—just shoved the vague memories and hideous feelings toward the back of her mind.
Only . . . they wouldn’t quite go this time.
She’d never had anyone trying to pull this out of her before, trying to
make
her dredge it up. Shit. Her stomach churned painfully now. Shit, shit, shit.
“What is it?” he asked.
Hell, he’d clearly seen the look on her face.
“Nothing.” She glanced down, at his chest.
And he used one bent finger to tenderly lift her chin, to make her look at him again. “Something,” he whispered.
And her throat swelled and everything in her felt as if it were curling in upon itself, as if her very body were disintegrating bit by bit.
She thought about trying to say it—this awful thing on the fringes of her mind—to put it into words. But how? And . . . should she? Could she? She trusted Jake—at this point, she trusted him an insane amount for someone she’d really just met. But did she truly want another human being on this planet to know about the revolting thing darting about the jagged outskirts of her memories?
“You can tell me, Carly, whatever it is. I promise.”
And she followed the instant instinct to throw her arms around his neck and say, low, close to his ear, “I’m afraid you’ll think I’m bad.”
He drew back slightly, blinked, and she realized what she’d done, how little sense it made in the context of everything else. “I could never think you’re bad—I swear.”
“Why?” she asked around the swelling in her throat.
“Because . . . I know you. I mean, I know we just met, and under odd circumstances, but all that aside, I
know
you, Carly. I understand you—better than you think. And I
care
about you. A lot. I want to take away the things that hurt you. But I can’t if you don’t tell me what they are.”
God. That was . . . sweet. And it made her feel safer than . . . wow, maybe safer than she’d felt since she’d been a little girl. Back when there
was
no sex. Only innocence. Good things.
And when he hugged her tight and placed a kiss on her temple, it also made her
braver
than she’d ever been—even in a red dress in Traverse City. Because compared to
this
, that was nothing.
Chapter 12
S
he bit her lip, found herself burying her face in Jake’s chest, then whispered, “Um . . . when I was fourteen, my mom got adult mono, and it’s contagious for up to two months. And when she was diagnosed, my parents decided my dad shouldn’t sleep with her. So … since I had a double bed, he came in my room and slept with
me
.”
Her throat felt like it was physically closing up as she spoke, but she’d started this now—she’d started it, so she had to get through it. “And, um . . . he would, um . . .” Her voice was shaking. “He touched me.”
When she said no more—her stomach clenching now—Jake gently added the rest for her. “In ways he shouldn’t have.”
She let out a sigh, and her answer came small, childlike. She pulled back a bit to motion toward her breasts, saying, “Here.” Then pointed downward. “And there.” She swallowed hard, the memories at once vague yet searing, her body tensing just as it had on those hideous nights.
“It always started in the middle of the night. It would wake me up. And I was so . . . completely
shell-shocked
. . . that something in me just froze.” She swallowed past the thickness in her throat, remembering a sense of paralysis taking over her body. “I just . . . lay there, pretending I was asleep. And then I’d roll away, still acting like I was sleeping, but . . . he’d start again. And it . . . it didn’t seem possible that it was really happening. Because he was my
father
.” God, it was hard to breathe as she spoke. She’d never said these words before. Not even in her own mind. She’d always known it had happened, but she’d just refused to let herself think about it for more than the second it took to push the bad thoughts away. If she didn’t think about it, it didn’t have to feel
real
, like a thing that had really taken place.
“Maybe . . . maybe that doesn’t seem so bad,” she went on, “because, I mean, I know lots of people endure worse. But it was . . . awful. It made me sick. I . . . didn’t know what to do.”
“No, honey,” Jake soothed her, his voice deep, warm. “It . . . it
is
bad. But
you’re
not bad. That never should have happened to you. Ever.” And he hugged her to him and she simply lay in the comfort of his arms, hating the memories, hating the way her entire body had clenched in response to them.
After that, they talked more. It came in bits and pieces—gentle questions from Jake that forced her to dig deeper into the pain of the past. It horrified her, and it was agonizing to go back to that strange, almost surreal time, to push past the protective mental walls she’d put up around it—but once the first piece of the wall had come down, it seemed necessary to demolish the rest. And even as strange as it felt to share her worst, most repulsive memories with Jake, he was so understanding that she found herself telling him . . . more and more.
Maybe . . . it needed to come out.
“I’m not sure how many times it happened—I just know it was more than once, because I have a few different, distinct memories about it. And I remember . . . lying in bed afterward, still wide-awake, my skin crawling, still in that weird state that felt like . . . panic or something . . . ”
“Shock,” Jake suggested, and she nodded.
“I’m not sure if I ever slept at all those nights. I remember just waiting, praying morning would come because I couldn’t stand lying there next to him. Maybe . . . maybe I even left the bed and slept on the couch or something.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. The details are foggy.”
“Did you ever confront him?”
She shook her head. “No, never. I . . . couldn’t even face the fact that it happened. I’m not sure I’ve ever really let myself believe it
did
happen . . . until right now.” Her stomach plummeted all over again. “I mean, he was my dad. The man who was supposed to . . .”
“Protect you,” Jake finished for her again, sounding as sad and broken as she felt inside.
“I never let myself think about it—any time it entered my thoughts, I just instantly pushed the memories away. Maybe that’s why the memories are so foggy in ways. Mainly, it would come to mind when I was with Chuck, or with other guys I dated—they would start touching me, and even though I was aroused, at the very same time I’d feel disgusted. I guess it felt . . . like
him
touching me. And I guess when I became Desiree . . .” She stopped, thought through it. “Then it wasn’t
me
being touched anymore. It was . . . someone with no past, no bad memories. It was . . .”
“Someone who’d never been abused that way,” Jake said quietly.
Abused
. Wow. She’d never thought of herself like that. It was such an ugly word. It sounded so much like someone you’d see on a TV talk show. “Was I?” she wondered aloud. “Abused? Because . . . I mean . . . he was a good father in every other way. He taught me to ride a bike. He read me bedtime stories. And . . . he taught me my craft, what I do for a living. He taught me woodworking . . .” Again, she swallowed past the lump in her throat. “He taught it to me
lovingly
. Because we both valued it and he wanted to pass it on to me.”
With his arms still loosely around her, Jake gave her a markedly sad look. “I’m so sorry, honey. But yeah—that was abuse. It doesn’t matter what else he did or didn’t do—it doesn’t make
those
actions any less wrong. Just please know there’s no shame in it. Not for you, I mean.”
And that was when Carly finally lost it, when it all finally came spilling out of her—nearly twenty years of anguish. Tears rushed forth and she clutched at Jake’s chest, pressing her cheek there. His gentle touch soothed her, along with his soft, deep voice, whispering that it was okay to let it all out. And finally, finally, she let herself really feel the pain of what had happened to her—and she cried for a very long time.
When at last the tears started to abate, she sat up, reached for some tissues, wiped at her eyes, blew her nose. She noticed that Oliver had quietly joined them on the bed and she reached out an absent hand to stroke the side of his neck. Her head still spun, though. How was it she’d always known—in the back of her mind—that these things had happened, yet she’d never truly admitted it to herself? How was it that these old truths felt so painfully fresh and new?
She sighed, trying to wrap her head around it all. “He’s been dead a long time now. And I loved him. Even though I also always harbored some . . . resentment toward him that I never really could explain, probably because of this.” She shook her head. “I—I’m not sure how to feel about him now.”
“You acknowledge your right to be angry at him. Outraged. And then, after you let yourself feel that—you try to forgive him,” Jake said simply—and again, he sounded so very sure. “You take some time, work through it in your head, and you eventually forgive.”
Forgive? Given Jake’s clear anger throughout the conversation, this part surprised her—enough that she asked, “What do you mean?” After all, forgiveness seemed to contradict everything else he was telling her.
In response, he simply gave his head a short shake, now looking as tired as she felt. God, it was probably late—she had no idea how long they’d been lying here talking. At some point, they’d pulled the fresh covers up over their naked bodies and it made her feel . . . a bit protected somehow. “Look,” he said, “I’m oversimplifying this, big-time—it’s complicated as hell. And maybe I’m jumping ahead too fast—trying to give you the remedy when you’re just getting the diagnosis. But . . . in the end, you gotta try to forgive the person who hurt you. Not for their sake, but for yours. You just gotta get it out of you. You get it out, you let it go as best you can, then you start to move on.”
As they’d talked, she’d assumed he knew about such things due to being a cop, due to all the drama he’d seen on the job, all the different people he’d had to deal with from all walks of life. And yet . . . there was something in his voice now, a certain passion, a sharp and biting edge, that made her lift her gaze to his—and try to look deeper into it.
Because suddenly she grasped that there was something more going on than she’d understood up to now. “Why do you know so much about this?” she whispered.
Jake’s face went numb as he realized he’d said too much.
But hell—she’d bared her soul to him, in every possible sense. Maybe somewhere along the way he’d forgotten he had his
own
secret to keep.
Maybe now it was only fair to tell her
his
truth.
He let his gaze narrow on her, felt his jaw tightening as he sought the right words.
Just say it, damn it—just tell her.
“It . . . happened to me, too.”
She flinched in his arms, her pretty eyes bolting open wider.
And he went on. “Not the same way. Nothing about it was the same. But . . . I was molested when I was a little kid.”
He watched her carefully, maybe because she was so much nicer to focus on than those ugly recollections. He saw her swallow heavily; he read the pure astonishment in her eyes. Of course, he’d long since become desensitized to his past, to what had happened—he supposed telling her was tripping him up only because he hadn’t thought about it much recently, and he’d never told too many people about it.
“Wh-what happened to you?”
“I was seven,” he said. “And I was walking to school. Usually, my mom drove me, or my older brother or sister walked with me—but they all stayed home sick that day. A neighbor was supposed to take me, but I was waiting outside and she never showed up, and my dad had already gone to work, so I decided to just act like a big kid and walk myself. It was only a couple of blocks, and it didn’t seem like a big deal. And then . . .” He stopped, swallowed. Saw images behind his eyes. The navy blue parka he’d worn on a cold March day. The lines in the sidewalk beneath his tennis shoes. Yeah, he was desensitized, but he was reliving the sad moment that had defined a huge part of his life. “Then a man pulled up next to me in a green station wagon and asked me to help him look for his dog.”
The light gasp that echoed from Carly’s throat told him that this particular ploy in child abduction and molestation had become so well-known—almost to the point of being clichéd—that it had reached even places like Turnbridge. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Man, I look back on that moment and just wish I’d been . . . wiser. Smart enough,
distrustful
enough, to remember everything my mom and dad had ever said about talking to strangers and all that, but . . . I liked dogs, you know? And the guy seemed . . . nice.” He shook his head, disgusted all over again that any human being would be so deceptive in order to hurt a little kid.
When he met her gaze, her eyes looked glassy again, and he pulled her close and whispered, “Honey, don’t cry for me. I’m okay, I promise.”
She met his gaze and nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
So he said, “I’m only telling you because you asked, and because . . . given the stuff
you
just told
me
, I think it’s fair, and I want you to know you’re not in this alone. All right?”