Forgiving Patience (35 page)

He took his thumb and caught a tear
before it slid down her cheek.

“You can’t feel this way. It’s only
been two weeks,” she said.

“That’s the mystery of love. It just
sneaks up on you, and you can’t do anything about it. And I’ve loved you most
of my life…that to me, is not too fast.”

“Jake, I can’t do this with you. It’s
too soon, and I’m leaving Patience.”

“You can trust me, Anna. Please tell
me what’s going.” He begged for her to talk to him, and tell him the secret
she’d been carrying all of her adult life. Hell—not just her adult life, but
most of her childhood. The secret that stole her innocence. If she told him,
things would change dramatically. Forever.

“I can’t.” More tears started to
fall. He went into the bathroom and brought back a wad of toilet paper. She
wiped away the falling tears, sniffling at the same time.

“You can, Anna. It’s just me, Jake.
The boy you once loved, and maybe still do, even if you don’t want to believe
it. I will not hurt you again.

I know what it feels like to bottle
up your emotions. Before too long, they will swallow you up, and you will lose
yourself to them. I would hate to see that happen to you even more than it
already has. I would hate to see you not smile or laugh or just live your life
because of the walls you surround yourself with.”

He stood from his kneeling position.
Sitting beside her on the bed, he took her hands, pulling her to face him.
Looking into his eyes, she could see concern, and what she guessed was love. It
hit her that he really loved her. She didn’t know how it was possible, but
there was no mistaking the softness of his expression when he stared into her
eyes.

Silence fell between them, but his
eyes never left hers. “It’s too hard, Jake.”

“I can see that, baby. I’m right
here, though. You can fall on me. I’m here for you, and you just have to start
believing that.”

“I do.”

“Then you can tell me anything. I’m
not going anywhere. I thought I proved that when you told me about the
depression and sleeping meds.”

Anna could feel her defenses weaken.
She was emotionally drained and could feel the hold she’d wrapped her emotions
in slip. Before she knew it, she heard herself say, “I don’t know where to
start.”

He slid his thumb over the top of her
hand. It was endearing and comforting. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?
Why did you break up with me and leave town?”

Her heart did a freefall. She
remembered that day too well, and it broke her heart every time she thought of
it.

“I didn’t think I was good enough for
you.”

He stood. “What’s that supposed to
mean?” He was trying to keep his emotions in check, but Anna could see the
anger rolling off him.

“It was true,” she defended herself.
“The scouts were looking at you, and we both knew you were going to be drafted.
You were too good not to, and you would be off traveling city to city for six
months out of the year, and I would just be here. I had nothing going in my
life, and I would only be dragging you down. I wanted you to take your chance
and run with it. I didn’t want you to give up your dream for me.”

“So you broke up with me so that I
would be so furious, leave this town, and never think about us again? Well,
that didn’t work, because I thought about you every fucking day. When I wasn’t
training or on the field, I was thinking of you.”

“I never meant to hurt you. You have
to believe that. I was going through my own mess and wasn’t thinking clearly. I
know that’s no excuse, but it’s the truth.” She dropped her head to the floor.
She couldn’t stand to see the hurt she had caused in his eyes.

“Look at me,” he said. She brought
her head up. “What mess did you have going on?”

“It was like this town was closing in
on me. There were too many bad memories here, and I couldn’t get away from
them.”

“What memories? You had a mother who
loved you, you had Em, and you had me. How is that a bad memory? Did I mean so
little to you that you felt the only way to get away from me was to run?” He
started roaming the room. “Did our relationship mean nothing to you—because it
meant something to me.”

“You’re right. I did have a mother
and good friends, and you meant the world to me, but that was the problem.”

He stopped in front of her. “How is
that a problem?”

“I didn’t want to have sex with you.
There. Are you happy?” She started to clasp and unclasp her hands.

“Why?”

“I just couldn’t.”

“I never pressured you to have sex
with me. I think I was pretty considerate considering I was a teenage boy with
raging hormones and a girlfriend who, whenever she was around, made my dick
throb behind the zipper of my jeans. I think most of my senior year, I had a
zipper indentation on my cock.”

She was shocked by his words. Her
mouth fell open.

“See, there you go, shutting down all
because I said my dick rose when you were around.”

“Sorry, but I’m just not used to such
language.”

“Well, get used to it. You’ll be
hearing it for years to come. But we’ll talk about that later. Right now I want
you to finish your story.”

They were definitely going to talk
about that later. Those comments were scaring her blind. Two weeks hardly
equaled years to come.

“So, you couldn’t have sex with me.
Is there a reason? Did I not do it for you back then?”

“No…I mean, yes, you did it for me.
When we were in the back of your mom’s old station wagon, I was very tempted
more than once. I’ve always wanted you. That wasn’t the problem.”

“Then why didn’t we do anything? I
sure was willing.”

“I wasn’t comfortable with sex. It
scared me to the point that I was having an anxiety attack.”

“Most are terrified the first time,
but I thought we had something special, that you trusted me to be easy with
you. Take care of you.”

“I know you did. I never doubted
that. I just couldn’t, okay?

“Why?” he impatiently asked.

“Because I had a bad experience. Is
that good enough for you? Can you leave me alone now?”

“No, I can’t. What kind of
experience?” He was pushing her, but he also used a gentle and concerned tone
while doing it. She could see his emotions and knew he was trying to hold the
raging ones back. Probably from fear of scaring her again.

She used the tissue he gave to her to
wipe her face. She couldn’t control the flood of emotions. Her eyes slammed
shut, and she was suddenly back there. Lying in that bed…in that room. Smelling
the cologne he always chose to wear. She could feel the covers being drawn back
and the smell of beer as he breathed on her skin.

Anna didn’t want to be back there,
but there was no escaping the man who demanded the answers she kept locked
away.

“I can’t say it out loud,” she cried.
Jake went to her and wrapped a strong arm around her for comfort. She nuzzled
his neck, finding a safe place. Her safe place.

“Sweetheart, you can tell me
anything. You will feel better if you just say it. I’m here for you always.”

Keeping her head on his shoulder, she
whispered as if she were still that terrified six-year-old girl. “He touched
me.”

“I’m confused.”

“Larry. He touched me.”

“Larry? Your mom’s old boyfriend.
That Larry?”

“Yes,” she sobbed.

Jake’s entire body tensed as he
asked, “What do you mean by
touched you
?”

Anna fell silent. When Jake bent down
so he could see her face, she cut her eyes up at him, showing him everything he
was too afraid to actually say and ask.

“Son–of-a-bitch. The bastard touched
you? Son-of-a-bitch. Fucking bastard. Tell me, what did he do? I need to know,”
Jake demanded, not seeming to know what to do with his hands. One minute he was
pulling out his hair to the point it was standing up straight, and the next
they were balled in fists and punching the top of his thighs.

Anna raised her head off her safe
place and looked deep into those blue eyes. She could see the fury for sure,
but somehow she could see the concern. It was an odd mixture. It was a
combination that almost scared her. He was angry, but trying not to show it,
and failing miserably. There was no way to hide the kind of anger Jake had at
that moment. And it touched her deeply to see how concerned he was on her
behalf.

“When I was six…” She trailed off,
not sure if she was capable of saying it aloud. Around the people who actually
knew her secret, it was always the elephant in the room. She hadn’t really said
the details out loud in years.

“It’s okay. Just get it out.” Jake
was trying to soothe her by rubbing the small of her back. But she could still
feel the heat of his fury.

“When I was six, he would come into
my room when he thought I was asleep, but I never was. He would pull my covers
back and touch me in places. I lay there, helpless. I didn’t do anything, Jake.
I let him do that to me, and I never screamed or fought him off.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask…did he
rape you?”

She shook her head. “No, he didn’t.
But he would put his…mouth on my body”

“I could kill the bastard.” Jake let
out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I have to find him first, but
then I’m going to fucking kill him with my bare hands.”

“Please don’t be mad.” She tried to
calm him. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. She was more worried about what he was
going to do. It was not going to help or change anything if he went off
searching for the man who’d taken her innocence.

“Baby, I’m not mad at you. Nothing
about what that animal did to you is your fault.”

“But I let him,” she said. Knowing
that she’d never once stood up to Larry stuck with her after all these years.
At times it was what bothered her the most.

He petted her hair as if she were
that small helpless girl. “That was not your fault. You were a kid who was
scared and vulnerable. You thought he loved you. You had no way of knowing that
someone you trusted would take advantage of you like that. Don’t ever beat
yourself up for not saying anything. He’s the sick bastard who deserves a slow
death, which then results in him going straight to hell.”

“But I let him touch me,” she cried.

“Baby, listen to me. You were a
child. There was nothing you could’ve done to stop him. Where was your mom when
all this was going on?”

“I didn’t tell her until I was a
freshman in high school.”

“Good God. He lived with you for all
those years, and your mother never knew?”

“Yes.”

“How long did the abuse last?” he
asked.

“About a year. All of sudden he just
stopped. We never talked about it. When I became a teenager, I noticed him
looking at me in what I thought was a sexual way. It might have just been in my
head, but I never trusted him. The summer before I became a sophomore, it was
just me and my mom at the house. He was at work. I couldn’t hold it in any
longer. I wasn’t sleeping or eating and I knew my mom could tell something was
wrong. She was persistent that I tell her what was bothering me, so I told her
everything. I remember being scared that she would be mad at me somehow, but of
course she wasn’t.”

“What did she do?”

“After we cried together, she packed
his stuff and had it waiting for him on the front lawn. He never gave a fight
or asked why she was kicking him out. He just left us, and we never heard from
him again. From that day on, it was just me and her.”

Jake cuddled her in his arms. Her
head fit nicely below his chin. “I’m so sorry. I wish I would’ve known. It
explains a lot.”

“That’s why I’m a little cautious
about the sex talk, and I don’t just let anyone in. It’s not you personally. I
just have a hard time trusting anyone. And it’s why last night when we were
having sex and you wanted to—”

“It’s okay, Anna. I get it now. We
can take things as slow as you need.”

“Thank you,” she said, relieved.
“There was more.”

“What do you mean more? How much
worse could he do?” Jake’s fury was written all over his face.

“He wasn’t just abusive to me. He pushed
my mother around when he was drunk, or just bored. He was also mentally abusive
to her, which was worse. He treated her like dirt, and she began to think she
was. She allowed him to belittle her. It took her finding out that he’d hurt me
for her to finally take a stand and kick the jackass out. I was never more proud
of her until that moment.”

“God…how did I never know this? We
might not have been dating at the time, but we lived in the same town. How
could I not know something like this was going on? I feel like shit. And damn
it, that morning back at the house when I shattered the dish. That must have
brought up so many bad memories for you. I’m so sorry, Anna. If I had known—”