you get into all of the drugs and drinking . . . and stuff, Rowen?” Jesse obviously didn’t like to mention the guys from my past any more than I did.
“A lot of reasons.”
Jesse exhaled slowly. “Why do you answer all my questions so vaguely?”
It was my turn to exhale slowly. Fine. Since we were apparently laying everything out on the table—girlfriends sleeping with good friends, confessions of love, the taking and losing of virginity, et cetera—I supposed I might as well dive right into the bottomless pit of my past.
“I’ve always been a little different, Jesse,” I started, cuddling closer, “a little one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other. I grew up without knowing my dad. I don’t think Mom even knows who my real father is, and the only parent I had was gone more than half the year traveling for work. I was pawned off on neighbors, acquaintances, and sometimes the random old friend passing through town.” I studied the ceiling and focused on Jesse’s body against mine. I was safe. I was loved. I wasn’t that scared little girl anymore. “I really started getting out of control when I hit thirteen.”
Jesse’s knuckles skimmed up and down my back in slow circles. “Why?”
He asked all of the questions I didn’t want him to ask. All of the questions I didn’t even ask myself anymore.
I bit my lip. I could do it. “My mom was dating this one guy.” I couldn’t say his name. I hadn’t said it since and I’d never say it again. “She dated a bunch of losers, but this guy really brought new meaning to the word. I’d find him staring at me when he didn’t think I’d notice. He’d go out of his way to be close to me . . . he’d look for innocent ways to . . .” I swallowed, closed my eyes, and forced myself on, “to touch me. I didn’t think much about it. I just wrote him off as a Grade A Creeper and tried to avoid him. My mom was gone for work one week, and she’d responsibly left me under the care and supervision of said Grade A Creeper.” I felt Jesse’s body stiffen beneath me. Or was that mine? “I’d just gotten home from school and headed to my bedroom. I didn’t even know he was back from work yet. I was in the middle of changing, and he just opened the door and walked inside the room like he owned the place. I yelled at him to get out. He just smiled.”
Jesse’s hand stopped moving up and down my back.
“He said that because he took care of my mom, I needed to take care of him. He . . . he . . .” I swallowed, but getting the words out was harder and harder. It was the first time I’d told the story since the day after it had happened. “He said my mom would never have to know. He said it would be our secret. And he said if I ever told anyone, he’d suffocate me and my mom when we were asleep.”
Jesse’s arms quivered around me. Then again, maybe that’s just the way they felt since I was shaking, too.
“He came at me. I tried to run. He was faster. He grabbed me and I tried to fight, but he was a big guy and I was even smaller than I am now.” When I closed my eyes, the entire scene played through my head, so instead, I opened them and focused on Jesse. I let him ground me. I let his eyes remind me I was safe. “He threw me on the floor, and I knew what was going to happen next. I knew no one was coming to save me. I knew I was alone.”
Jesse’s chest was rising and falling hard again. I hated taking him down the darkest road in my life. I hated that he had to know why I was such a goddamned mess. But I loved how not even a little bit did his hold on me loosen. He held me to him like he was trying to protect me from my own past.
“I looked around for something I could use as a weapon, and that’s when I realized I had all the weapon I needed. You might have seen me in a certain pair of old black combat boots?” Everyone at Willow Springs had seen me in those a good dozen times. “They also happen to be steel-toed and,