“I never went back to my high school again. Only six months from graduation and I quit. My parents were in shock at the change in me. It didn’t take long for them to find out about the video either. They argued about what to do, and had very differing opinions. I didn’t care. I was someplace else in my head and very, very sick. It’s hard to admit about myself, but it’s the truth. I was destroyed emotionally with no way to escape the demons.”
I kissed the back of her head and held on to her a little tighter. I knew all about demons, the evil cocksuckers that they were. “Can I ask why your parents didn’t try to press assault charges on the three of them? I can’t imagine it would have been difficult to get an arrest. You were underage and they were adults…and there was videotaped evidence.”
“My dad wanted them in prison. My mom didn’t want the publicity. She asserted that my slutty reputation would only drag our name through the mud and upset the social order of things. She was probably right. But again, I didn’t care what anyone did about it. I was lost in my head.”
“Oh, baby…”
“And then I discovered they’d gotten me pregnant.”
I stilled at that unwelcome news. Fucking hell…
“It put me over the edge. I—I couldn’t deal with any of it. My dad didn’t know what to do about a pregnancy. He started talking to the senator. My mom scheduled an abortion for me and I simply could not handle any more. I didn’t want a baby. I didn’t want to kill what was inside of me either. I just didn’t want to be reminded of the incident and everything and everybody reminded me. I guess if I’d felt better about myself I could have figured things out, but then if I’d felt better about myself I would have never gone to that party in the first place and ended up on that pool table.”
“I am so sorry...” I spoke softly but firm, wanting her to really understand how I truly felt. “Listen, baby, you cannot blame yourself for what happened to you.” I pressed in close to her ear. “You were the victim of a crime and treated abominably. It was not your fault, Brynne. I hope you know that now.” I rubbed up and down her arms, drawing the warm water up over her skin.
She settled more into my body and took a deep breath. “I think I do now, for the most part at least. Dr. Roswell helped me, and finding my place in the world helped too. But back then I was done. Done with living. I couldn’t see another path for me.”
All the warmth of earlier left me and I braced for what was coming. Like a train wreck you can’t stop staring at, I had to know what had happened to her but also didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to go to her dark place with her.
She shifted in the bath and twirled her fingers in the water as she started speaking again. “I’d never felt so calm as I did on that day. I got up and knew what I would do. I waited until Daddy went to work. I felt bad for doing it at his house but knew that my mom would never forgive me for doing it at hers. I wrote them goodbye letters and set them out on my bed. Then I took a handful of sleeping pills I’d stolen from my mom’s stash, got in the bathtub, and cut my wrist open.”
“No.” My heart compressed in a painful grip and all I could do was hold on to her, feel her warm body, and be grateful she was with me now. Imagining her at the point of taking her life, at such a young age, and feeling she had no other options was very sobering. I knew how I felt about Brynne but this scared the shit out of me.
“But I sucked at that too. I got sleepy and didn’t really cut deep enough to bleed out, or so I was told later. The pills I took were the far worse danger. Daddy found me in time. He came home for lunch to check on me. He said a weird vibe was shadowing him the whole morning and he just came home. He saved me.” Brynne shuddered slightly and turned her head a little more to rest her cheek on my chest.
Thank you, Tom Bennett. “I’m so glad you sucked at it,” I whispered. “My girl can’t be brill at everything.” I tried to lighten the mood a little but this was not a conversation for steering. My role was to listen, so I kissed her hair again and put my hand over her heart. “When I speak to your father I’m going to thank him,” I whispered.
“I woke up in a psychiatric hospital. My mother’s first words were that I’d had a miscarriage and had done something very stupid and selfish, and that the doctors had to put me on a suicide watch. She didn’t handle things well. I know I embarrassed her. And now that I’m older I can only imagine what I put my parents through, but she didn’t seem to want to face what I had done either. Mom went on and on about what a blessing it was to have the pregnancy out of the way, like this was her biggest concern. Our relationship is not easy. She disapproves of most everything I do.”
Brynne sighed again into my chest. I just kept touching to reassure myself she was indeed here. My girl was telling me her deepest secrets, in a hot bath, naked in my arms after some really mind-blowing shagging. I didn’t have any complaints. Well, maybe a few but I wouldn’t voice them to Brynne. I continued pulling warm water over her arms and br**sts, and thought about how much I didn’t approve of her mum. What mother would say such a thing to her daughter after a suicide attempt?
“When it was all over my parents sent me to a nice place in the New Mexico desert. It took time but I got better and eventually learned how to deal with my past. Not faultlessly, but I managed to make some decent progress I suppose. I discovered my interest in art and grew up.”
Brynne paused again in her story, almost like she was gauging how I was accepting her news and if I was shocked or horrified by her now. She worried far too much. I picked up her wrist with the scars and kissed right over the jagged marks. Little slices of white marring the otherwise perfect skin with its translucent sheen, the blue of her veins showing from underneath. The idea of her cutting into that skin made me very sad for what she had borne.
I had a sudden epiphany—Brynne had done her attempt at around the same time I was in that Afghan prison about to be—
She entwined her fingers with mine and drew me out of my thoughts, bringing our hands right up to her mouth and holding them there with her lips. Brynne was kissing my hand this time. I felt warmth flush all throughout my body and tried to hold onto the wonderfulness of the sensation while it lasted because her gesture made me far too emotional to speak.
“I never knew that my dad went to Senator Oakley and basically blackmailed him. He was livid that he’d nearly lost me and blamed Lance Oakley for everything. My dad wanted to press charges but realized I was in no shape to withstand a trial and probably never would be. And the added bonus of my mother telling him to leave it alone, and allow me to heal in peace, convinced him to let the idea of a formal prosecution go. But Daddy still wanted retribution of some form though. Senator Oakley just wanted all the ugly to go far, far away from his political career, so he forced his son to enlist in the Army and solved his biggest problem when Lance was shipped off to Iraq. Then he arranged for my acceptance at the University of London when the time came that I was well enough to leave New Mexico and go off to college. We decided on London mostly because it was so far away from home and the art was here. I could speak the language and Aunt Marie lived here already so I wouldn’t be completely on my own in a foreign country without at least some family.”
“So the senator has known exactly where you were all these years?” The situation sucked, was much bigger than I ever imagined, and the risks to Brynne could be enormous.
“I never knew that part until last week,” she whispered, “I thought I got in on my own merits.”
“I can understand how that might bother you, but your graduate study was earned on your merits as exemplary in your field. I’ve seen you at work, and I know you’re brilliant at what you do,” I teased with my tone and kissed the side of her jaw, “My adorable anorak, Professor Bennett.”
“Anorak?” she laughed. “What kind of crazy Brit slang word is that?”
“Yeah, I think you Yanks call them nerds or geeks. That’s you. An artsy anorak that I adore.” I turned her head to mine and met her lips for another kiss. I knew we were both remembering our ridiculous chat in the car that morning about the professor detaining the misbehaving student. Which would be her, the professor, and me, the misbehaving student.
“You’re crazy,” she said against my lips.
“Crazy for you,” I said, squeezing her a little. “But really, Senator Oakley owed you a hell of a lot more than what he gave, although it doesn’t make me happy to know that he is very aware of exactly where you are in the world and what you’re doing every day.”
“I know. And it scares me a little. Daddy said that Eric Montrose died in a weird bar fight when Lance was home on leave from the Army. He—he was one of them…on the video, but I never saw any of them again after that night. Not even Lance Oakley.”
The sound of her voice bothered me, and so did the thought of her remembering what she’d gone through at the hands of those degenerates. I was really happy one of them was dead. That part didn’t bother me at all. I just prayed his death had nothing to do with that video and Senator Oakley’s vetting.