to step away from. I know what I want, and it’s you. That’s it. Please.”
For a moment, I can see it. See us back on the beach, see me back in his bed. The freedom, the lightness, the joy. The safety I felt as I fell asleep in his arms, knowing he’d take care of me. I’d give anything to have that back.
But Gautier would still be out there.
“He would find me. He would find me, and you know what he’d do to me. Pascal, in the days before I left, I discovered I was pregnant.”
The words hit him like stones. He flinches. “Wh-what?”
The shame is so great, I can barely see. My arms are getting tired. My heart is getting tired. “I was pregnant. It was your father, of course. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even my mother. I went by myself to get an abortion. I couldn’t carry the seed of my rapist inside me. I knew enough that I couldn’t do that. And it ruined me, it truly did. Until I realized it was the bravest thing I’d ever done. Until I realized that by doing that, I was gaining my freedom, and I had nothing left to lose. So I planned to leave that night, and he . . . he caught me before I could leave. I was so sick, so . . . sore. Abused. In my body and in my soul. He planned something for me that I knew would have been a million times worse than normal, and I had to fight back. I stabbed him with a corkscrew. You ever wonder about that scar on his forearm? That was me. And that was my only way out.”
Pascal is speechless from anger. His face is turning dark, a shade of scarlet, his jaw so tense that I’m afraid he might lose some teeth. His eyes are the most frightening of all, just electric coils that burn and burn, seething with rage.
Now he feels it. Now he might know just what it means to get revenge.
I continue. “It was then that I told my mother, and she didn’t believe me. She accused me of lying, of attacking Gautier. She took his side. Do you know what that feels like? To have your own mother believe a monster over you? That’s when I knew she was gone. She was brainwashed by him. And my first priority when I came back was to get her out of this fucking house. That wasn’t a lie.”
“Then take her and go,” he pleads in a gruff voice. “Leave my father to me.”
“She won’t leave,” I tell him, crying. “What do you think I tried to do today? I sat her down and told her everything, and she didn’t care. She got up and walked away the moment I brought up the past. She’s too far gone. Your father has a hold on her that’s probably a lot more damaging than you think.”
“Oh, I think I know exactly how he operates.”
“Then you’ll see why I have to do this. I have to make him pay. I’m the one who deserves to pull the trigger.”
“You’re going to lose, baby, please.”
He won’t let me go, will he? I’ll have to shoot him if I want to leave.
I lower the gun. “I won’t lose. Even if it all goes wrong, I won’t lose. Because I tried. Because I’m going to put this gun in his face and I’m going to let him feel the fear that I felt.”
“You won’t get close enough,” he says. “He has someone with him, a trained hit man. You won’t even get in the door.”
But I’m not listening to him. I have the gun at my side now, my head down, staring at the floor.
Pascal starts to approach me, slowly, hands out, like I’m some scared and injured animal, and he’s right. I am. I’m harmless unless threatened.
“Gabrielle,” he whispers to me, and it sounds so pained, so sweet, so sorrowful, it makes a tear fall from my eye. What if this is the last thing I ever hear him say to me?
What if this moment is it?
“I’m sorry,” I say to him.
I wait until he’s close enough.
“For what?” he asks.
Then I quickly rise up and pistol-whip him across his face, then bring the gun down on the back of his head.
He stares at me, betrayal in his eyes, blood pouring through his nose, before he keels over to the side, crumbling to the floor.
“For that,” I