Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk #3) - Samantha Young Page 0,116
some bizarre reason, I felt like I should comfort her.
However, the look on Jess’s face arrested me. It was as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Jess?” I was concerned.
She turned to Bailey instead, her blue eyes wide with understanding. “This is why you wanted me here.”
Bailey nodded. “I need someone to get through to her, and I believe only you can.”
Why?
Why Jessica?
Jess straightened her shoulders as if readying for battle. “If it’s okay with you, I want to tell you my story now.”
I nodded, a strange feeling of dread filling my gut and I didn’t know why.
I would understand why very soon.
“I had a little sister too,” she said, her smile melancholy. “She was a ballet dancer. Her name was Julia.”
My eyes moved to Emery, and I saw that this was news to her.
“She was eleven,” Jess continued, “I was fourteen. Our parents were very social people, and they often put their needs above our own. They’d leave us alone a lot, and I was left in charge of Julia. My aunt Theresa would watch her for me when she could, but often, it was left to me to babysit. And I was fourteen—I wanted to be out with my friends.” She grimaced and looked at her hands, pressing her fingertips nervously together. “A few years before the summer I turned fourteen, my father’s little brother, Tony, moved back home. He took a lot of interest in us. I was grateful,” Jess scoffed, the sound hard and ugly. “I would go out with my friends, and he would watch Julia.”
When she looked at me, I shook my head, part of me not wanting to hear what I knew was coming. I saw it in the horror that still lived in the back of her eyes. “I came home early one afternoon, and they weren’t around. Then I heard something down in the basement.”
Emery let out a low moan, and Jess reached for her hand without breaking her gaze from mine.
“He … he was raping her.”
Nausea welled inside of me, and I covered my mouth to hold back the cry I wanted to release. That poor little girl. Oh my God. What Jess had seen … I couldn’t even imagine. If someone had done that to Dillon, I would’ve killed him.
“I flew at them,” she recalled. “I was in this blind rage, and it gave me enough strength to get him off her. We tried to escape. We were running up the stairs, but he caught Julia. I got him away from her, but he came at me at the top of the stairs. He had me on my back, punching me. My sister screamed, and then he wasn’t on me anymore. It disoriented me at first, but when I got up, Tony had Julia pinned against the wall, and he was choking her.” Her hands went to her throat. “And I knew. I knew he wouldn’t let us out of there alive.
“So I killed him,” she announced, the words hoarse, like they’d been dragged out of her.
That dread I felt wrapped itself around me.
Jessica.
“I took one of my father’s golf clubs, and I hit him over the head. He fell down the stairs and broke his neck.” Swiping at a tear, she continued. “Julia told my parents and the police what had happened and we learned that he’d been raping her for two years. Since she was nine. My parents were so caught up in their own lives, and I was such a self-involved teenager, we hadn’t paid any attention to her. We hadn’t seen the signs.
“Our parents put us both in therapy rather than deal with us themselves, and Julia focused on her dancing. Obsessively.” Her eyes took on a faraway glaze. “When she didn’t get into the school of her dreams, she hung herself in that basement. I found her. My parents blamed me. They didn’t want to believe it was Tony’s abuse that caused all her pain. They said it was the memory of me killing a man in front of her.”
I was cold. All the way through. Because I hated that this was her story. She was so kind and warm, and she took care of people. She helped people. I hated that this was her story. She deserved so much better.
Emery and Bailey were both crying, and I realized that my cheeks were wet too. Our eyes locked as an unspoken connection wrapped itself around us.
“For a long time, I blamed myself. I wanted to punish