my father, who used to beat my mother, was the victim. So, for me, that’s why victims come in all shapes and sizes. He beat her. I remember it so clearly. He beat her until she could take no more.”
Our eyes met, and she flinched. “She…killed him?”
I dipped my chin.
“Wow.”
That pretty much summed up my reaction to learning the truth too. A truth that Robert had spent a fortune hiding from the masses with carefully manicured press releases and rare interviews that were engineered to discuss my past in a cookie-cutter way.
Spreading my hands out, I asked, and carefully didn’t reveal the whole truth as I questioned, “So, who’s the victim? My mom? Married at sixteen, pregnant with me at seventeen, and a murderess at nineteen? Three years of abuse, of cruelty and spite. Or my dad. Spiteful, cruel, abusive. Drawing his young wife into doing something she would never have done unless provoked.”
Renee dropped her chin as her finger moved to circle around the rim of her cup. “Nothing is ever black and white.”
“Exactly. My future spawned from that moment. My grandmother took me away to spare me. Mother’s sin was even worse now. I have to assume that Nanny told me she killed herself because she knew she’d go to jail, knew she’d spend a large chunk of her life inside a prison. I understand that more than I do the alternative.”
“Why?”
“Because if I couldn’t swim every day, just like if she couldn’t sit outside every day, I’d feel like I was dying inside.”
Shoving the cheesecake away half eaten, I murmured, “The hazing was unfortunate and unnecessary. To get to where I am today, I knocked someone off her spot on the team. My times were impressive, and I just kept on winning—”
“Is it true you haven’t lost a race you’ve taken part in?”
I dipped my chin. “Yes. Crazy, but true. Even the relays. That’s why they always put me in last. I tend to rectify other people’s bad times.”
“Definitely insane, but a testament to your skill.”
“Maybe.” I pursed my lips. “Maria was jealous and someone, a supposed friend of hers, made her do something stupid.”
“Is it true they tried to drown you?”
“Yes. Well, Maria was trying, Cain succeeded.”
“You almost died?”
“Would have if a teacher hadn’t burst in at that moment.” My smile was tight. “Cain and Maria were expelled, Maria was charged with assault, but Cain—”
“Served time for attempted murder. That’s also been well-documented,” she said ruefully.
“I had bruises between my shoulder blades where he held me down.”
“Do you think he wanted to kill you?”
“I think he was jealous.”
“Why?”
“Because he was the prodigy of the team, and I was taking his place.” I blew out a breath. “It’s a tragedy really. So unnecessary. I was just trying to get out of the pit of poverty I was living in. I didn’t care about any of the crap they did. I just wanted to make something of myself.”
“But they wouldn’t let you.”
“No.” Sadness filled me. “I only met Cain a handful of times.”
“You knew his brother well at that point, though, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I did.” Past tense.
“Is it true he helped get you onto the Almanac Water Sports Team?”
“He did. He saw something in me that no one else did.”
Skepticism had her frowning as she queried, “Why did Cain want to hurt you so badly?”
“Jealousy,” I repeated, well aware from the tightening of her expression that her journalist’s curiosity had been pricked by my bland response.
There was more to Cain’s idiocy than what met the eye, but it was formed in jealousy. Just not of my being the team’s next golden child.
Adam.
So pathologically jealous of Adam, so unable to comprehend why I didn’t like Cain, why I could see through him, that Cain wanted to hurt me… just to get to Adam. Just to shit stir. Just for laughs.
Pathetic.
So pathetic, and it had ruined his life, destroyed Adam’s, and wrecked mine.
It boggled my mind that someone could do that, but people were petty, and Cain? Well, he was a psycho. Adam had long since condemned him as that, and when a psycho was petty, it took things to a whole other level.
“Why did his family take you in?”
I had to be careful here, because Anna was still in politics. So, I couldn’t exactly say ‘to look good for the press,’ could I?
“They adopted me,” I corrected.
“Yes. Why?”
“They wanted to right Cain’s wrong.”
Though I could see that the curiosity was back in her eyes, I also saw that she