Where Life Takes You

by Claudia Burgoa

I grabbed his tiny hand and headed to the outside staircase with him. We played some games and read a couple of books. Being alone with Ryan gave me the time to study his features in more detail. With his blond hair and green eyes, the boy reminded me so much of Connor and Ian. His nose and mouth were different, but with those eyes, it was impossible not to think of his dad, and uncle.

  Connor appeared at the top of the stairs. “Hey, Rebecca. Are you two having a good time?” He sat next to Ryan, in front of me.

  I nodded, and continued observing him.

  “I hope you’re not projecting your feelings for Ian onto my son.”

  “Why would I do that?” I dropped the book I was holding, crossed my arms, and leaned away.

  “You loved him. I bet you miss him.” A chill passed through my body, but he didn’t wait for an answer. As if reading from a well-rehearsed script, he said his lines without pause. “You thought you two were tight, but he treated you like… trash. Before Lisa, there were other girls. He used to say, “‘I have needs, but she wants to wait. It’s just a couple of meaningless fucks, and she gets to keep her blushing bride fantasy.’” Connor stood up. “How can you love him? After everything he did.” He stopped, his penetrating gaze angered and frightened me at the same time. “You should’ve reported him.”

  I froze as images from all those years ago came flashing into my head faster than my breathing. “Why?” I mumbled.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Rebecca. He told me.” I shivered. No one was supposed to find out. Ian had taken it to the grave, along with Lisa. “A couple of days before—”

  “You?” It dawned on me. “You’re the dealer?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “No, there wasn’t a dealer.”

  Finally, everything Lisa said the day she died made sense. I couldn’t stop the memories that began to cascade inside my mind. Suffocating me.

  “Tell me what happened,” Connor demanded.

  For the first time, I paid attention to Ryan, who stared at his red-faced father with wide eyes. This wasn’t a conversation to have in front of a child. No, correction―this wasn’t a conversation we should’ve been having. Period. That part of my life had died years ago—literally.

  The men inside—mostly Dan—would kick Connor out in a heartbeat if I broke down and cried—or suffered an anxiety attack. I stood up, hoping my stomach would settle before I puked.

  I ignored him and grabbed Ryan’s hand, pulling him up to a standing position. “Let’s go inside, Ryan. It’s getting chilly, and we don’t want to get sick.” We headed downstairs.

  Connor followed, picking Ryan up before we took the stairs. “Becca, talk to me, or I’ll ask in front of your friends.”

  Not happening!

  When we reached the living room, where Buddy, Drew, Raj, and Ty sat, I stopped. “I’ll be in my office. Brightmore, Sanders, you’re on babysitting duty.” I tilted my head, pointing to Ryan. “Take him to the media room, will you?”

  Dan stood. “Hold it right there,” he barked. “I’m joining your party.”

  “Nope. I need to talk to him alone.” I crossed my arms and dared him to defy me.

  Dan stared at me, clenched his jaw, and then turned to Connor. Pointing his finger, he increased the volume of his voice. “You touch one hair, or any other part of her body, and no one will know where in the universe I buried you. Got it?”

  “Daniel, macho isn’t your color.” I blew out some air to keep myself together in front of him. If he found out, I would lose him.

  “Neither is pink,” he retaliated. “Yet you make me wear one, and look at the other on a daily basis.” Dan turned toward Nick while he continued talking to me. “Nick will stay outside, in case you need him.”

  Every guy gave Connor a murderous glare. I nodded and headed to my office.

  Chapter 16

  I slammed my office door behind Connor. I was hoping Dan would wake me from this living nightmare, but the scene kept going without interruption.

  “What do you want, Connor?” I asked, stalling the inevitable. “I have nothing to say to you, and no idea what you’re implying.”

  “Don’t play dumb, Rebecca,” he snapped. “He confessed to me what happened between the two of you over Thanksgiving break. He was high.” Connor huffed, and the tension in his body mirrored mine. “As always. Ian’s natural state. My parents didn’t give a shit, and neither did I.”

  I chewed my lip, thinking about my next question. What if he didn’t have all the facts about what had happened between Ian and me that night?

  My anti-fairy tale began like any other Hispanic soap-opera. Thanksgiving was the first time Ian and I had seen one another in months. When Lisa came into the picture, he sank into the background of her demented fantasy—the one where life was a fun house and we were all her carnies in a three ring act that was sure to end in a bang. Ian tried to stay with me for as long as he could. In the beginning, he still climbed the tree house in the old oak next to my room every night, as if nothing had changed.

  We would lie on my bed and talk, even if it was three AM when he rolled in from the latest party. Nothing was off limits between us. He knew all my thoughts, secrets, and fears. He was the ghostwriter to the memoir I would one day write about our lives.

  There was far too much pressure on him to become the beacon of light for our sad little town, to make a name for himself. Everyone was counting on him to be the one to beat the odds, and to hand life and hope back to us on a silver platter. I was guilty of adding to the heaping pile of desperate dreams thrust at Ian. I knew that now.

  Ian was the hunky blockbuster action hero, he was the dopey best friend, and the only family I had since Grandma’s death. He was my everything, and maybe I told him that one time too many. I knew about the partying—he stayed out past curfew almost every Friday night—but it was just a little harmless fun, right? What was important was that he was there for me. I needed him; he cradled my heart whenever I couldn’t hold my own. He was supportive and gentle and kind.

  Until Lisa stepped in and withered Ian, along with everything else decent in my life. I never knew the specifics of how their relationship began, but from what I gathered it was fairly simple. He was the boy next door and she was the new, exciting thing that had drifted into town. He liked to party, and funnily enough, so did she. Lisa’s idea of a party, however, was vastly different from everything I knew about Ian. Her favorite pastimes included binge drinking, smoking, and injecting anything she could get her hands on. Considering her ample funds at the time, this included most, if not all, drugs.

  She propositioned him with a world where everything was pure. With all that Ian had on his plate, an “escape” must have been enticing. The temptation of lawlessness spread to other aspects of his life, however, and soon he was spending more time with Lisa and her narcotics than he ever had on his studies, activities, or me. At some point, he stopped hiding his newfound hobby of toking it up with that bitch. The boy I knew, the boy I’d loved since childhood, didn’t see the light of day anymore, even though I still saw Ian often enough. He and Lisa clung to each other like survivors of a shipwreck. It made me curl into myself further, knowing that I was losing him and, worse, that there was nothing I could do.

  Senior year had found me alone on Thanksgiving. Mom, Greg, and Lisa had flown to Phoenix to visit relatives and celebrate the holiday together. That was when, for the first time in what felt like ages, I heard a familiar tapping at my window.

  The sound startled me into semi-consciousness. Woke me up just enough to instinctively unlock the window and open it for him, but not enough to remember that this was no longer normal for us. He had no place coming to see me anymore, and especially not in the dead of night when I was home alone. Only when I turned to face him and looked into his glazed and bloodshot eyes did I realize my mistake. He was intoxicated, and in my bedroom, and I had no clue what was running through his mind.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered harshly, avoiding his gaze.

 
His voice was raspy and distant. “I miss you, Becky.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to keep my tone even and clinical. I couldn’t be vulnerable; he wasn’t being fair or rational. “How can you miss me? You abandoned me.”

  Ian didn’t respond. His mouth twitched in displeasure with a hint of earnest confusion. It made my blood boil a bit to have him barging back into my life, bent on fixing things between us, without the faintest idea why we’d been so broken lately.

  “You left me for Lisa, just like everyone else,” I continued. He needed to know how much he had hurt me. It was my only real opportunity to speak my mind without the evil stepsister lurking in the shadows. “I thought it was going to get better after Mom married Greg. He was supposed to take care of her, get her off my hands, and leave me in peace, for once. I thought she would take off with him, and leave me—us—alone so I could be happy. Now I have to watch my back even more than before. I have no one to talk to. No one loves me, and that’s all Lisa’s fault.” I gasped for air. My voice had been breaking, hard. “And I’ve lost you to her too.”

  He stayed silent in front of me for a minute, presumably processing my confession. “I’m so sorry.” In an instant, he was brushing up against me—kissing me with voracious determination.

  I shoved him out of my personal space. “Get away from me,” I snapped. “We’re not together anymore. You don’t get to do that.”

  My protests weren’t received well. Instead, the mournful sluggishness he’d exhibited up until this point was replaced with a new light in his eyes. Something I’d never seen before up close, or thought Ian capable of—a sheen of darkness and malice. He smirked, and the expression was feral and ravenous.

  Ian lunged forward, slamming me against my bed. He kissed me again, but not slowly and softly as he had in the past. He was crushing himself onto my lips. I struggled under him, thrashing my body to try to throw him off me, and yelling at him when his mouth left mine to resupply him with oxygen.

  The more I resisted, the angrier he got. His kisses became rough and unforgiving; his teeth cutting into my lips and tongue. Ian readjusted himself to pin my limbs with his, and it felt like my bones were going to crack under his weight. He bit the side of my face, my chin and my neck, despite my increasingly frantic screams.

  “You like that, don’t you, babe?” he mumbled into my neck before breaking the skin. “Always knew you’d be a loud one. Good little school girl turns animal in bed, right?”

  “Ian, please,” I begged, tears of pain gathering in my eyes.

  “Please what, sweetheart?” Ian smiled lazily, and it almost seemed sincere and full of joy. Like he was back to his old self again. “You know you want this, Becky. We belong together, remember? Happily ever after doesn’t have to start later. We can have it now.”

  “No, no, no,” I insisted through small sobs. “This isn’t what I want. This isn’t you, and this isn’t us. Please, please, Ian. Just stop. We can pretend this never happened. Please.”

  He growled, rage consuming him. “No, we can’t pretend this never happened. Just relax. You’ll thank me when it’s over.”

  He unbuttoned the jeans I’d fallen asleep wearing, and then pulled the zipper down ever so slowly. I could have sworn he meant it to entice me, but it felt like torture. I kept pleading while he yanked off my pants then ripped my panties in his impatience.

  “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby girl.” He kissed me hard before moving further down my body. “Don’t you see, Becky? We’re meant for each other. You were meant to be my good little bitch.”

  “I’m not yours.” I tried one last time to break my arms free of his.

  Ian was paying enough attention to preempt me—he grabbed both of my arms and held them over my head with one hand. I’d known he was strong because of all the training he did, but the drugs seemed to focus that strength into an almost-superhuman ability. I couldn’t break free. I had been yelling for minutes—someone on our block had to have heard and called the authorities, but no one ever came.

  Still holding me, he struggled clumsily out of his own pants. Ian was hard and throbbing. He wouldn’t relent, and though I still intended to break free, it seemed I would black out from exhaustion before him, even though he was under the influence. He flipped me over, forcing my legs to bend and tuck under my stomach, restraining them with his weight as he straddled my back, gripping my hips too tightly not to have left several marks.

  I didn’t stop shouting for help as he roughly jammed a finger into me, hurting me deep inside. My arms were flailing, but I couldn’t get myself up to push away from the bed he’d trapped me on, let alone get away.

  Ian lowered his head and whispered into my ear. “What a good little slut you are. You gonna howl hard for me, babe?” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m going to make all your dreams come true.”

  Without warning, he pushed his way into me. It burned, as it stretched and ripped my insides. Tears spilled down my cheeks faster than before. After half a minute of hot, excruciating pain, he pulled out. I sighed a little, thinking it was over, thinking maybe he’d realized what he was doing to me, or gotten bored with me, or… something. Anything. I just hoped he’d found a reason to leave me, to get as far away from me as possible.

  I was mistaken. A few seconds later, he was sliding into me again. This time faster, increasing his speed and roughness, and he kept murmuring things like ‘I love you’ and ‘you’re so beautiful when you’re like this’ and ‘I wish we could stay like this forever’. It broke my heart as he broke my body. When Ian came, it wasn’t warm or filling, or whatever those stupid romance novels said it was supposed to be like. It was him pulling out to make a disgusting mess of my bed, but not fast enough that he didn’t add additional to the pain seething in me by pulling my insides further apart with his cum for a brief, yet endless, moment.

  He kissed the back of my neck before finally getting off me and searching the floor for his clothes. I stayed still, unwilling to risk his wrath, and unable to look him in the eyes and face the monster he’d become.

  From the uncertain refuge that was my head hidden in my arms, I heard him reopen the window. His revoltingly cold laugh filled my ears again. “You live up to your teasing, Becky. Just remember that you’re mine and mine alone. Don’t go whoring yourself out now that I’ve broken that pretty little pussy in.”

  When I was sure he’d closed the window and left my yard, I dared to take a peek at the room that had once been my safe haven. My bottoms were flung carelessly on the floor, and my comforter was stained with seeping red blots; my blood. In the solitude of what had become my universe, I allowed myself to break down completely.

  I hid my hands under the desk—they were trembling, along with every part of my body. “Do you need me to repeat the question, Connor?” I asked him in an embarrassingly shaky voice. “What happened? How did you find out?”

  “Winter break.” Connor sat in front of me, but looked out the window of my office, either gathering strength, or not wanting to see me—disgusted by my presence. After all, he knew I was worthless.

  “I almost didn’t come home during my freshman year. Mom convinced me. Ian’s behavior had gotten worse, and Dad ignored her, like always. She needed someone around. I didn’t pay attention to Ian, avoided him for the first few days. It was easy. We hadn’t talked in a while—not since Lisa became his pseudo-girlfriend.” He changed sitting positions several times; either he was uncomfortable, or there were tacks on the seat. “Anyway, he was sobbing like a little girl, and said Lisa wanted to get rid of you. ‘She’s my Becky,’ he slurred.” Becky, I hated that nickname. Grandma had given it to me, but Ian ruined it, like he ruined me. “In his drunken state, he confessed what he’d done to you a few weeks earlier, that he’d raped you. I couldn’t control myself. I didn’t even think about it. I just grabbed him and beat the crap out of him. I almost killed him. The drug dealer story came out of his mouth when Mom saw him. A few days later, Ian and Lisa kill
ed themselves.” He turned his gaze back at me tilting his chin up. “But that’s not what happened, is it?”

  Connor might not have the entire story, but he knew what Ian had done to me. I stared at my hands; they continued to shake, wouldn’t stop even on command. He needed to leave. The memories of that night had stirred everything inside me, making me want to hurl, or hide, or, better yet, disappear.

  Connor stood up and slammed a hand on my desk. “Your turn. What happened that afternoon?” My office was spinning. This wasn’t happening. “Tell me why, a couple of days after I beat him, the cops carried him out of your house in a body bag.” Connor leaned closer to me, and the desk suddenly didn’t seem big enough to separate us. “When I came back from my daily run, the place was a zoo. Your mom yelled and screamed that you killed Lisa. Begged the cops to take you away and give you the death penalty. Mom supported her, and promised that justice would be served. Becca, tell me you didn’t kill them.”

  “What?” My brain spun at the same pace the room was doing it. He needed to leave. Anguish took over, and my entire life could change if someone else found out. “I didn’t kill them. And you need to leave.” Images of blood and brains splattered all over my room appeared. I was about to vomit. “The conversation is over.”

  “I won’t leave until you tell me the truth,” he bellowed, and moved to block the door.

  His deafening tone alerted everyone. Nick opened the door, pushing Connor toward me. What happened to the lock? We lost our balance and almost fell, but Nick reached me in time.

  Dan collared Connor, slamming a fist over his gut and another punch on his jaw. “I told you not to touch her.” The menace in his eyes scared me.

  “He didn’t. It was an accident. He’s lea—” I ran for the powder room and barely made it. Lunch, breakfast, and the few snacks I’d eaten went down the toilet.

  “Tell me what happened, Becca?” I heard Connor yelling. “I wouldn’t blame you if you killed him. Hell, I wanted to do it for you. He raped you.”