by Chloe Walsh
September 2nd.
The first day of eighth grade.
The last day of my innocence.
The day I died inside.
I still remembered that day like it was yesterday.
I remembered every fucking detail…
Every smell.
Every sound.
Every move he made and every pathetic fucking sob and plea for help that tore from my mouth as he held me down and impaled me.
As he raped my body and pillaged my life...
No one saw it.
No one helped me.
No one stepped in and saved me.
No one cared enough to take a closer look and see just how fractured I was on the inside.
That's why over time, when I was asked if I was okay or if something was wrong, I kept my mouth shut and remained quiet.
Admitting you were raped wasn't easy for a guy.
Who would believe me?
How would they understand?
And what would happen to my mom if I told? The truth would kill her, and if it didn’t, Paul certainly would.
Back then, I hated the world and blamed every person I had ever come into contact with for the soul-destroying life I had been dealt. For my life being over before it had even started.
And when I had finally crawled my way out of that world, when I had finally escaped, I'd been dragged back in. That's what hurt the most; my whole life I'd been on a road to destruction from childhood and just when I peaked, when I was free and got the one thing my heart had always desired, I had crashed and burned.
Hope told me not to go back there.
I didn't listen to her and it had ruined my life.
I had spent eight months in a rehab facility to repair the broken pieces inside of me –trying and failing to fight my demons – and many years since clogging up therapist's waiting rooms. I had been trying to come to terms with what had happened to me since getting sober, to find some semblance of peace inside of me, but it turned out that I was better at healing others than healing myself.
My job had become my coping mechanism. Helping people in similar situations as I had been soothed something deep inside of me. I had replaced drugs with work and I was thoroughly hooked. A slow work week for me was an eighty hour one. I was addicted to keeping busy. I had found my passion in helping others and I had clung to it like a lifeline, giving everything I had to my work.
I was in a better place now, but I still had days when I couldn't stand the man looking back at me in the mirror. I still had days when I wanted to peel the skin from my body and set it on fire. Days when I wanted to bleach my skin clean and disappear from this cruel fucking world.
Keeping myself closed off was how I stayed sane.
Avoiding physical intimacy was how I erased his touch.
I wanted to be with Hope sexually. Problem was, every time we came close to it, she caressed and cuddled and touched me in such a way that brought the painful images and memories to the fore point of my mind, rendering me paralyzed and eliminating any desire.
Certain ways she touched me triggered violent memories. Random smells and situations caused me physical pain. I was struggling being in close proximity of Hope which was fucking ridiculous, but the worst part was she seemed to have given up on me.
She never tried for more than a chaste kiss from me now. It was as if she had accepted that I was never going to be able to fulfill that need and it shredded me.
Loving me had caused Hope Carter pain and scars and tragedy, but she was still here. Problem was, she wasn’t here with me.
Not really.
Sure, she slept beside me each night and lived in my house, but her mind, that beautiful mind of hers, was far away. I didn’t like thinking about it and selfishly, I pretended it wasn’t happening. I pretended I wasn’t losing the only person I had ever loved.
I knew deep down that I deserved this.
How could I not?
Walking out on my wife eight years ago without a call or a text was a shitty thing to have done. Falling into the pits of darkness and drugs had been my punishment.
For breaking her.
For breaking us.
When Hope forgave me, I knew it was too good to be true.
And I was right.
I knew she still loved me, she wouldn’t be here if she didn't, but it was different now.
That far off expression Hope wore when she thought no one was looking was enough for me to know that I didn’t own her heart anymore.
A piece of it belonged somewhere else now.
Somewhere I couldn’t reach.
She was the sweetest girl in the world and I let her down in the worst imaginable way. I walked away from my home. From my safety net. From my hope…
I noticed the familiar silver Ford Kuga drive up the street towards my house and had to force down the surge of resentment that tried to force its way out of me.
Derek.
My father pulled into the spot Hope had vacated and killed the engine. I watched as he got out of his car and walked towards me, laden down with a stack of containers in his hands, filled with desserts and treats no doubt. That was Derek's answer to everything. When he didn’t know what to say or do to help a person, he cooked and fed them.
I hated my father.
Hatred was a strong emotion and maybe I didn’t feel that strongly about him, but I certainly didn’t love him like a son loved his father.
And in my defense, he'd never giving me much to love.
Absent and uncaring.
That's how I remembered the man walking towards me.
Missing.
Not there.
Fucking gone.
Like every time I ever seemed to lay eyes on the man, I was bombarded with memories from my past…
"She can never know."
"Jord–"
"I mean it, Dad. Hope can never know about this…about me. None of the Carter's can."
My father's face was a map of pain, contorting in agony as he watched me watching him from a hospital bed. Finally, after what felt like forever, he bowed his head and sighed. "I wish I could take this all away for you," he whispered. "All the pain… All the memories." Glancing up with tears in his eyes, Dad whispered, "I feel useless." Shuddering, he added, "I could have done more."
Grasping the bed clothes with more force than necessary, I nodded stiffly. "You can't change the past."
"Maybe not, but I can change the future," he shot back, adamant. "I mean it, Jordan, I don't want this life for you." Sighing, he added, "You've seen me. You watched first-hand what living with your demons can do to a man. I can't sit back and allow what happened to me happen to you."
"My situation is nothing like yours," I hissed.
"You hungry, Jord?" Derek asked, stirring me from my memories. "I brought plenty for all of you guys." Juggling the half a dozen or so containers in his arms, he added, "I packed some toddler friendly goodies for the baby. Is he here?"
"Morning," I acknowledged, good manners winning out, as I fell into step with my father and walked back into the house. "And no. Ryder's at daycare."
"Damn," Derek muttered, sounding genuinely disappointed as he followed me through to the kitchen. "I was hoping he would be here." Setting the containers down on the kitchen table, he shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair closest to him. "The kid's adorable."
"That's you all over, isn’t it, Derek?" I tossed out as I walked over to the coffee machine and grabbed a mug. "You're a sucker for other people's kids." Never your own.
Derek sighed heavily before slumping down at the table. "Are we really going to go through this again, Jord?" he asked, tone weary, keeping his back to me. "I fucked up. I'm a piece of shit. I ruined your life. I'm the one in the wrong."
"Whatever, Derek." He was right about one thing; there was no point in rehashing this conversation. His excuses never changed and I never felt any better from it. "How's work?" I decided to change the subject by asking
. Pouring two mugs of coffee, I walked back to the table and handed him one before taking the seat opposite him. "Did you finish setting up that new menu at the restaurant that you mentioned last week?" My father was a chef, and a brilliant one at that. I guess taking care of other people's kids and cooking were his best traits.
"Thanks," he replied, accepting the mug from me and taking a sip. "And yeah, I finished it on Tuesday." He placed the mug on the table in front of him and leaned back in his chair before asking, "So, how's everything going with you and Hope?" his green eyes were locked on mine, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked genuinely interested in my life. But I did know better and the reason he was asking about my marriage wasn’t his paternal instincts kicking into gear; it was his best friend's. Hope's father was my father's best friend. Kyle Carter was also a father in all forms. He wasn’t a blow-in like the man in front of me who'd fallen into my life when I was four and had fallen back out of it when I was fourteen. No, my wife's father had stuck around to raise her and her brothers. He'd been there every day of her life, and with the exception of me fucking things up for her, she'd been incredibly sheltered and protected because of the man.
"Who wants to know?" I shot back, mirroring my father's actions by leaning back in my chair and studying him. "You or Kyle?"
Derek frowned deeply and I saw the hurt in his green eyes. It was there and obvious for me to see. Thing was, I didn’t care. I didn’t care if he was hurt by the truth. That was life. "Me, Jord," he finally replied. "I want to know."
"We're fine," I answered him. That was all Derek Porter was going to get from me. He didn’t have the right to any information about my personal life. Sharing blood, genes, and a surname with this man didn’t mean anything to me.
We drank the rest of our coffee with me in silence and him making small talk that I either nodded along with or completely ignored. When I was finished, I shoved my chair back and got up. "I need to sleep," I announced bluntly. "I'm back on night shifts this week."
"Okay. No problem." Nodding, Derek drained what was left in his mug before standing up and slipping his coat back on. "Don’t burn yourself out, Jord," was the advice my father gave me before leaving.
Feeling at a complete loss, I shook my head and watched him leave.
I knew he'd be back.
Same time on Friday.
It didn’t seem to matter how rude I was to the man.
He wouldn’t go away.
Twice a week for the past eight years, I had been tormented with awkward visits from my father. He came when I was in rehab. He came when I was high. He came when I was sober. He came when I wasn’t. Twice a week, every damn week, the man kept fucking coming back.
I just wished he had that determined streak inside of him back when I had needed it most.
When it had mattered.
Because it sure as hell didn’t matter now.
Chapter Seventeen
HOPE
"How's my favorite live-in nanny?" Teagan teased the second I walked into her kitchen in South Peak Road fresh from dropping Ryder to daycare. "You know, I've been thinking and maybe you should move back in here with us. I could use a woman like you around the place."
Sarcastic bitch.
I responded with a middle finger gesture. "Shut up and make me coffee."
"Okaaay." Closing the door of the refrigerator she'd been rummaging in, Teagan turned and gave me her full attention. The sight of her looking like a freaking supermodel in a pair of her husband's gray Calvin Klein's and a skin-tight tank top only made me feel shittier than I had already been feeling and my shoulders slumped. "Rough morning?"
"Rough life," I muttered under my breath, sinking down on one of the barstools at the marble island in the center of the room. "Coffee, Teegs. Please."
"Coming right up." I watched my best friend bound around her kitchen a heck of a lot happier and more together than she had been four weeks ago. She had that beautiful glow about her that came with entering the second trimester of pregnancy. Everything about Teagan was tight and toned. And that cute little baby bump she was sporting that she thought was so huge? I was fairly sure I looked more pregnant after a heavy meal. Her silky hair looked like a freaking horse's tail swishing around as she made my coffee. Even though she had her blonde mane pulled back in a ponytail, it still reached the curve of her lower back.
"Black. Two sugars," she announced, placing my favorite mug in front of me.
"Thanks," I whispered, wrapping both hands around the mug, grateful for the warmth stemming from the porcelain. It was cold as hell outside, and raining to boot. I felt wet and cold to the bone. Teagan sank down on the stool opposite mine and waited for me to speak.
Coffee didn’t give a person the same Dutch courage as alcohol did, but it helped set the jets of my brain in motion.
When I drained the contents of my mug, I finally felt able to verbalize my feelings. "I'm so fucking angry," I bit out, blurting out everything I had buried down inside since I woke up this morning and had once again been faced with dealing with the absolute horror that was my life. "Worse than angry. I'm raging, Teegs. Like, certifiably furious."
Like every morning for the past god knows how long, Teagan didn’t say a word as I complained. She simply sat and listened to me rant on and on about my life until I had it out of my system.
My life was a fucking train wreck.
No, scratch that, because my life wasn’t interesting enough to be a train wreck. My life was a bus stop. Yeah, a boring, old, stinky bus stop in the middle of nowhere. I was trying. God knows I was trying to make my situation work, but I felt…suffocated.
That was so wrong, right?
Feeling suffocated?
I shouldn’t feel that way.
I shouldn’t be feeling stifled and repressed.
I shouldn’t be feeling trapped.
Because I wasn’t.
This was a choice.
I had chosen this path.
So why, after twenty-six years of certainty, did I feel so damn lost?
"You need to get laid," Teagan announced when I had finally run out of things to complain about. "Badly."
"What – do you want to have sex with me?" I huffed loudly and folded my arms across my chest. "Because that's the only way I'm getting laid." Had she been listening to me at all this morning?
"Hope," Teagan snickered. "Don’t be so dramatic."
"Who's being dramatic?" I shot back, voice rising. "I'm being deadly serious here, Teegs."
"Hey," she laughed, holding her hands up. "I'd help you out, but I'm married and don’t possess a penis."
Ha! "Not serious about you," I growled, rolling my eyes. "God, this is so fucking depressing." Resting my elbows on the counter, I leaned forward and dropped my head in my hands. "I don’t even remember what if feels like," I admitted glumly. "Sex? It's practically a foreign concept to me."
"It's amazing," Teagan offered with a dreamy sigh.
"Thanks for that," I grumbled.
"Maybe I should give you a crash course in the art of seducing your husband?" she mused.
"It wouldn’t matter if the entire playboy mansion sat down and gave me a lesson," I wailed. "I still wouldn’t be able to get my husband to sleep with me."
"Oh, quit being so pessimistic," she tossed back airily. "So, your husband won't have sex with you. Big deal. Have sex with yourself."
My head shot up and I gaped at her.
Teagan stared blankly back at me and I felt like throttling her.
"Do you have any idea how inexplicably tired a writer's hands are?" I bit out. "I have carpal tunnel, Teagan." Dear god, no one understood my struggles. "Forget it," I moaned. "You'd never understand. Not with your nimble fingers and horned up husband."
"Just keep plugging away," Teagan advised. "Eventually he's going to have to crack and have sex with you –"
"Morning ladies." Noah chose this exact moment to saunter into the kitchen, causing Teagan's words to trail off and he
r attention to hone in entirely on him. Noah walked right over to us and planted a kiss on Teagan's head. Not content with that limited amount of affection, Teagan spun around on her stool and dragged Noah's face down to hers, planting a loud kiss on his lips.
Meanwhile, I concentrated on ignoring how disgustingly cute they were together.
Smirking, Noah winked down at his wife before stepping away and walking over to the fridge. "So, what are you two talking about?" Retrieving one of those disgusting protein drinks Teagan prepped for him from the top shelf, Noah cracked the cap off and drank the entire bottle in one go.
"Ew," I muttered, staring at him in horror. "How can you stomach that crap?" Those drinks tasted freaking disgusting. Honestly, I had accidently consumed a sip once and puked my guts up. "It's gross, Noah, and you're gross for putting it in your body."
Noah cocked a brow in amusement. "Someone's bitchy this morning."
"Nah," Teagan mused. "Hope just needs to have sex."
"Teagan!" I snapped, mortified. "God."
Noah coughed loudly. "Excuse me?"
"Hope," Teagan clarified happily. "She needs the D."
"The D," Noah deadpanned, looking mildly horrified.
"Dick," Teagan clarified. "As in the male reproductive organ used to penetrate the fe–"
"Yeah, I got it, Thorn," Noah interrupted with a barely restrained shudder. "Jesus."
"Noah, how long would you go without fucking me?" Teagan began to say and I blanched. Dear god, she was off again. "I'm being serious," she added, hopping down from her stool, she walked over to a very uncomfortable looking Noah and said, "How long?"
Noah looked incredibly uncomfortable and slightly confused when he looked at his wife and asked, "What – like how long would I go without fucking you in one day?"
Teagan threw her head back and laughed and I groaned loudly.
"You know what? In my humble opinion, I believe that in order to have a successful relationship, a man needs to bring three things to the table." Teagan grinned before saying, "His dick, his heart, and a good sense of humor."
"And patience," Noah offered. "A shit ton of patience."
"Funny little fucker, aren’t you?" Teagan shot back before turning her attention back to me. "Maybe we should start on those seduction lessons after coffee."