Page 38 of A Taste Of Darkness

They’d called me the naïve one, and I finally realized that it was true, and it had to change.

“Milo?” Flora said, the happiness gone and exchanged with worry. “Are you okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, once again forcing down tears.

I was surprisingly unaffected by learning what happened to me. For some odd reason, I was more relieved to know that there was nothing wrong with me, than the fact that I’d been sexually assaulted—if not raped but almost—at the mere age of twelve.

To be fair, I knew those feelings could still come up, and I wished they would because not being affected felt wrong. Right now, all I felt was numbness and anger directed at my own family.

I didn’t know how I could feel like a victim when I didn’t even remember it happening to me.

Nothing would change for me, except that, maybe I could finally move on from it, knowingly.

The therapist I’d seen up until a year ago had assumptions, but I always denied them. She still treated me as a victim when I never thought I was. She helped me accept and move on from a trauma I was sure I didn’t have. So, was it really that surprising that I was kind of okay with it for now?

The guys were long gone, so Milo assured me. Even if I was to be upset, what would that do? I couldn’t visit them in hell to ask questions or beat them up myself. I couldn’t report them, and I was sure the mafia would’ve swept it under the rug anyway.

As I said, nothing changed for me except that I finally had that one missing puzzle piece to fully recover from something that was never my fault to begin with.

“Sterlie?” She sounded confused. “What didn’t I tell you?” Flora asked in return.

“That we’d been to Palermo eleven years ago. That you knew I was almost raped,” I said and put her on speaker because I didn’t want to hold Milo’s phone in case I was going to throw it across the room. “Milo told me, why didn’t you?”

Flora was quiet for a little while, though I wasn’t sure if it was because she was thinking of an excuse, or because she was shocked. Surprised that her very own best friend had given me more information in the few days I’d been around than she had in eleven years.

“You know I don’t remember anything. So, why didn’t you tell me?” I pressed. The longer she stayed quiet, the angrier I got. “Lying is useless, Flora. I already know.”

“I barely remember what happened,” she said.

“You’re lying!”

And then I heard it—a sob coming through the phone.

Flora never cried. It could’ve been her pregnancy hormones, but even so, Flora would rather kill herself than cry.

“I’m not lying, Sterlie, you have to believe me.” I’d never heard genuine pain in my sister’s voice before. I knew her like the back of my hand, or so I always thought. Even if I didn’t know everything about her, I still knew when she was faking emotions and when she wasn’t. Right now, she was being honest with me. “I wasn’t there when it happened, and Dad didn’t tell me shit. I knew absolutely nothing, Sterlie. I-I thought you ran away and hit your head! I didn’t think someone did… that to you!”

“Yeah? So why not tell me about the trip?”

I heard her take a shaky breath, and my heart pained at the sound of it. I never wanted to make her cry.

“Because… nothing important happened. I didn’t want to make you feel bad about not remembering a stupid vacation. And I know you would’ve felt bad because I know you, Sterlie. You would’ve wanted those memories and had gone crazy not being able to remember.”

Yeah, okay, she had a point. I was full of life more times than not, and I really enjoyed my life thus far. I appreciated every day I could live, and I wouldn’t have been okay with not remembering a vacation.

Anger still poisoned my veins, but I could feel it weaken. Sometimes I hated that I wasn’t anything like my sister.

“Milo thought you knew,” I told her. “He was surprised you didn’t tell me.”

Flora sighed, and at first, I thought it was because she had been lying and now got caught, but she convinced me otherwise. “The only thing I know is that Milo brought you back to the hotel that day. He didn’t tell me anything else. Like I said, I also thought you just hit your head, so I never asked any more questions. I thought he was just some rich kid who moved here from Italy. I didn’t even know it was him who brought you back until two years ago.”

“Do you promise you’re not lying?” As much as I wished she was lying just so I had someone to be upset with, the Flora I knew never lied to me.

“I would never, Sterlie. If I had known… trust me, you would’ve been the first person I told because you had the right to know what happened.”

Great. So, I couldn’t be mad at my sister because she didn’t know either, and I couldn’t be mad at Milo because he thought Flora knew and she told me.

The person I could be furious at was my father. He certainly deserved my wrath after everything.

---