Page 33 of Save Room for Us

“Now, when did it turn from consensual sex to rape, Miss Chase?”

“Just before I got pregnant with our daughter, Sophie. The night we conceived her, I was drugged.”

“How do you know you were drugged?” He paced.

“Well, because the last thing I remembered was having some wine, and then I woke up naked the next morning. Then a few weeks later, Cedric kept pushing me to take a pregnancy test, and it was positive.”

“Couldn’t you have just been drunk and passed out?”

“No, because I only had half a glass. Then after she was born, he started back doing it a lot. I would eat or drink something and then black out, only to wake up naked.”

I watched Bashar flinch, and I could tell what I was saying was hard for him to hear.

“Yet you never reported this.”

“No, because, again, I was?—”

“Did he sexually assault you in any other way? Like while you were coherent?”

“A few times, yes.”

“Did you verbally tell him no?”

“I told him I didn’t want to, and he made me.”

“How did he make you?”

“He’d push me onto the bed or against a surface, tear at my clothes, and proceed.”

“And what were you doing while he tore at your garments and then inserted himself inside you?”

“Huh?”

“What were you doing, Miss Chase? Were you fighting? Yelling? Trying to get away? Because you’ve granted this manaccess to your body over fifty times, so how would he know when you didn’t want to if you didn’t fight him or yell at him?”

Chuckling mirthlessly, I replied, “Because he did. I told him I didn’t wanna do it. And no, I didn’t fight or yell. I just gave up.”

“Did you have consensual sex after these incidents?”

“I… yes, but it was only?—”

“So you had consensual sex sometimes, then sometimes, it was rape, then sometimes it was complicit rape?” Bashar frowned in disbelief. “Sorry if I’m having a hard time keeping up. I can only imagine how the plaintiff felt.”

“What—”

This isn’t real. This isn’t real right now.

“Did you purposely lure the plaintiff into the house to kill him?”

“No.”

“Have you always known how to use a gun?” When I froze on how to answer, Bashar raised his brow. “Or did you recently learn how?”

“Recently,” I whispered.

“What was that, Miss Chase?”

“Recently.”

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