Page 60 of Stone Rules

“I’m not going to hurtyou,” I tell her. “In fact, you should be thanking me for this. It’ll save you the trouble.”

Natalie and Ethan both look in shock. Scared. Confused.

I’m glad the child is so young. Because what I’m about to say will have no meaning to her. But what I’m about to say could ultimately save her from a life of self-abhorrence. I look at her sweet, cherub face and it gives me the strength to do what I need to do.

There isn’t a part of my body that isn’t shaking when I tell them, “He raped me.”

Ethan and Natalie both draw in sharp breaths. That’s where the similarity ends. Ethan’s eyes turn sympathetic. There is no question in my mind that he believes the words that just came from me. Natalie, on the other hand, tells me I’m mistaken. That he is a wonderful husband and father who would never do such a thing and I must have him confused with someone else. She said she’s known him for four years and there is no way the man I’m pointing the gun at is the man who raped me.

“Charlie?” Ethan begs me with his eyes to explain.

I speak to Natalie. “Your husband. Your child’s father. The man you love. The man you think you know. He raped me. Not last night. Not last week. He raped me seven years ago. When I was fifteen—when I was a virgin—he raped me in exchange for a favor.”

I look at their stunned faces and then shock them some more. “And in the months after, he raped me ten more times.”

I see Ethan’s hands ball into fists. He’s going to hit the bastard. Beat him to a bloody pulp if the look on his face is any indication. He lunges towards him, swinging at him with all his weight, making a loud cracking sound when his hand connects to Karl’s jaw, sending Karl’s body hurdling into the wall behind him.

“Ethan, no!” I scream, running over to pull him off Karl. “This isn’t your fight.”

Natalie puts her daughter down, joining me in my attempt to pull Ethan off her husband. Ethan stands over a fallen Karl, his arm snaps back, ready to deliver another blow when his elbow catches the side of my head, sending me toppling off him and onto the floor.

“Shit! Charlie!” He turns his attention from Karl to me, kneeling on the floor next to me, running his hands over my head to check for injury. “Did I hurt you?”

“I’m okay,” I tell him. “You barely got me. Besides, I’ve had worse.”

“Oh, God. Charlie.” His eyes meet mine and all of a sudden it’s as if he knows my pain. The pain of something being taken from you. Something you can never get back. And when he gently reaches out to take the gun from my clutches, I let him.

Natalie must have seen him take it because she whips out her cell phone and starts tapping on it. “All of you, stop it! I’m calling the police.”

“Natalie, wait,” Karl implores.

“Karl? What are you saying? Iamcalling the police . . . right?”

He gets up from the ground, rubbing a hand over his swollen jaw. He walks over and puts his hand on hers. The hand that was dialing the phone. “No, you’re not.”

“What? Why?” she asks. Her eyes snap to his and they have a silent conversation that only married people can have. Then her gaze drops to the floor and she takes in a breath as if she’ll never breathe again.

“Oh, my God.” She gasps, backing away from him to pick up their daughter. “Tell me it isn’t true,” she says, holding her daughter tightly in her arms.

Karl’s knees give out and he falls to the floor, his head in his hands as he starts to cry. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. Then he turns to me. “I’m so sorry.” His chest heaves as his sobs become louder. “I was loaded. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was different then. I . . . I—”

“Oh my God,” Natalie says again in horror, her mouth agape as she looks at her husband in utter disgust. She holds onto her daughter for dear life. “We have a daughter, Karl. A daughter! How could I ever trust that you—”

“I would never,” he says, holding his hand out to her.

She backs away. “Ten times, Karl?” she asks. “Ten times isn’t being stoned. Ten times is being a psychotic pedophile. Ten times is . . .” She hands me the phone. “Here,” she says, “Youcall the police.” Then she disappears down the hallway with her daughter.

Karl tries to follow them, but Ethan gets in his way. “Sit the fuck down,” he says.

Ethan turns to me and studies me. I can see in his eyes the moment he puts it all together. “Oh, Charlie,” he says, closing his eyes briefly to sigh. “The list. Did they all . . . ?”

I shake my head. “No. They didn’t all rape me, but they all did . . . something.” I look away, not wanting to see the pain in his eyes when I say what I know will shock him. “My mother let them.” I hear Ethan’s fist go through the drywall as I look down at the sobbing man on the floor. “But he was the worst of them all.”

He doesn’t deserve to cry. He doesn’t deserve to be sorry. He doesn’t deserve to look like the broken, pathetic man he is right now. I lean over to grab the gun away from Ethan, but he quickly pulls it from my reach, tucking it into the back of his belt. When I lunge around him to try and get it, he envelops me in his arms, holding me tightly against him. “Look,” he says, nodding to Natalie who is coming down the hall with the little girl in one hand and a suitcase and diaper bag in the other. “I know you want to kill him. I know how it feels to lose something and want to kill the person responsible for taking it from you. But, Charlie, punishment comes in all kinds of different ways.”

Karl begs her to stay. Natalie tells him he will never see her or Kelsey ever again.

Kelsey.

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