Page 121 of Edge of Unbroken

“You… you’re going to hate me. I don’t want to lose you!”

“No, baby. You’re not going to lose me. I could never hate you. Please just talk to me.” I’m begging at this point. “I love you, Cat. Please talk to me!”

More silence passes between us as I listen to her cries. She works to get control of her breathing, to stem the tears. When she finally speaks, her voice is raspy and worn, strained and cracking. “He has nudes, Ran. Of me. He… he’s been threatening to post them on the internet if… if I don’t send him money and… and new ones. And he’s been threateningyou.”

My heart contracts in my chest as though I just took a plunge into ice-cold water. “What do you mean he has nudes?”

“He has nudes,” she repeats, choking on her own words as though I’m force-feeding them to her.

“Okay, Cat, I don’t… I don’t understand.” But Idounderstand. She’s telling me her ex has photos of Cat naked, and he’s extorting her with them to get her to send him money and new ones… Holy shit…new ones!“Wait…” I trail off as the realization, the truth slams into the pit of my stomach as if someone dropped a boulder from ten feet above.

“Ran…”

I slump onto my bed. “Baby, did you… Have you sent him pictures of you while… while we were together?” The room spins around me with my blood pumping hotly in my veins.

No actual words pass her lips, but the garbled cry is confirmation enough. Pain like a white-hot knife pierces my gut. Holy shit, she’s been doing this behind my back. “What… what kind of nudes?” I squeeze my eyes shut so tightly little bright patterns flicker through the dark of my eyelids. I don’t know why I inquire about the details. It certainly won’t make me feel better, but for some reason I just need to know what kind of photos he has of her. There are degrees, after all. Are we talking topless? Underwear? Fully nude? Is she touching herself, posing suggestively?

More silence follows my question as she works to compose herself. “At first it was just… just my breasts exposed. Some of these pictures… I didn’t even know they existed. I think he took them when we were together, when I… when I was blacked out at a party. But… but some of them… I don’t know, Ran.”

I don’t interject. I want her to keep talking. I want her to finally tell me what’s going on.

“I know there are pictures he took of me without my consent, but some of them… it looks like I exposed myself willingly.” Another sob. “I just can’t remember it, Ran… And then last year after… after you and I got together, when I was in Buffalo for softball camp, he contacted me. I just ignored him like I always did. I didn’t want anything to do with him, Ran…” she tries to explain through her tears. “But he just kept at it and then he sent me a picture of me… of my breasts. He said he’ll post it on the internet if I don’t send him a new picture right then and there…” She’s so worked up, her cries so desperate, she’s gasping for air.

“And you sent him one?” I don’t know why I even ask. Of course she sent him one; she all but said it.

Her voice is meek. “Of my breasts… At first that’s all he wanted, but then…”

Oh no. Fuck, please, no!

“You sent him other pictures?”

She whimpers. “Yeah… Ran, I felt so horrible. I didn’t want to do this. Every time he made me send him another, it was like I was cheating on you. I didn’t want to hurt you, Ran. I didn’t want to, but… I was so scared. I was scared of Adam; I was scared he’d expose me to the world… I was scared my parents would find out… thatyou’dfind out what I did…”

“But… I thought he was gone. I thought he left you alone after he showed up in New York,” I ask, trying to piece it all together.

“He was. At first. He contacted me the night before you left for Montana. Eventually I responded to his text pretending to be a guy who got a new phone and a new number. I figured he would think I changed my number, that he no longer had a way to contact me. It worked for a while, but then… he figured out I hadn’t changed my number and… Ran…” She trails off with a terrible sob.

“Baby,” I just breathe into the phone, trying to urge her on gently even though my insides fold with each additional detail.

“He… he forced me to send him money. Back in January, when he found out I didn’t actually change my number, he made me send him a thousand dollars.”

I’m clenching my teeth so tightly they might shatter.

“I don’t have that kind of money, Ran. He said if I didn’t send him the money within a few days, he’d sell the pictures he had of me. He said he’d have no problem finding people to buy them.”

By the way this story is going, I know she figured out a way to come up with the money. “So… how did you get it?” I’m pretty certain she didn’t ask her parents to spot her.

She cries so hard, I can practically hear the tears cascading down her beautiful face. “I’m such an awful person. Oh god, Ran, I’m horrible…”

“How did you come up with the money?” I’m scared of what she’ll tell me next. The worst possible images flash before my mind’s eye and I pray to god she wasn’t forced to demean herself in some way to get Adam off her back.

“I… Ran, I… I sold the skates you gave me for my birthday, and… I”—renewed sobs, even louder than before, make their way into my ear, squeezing my lungs and heart—“I… I stole some of the tips left at Murphy’s. I stole from Shane, Ran. I stole his tip and the tip from one of the bartenders. Oh god…”

My head is swimming. I take a moment to settle my breath, attempting to collect my thoughts, to gauge my own feelings over what she’s just confessed to me, but I fail. I’m more concerned with finding a way to comfort her while simultaneous planning this asshole’s demise—the best, slowest, and most painful way to stop this motherfucker’s black heart. I attempt several times to speak, but Cat’s cries are so loud, so unrelenting, that I decide to give her a minute.

“Baby?” I finally say when Cat seems to have calmed a little.

“I’m so ashamed, Ran,” she whimpers quietly. “It’s like everything just spun out of control. I don’t know what to do. I can’t find my way out.”

---