Page 126 of Edge of Unbroken

“And? What do you think, Cat?” Vincent asks me, his hands on his hips as we near the end of the tour. “Can you see yourself attending Duke come fall?”

I feel my dad’s expectant gaze on me as I nod reluctantly. “Yeah. It’s… it’s definitely beautiful here. I’m going to have to weigh my options.”

“I don’t know what there is to weigh, but okay,” my dad chuckles.

I didn’t make my prior statement in jest. As far as I’m concerned my decision is far from made, and I’m actually feeling heavy-hearted at how incredible this school is. A big part of me had hoped I’d hate it here because then I wouldn’t have to stew, and think, and figure out where to spend the next four years of my life, and with whom.

Part II

Wednesday, March 16th

Cat

I slept in my childhood bedroom last night. The same bedroom where I cried myself to sleep the night after Adam’s final act of violence against me, when my throat felt raw and my eyes were weary. I cried last night, too, because once my dad and I returned home from Durham, he did what I had expected him to do since arriving in North Carolina on Monday: he let me have it.

He didn’t yell, scream, or shout at me. He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t raise his voice, but sometimes I wish he did because that would surely be better than the disappointment. The way he spoke to me, the things he told me made it feel like my missteps, my lack of judgment were a personal affront to him. Like I sent nudes photos to my ex-boyfriend to spite my dad somehow, to make him look bad.

“After all these years of us trying to set a good example, of guiding you and setting you up for success, you go and do something like that, Cat,” my dad said to me last night. “You went to parties, you got drunk, you put yourself in situations that you should have known were risky, and you allowed yourself to be taken advantage of. You let some boy take photos of you. And then you didn’t come clean to your mom and me. Instead, you got yourself into an even deeper hole.” He shook his head as he paced the floor of our living room while I just sat, meek and guilt-stricken, on the sofa. “I’m really disappointed. And, yeah, I guess I’m ashamed. I thought you knew better, Cat. I thought we had raised you to know good choices from bad.”

I didn’t argue with him then. There was no point in trying to explain myself. I just asked for his permission to turn in for the night, then disappeared into my bedroom and crawled under the covers.

How did I get to this point? How did I get to the point where I allowed some guy to manipulate me so completely, to brainwash me into acting against my own self-interest, and to continue doing so, day after day until there was no way out?

I have asked myself these questions over and over again, wondering, pondering, replaying the days, the weeks, the months. I did it last night, lying awake for hours, unable to come to rest. And then, just before sunrise this morning, it came to me.

This didn’t start with Adam. It will end with him, yes, but it didn’t start there.

“Do you still love me, Daddy?” I ask into the quiet kitchen. I’m at the table, a cup of coffee cradled in the palms of my hands, providing comfort and warmth, even though it’s a comfortable temperature in the house.

My dad’s head snaps up as he tears his attention away from his tablet and to me. He doesn’t respond right away, his eyes bouncing between mine. I’m about to repeat my question, but his brow creases.

“Of course I love you, Cat. There will never be a time when Idon’tlove you.”

I nod, then break our eye contact, moving my attention to the toast on my plate. “Do… do you think I’m a bad kid now, though? Like, I’m just another statistic?” I tentatively lift my gaze to meet his. I’m afraid of the expression I might find on his face, scared of my dad’s rejection. He hasn’t exactly been shy about dishing out judgment.

But his face is soft. “Kitty, is that… Are you really worried that I would think you’re… that you’re bad?” he asks, obviously taken aback.

I feel the tears pricking the back of my eyes and nod.

My dad doesn’t hesitate. He gets up from his chair and comes around the table, where he crouches down next to me and pulls me into his arms. “God, Kitty, of course I don’t think you’re a bad kid. I… Is that the impression I gave you? That I think you’re…” He trails off, the words getting stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” I croak with the strain of trying to hold back the sob. “You’ve always told stories about kids… about girls who do bad things—things that get them in trouble. You always talk about those girls as ‘bad kids,’ and it was always so obvious how, just, disgusted you were. And last night… I know you’re ashamed of me. You said so yourself.”

He moves his head back, his brow contorted with deep sadness as he lets me talk.

“Those pictures, Dad”—a sob breaks from my chest, unwilling to be contained— “I was so ashamed. I didn’t want… I know I messed up, Dad. And I’m so embarrassed. And I thought it was my fault. All of it. And then everything happened, and Adam was put on probation. I thought it was all over,” I cry with desperate tears rolling down my face. “But then Adam started to blackmail me with them and I just… I didn’t know what to do, I—” I want to explain myself, want to tell him how we got to this point in the first place, why things turned out the way they did, but he interrupts me.

The reminder of the photos I “allowed” Adam to take of me cause my dad to go rigid, and he stands. “You should have come to me, Kitty!”

But I will not hold my tongue any longer. Good girl be damned. I, too, stand from my seat and face him.

“I couldn’t, Dad,” I say. “I would have had to tell you about the other pictures Adam already had. Tell mehonestly, Dad, how would you have reacted?” I ask, my eyes trained on him. “If I had told you that, yes, my ex-boyfriend had photos of me with my breasts exposed, while I was drunk, maybe passed out, what would you have said? Or if I told you that Adam blackmailed me with those photos and my only way out was to send him more pictures, pictures in which I’m completely nude, Dad, how would you have reacted? How would you have reacted if I had told you I did those things while I was already seeing Ran, that I did it behind his back?” My expression has hardened, my tears drying rapidly.

He considers me for a long moment, then just nods. He and I both know it wouldn’t have gone over well. My dad isn’t like my mom or my friends, and he definitely isn’t like Ronan. My dad has never learned to be open-minded, was never required to pivot on a moment’s notice or forced to leave room for other people’s perspectives and circumstances. He’s had it pretty damn easy all his life. Things always turned out well for him; he’s never had to struggle, not even when he and my mom eloped right out of high school. It’s not like they defied their parents. Both sets of my grandparents knew and approved of my parents’ relationship; my parents were set to attend Duke. My mom and dad didn’t exactly “run away” to start a life together. They did these things with their parents’ blessing and full emotional and financial support. Nothing has evernotgone my dad’s way. He was never required to bend, and that shaped him into a loving and protective, yet rigid and controlling, individual who couldn’t possibly understand why some people can’t just make things happen with the snap of their fingers.

Where “my boyfriend,” young as he may be, has been forced all his life to expect the unexpected and consider all the angles, my dad has never had to take things as they come. And I know it would have taken a lot more work to convince my dad that the entire situation wasn’t my fault, just like it took him a long time to acknowledge that I didn’t invite the abuse I endured at Adam’s hands. Of course, my dad never said I deserved to get hurt. But he did make it clear right from the very beginning that Adam was bad news, and that my failure lay in not listening to my father.

“It just… It all escalated from there,” I say. “I lost complete control. I was so scared of Adam, but honestly, Dad… I was more scared of you.”

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