Page 81 of Finding Home

“Are you visiting him?” she hissed.

“Yes, but?—”

Elle cut the woman off with a flash of her hands and let an angry laugh escape. “You still choose everyone over me.I have been here for three weeks, and you have not tried once to see me. You’ve never reached out.”

“But your uncle said?—”

“You’remymother. Although that’s a joke, isn’t it? You haven’t been a mother for a very long time. You were too consumed with being a fucking wife. You completely forgot you were a mother. You forgot about me! You weren’t being a mom when you tried to kill yourself, leaving a note saying you didn’t want to be alone.You weren’t alone. I was there.I. Was. There!” She drew a harsh breath.“You weren’t a mother when you kept choosing man after man over me. Men that emotionally abused me with cruel names and comments.A man who raped me.”

She practically gagged on the word. She’d never said out loud. Rape. That’s what Jamie had done. He’d raped her. She always referred to it as “What Jamie did” or “That January night.” All the flowery language that hid the truth of his brutal attack and the impact on her. And it wasn’t just him. But her mother’s refusal to protect her, the bigger betrayal.

Her mom’s lips quivered. “Honey…I…”

“He raped me.”Elle slammed her fist against her chest. “He raped me, and you did nothing.”

“What?”

Elle spun at the pained deep baritone voice from behind her.

Tobey stood, his face drawn with heart-wrenching disbelief.

“Tobey.” she gasped, falling to her knees in a heap of convulsing sobs.

“Eleanor,” her mom bent and reached for Elle.

“No!” Tobey growled, blocking Elle’s mother’s approach. Flinging his arms around Elle, he pressed her shaking form into his steady chest. “Leave.”

“Tobey.”

“Aunt Amanda, just leave,” he demanded.

“Tobey—”

“Fucking leave!” The venom in his voice was mismatched with the tenderness his arms provided Elle.

Retreating footsteps grew distant as Tobey held her. “I’m here.”

Elle buried her face against his chest. Heavy, guttural sobs quaked through her.

She didn’t want him to see her like this, to see her broken.

“I’m here. I’m here,” he soothed as if a mantra, warding off any ill that threatened.

Time is a funny thing. The sweetest moments can feel like seconds and the most painful, hours. Elle wasn’t sure how long she remained slumped in Tobey’s arms, but he never moved, remaining on his knees, his arms tight around her.

“I’m sorry.”Elle finally sat up, brushing lingering tears off her face.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Elle, what happened?”

“Are you asking as my cousin or as Officer Coates?” she sniffed.

“Trooper Coates,” he corrected reflexively. He winced as he realized what he had said, but with a reassuring squeeze of his hands he relaxed. “Your cousin. Always.”

Her ugly truths, long unspoken, tripped on her lips. “I…I was visiting Grandma.” Elle motioned to the pink carnations Tobey had discarded, an offering for their grandma. “When I was leaving, I spotted Mom here. Then I saw who she was visiting.” Each syllable twisted angrily in the breeze,

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