Page 5 of Unspoken Truths

I hold those words back because they’re dramatic, my lips pressing together.

“Emil, I understand what you’re trying to do here, but you don’t know how the day went,” Mom says. “It’s clear they hurt her.”

“My same words apply,” he says stubbornly, crossing his arms. “So what about it, Rachelle?”

I want to quit, go somewhere safer for school, but I can see the shadow of a large male underneath my door. Ignacio will always live here, and by extension, his friends will have access to me.

“My mom discourages fighting,” I say, my voice soft. “I don’t want to be a punching bag the rest of the year, Emil.”

“Ah,” he says, nodding. “I have something, I think. Julia?—”

“Whatever you want as long as it keeps her safe,” Mom grunts. “Rachelle has a temper, so maybe make it non-lethal, too. I mean it, Emil.”

Where the hell is my mother? She’s typically very nonviolent.

“Just because I’ve been a shitty mother, doesn’t mean I have to continue to be,” Mom sighs.

Emil glances between us, logging the exchange while not saying anything.

“This isn’t about lethality,” he finally admits. “I want them to think twice before touching you, female or male. No one will go to Headmaster Pruitt, because then she’ll have to call me. I don’t fuck around,mijita. I will walk in like a whirlwind and destroy people. I’m only soft for the people I care about, and even then I draw the line when I find out they may be hurting each other.”

My fair skin flushes at his words and he nods at me. He’s telling me he won’t hesitate to reprimand Ignacio if he finds out he’s hurting me. So far my stepbrother hasn’t, outside of a few hurtful words and the refusal to step between his friend’s fun.

“I’ll be right back,” Emil murmurs, standing and walking out of the room. He’s careful to close the door, though I can hear a few choice words spoken under his breath.

“You look confused, Rachelle,” Mom says.

“I didn’t think this conversation was going to go this way,” I say. “I thought I’d be asked to pack my bags and be thrown out while you lived out your blissful life.”

My mom gazes at me for a moment before shaking her head. “I think you’ve read too many books,” she mutters.

My mother never caught the men in her life in the act of hurting me, except once over a year ago. I was screaming and clawing at Colton while he raped me. I was so close to still being a virgin, until that asshole.

Mom didn’t know he was crashing in her bedroom, waiting for her while she was at work. He got tired of watching the time go by, and decided I was an easier lay.

Her non-violence streak ended that day when she slammed into my room, grabbed my lamp, and smashed it on his thick head. The worst part was how it felt while she and I struggled to get him out and off me.

I should have known that the kickass Mom from that day that called the police, got him arrested, and promised she would never bring another man around me without a serious commitment was still inside of her.

The memory of Colton makes me shudder with revulsion, and Mom hugs me tightly.

“It’s you and me, kid,” she says fiercely. “Things will be better. I know I suck. Losing your dad threw me into a head spin, and I couldn’t find my way back. I’m here now, okay?”

Nodding, I allow myself to hug her back as I cry. For today, for the girl who couldn’t fight back hard enough on the day after my fifteenth birthday, and the girl I am now.

A knock at the door forces me to pull it back, and my mom brings me a soft towel from the connecting bathroom because tissues are not going to work with the waterfall of tears that I just shed.

“Your room,” my mom reminds me. “Can he come in?”

“You’re really serious about this?” I ask her, chewing my bottom lip as I mop up my face. “This is his house.”

“This is your room within his house,” she corrects me. “You’re allowed to set boundaries, limits about what happens here.”

I don’t think she’s ever said anything like that to me, and my mom blushes slightly.

“Emil suggested I go to therapy when we first started dating,” Mom says. “We’d been dating for about a month, and at first I was angry and offended. However, it did help a lot. I needed to work through some things so I can be a better, well everything.”

Nodding, I gasp as I remember that Emil is still waiting for me to respond to his knock.

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