Page 38 of Rampant

Rafe,

I got drunk tonight. Graduation is supposed to be cause for celebration, so I partook in the craziness. I shouldn’t have because I was off my game when I came home. He was waiting for me in the shadows, enraged because he thought I’d fucked someone else.

He just left my room, and now…now I’m disgusted with myself and stone cold sober. I don’t fight him anymore. Truth is, I stopped fighting him after they took you away. I fucking hate myself, Rafe. Probably more than you hate me.

He made me come tonight. It’s happened a few times before, but tonight was different. Tonight, he hit me, pinched my nipples so hard he had to smother my cries with a pillow. They weren’t cries of pain, and that’s why I’m so sick right now.

What is wrong with me?

Crazy thing is, as I write this and remember, I’m still turned on. But it’s you I’m thinking of and not him. After I’m done writing this, I’m going to climb into bed and touch myself. I’ll regret thinking of you in the morning because it’s not fair to gain pleasure when you’re where you are.

But I can’t help myself right now. I need to wash away his touch and replace it with something else. When my fingers are sliding between my thighs, I’ll pretend they’re yours, pretend your tongue is down there too. He hasn’t done that yet. I’m probably the only seventeen-year-old girl who hasn’t had her pussy eaten out.

Tonight, in my heart, in my dreams, it’ll be you.

Yours always,

Alex

Ah, holy hell. I dropped my head into my hand, her letter still clutched in the other. Reading between the lines filled me with rage. Someone had raped her for years, yet she hadn’t named him. The logical conclusion, since she’d mention he’d been waiting for her when she came home, was that it was someone in her household, or someone who spent a lot time there. An associate of her father’s? A random person hired on as help?

A boyfriend?

I wanted to hunt down whoever it was and castrate the fucker.

Her next letter called to me, and I couldn’t resist the allure of her words. Words meant for me. Words writtentome. The stack had thinned considerably, yet there was so much left untold.

Rafe,

Oh. My. God. I’m so sorry. I’m so close to destroying my last letter, but I promised myself I wouldn’t. But that was TMI.

Yours always,

Alex

I shook my head, mouth turning up slightly, and like an addict, I pulled out another, and another. Her need to spill strengthened with each word, each tear that splotched the pages as she poured her heart out. I hurt for her. I hurt for me too, because the way she wrote it, she’d sent me to hell. A hell she hadn’t fully grasped, though she’d sensed it. As I continued to read, a lump formed in my throat.

My nightmares came back to haunt me again, and I did what I hadn’t been able to do before. I accepted them as memories. I’d been violated in prison. Something in that place made me snap, made me embrace the dark side of myself I’d fought for so long. I’d become the type of man who hadn’t settled for fantasies. In Alex, I’d found the perfect excuse to justify an act that was and always would be unforgivable.

I carefully unfolded her last letter, hoping she’d finally tell me what I needed to know.

Rafe,

Today I graduated college. I should be over the moon, right? I’m not. I stopped to look back at my life these past seven years and that’s when it truly hit me. I’ve left you to rot in that place all this time.

One more year, and you’ll be out.

But what will I say to you? I want to see you so badly I ache with it. The need is a beast inside me, tearing my chest open and spilling my heart onto the floor. My crush has turned into a full-fledged obsession.

Dad wants me to take over the position of managing accountant for the business. I’ve got the degree for it, but the MMA world is the last place I want to be. That’s where HE is. I’m shaking as I write this because I want so badly to write his name, but I just can’t.

At the very least, you deserve to know why I sent you to prison, and I need to get it out of me once and for all because I need to move on. Dad set me up with a business partner. He’s much older, but he’s nice. Best of all, he’s not…him.

Maybe I’m clinging to the first opportunity to break free, though it feels like I’m trading one prison for another. I don’t love this guy. I barely know him, but I can tell he’s serious about me. He’s already asked me to go with him to Paris for Christmas.

I’m stalling. I know I’m stalling. I’ve written you so many letters, but I’ve never explained. So here goes, from the beginning.

It started right after I met you. At first, I fought him. Over time, it was easier to give in. Then…I became a whore. I don’t fight him anymore because he gets me off. It’s sick and disgraceful. I know this. I’ve tried to get him to leave me alone, have even done some extreme things to break free for a while, but he always pulls me back.

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