Page 65 of Honeysuckle
“I got expelled from Lorette for attacking a fellow player,” I confessed to him. “Which, by the look on your face, you already knew. Silas is arat.”
Dean tried to hide the smile that formed on his face at the insult.
“Ian,” he confirmed.
“Ian.” I nodded. I chewed on the inside of my mouth, unsure if I should even tell him the reason why, but the way he was looking at me told me that he was ready to hear it, whether or not I was ready to tell it.
“He found out some shit about my life, things I kept well hidden. He had been harassing me, minor stuff, things I could handle, brush off or ignore. I used to shower alone after all the guys left to hide the…”
Scars.
Dean sat up more and moved closer to me as he listened.
“He got the jump on me in the locker room showers one night,” I stopped because the bile was rising in my throat over the next sentence. I could feel the scar above my eye… “He slammed my head into the wall and I blacked out… When I woke up, he was—” I paused, trying to find a less harsh word, but there was nothing. "He was raping me with a smile on his face.”
Dean watched my every movement; each flinch, each twitch. Every single tense muscle he took note and he waited. I could see the questions on his face and the need to ask them, the want to understand but he stayed quiet.
“He wanted power over me and he got it,” I said with malice in my voice. "But he couldn’t hold on to it because he was stupid for thinking that I would just give in to it. I got up and I beat him until he couldn’t open his eyes because it felt good to do it. I could have stopped, but I didn’t.”
He remained silent, listening to every word I spoke.
“He wasn’t conscious when they dragged me out of the locker room, and I prayed to whoever would listen that he’d stay that way. Lifeless and unable to harm anyone.” I felt the cool water of the melting ice against my palm and realized I’d dug my nails deep into the plastic, and it was leaking down my wrist.
“I fought because I have had to for my entire life, and the moment I thought that I had found a safe place, somewhere I could let my guard down. Ian reminded me that a place like that doesn’t exist. Nowhere is safe, every conversation is a fight, no one has my best interest in mind, harming someone else is easy when it makes you feel better about yourself, and I will never let anyone do that to me again.”
“Understood,” Dean said quietly.
I quietly scoffed, of course, he’d just agree. Like it was that simple.
“Why does no one know what he did to you? They all think you snapped.”
“Because that’s what I told them at the committee meeting,” I said.
“That’s why you’re here,” Dean said, he was finally starting to connect the dots. “Silas was at that meeting, they were going to strip you of your position.”
“They were, but he convinced them that he could find me a place with the Hornets so I could finish my last year of school,” I said. “At the time I didn’t give a shit, I just wanted out of Lorette.”
“And now?” Dean asked.
“Now what?” I shrugged.
“Do you give a shit now?” His lips curled into a soft smile as I nodded.
I envied how easily he just listened.
“I’m sorry that happened,” he said just after, in the most delicate voice I had ever heard.
“It wasn’t the first time, but itwasthe last.” I swallowed, and I could tell he knew what I meant. He had seen the locks on my bedroom door. Locks I’d ripped off again and again, hauling on the doorknob and begging to be let out..
The sound of them clicking open as my mom got ready to let in another random man was branded into my conscious thoughts. Everywhere I went, so did that noise.
“How many?” Dean asked, clearly uncomfortable but still trying.
I curled my fingers into the hem of my shirt and tugged it gingerly over my head to expose my chest to him, sliding out from the shadows of the closet into the moonlight that shone through the window.
“She did it for money,” I said, looking down at the scars. “People will pay a lot for discretion and who better to keep secrets than a junkie desperate for money.”
I kept my head down as he slid closer, his leg brushing against mine but he was careful to create space. He was cautious not to touch me. I looked up at him and I could feel the tremble in my jaw as the water welled in my eyes.
