Page 16 of Free to Dream
Putting my wine glass down on a nearby table, I walk out the side door and into the darkness as Holly and Corinna arrive at the front door. As I exit through the back, I hear the eruption begin behind me.
I don’t have a Freeman-level family fight in me tonight. Not after the one-two punch from Phil and Ali.
I head down the path toward the lake before I walk to my cottage, needing to get what Ali said out of my head—caring only about money, selling myself for the family.
Nothing but a whore for Daddy. But you like it, don’t you baby…
My stomach can’t hold on and I promptly throw up all over the grass.
As I’m retching, all the thoughts I try to keep locked out of my head come flooding in.Smack. Oh God, they’re tying me down to the bed. Smack. The feel of a dirty gag in my mouth. Smack. Twisting my head. No, I can’t see. The feel of their bodies on me. Biting, grunting, sweaty smells.Smack. Pain. Stop, stop, stop! I can’t take it anymore!
I’m so lost in my nightmare that when a soothing hand lands on my back, I let out a blood-curdling scream.
“Cassidy.” My handsome brother-in-law, Jason. He’s holding out his handkerchief and my coat.
I look at him with my eyes burning, feral. They gleam like a wild animal. “She had no right to say that, Jason. I’m not a whore. I was never a whore.”
He faces me directly, not moving. “I know, Cassidy.”
“Is that what they think of me? What you think of me? What you all say when I’m not around?” The dam that’s been holding back the tears since Ali’s words were spoken bursts, and the tears flow down my cheeks.
“You know that’s not true, Cassidy,” Jason whispers, sadly.
Do I?
I stumble down the path and sit at the lake’s edge, pulling my knees to my chest. I’m not sure how long I sit there before I hear behind me, “Cassidy, can I sit? I don’t want to scare you.” Jason’s voice is soothing.
I can’t fucking speak, but I must make some sort of assenting sound because Jason moves closer.
“Here, you’re going to get cold. I didn’t think you’d want to go back in there.” Jason wraps my coat around my shoulders before sitting.
We don’t speak. I’m pretty sure Jason is just out here to make sure I’m calm and warm, but he surprises me with his next words. “It was a night like this when I first met Ryan. He was in the alley outside of a bar, sobbing.” Jason looks over to see if I’m listening and holds out the handkerchief. Warily, I take it, wondering where he’s going with this. “Caleb is older by a few years. Five maybe? I don’t remember. When Ryan told him he was gay, Caleb was right there, had his back. But he was deployed shortly thereafter. He was overseas for years, but he was in constant contact with Ryan. Every opportunity he had, he told Ryan how proud he was of him. He’s a good guy, Cassidy, despite whatever happened today in your office.”
I nod. I still can’t speak, but I want him to continue. Somehow, I know there’s a reason he’s sharing this story.
“Ryan’s father died around that time.” Jason’s voice is sad. “He looked up to his father for so many things.” His voice hardens significantly. In my current state where I’ve just returned from my childhood memory of enraged voices, it makes me more than a little uncomfortable. “Then there was their bitch of a mother, Mildred. The night I met Ryan, he was crying in the rain, wearing nothing but boxers and a T-shirt soaked in blood. He didn’t have on shoes. I worried about internal injuries, but he refused to go to a hospital. I carried him to my car, called Dr. Harris, and brought them both to my place. I was an intern, so I was way outside my area of expertise. I asked if he had family to call and he said he had none. The only family he would trust was in the military overseas.” Jason takes a deep breath. “It became obvious fairly quickly that keeping Ry at my place was tantamount to his safety.”
What? Why? My head is spinning with wanting to ask, but I’m still trapped in my memories.
“Ryan was on the verge of being killed or committing suicide. His life was a different version of the hell I imagine you lived through before finding Phillip.” He raises a dark eyebrow and turns back to face the lake. “Only in this case, because of who Ryan was, the only way I could think of to keep him protected was to be engaged to him.”
Pausing, Jason turns to fully face me. “Phil, Ryan, and now you, Cass, are the only ones in the world that know I was never engaged to Ryan. I can only assume he’s told his fiancé. I have no idea if he ever told his brother.” Jason takes a deep breath. “At the time, it was the only way I could think of to protect a beautiful young man by getting him out of the house he was living in, short of pressing charges, which he refused to let us do. Ryan’s mother was beating him senseless over being gay.” I hear the fury in his voice when he says, “Twenty-two, Cass. Barely home from college, he told us at night he would get so sleepy, he’d have to go lie down. When he would wake later, he would be strapped down to his bed with someone in a mask beating him to a pulp. Not that he could put up much of a fight. Sometimes it was a ski mask, sometimes a clown mask, sometimes hockey mask; anything to cover their face. Later when Ry was off the drugs and he could think clearly, he reasoned it was someone on his mother’s staff he’d be able to recognize. They had him on so much stuff there was no way he’d be able to fight back. It was the only reason he could figure. They would lay him on his back, spread apart his legs and whip him with a belt. He was too drugged to fight them off. If it wasn’t for the bruising he’d find the next day, and the hangover from the drugs in his system, he swore he would have thought it was a dream. It was more like a perpetual nightmare, day and night.”
I gasp, but I don’t think Jason even hears me.
“Ryan lived with me for two years. We were friends until I met your brother. Best friends, actually. Remember the day I met you all? At Candlewood Lake? What’s it been, eight years?”
I nod.
“I talked with you guys for hours after Phil landed on me. It was like a punch to the gut, what I felt when I met Phil. It still is.” Jason looks at me. “Don’t tell him, though. He doesn’t need his ego stroked any more than it already is.”
I manage a feeble smile as Jason continues. “Ryan freaked out that night. We got back to the apartment and he lost it,” he says sadly. “To be honest, I was so wrapped up in that first meeting with Phil, so absorbed, I didn’t think about Ryan or how he would feel, until I went to get my stuff and Ryan was waiting for me. I told him to stop acting like an idiot, that we were friends. He screamed at me that I was his fiancé and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with him, and I can only imagine the things I said. But as he stood there with tears in his eyes, I realized his feelings had changed.”
He takes a deep breath, his eyes fixed on the farm where his husband is still arguing.
“I loved Ryan as a friend. He was the closest thing to a brother I had. But I had no intention of ever taking it any further. That night, I told him to go to bed, and that we would talk in the morning. He left, leaving only a note for me.”
Jason turned to face me fully. “How could I experience such happiness when I never knew if Ryan was alive or dead after he left? After meeting Phil, you, and the girls, and seeing what you’d built with each other, it made it in some ways harder to bear. Here you were, a family, and I let a brother down.”
