Page 41 of No Fear
“I do know.” He insisted, “I know it’s hard to open yourself up to someone after you’ve been hurt, babe. So here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna go first.”
“Wh-What?”``
“I’m gonna go first.” He repeated slowly, trying to control his breathing which had ticked up at the mere thought of talking about his past, “I’m going to tell you why I understand, maybe better than anyone else ever could, what it is you’re going through and if, when I’m done, you still don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. We’ll deal with it when you’re ready.”
“Remy, you don’t have to do that.” Her brows furrowed.
“I know I don’t have to.” He squeezed her hand and then released her entirely, unsure if he could get through this with her sweet touch distracting him, “This thing, you and me, it’s happening fast and if this is what it takes to make you trust me when I tell you that I understand and I’ll be here for you, then that’s what it takes.”
Rachel studied his face, looking for something, but he averted his gaze. He wasn’t sure he could look her in the eyes and tell her the truth. He’d only ever told three people this story and he knew without a doubt this would be the hardest.
First had been Lincoln, because when he’d been a scared, eighteen year old kid, there’d been nobody he looked up to more than his cousin. Lincoln had helped him the only way he could. He’d gotten him out of town. In the ten years he’d stayed gone, Remy had never told anyone else. He’d never expected to tell anyone else but when he’d come home, he’d known that his brothers deserved the truth. Cash and Colt had been horrified, rightly so, but they’d never flinched in their support. They’d felt bad that Remy hadn’t thought he could tell them before. They’d felt guilty for blaming him for his absence once they found out what caused him to flee town and leave them behind. But they’d never once looked at him with pity in their eyes and he had a terrible, anxious, knot in the pit of his stomach because he knew if Rachel pulled away from him because of this, that he would never recover.
“Remy, whatever you’re going to tell me, it won’t change how I feel about you.” Rachel reached for his hand this time, “You know that, right?”
He hoped that was true. Because what he had to tell her, it had changed his entire life. He was still dealing with the fallout and knew he would be for the rest of his life. He could only hope that Rachel might want to help him with it the same way he wanted to help banish her ghosts.
He took a deep breath for courage and then forced the words that felt like knives cutting his throat, “When I was sixteen, my mom started wandering into my bedroom at night.”
Rachel’s eyes widened immediately, her breath turning choppy, and he knew that she understood what he was getting at. Her small hand squeezed his and he squeezed in return. The attempt to offer him some strength, some compassion, made the rest of the words even more difficult and he stared down at the scarred table instead of looking at her.
“She was high and I guess… I guess I looked a lot like him, like my dad I mean. People said I did. Same dark hair and dark eyes and I’d just finally hit my growth spurt and shot up over six feet.” He swallowed hard, “I think Chrissy thought I was him. Decker. She called me his name whenever she came into my room… into my bed.”
“Oh God.” Rachel murmured but he continued before the words clogged his throat.
“At first, all she did was crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night and pass out. I’d get up and tuck her in and go sleep in the twins’ room or on the couch.” He closed his eyes and blew out a rough breath, “But as I got older, she would… she would…”
“Remy…”
“No. I gotta do this.” He sat back upright when he realized he’d started to curl inwards, self-protectively, “Chrissy touched me. She touched me in a way a mother should never, ever, have touched her child and the worst part is… I responded.”
The memories hit him hard and fast and he felt a cold sweat break out on his brow. He swiped a hand over his face and forced his breath in and out the way the Army shrink had taught him after his first tour. The old man had thought he was helping Remy deal with the deaths of his friends but he’d helped him with so much more than that. In and out, breathe. If you focus on the basics, you can’t think about the horrors.
“You were a teenage boy.” Rachel said softly and she insisted on tugging on his hand until he gave it back to her, “You were a boy and it wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that. I do. I know that but still… there’s something sick about it. Chrissy… She’s my mom and I...” His voice broke and he shook his head.
“Oh Remy.” Rachel whispered, tears in her voice that only made it harder for him to finish saying what he needed her to know.
“I’ve tried to convince myself that it was teenage hormones. It wouldn’t have mattered who it was in the dark when she touched me… but I knew it was her. It made me sick. It scared the hell out of me. But I knew it was her and my body… I got… turned on.”
“You were just a kid. You couldn’t help it. It was hormones, Remy. The only person in this story that’s sick is your… that woman.”
He swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat and nodded. He knew that was true. He knew all of it was true. It hadn’t been his fault. He hadn’t asked for it. He hadn’t let it happen. He’d been a kid and the drug-addicted adult in his home had taken advantage of him. But he’d had a decade to deal with it and he still couldn’t let it go.
He thought it would haunt him forever.
“I got away from her every time, before… before she could rape me… but I know it would have happened if I’d stayed in that house even a week longer. I got out the moment I turned eighteen. I got out and I wish I could say I never looked back but I did. I had to because I left Cash and Colt in that house with those monsters.”
“Oh God.”
“No. It wasn’t… she didn’t touch them.” Remy finally looked up, couldn’t let Rachel make that awful assumption, “She wasn’t the demon they had to deal with. Decker took that role for them. He was,is, a monster, just in a different way.”
Rachel winced but nodded slightly, “I’ve heard some of what Colt went through from Skylar.”
“Decker hated them before they were even born. He swears Chrissy was cheating on him and hell, maybe she was. I was young but Uncle Auto was around an awful lot looking back on it. It’s not unlikely he’s their real dad but that’s hardly the fault of the twins.”
“You were all just kids.”
