Page 104 of Allure

“No one can replace Jackie, but you’ve got it all wrong. Julie’s my cousin.”

“Your… cousin?”

"Yes. She's in high school yet. I brought her to the campus to see if she'll want to attend, maybe, just for lunch. It wasn't a date, but call me crazy, but you seem to be a bit… jealous. And that's not wishful thinking either. You can't try to claim that."

I swallow hard. “Declan, you don’t understand…”

“You still don’t trust me?”

“You don’t understand!” I wail.

“Understand what? How can I if you don’t let me in?”

“I can’t let you in! If I do, you’ll hate me. Or you’ll call your father up and tell him to come right back here and arrest me. I told you about my father, how he’s dead, but I didn’t tell you about the abuse. About how he would have me come into his room and sit on his lap. He would brush my hair, but it was just an excuse, and he would have me rub against him, and I had no idea what he was doing. I was four when he started, or maybe I was younger and just don’t remember. But he would insist on being the one to give me baths, not letting anyone else do it or be around, and he would put the soap on his hands and wash my body everywhere. I mean everywhere. Even…”

My eyes are closed as I’m talking. Now that I’ve opened up some, the words are gushing out of me like a floodgate.

"It wasn't until I was eight that he had me watch a movie with him. I started to realize then that what he was doing and what he was trying to convince me to do was wrong, but he waited until I was ten to try to do something that I absolutely refused, and he got pissed. The next day, he came home drunk and tried it again. When I still refused, he slapped me. After that, he would pinch me hard enough to leave bruises if we were even in the same room together, even if other people were around. I started to wear turtlenecks and long sleeves to try to cover the bruises until one time, he threw me when he forced me… he didn't like it enough… he threw me against the wall and fractured my arm. I told my mom then about what was going on, or at least I tried to, but she didn't want to hear any of it. I didn't even tell her the half of it, and she just… She didn't believe me. She thought I was lying, that I wanted attention, said I couldn't see my friends anymore because clearly, they were corrupting me."

Declan sucks in a breath. “Fuck, Brooke—”

“Don’t.” I open my eyes, staring at his chest, not daring to look at his face, knowing I couldn’t bear to see whatever emotions his face and eyes were conveying. “I haven’t finished yet.”

Declan reaches out to touch my shoulder, but I jerk away, not wanting to be consoled. I don’t deserve it.

I don’t want to be comforted.

Not by him or anyone else for that matter.

"The next night, my father came after me again. I guess my mom must've said something to him because he came after me in a way he never had before, and I just snapped. He wouldn't stop, and I realized he never would, and between the sexual abuse and the physical abuse… My father owns guns. He took me to the shooting range several times, and although he hurt my dominant arm, when you're at close range, you can't miss even with your non-dominant hand."

Now I look up. Declan looks shocked.

“I killed my father. No one knows. His business is shady, more than a little, and there was an investigation that was quickly quieted. I don’t know who suppressed it, but the official report listed it as a suicide. But that’s not the truth. Not at all. Not by a long shot. I did it.”

Declan squats down not to be on my level but to be shorter than me, making himself small, somewhat, maybe less of a threat, not that I’ve felt threatened by him, not for a long while now.

“Trauma and abuse can make it self-defense even if he didn’t attack you with deadly force,” he assures me.

I blink back tears. "When he saw the gun in my hand, he laughed. Laughed in my face and picked me up by my throat, choking me… I couldn't breathe, and my vision was spotty, but I brought up the gun, aimed, and…"

“Brooke, it was self-defense.”

My hand goes to my throat. "The only thing that made me not feel his hands on my throat still was that gun barrel. Sometimes, if I'm alone or just at random times, I can still feel his hands."

Declan slowly rises. His hands come into view, and he gently reaches toward my throat.

I hold perfectly still, unnerved beyond belief. How can he try to justify what I did? I killed my father! He had been an abusive asshole, yes, a predator, but still, I killed him.

“I can maybe help to take that memory away,” Declan says, staring into my eyes as his fingers slowly touch my throat.

Tears burn in my eyes, and my knees go weak. I might reach out to him, I’m not even sure, but then his arms are around me, holding me up.

“I’ll drive you wherever you want to go,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to be alone right now. I don’t think you should be. Your place, mine… somewhere else… You name it.”

I stare at Declan. He truly doesn’t think I’m a monster. He’s involved in law enforcement. He knows the legal system better than I do, and I don’t think he’s feeding me a line of bullshit. My father choked me earlier that night before I went and got his gun, and then he had been squeezing my throat so tightly… I really thought he might kill me.

Why? Why did the thought that it might have been self-defense never come to my mind?

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