Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“Whatever happened fifteen years ago is long over, Sofie, but what your father and Kyle are working on is right now. It may be the most important thing he’s done. It’s crucial to our future.”
What the hell is going on? I prop my elbows on the table, dropping my forehead into my hands, trying to wrap my mind around this insanity.
“We can get you some help, a counselor, or—”
“I had help.” I sit back in my seat and cross my legs. “I saw a therapist for two years after it happened.”
“A therapist?” Her forehead pinches. “Who was this therapist? Where?”
“In Milan. I started seeing her while I was in Milan. She specialized in helping rape survivors.”
“Sofie, you have to stop saying ‘rape.’ And you need to drop this. Boys lose their heads. Girls lead boys on. It’s what happens in high school, but we can’t afford to dredge up ancient history right now. I’m sure Kyle is sorry for what happened.”
“Is that why he raped another woman? Because he was so sorry after the first time?” I lean forward, trapping my mother’s eyes with my own, refusing to let her go. “He raped Shaunti Miller, too, Mother. And there’s no telling who else.”
“There’s no telling because no one is telling, Sofie.” My mother leans into our stare, her eyes hard and glinting like quartz. “And neither will you.”
“You’re crazy.” I stand, bumping the back of my knees on the chair in my haste to get out of this house of horrors. I grab my bag and head toward the door.
“Sofie, this will be a circus, and you’ll be the freak show.” She picks up her serrated spoon and goes back to her grapefruit. “Not Kyle.”
I’m almost at the door when I turn to look back at the woman I’ve longed to be close to all my life, but never found a way.
“I thought it was me.” I shake my head, the breath bitter on my lips. “I thought I was broken, too much like Daddy for you to love me.”
“Oh, God. Spare me the melodrama, Sofie.” Mother sprinkles Stevia on her grapefruit.
“But it’s you. You’re the broken one.” My lip quivers, but I get it under control. I won’t give this woman any more weakness to use against me. “You’re just like him.”
“And so are you, little girl.” Her eyes blaze in a face otherwise cold. “Don’t get on a high horse now. Don’t fool yourself that you’re any different from us.”
“Oh, I am different, Mother. I’ve learned that I have the capacity to actually care about other people, a secret I probably kept from myself to survive life with the two of you.”
“You may have just started caring about people, Sofie, but no one cares about you. You’re just a famous face and an overexposed body.” She slices into her omelet, raising her fork to her mouth and her eyes to me.
“You’ve spent the last fifteen years being one thing. Don’t expect people to all of a sudden think you’re something else. Start telling this story about Kyle if you want. It’ll be a bloodbath.”
“Oh, I have no doubt there will be blood, Mother, but it won’t be just mine. I’m going to bleed Kyle dry, and since you seem to be on his side, you might bleed, too.”
I rush past Millie, hovering with her teapot, through the foyer with the sweeping staircase that leads to my childhood bedroom. I pull at the heavy door, letting in the light from outside. The fresh autumn air does nothing to clear my head, nothing to soothe my soul. I stumble into the backseat of the car waiting at the curb, tears stinging my eyes.
“Everything all right, Ms. B?” Baker asks from the front seat, his eyes seeking mine in the rearview mirror.
“Yes, I…” I don’t know what lie I can come up with to cover this wound in my heart, bleeding out my illusions, an unstoppable flow, black with hurt and rejection.
My mother doesn’t care that a man raped me. She offered no words of comfort. No horror that she never knew. I catch Baker’s glance again in the rearview mirror, unsure what to say or how to explain that my mother doesn’t love me, but his waiting eyes are soft with sympathy.
And I realize he knows. He’s always known.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Trevor
I’ve always enjoyed training alone. Things that make no sense in a room full of people, in a world filled with noise, crystallize in solitude. A way that seemed uncertain becomes straight as I’m pushing myself through water, meeting its resistance with my persistence, its force with my strength. On a morning like this with so many problems—the Collective scandal, the Deutimus sale, Sofie’s revelation about that douche bag Kyle Manchester—it would be ideal to be alone. But as I touch the wall, coming out of the water to find Sofie already seated on its edge in her black bikini, her bright hair water-darkened, her lashes spiky, somehow I’m okay with not being by myself this morning.