Back Where We Belong (A Second Chances New Adult Romance) (8 page)

They say one of the worst things
when you are raped is how dirty you feel. And it's true. When they finally let
me go, I grab my clothes and run home through the night, not caring that I have
no shoes, no purse. I can't go back for them no matter how much the cold gravel
hurts my feet. My keys are still in my pocket. I can get in!

I scrub myself clean in the
shower. I can't stop shaking or crying. I long for Chelsea to get back to help
me. I want to call her but I don't think she'll hear her phone at the party and
then I realize mine is in my purse anyway. I can't call anyone.

Chelsea doesn't make it home that
night to see me at my worst. It's morning when she returns to find me shivering
in bed under my blanket. She feels guilty for introducing me to Brad, but it's
not her fault. It's my fault for trusting him, for trusting any guy really.
None of them are worth it.

I want her to help me go to the
police.

“Of course I'll help you if
that's what you want. But are you sure that's a good idea?” she says. “Every
girl who does that always seems to suffer for it.”

“I can't let them get away with
it.”

“But think about it,” she says.
“Their kind always have great lawyers, and you don't have any evidence. You
washed that away. They'll say you were drinking. That you went to his room.
That you led Brad on. They might not believe you, and you'll have to face Brad
and Charlie in court. Have your word doubted. It's two against one. Your
reputation will be shot for nothing.”

So I don't report it, and they
get off scot free.

But I don’t. I can't get away
from what they did. I live with it every day. I live with it because I can't
stop thinking about it. I live with it when I have to get tested for pregnancy
and disease. I live with it because they are still around and I'm terrified of
seeing them again. I live with it because I can't sleep. That's when the
nightmares come.

I wake up night after night in a
cold sweat after reliving what they did to me as if I were still there in that
room. I see them put a chair under the door handle to keep it closed, and
experience again how it felt when they held me down to stop me struggling and
stuffed my panties in my mouth to stop me making a noise and laughed at the
sight.

I have to relive how they treat
me as if I'm nothing. A worthless piece of meat. “Stick it in that cunt,
Charlie,” Brad urges his friend after he has taken his turn. I always hated
that word “cunt” and when I hear it now, I feel physically sick.

They say that one of the worst
things is how dirty you feel, but there are other things worse than that. You
have to live with the feeling of powerlessness that they did this to you and
there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it. I can never be free of that.

***

I struggle on at college. I try and
concentrate on my studies, but I can't. It's no surprise to me when I fall
behind.

God knows what happened to my
phone in the crash. I don't have Madison's number anymore, but I'll find her
anyway. Mom says she hasn't seen her. I don't know why she didn't visit me when
I was so sick. When I get out of hospital, I go to the beach house, but it's
all closed up. Of course it is. It's well past summer.

I knock on a few doors and find
Jill to see if she has a number for Madison. And she still has it in her phone,
though she says she hasn't heard from Madison for a while. I call the number
Jill gave me but it doesn't seem to be in service.

I have Madison's address in
Greenwich, so I find the number and call. I know I'll get short shrift from her
mother, but I have to try.

“Madison is at college.” Her
mother talks like it’s beneath her to speak to me. “If you think she'll want
someone like you calling her now, you're very much mistaken.”

“Please give her a message
anyway, Mrs. Collins. Tell her—”

She hangs up on me.

I call the college too, but they
won't give me any information.

I give up then. There's no point.
I know if Madison wanted to see me she would have been in touch. She knows
where I live. Perhaps her mom was right about her, and I was just a diversion
at the beach. It's not much fun having a summer romance with a guy in a coma.

She must have moved on. I can't
quite believe it. I thought we had something together, and she didn't even
visit me once. Or perhaps she did, but no one saw her. Maybe she came and was
told ‘only family visitors’ or something. I don't know. Whether she came or
not, she didn't bother to keep in touch.

But I can't deal with it anymore. I
need to get my life back on track. I'm going to Chicago this week. It's high
time I got to work and made something of myself. It's time to focus on that and
forget about women for a while, or at least the one called Madison with dark
hair and eyes that are not quite blue and not quite green who broke my heart.

I don't go back to college after
the Christmas break. I can't bear it. Mom says I have to go back but I dig in
my heels. Nothing she says can make me go back. And what was I doing there
anyway? It was just the thing everyone was doing.

Mom keeps telling me I've wasted
every penny they paid for my education, that I'll never get that chance again,
that I'm stupid and ungrateful. But still I refuse to go back. I don't tell her
why. I know she won't believe it wasn't my fault, and I'm not strong enough to
deal with the things she might say.

She's as bad as ever. I want to
mooch around the house but Christmas with her is so bad I can't stand it
anymore. I get a job in a florist’s but Valentine’s Day and all the red roses
are nearly the end of me. I know I'll never have that kind of love where
twenty-four red roses turn up at my door. And when a new art gallery opens on a
little side street, I'm glad to move there.

Michelle, the owner, lives above
her gallery. She's friendly, but she doesn't ask too many questions. I like
that. We get along well together. It's calm and peaceful at the gallery. I love
the art work Michelle chooses to sell, and she says I have a good eye when I
make a few suggestions about how we hang the work of a new artist to present it
in the best possible way.

I haven't picked up a pencil or
brush for years. I never did manage it that summer with Luke, but as life calms
down and summer comes around again, I start to think I might have a go. I buy
paper, canvas, paint and brushes. Working with all the pictures inspires me. I
want to paint and draw.

Mom doesn't like my renewed
interest. “Is that what dropping out is all about? I suppose you think I'll let
you go to art school because you didn’t like college. Think again.”

I don't let her put me off this
time. I like to take my pad and pencil to work, and when it’s quiet at
lunchtime, I draw.

Michelle is very encouraging when
she sees my early efforts. “Why don't you take a class?” she says.

So I draw and paint and work in
the art gallery, despite Mom and her never-ending negativity. And I'm okay. At
least I'm okay when I'm awake and not reliving what happened to me at college.
I know I need to see a therapist about that, but it's awkward. How would I
explain it to Mom? And I don't have much money to spare. I won't give up my art
classes. I can't. I love them. Or buying paint and canvasses.

I'm saving for the deposit for my
own place. I'm starting to think I'd like to live on my own eventually,
somewhere large enough where I can have a studio. I know there'll be a time
when I don't need the presence of anyone else to feel safe. Ironic that living
with my crazy mother makes me feel safer than living on my own. I guess all I
really want these days is to feel safe again. And not to have nightmares.

***
FOUR
YEARS LATER
***

Michelle is a great boss. I'm so
pleased I found the job at the art gallery. I can hardly believe I've been
there for over four years. I never want to work anywhere else.

My mother mocks my lack of
ambition. “If you'd stuck it out at college you'd have had a great career by
now.” But my job makes me happy so I don't care what she says.

I hardly ever have nightmares
now. It's true, time does heal. Or at least it puts a mighty great bandage over
everything that you don't want to remember.

I no longer think every guy is
out to rape me. But I don't know how I'd be on a date or alone in a room with a
guy. I prefer them in broad daylight and when they are not coming on to me.

Sometimes the guys at the art
school ask me out, but I always refuse. How can I even think about dating? The
thought of some guy kissing me, touching me, and pinning me down and not
letting me go makes me shudder. No matter how nice some of the guys are on the
surface, and no matter how much they chat at coffee and seem like okay guys,
who knows what they are like under that veneer? I thought Brad was nice too
until he wasn't.

No. It's safer just to work and
paint and draw and keep away from relationships. Mom has given up going on
about my lack of love life. I think she's given up on me altogether. She's says
I'm a hopeless daughter. She never fails to criticize me about anything and
everything.

Every six months or so, I take
one of my days off to go and see Dad. He doesn't bother to take time off for
me. There's a regular pattern to these meetings. He takes me for lunch. I tell
him about the art gallery or what Mom has done or said. He gives me money for
“a treat.” It pays for my fare and there's a bit left over to add to my “escape
from Mom” savings. And he shows me pictures of his new family.

His daughter is nearly five years
old now and he has a baby son too. He seems proud of them. They are nice
looking children. I hate them, though it's not their fault that my father dotes
on them and not on me. Perhaps I should see a therapist about that too. I'm a
mess. I know that. But I get along and I'm content in my own way.

It's time for me to meet up with
Dad again soon. I think about saying to him that I’m too busy at the gallery
this time, but I can't quite bring myself to cut off every tie. I keep hoping
one day, though I know it's ridiculous and stupid of me, that he'll look at me
and say, “I'm proud of you, you know, Madison. I don't ever say it but I am.
You're strong. You've put up with your mother all these years. You're my first
child and you'll always be my favorite.”

It's ten to twelve. I'm five
minutes late and rushing through the foyer of the Bernstein building when I get
a call. It's my assistant, Julia. My next appointment is cancelled. She's been
trying to reach me. I've had back to back meetings all morning. Too bad. I tell
her not to reschedule. I only granted this Monday lunchtime meeting because I
knew I'd be on this side of the city. If they don't appreciate how busy I am,
they can forget it. I can use the time anyway. Catch up on some work for my
next deal. It's a big one. Even bigger than the last.

I turn away from reception, where
I was about to announce my arrival to the pretty blonde sitting behind the
desk, and bump right into some guy.

“Baroncini,” he says. “I don't
think we've met. Stephen Collins. Highfield Finance.” He holds out his hand, and
I shake it and look up, hearing a gasp beside him.

“Madison,” I say, as smoothly as
I can. “It's been a long time.” Of course, I should have picked up on the name.
In my defense, it's a pretty common name. He must be her father.

“Yes,” she says. “It has.” I can
see she's rattled, but she doesn't look ashamed or anything about deserting me
all those years ago as I lay in hospital. Maybe it hasn't even crossed her mind
to feel guilty.

“You two know each other?” her
father asks me. “Please join us for lunch if you have time. I've been reading
about you in the business pages for a while. It would be a pleasure.”

“I'd be delighted,” I say. I
can't wait to find out whether Madison will cook up some excuse or not mention
the past at all. I wonder how embarrassed she will be when I bring it up. I
really would like to know why she ran out on me and couldn't be bothered to
stick around to see if I was alive or dead.

There's no way I'll give her the
satisfaction of showing it bothered me. But shit, it still rankles. I swipe
those thoughts aside. I glance at her finger. No ring. She's not found some
rich fucker and married him then. I wonder if there's anyone sniffing around
her these days. She looks as good as ever.