Silence (20 page)

I eventually decided that I was going to go out with Jasper, so we arranged to call a taxi and go on a pub-crawl. Getting off my face would pass the time.

Just as I was about to start actually tidying my room to have something to do - yes, it had gotten that bad- my phone started ringing. I froze. It was playing ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’ by Prince. Sweat broke out all over my body. I had never heard that song being played on my phone before. That was the ringtone I had set for Oakley, but she never called.

Reaching out with a shaky hand, I grabbed the phone and pressed answer. Immediately I heard quiet sobs. I felt sick. Why was she crying? “Cole,” she whispered in a scratchy little voice that actually sounded like it hurt. “Help me.”

My world stopped spinning.

Chapter Twenty

Cole

I swallowed hard, my heart beating so loud I was sure the whole neighbourhood would hear it.

“Oakley?” I mumbled in disbelief. She said my name. I definitely didn’t dream that. She definitely spoke.

“Cole,” she repeated. Her voice was quiet and broken. I had always wondered what her voice would sound like now. Would I recognise it from how she used to sound? My eyes started to sting.
Oh God, don’t cry, you girl!

She coughed. “Help me.” Those two words sent my heart plummeting.

I snapped into action, no longer completely fixed on the fact that she had spoken.

“What’s wrong? Where are you?” I questioned, and frantically searched for my keys. “Oakley, where are you?” I repeated sternly.
Please just tell me!

“Um,” she whispered, trying to catch her breath as she sobbed. It took her a minute to explain to me where she was. She kept coughing and clearing her throat. It must hurt her to use her voice after she hadn’t for over a decade...

I kept her on the phone and sprinted downstairs and out to my car.

“Cole?” Mum shouted, jumping up as I ran past her and Dad on the sofa.

A journey that should have taken thirty minutes didn’t even take twenty. I slammed my breaks on and pulled over at the side of the road, where she thought she was. Jumping out of my car, I shouted, “Oakley? Oakley?” She appeared from behind a couple trees, stumbling on the uneven ground as she made her way to me. She was hiding? God, what had happened! I closed the distance between us quickly and wrapped my arms around her.

“What’s wrong?” I mumbled against the side of her head. Her whole body was trembling, and she gasped for air. “Oakley, calm down.” She gasped and gripped hold of me so hard her nails cut into my back.

She was scaring me to death. I was terrified of finding out what was wrong. I continued stroking her hair and whispering in her ear until she calmed down and her breathing steadied.

“I need you to tell me what’s wrong, okay?” She nodded against my shoulder. I tried pulling back to see her, but she clung to me tighter and whimpered. “What is it?”

“I– I don’t want you to look at me,” she whispered, her voice cracking and body shaking with silent sobs.

My stomach twisted with unease.

“Why wouldn’t you want me to look at you?”

She was quiet for a minute. I was sick with worry. What the hell was she about to say?

“I can’t. Can’t do it again.”

“What? What can’t you do?”

She shook her head and dug her fingers in my back harder. My back stung, but I didn’t care.

“You can tell me anything, you know that. Why is this so hard for you to tell me?” I asked her, terrified. “Oakley, please, what can’t you do?”

I was getting desperate, and I just needed to know what was wrong so I could fix it.

“Why are you alone?” Where the hell was Max?

“I thought it s-stopped.” She took a ragged breath and continued, “It stopped when I was thirteen, but he’s… he’s ba–back.”

“Who’s back? What stopped?” I shook my head, trying to make sense of what she was trying to say. Something stopped when she was thirteen, but someone’s back? It didn’t make sense. Who was back? No one left when she was thirteen.

“F-Frank,” she stuttered, sobbing harder. Her legs gave way, and she slumped against my chest.

“Who’s Frank? I don’t know anyone called Frank.”

I had to wait until she calmed down again. Those two minutes were the longest and most painful of my life.

“You met him at the Christmas party at that hotel.”

Hotel? Oh, her dad’s work Christmas party. That was years ago. I didn’t really remember anyone. Oakley took a deep breath.

“He’s the man who hurt me.” Her voice was quiet as she confessed, so quiet I barely heard her.

“Hurt you,” I repeated. “How did he hurt–”

I froze mid-sentence as I realised what she was trying to tell me.

“Hurt you. He… Touched you?” I couldn’t say the words. She didn’t need to confirm it. Her reaction did. She burst into fresh tears, crying hysterically. I had no strength left; her confession knocked everything out of me. We both fell to the floor with her in my lap.

I gripped hold of her and buried my face in her hair. My lungs burned from where I was holding my breath for so long. Every single muscle in my body was aching. Someone had hurt her. I squeezed my eyes closed and held her tighter as if that would magically fix everything. As if it would turn back time and stop it from happening.

“Where is he?” I asked through clenched teeth. Wherever he was, I was going to kill him. I didn’t care that he was probably double my age or more.

“At our c-camp,” she murmured against my neck, stuttering and sobbing.

My heart stopped. Why would he be at their camp?

“But your dad’s there.” Her whole body tensed and she stopped breathing. No.

“Oakley?” I whispered, terrified of her answer to my next question. “Does he know?”

I held my breath, waiting for her answer. Oh god, please say no, Oakley. She just nodded in confirmation. I felt like throwing up. Blood boiled in my veins. He knew some sick pervert had hurt her, and he was sitting around a fucking campfire with him!

I pulled back to look her, but she lowered her head, staring at the ground in shame. I tried to life her chin up, but she refused.

“Look at me.”

She shook her head, letting out a quiet little sob, tears dropped from her chin to the floor.

“Please, baby.” I bent my head down awkwardly and managed to see half of her face. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying so much.

“Oakley, did your dad...did he? Did he...you know?”

She shook her head again.

“No, but he let him.”

My heart dropped at the same time she burst into tears again. He was her dad! How could he? He should be the one protecting her. My hands started to shake. I felt ill and so fucking angry I just wanted to murder them both. Oakley curled up on my lap and sobbed so hard it broke my heart.

How could I have missed it? I should have known. I had been there for her entire damn life and I didn’t know a thing! I had never seen her in so much pain before. I needed to fix it, but how did you fix something like that.

“Where is you camp?” I asked slowly, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.

She gasped and pulled back. Her face was soaking wet with tears.

“No. You can’t, Cole”

I can’t? She really expected me to do nothing after what she just told me?

“Please. I-I can’t. My mum. Please don’t,” she rambled, her voice cutting out occasionally.

“Shh,” I whispered, wiping the tears from her cheeks. I didn’t know how I managed to stay so calm and not jump up and go look for them. I didn’t feel calm, but she came first and I needed to make sure she was safe before I did anything. “What about your mum?”

“It’ll break her heart. I can’t. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want her to hate me.”

“Is that what he told you? That she would hate you?” I spat angrily. Shit, I was going to be sick. I took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

She nodded weakly, her head barely moving.

“I wanted to tell her. I tried to when it first started, but Dad walked in. He shouted at me when she left. I was so scared. I didn’t want to hurt Mum, and he said it would kill her.” She coughed cleared her throat. “He told me not to talk.”

I froze. “That’s why you didn’t speak for almost eleven years?” Her dad was the reason. There are no words to describe just how much I hated him, how much I wanted him to suffer.

“Oakley, where is he?” I asked again.

Her eyes widened in panic. “You can’t. Please, Cole.”

She begged me not to go after them. As much as I wanted to go and rip both their heads off, I just couldn’t leave her alone. She was so broken and vulnerable. I hated seeing her like that. I sighed and lifted her chin but again, but like before she refused to look me in the eye. I hated that she felt ashamed. None of this was her fault.

After ten minutes of just sitting on the ground holding her, crying together and trying not to throw up, I finally came to a decision. If she didn’t want me to go find them, we were reporting them.

“We’re going to the police.” They were not getting away with what they’d done to her.

She gasped and pulled back. “No. Mum will-”

I pressed my finger to her lips and shook my head. I had to get it though to her that he had to pay and it wasn’t her fault. No one was going to blame her.

“Oakley, your mum is not going to hate you. What happened wasn’t your fault. You’re her daughter, and she loves you. She won’t hate you,” I said fiercely, begging her with my eyes to believe me. She had to believe it.

“Look at me, please.” She raised her head slightly but still wouldn’t look directly into my eyes. “Everything’s gonna be okay, I promise. We just need to go to the police.”

She shook her head defiantly. It took almost half an hour to convince her, by which time we’d got in the car and driven away from that hellhole. I was going to the police whether she agreed to it or not though. There was no way either of them
were getting away with it.

I knelt down in front of her in the police station reception area.

“Someone’s going to be out soon.”

They were arranging for a female officer to interview her. She hadn’t said one word since agreeing to this, and she still hadn’t looked at me. However she felt about me at the minute wasn’t as important as putting those sick bastards in prison.

“Hi. I’m Marie. Do you want to follow me through to the interview room?” Marie said, smiling warmly at Oakley. She nodded. 

I stood up too, but she shook her head at me.

“I want to do this alone.”

What the hell? I didn’t want to leave her alone for a second. How was she going to cope going through it all when she completely broke down while telling me before?

“Please, Cole, I don’t want you to hear it all,” she whispered, a tear trickled down her cheek and she walked away from me without another word.

I sat down in a daze. Was that what she was worried about? I knew I didn’t want to hear it. It made me sick, but I wanted to be there for her.

As I waited for her, so many things passed through my mind. I tried to think of something, any little clue that I’d missed, but there was nothing. She never seemed scared of Max. He didn’t act any differently towards her. He was the perfect, concerned, protective father.
Of course he was, you prat, that was how he got away with it!

When the door finally opened, I jumped up and rushed to her side. She looked exhausted and slumped against my chest.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“We’ll arrest her Mr Farrell and Mr Glosser, and bring them in for questioning,” Marie told me. I gritted my teeth when she mentioned them. Glosser. That was
his
surname.

“I want to go now,” Oakley whispered, gripping hold of my shirt. I nodded reluctantly. There were thousands more questions that I wanted to ask Marie, but Oakley just looked so defeated. I knew I needed to take her home, where she was going to have to go through it all again.

As soon as we got close enough to her house, I tensed up. Max’s car was in the drive, along with a police car. Oakley looked at me with a horrified expression. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“It’s fine, baby.” I stopped the car at the end of the road so we could wait until they had left.

“Are you okay?” I stupidly asked. Are you okay? Of course she wasn’t. She shrugged, her eyes dazed. Everything had happened so quickly. 

“It’s going to be alright. We’ll do it together. I’ll be right with you. I promise.”

She had fallen silent again, using physical actions to reply to questions. I looked back at her house as the door opened. Max was being walked to the car with his hands behind his back in handcuffs. Seeing him made me want to start the car and run him down.

Oakley shrank in the seat. She looked like a scared, lost little girl. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I squeezed her limp hand, trying to comfort her.

Sarah practically jumped on her daughter as we walked through the door. She pulled Oakley in her arms and sobbed.

“Oh God, sweetheart, you’re okay,” she mumbled. “Listen, everything’s going to be okay so don’t worry, but your dad’s been arrested for...” She stopped talking and whimpered. “Well it doesn’t matter because it’s not true. I’ve got to go to the station, so you wait here with Jasper, okay?”

What?
I was just about so scream at her when I realised – she didn’t know yet. Of course the officers that arrested Max didn’t stay around to chat about it.

I was just about to open my mouth and explain for her when Oakley stepped forward.

“It
is
true,” she confessed in a croaky voice, barely above a whisper.