The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (30 page)

“But Donny’s not. Uncle Tony’s not, Grandpa isn’t. There are lots of good guys out there too.”

Ally sighed. “I guess. I just don’t feel so convinced right now.”

Silence lingered. “Ally?”

“Yeah, sis?”

“I love him.”

Ally let out a deep groan. “Tristan?”

“Yes. I never told him. He told me a while ago he thought he was falling in love with me. And I never told him. Something held me back. Like it always does. But this time… I don’t know, I didn’t see anything, no sign of what and who he ended up being.”

“He either fell in love with you or is a sociopath who fakes emotions like no one I ever saw. I thought he was head over heels and back again in love with you. Even when he called me to come check on you, he seemed desperate I come help you, for your sake not his. Mom and Donny thought so too. That’s why Donny disliked him so much. He thought you were too young to be dating a guy who was as old and established as Tristan. He thought you needed to have more fun and date before settling down.”

“Little did he know…”

“Shush. No, I mean you had every reason to be fooled. I don’t know, to be honest, I think he maybe started to come after you and really did fall for you.”

“Why? I can’t be his type.”

Her laugh was dry. “I think his feelings for you are way past worrying over if you’re his type.”

“I can’t trust him though.”

“When Tristan called me, he told me to make you tell me what happened to you. To find out what he’d done to you… and what his brother had done to you. Those were his exact words. I had an idea it was bad, just not this bad. But I think he was just coming to the realization of what his brother is.” Silence descended as they sat there almost shell-shocked.

“Now what?” Ally finally probed.

“Now? I think I’m going to have to go after Tommy. For Cadence. For whoever else he does it to. For Tristan even, who doesn’t think he’s capable of it. But mostly, for me. I’m going to go after him for me.”

“I—Holy shit, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I didn’t either. The weird, ironic part? Tristan kind of convinced me of that.”

“How will you try to get him punished? What about the police?”

“There’s no real evidence. But there is the disciplinary board at school. I bring charges to them. That’s what Cadence and I were planning on. Then she hurt herself and Tristan told me the truth… but also that Cadence had signed some kind of nondisclosure agreement and taken money. She never told me that part. I don’t know what to make of it.”

Ally squeezed her hand. “You know we’ll be there. For you. With you. Till the end. No matter what.”

“I finally do know it.”

“Is there anything Tristan has that could prove you two were having sex?”

“I didn’t let him take anything, video or still pics. But I can’t say for sure he didn’t.”

Ally shuddered. “So creepy.”

Creepy
just didn’t describe the Tristan she knew. But then, what did she know? Look at where her judgement always got her.

“I didn’t really get involved with his life. I never met his family. I just knew he wasn’t close to them and didn’t really like them. I only went to his office once… which, looking back, makes me laugh now. He was all stressed out about me being there, and now I know why.”

“They would have video of you there. I’m sure they have surveillance,” Ally said instantly.

“You’re probably right.”

“You said he claimed he was sorry and all that crap. Do you think he’d erase it for you?”

“I have no idea where he stands with me. Maybe he took pictures of me sleeping or something and intends to ‘neutralize’ me with them as his grandfather sent him to do. God, what kind of world do they live in to be like that?”

“One which raises a guy so entitled he thinks he has the right to drug and rape innocent girls.”

Kylie dropped her face down and finally, after all these years, after all the things she’d thought and suffered, her family’s clear-cut insistence broke through all her reserves and she finally
heard
them and even more profoundly, she
believed
them. She hadn’t raped herself. She hadn’t drugged herself. Worded that way, it almost cruelly made Kylie laugh. It was ridiculous to think that. Or that Cadence, with only one other sexual partner, didn’t deserve to be drugged and raped, but Kylie, having dozens of sexual partners, did deserve it? Ludicrous. And she finally, finally believed that.

“There’s no proof. He’ll never get punished. But I have to try. I was going to try to get Tommy punished with Cadence’s help but now she has hurt herself. All because of what they did to her. I finally realize however, what they did to me. And the names I let myself call myself because of it.”

Names that no one had the right to call her.

Kylie felt her back stiffen at the realization. The only person she’d ever shared those names with was Tristan, and from the very start he’d told her that. Why? If he were after her, all he had to do was stress that she had behaved like a slut. She should be ashamed. She should feel guilty. If he had said any of those things, she would have silently accepted them as the truth. Gospel. She was a slut and deserved whatever happened to her.

But he hadn’t said anything like that. He’d been insistent that she was the opposite. She was to be applauded because she was smart enough to enjoy sex and do things that pleased her. Like he did.

How could one brother encourage that and the other rape her? It was impossible for her to contemplate or understand.

“The only person who has never made me feel like a slut for liking sex, for exactly as much I do, and how I did it, was Tristan.”

“Was it an act to gain your trust?” Ally wondered.

“I don’t think so. I mean, all he had to do was be the opposite and he’d have gotten whatever he was first after from me. But he didn’t. He—I’m not honestly sure now, what he was about.”

“Maybe you need to see.”

Kylie laid back, exhausted and unsure. “Tristan… He made me feel, pretty damn convincingly too, that he thought I was beautiful. Inside and out. I don’t know why. He saw something in me, something that made him happy. And it wasn’t to change me. Or make me eat different or act different. He was oddly accepting of me. He didn’t judge me, so I think I finally felt safe to be open.” Kylie got up and started pacing. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Honestly? I think I am just a lot like this. I don’t like to be hovered and worried over. I don’t want to talk all the time. I liked to have sex and I liked to look like this. But whatever I am, I think this is it. Me. I don’t think I’m sick or in need of help or fixing. I think—”

“You’re need of acceptance.” Tears turned Ally’s face red and her eyes were already swollen.

“Yeah. I think that’s what I’m saying.”

“It’s shocking that Tristan would be the one to appreciate everything about you. What are you really saying here, Ky?”

“I think I need to contact him.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’ll do it, but not because I’m there to make sure of how you act, but to support you.”

Kylie closed her eyes. To support her. That’s all she’d ever really desired and had been unable to ask for.

****

Kylie entered the hospital room. Cadence turned her head and when their eyes met, tears immediately filled Cadence’s eyes. It made a deep pit in Kylie’s stomach. She could not imagine actually doing anything to try or possibly succeed in ending her life. It was ironic, as many used to worry about her mental health, her depression, even worry if she was the girl who would hurt herself. Yet she knew she was far too squeamish and scared of death to even consider it. Being sad and confused and sometimes unsure didn’t mean she would ever use violence against herself in any form, even taking too much medicine. Which, if anyone knew her, she was beginning to understand, as Tristan had pointed out, they would know that.

“You must hate me and wish I succeeded.”

Kylie dropped to the chair that was right next to Cadence’s head. She gently took Cadence’s hand and kept her voice calm and soothing. “No. No, I would never want you to be harmed or hurt. Oh, Cadence, why did you do this?”

“I took money from them.” It burst out of her mouth, loud and almost obnoxious, like it was some kind of noxious fume she had to expel from her lungs and lips. “I let them buy me off. I didn’t know how to tell you. You came too late. You came and you were so… me. You understood. You came that night to my dorm room and you wanted to do something, the something I’ve wanted to do and succeed at since this happened. I didn’t know how to tell you I had sold out. That I chickened out.”

“You didn’t chicken out. You faced off against them and you put it out there on Rape Matters. I would never have had the guts to do so. And I’d have never found you if you hadn’t. You helped me begin to even want to face this. You didn’t sell out, you survived. My silence is how I survived.”

Tears rolled over Cadence’s face. “Don’t you understand? I was lying to you the entire time. But it felt so good to imagine, just imagine, if Tommy actually got punished. It was a fantasy that can and will never happen. But I just wanted it to. I never imagined there would be anyone to come forward and understand. To fight with me. But it was too late. I had already taken a bribe to go away. I signed all this legal paperwork. I didn’t know how to tell you. And then, oh God, realizing that I gave in… I let them pay us. Like my rape was for sale. Like I was a whore. Like—”

Kylie merely leaned over the bed and took Cadence’s crying body into her arms. “Shh. Shh. You’re not a whore. And I’m not mad at you. You forget, I understand everything you went through and are going through. Stop blaming us. Please? We’re the victims. Everyone else blames us, but we can’t. We can’t let them make us blame ourselves.” Kylie held the trembling, crying girl, who Kylie believed was so much stronger and saner and whole and functioning… so much better than Kylie.

It took listening to Cadence for Kylie to finally, finally feel a strange lightness settle over her heart and dig into her head.
She wasn’t to blame.
She nearly wilted under the knowledge. She wasn’t a whore or a bitch or a slut. She didn’t ask for it. She didn’t sign up for it. She didn’t do anything wrong. She had been raped. Forced. She was drugged and had been unconscious.

It didn’t matter that she wore short skirts or slept with other boys in that fraternity. It didn’t matter if she flirted and kissed guys that very night. None of
her
actions mattered.
His
actions were what mattered. Nothing she did deserved the punishment, the crime against her that was committed. She just hadn’t understood that she was letting society and her own biases rape her again by blaming herself. Calling herself names. The very names her rapist’s brother asked her not to call herself. In fact, Tristan constantly drilled into her that she was not those names. The irony didn’t make much sense to Kylie. Why? Why did Tristan pretend to think she was the opposite of those things? To gain her confidence so he could manipulate her? Be the good guy to Tommy’s bad? But if that were the case, why wasn’t Tristan going after her now?

“You see, we can’t go after him. I just didn’t know how to tell you.” Cadence sobbed against Kylie’s chest. “I wanted to tell you so many times, but the fantasy of feeling like we were going to get him felt so good.”

“I see you are in pain and I wish you’d told me. Never hurt yourself again, Cadence. Please. Promise me? We’ll get help, okay? Together we’ll go to those rape survivors groups. We’ll deal with it together. Whatever happens to Tommy or not, we won’t let that determine how we deal with what happened to us. Do you understand me? You have my help. I have yours. We can’t do it alone. That’s what I’ve most learned.”

“But he’ll get away with it. Just as if it didn’t matter…”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever happens to him or not isn’t worth your life. Do you understand that?” Kylie was thrown that these were words coming from her mouth. Trying to be a cheerleader for someone else’s emotional problems felt hypocritical. Yet here she was, giving the advice she herself should take. She took in a deep breath and squeezed Cadence tighter. No, she would take this advice. She would use her family and Cadence’s friendship to start dealing with this, with all of it, so it didn’t break her, like the guilt had broken Cadence.

She kept holding the trembling, crying girl, but she also felt a resolve in her she’d never really felt before.

She wasn’t broken.

She had believed for a decade she was so messed up she couldn’t trust or talk or cry or eat.

Maybe she couldn’t, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be punished for it. Nor did it mean there was anything drastically wrong with her. Having sex didn’t mean she deserved to be raped. Being at a party didn’t mean anyone had the right to drug her without her permission or knowledge.

“You think you have problems? Do you know who my boyfriend ended up being?” Kylie finally put some space between them so Cadence could dry her eyes. Cadence sniffed and blew her nose.

“Who?”

“Tommy’s older brother. He was supposed to come neutralize me or some such shit. Found me off the comment I made on the website. But then he claims he fell for me and never wanted to do anything to hurt me.”