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“Don’t touch me,” I growled at her.
She let her hand drop and smirked.
“Still so touchy. Relax, Beckett, I’m just here to tell you to get a grip around your father, unless you want him to make you move home, where he can keep an eye on you.”
A short laugh left me. “It’s funny how now, all my father wants is to keep an eye on me. If only he’d been around before…but then that wouldn’t have given you a chance to prey on a young boy, would it?”
Colette rolled her eyes. “Beck. You need to move on. The past is the past, and the fact that you can’t let it go makes me think it must have really mattered to you.” She laughed. “How flattering.”
I was moving before I could stop myself. I grabbed her and was gratified to hear a squeak of fear leave her as I spun her around to the edge of the top step.
“I’m so tired of hearing you run your ugly mouth. Each time you do, I get closer to deciding to make the world a better place by removing you from it,” I ground out. I hated to touch her, but holding her teetering on the edge of falling was gratifying in its own way.
Fear curled in her poisonous gaze.
“I’d make it look like a tragic accident…tripping and falling in those shoes would be very dangerous, especially on a stairwell. No one would ever know that karma had just finally caught up with you.”
“Beckett. Don’t be ridiculous. Stop this. You really think you wouldn’t be a suspect if I got hurt? You’d be the first one.”
“Fine, then maybe our past would come out, and everyone would know what you are…an abuser, a sick fuck who likes underage boys.”
Everything had fallen away except the fear in Colette’s eyes. I’d hated her for so long, it made me feel powerful to see her afraid.I wasn’t a powerless, confused teen anymore. I was a man, and if I didn’t want her to touch me, I could stop her. That power flooded me. I wasn’t running from the past anymore, like I had when I was popping pills and floating all day. I wasn’t ignoring it, like I had for years.
I was facing it, head-on.
Colette swallowed, glancing back at the drop and then to me. “If that does all come out…then they’ll all know what you are, too. A victim. A weak, pathetic victim…is that how you want to be seen your whole life?”
Her words struck a nerve. Of course I didn’t want anyone to know. The night I’d built up the courage to tell my father, the hardest part had been accepting the shame and guilt of what had happened. The hardest part had been knowing he’d see me differently once he’d known what had happened. But he had never seen me differently, because he’d never believed me.
My hand loosened, and I considered pushing her.Do it.
Colette spoke again. “Everyone will see you as a victim. They’ll wonder what you did to make it happen…if you were asking for it and then changed your mind.” She could clearly see the indecision playing across my face.
She should hurt for what she did. She should bleed. I saw that so clearly now that I’d stopped running. But wasn’t she right? Was I ready for the judgment in people’s eyes when they knew?
“You’re a rapist, Colette. A child abuser. Everyone should know.”
“Then accuse me, Beck, at the cost of your own future…there are not many #MeToo victims in the NHL, are there?”
Her nails were biting into my hand, and with a growl of frustration, I wrenched her back and stepped aside, so she fell to the ground, but not down the stairs.
I felt sick, my head pounding and my palms slick. I was having some kind of panic attack, just from the idea of everyone knowing my past.
“They’ll wonder what you did to make it happen…if you were asking for it.”
The jeering voice filled my head, making me dizzy. I turned around, needing fresh air and to get the fuck out of this cramped stairwell and away from the woman laughing softly from the floor.
The door was ajar, and someone was standing there, her face frozen white with shock.
It was Eve, and she’d heard everything.
A tear welled in her dark eyes and dashed down her cheeks.
A tear for me. Pity. Horror. Shock.
I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t meet her eyes. I stepped over Colette and headed down the stairs, not daring to look back.
I left campus in a squeal of burning rubber. Eve ran out of the dorm, reaching me just as I was pulling out. There was no way I could talk to her right now. I couldn’t take the look on her face. I didn’t slow, and left her standing on the sidewalk, watching me go.
