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The gunman sneered. “Absolutely nothing. You?—”
“How about the fact that your brother raped me for two summers.”
My blood ran cold. It chilled especially when Thatcher continued.
His jaw moved. “It started when I was ten, and it would have continued if I’d let it…” His attention stayed on the man, his voice even, empty. “If I hadn’t stopped it.”
If he hadn’t stopped it…
I heard screams then, and they must have been inside my head because no one appeared affected by them but me. No one wailed internally but me.
He was raped. He was…
The gunman froze after what Thatcher admitted, his eyes wide, but he didn’t lower his gun. “I… I don’t believe you.”
I blinked over to Thatcher, and I wasn’t just crying on the inside now. I physically had to hold my sobs back with my hands, actual tears flowing over my fingers. Thatcher wasn’t looking at me, though. He still had his focus on the man, calm. My insides called for him to look at me, to lean on me.
He wouldn’t.
He kept his focus ahead. He stood sturdy by the window, solid. He nodded toward me. “She’s why I stopped it. I was scared for her. I was scared of what he’d do to her.” He gazed away. “She was my same age, and I saw her for the first time when he brought her and her mom to camp one year. He was my football coach. It was football camp and Aspen and her mom were visiting.”
I was shaking now, blinking down so many tears.
“I didn’t want him hurting her too,” he said before glancing up. He still didn’t look at me. I didn’t know if he couldn’t or… He dampened his lips. “She wouldn’t have me if he married her mom. She wouldn’t have me like my friends did. Coach took that sick shit out on me, and I took it for years so my friends wouldn’t have to.”
I bent over in the midst of my sobs. I gripped the bed, and that was when Thatcher finally peered over at me. His stance was still sturdy, but a pain I’d never seen before rimmed his blue eyes. He’d hidden it so well, hadn’t he? So well from me…
Thatcher…
“I took her from him,” Thatcher continued, speaking to the gunman but talking to me. He cringed. “I panicked, and I took her the summer I saw her. I didn’t want Coach to hurt her, and I thought I could figure out a way to prove what he was doing to me. What he’d done to me. The abuse didn’t happen that third summer, but I figured it was because he’d moved on, and that scared the ever-loving shit out of me. That he moved on to something else. Someone else…”
He was still focused on me, and I made sure to shake my head. I wanted him to know the truth. I hadn’t been abused, but I might have been…
If not for him.
Almost instantly, Thatcher’s eyes closed. Like relief hit him in a whoosh, and my heart ached. He took a step toward me. Like he wanted to hold me and how I wanted him to.
He saved my life.
I hadn’t understood back then. He hadn’t told me. Why hadn’t he told me?
As soon as Thatcher took the step, he thought better. He stayed his place, facing the gunman, and it was a good thing he did. The gunman rushed over to him and put the gun directly in Thatcher’s face, and I screamed.
Thatcher closed his eyes as the gun touched the middle of his forehead, and I couldn’t breathe.
Please, God, no.
I’d never been really religious. I believed in God, but I didn’t go to church on the regular. In that moment, though, I pleaded to a higher power. To save him. Save the man I loved, please. He’d been through so much. He’d saved me.
“You’re lying,” the gunman gritted, and I forced myself to open my eyes during my prayers. The guy was shaking, and though Thatcher’s eyes were closed, he wasn’t. He still stood there, calm, composed. The gunman shook. “You’re lying, dude. Fucking lying.”
“Why would I make this shit up, man?” Thatcher questioned, then slowly placed a hand on his chest. “Why. Would. I. Make. This. Shit. Up!”
Each word radiated in the room. Like they hit all the walls and amplified. They shot through me like a dagger, but the man with the gun didn’t lower it.
“He used to play this old record while he did it. I don’t know if it got him through it or…” Thatcher’s jaw clenched, still calm, still focused. “It was this old shit from like the sixties. A guy singer?—”
“A record?” the guy asked, and Thatcher nodded. The man squeezed the gun. “We had this record. Our dad gave it to us, and we used to play it all the time before he died.”
