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“I want you out of my house and out of my town,” I doubled down and told him. “Today. This morning. Right fucking now.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’m going to tell.”
“Tell?” He tossed the word out like it was something laughable. “Christ, what age are you?”
“I’m seventeen now,” I bit out. “But I was seven when you raped me.”
“Don’t…”
“I was seven years old when you first raped me!” I said louder, refusing to be silenced a second longer by my fear of this man. “I was eleven years old when you finally stopped!” Blowing out a ragged breath, I glared at the monster standing in front of me with tears pouring down my cheeks and strangled out, “You took four years of my childhood from me, and I’ve been living in a prison in my mind every damn day of my life since. So, if you don’t want to risk spending the next seventeen years of your life behind bars, you’ll get on a plane and never come back!”
60
That’s My Man
CLAIRE
I’d thrown down the gauntlet with Gerard last night, only to barely make it to the end of school today without throwing in the towel.
Who was I trying to fool?
I wasn’t going to make him wait.
Not when I had all the self-control of a rolling pin.
When Gerard drove me to school this morning, he was his supersweet, super-adorable self, and that sucked because it only made it harder for me to keep my guard up.
Most people erected walls around their hearts to protect themselves, and some of those people, like Joey and Lizzie, were mighty talented at building said walls. I, on the other hand, clearly slept in the day that particular life skill was being handed out, because my walls were only knee-high at best and had been constructed with gummy bears.
By the time Shannon joined me in the stands that surrounded Tommen’s central rugby pitch, I was close to self-combusting.
“Oh my god.” She laughed, eyeing me with humor dancing in her eyes. “You look like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.” Snickering, she asked, “How many sweets did you eat today, Claire? Because you’re literally bouncing on the spot.”
“I know!” I squeezed out, thrumming with barely contained energy. “I swear, Shan, if I had a tail, it would be wagging like crazy.”
“Wow.” My best friend laughed, taking her seat next to mine. “I know you enjoy watching the guys play, Claire, but I’ve never seen you this excited for one of their games before.”
She was right. While it was true that I enjoyed watching them play, it wasn’t the reason for my current state of agitation. In fact, they were already twenty minutes into the first half of the game, and I had no idea of the score.
I presumed our side was wining, but that was more of a “Johnny Kavanagh being on our team” thing than a “Claire Biggs concentrating” one.
“Is that the new boy the guys were talking about?” Shannon asked, pointing to the boy wearing my brother’s number 10 jersey.
“Oh, yeah.” I wrinkled my nose up in disapproval. “That’s Damien.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Unfortunately.” Rolling my eyes, I added, “He’s stepping in today as fly half.” My attention flicked to Gerard just as he won a line-out, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaping out of my seat and cheering like a banshee.
My bestie eyed me from her perch while I bounced around like the Duracell bunny jacked up on steroids and fizzy cola jellies. “I guess it’s safe to assume that you and Gibs made up.”
I beamed back at her. “Yep.”
“Good.” Relief flooded her big blue eyes, and she smiled up at me. “I knew that picture Helen and Shelley sent you was taken out of context.”
“He swears nothing happened.”
