CHAPTER NINE
THE SILENCEbecame oppressive. I prayed he heard me, because if he hadn’t, there would be no way to repeat what I’d said. He just sat there, but neither of us said anything. Eventually it got to be too much, and I stood, the need to get away riding me hard.
“Where are you going, Matt?” he asked, his voice husky. “Look at me, okay?”
“I have to… I need… I don’t know,” I cried, scrubbing my hands over my face.
“Look at me,” he insisted.
At that moment the truth had become even harder to face, because someone I cared for, a person I wanted to care for me, had heard what happened. Would he understand? Would he reject me? I turned my head slowly, expecting to see disgust or censure in his expression. Instead, what I found was a man with tears in his eyes.
“The only thing keeping me from holding you right now is my leg,” he said, a strange tone in his voice that I hadn’t heard before. “Can you maybe sit next to me?”
He held a hand out and looked beseechingly at me.
“Please, Matt?”
I took a few tentative steps toward him.
He reached for my hand and pulled me closer. “Why are you telling me now?”
“Because you might decide you don’t want to be here,” I replied softly, squeezing his fingers.
“No, that’s not going to do it,” he assured me. “I knew there was something, but it’s your story, so you had to talk about it in your own time. I’d never press you to tell me something until you were ready.”
His understanding threw me for a loop. Part of the reason I hid out was because I’d already seen the looks of pity on my mother’s face and couldn’t handle it. If Charlie’s expression had been similar, I probably would have fallen apart again. But it wasn’t there. Only concern.
Taking a seat next to him, I exhaled slowly. “I was sixteen when it happened. He asked me to give him a ride home, and I didn’t think anything of it. He creeped me out, but he was a teacher, right? Trustworthy, supposed to have your best interests at heart. He directed me to drive to a spot outside of town. When we got there, he pawed me, tried to force me to suck him.”
As I remembered the incident, my heart thudded so loud Charlie must have been able to hear it. My stomach threatened to revolt at the memories. I swallowed down the bile and continued.
“I threw up on him. He yanked me out of the car and pushed me onto the ground, then kicked me for good measure before he stole my car and drove away. I dragged myself over to a tree and leaned against it, crying over the incident and also wondering what I’d done to cause it. My mom found me hours later after she saw him driving my car through town. They made him tell them where he left me. After that, I kinda fell apart.”
Insistent fingers slid through my hair, kneading my scalp. “You’re so damn strong,” he said.
The laugh that burst from me had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with relief at finally telling my story.
“If you don’t want to stay here, I’ll understand.”
He grunted as he shifted his weight next to me. When his arm went around my shoulder and he pulled me closer, I tensed. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I won’t hurt you. If this bothers you, tell me and I’ll stop.”
I didn’t say anything, and he urged me to put my head on his shoulder.
“If anyone should expect to be uncomfortable, you’d be the one,” he said. “Sharing something like this has to dredge up all kinds of uncomfortable feelings.”
Now came the time to bare my soul. “You don’t understand. The incident left me with… issues.”
He gave a half snort, half chuckle. “If you had said you were fine, I would know you were lying. No one, no matter how strong, would be unaffected by something like that. The physical assault left you open to emotional pain too. Anyone would have, as you say,issues.”
He didn’t even ask to hear what my problems were, but it honestly sounded like he believed in me. My mother—and to an extent, Clay—had always pitied me or expected me to just “get over it.” Charlie didn’t. It made me feel closer to Charlie than to my own family.
“My therapist says the assault might have opened the door for me to develop OCD and some PTSD.”
“What do you think?”
I thought about it for a few moments. The terrors. The need to touch everything to ensure my world was right. The fear of being among people I don’t know. “He’s not wrong,” I admitted. “As long as I’m here, I’m safe. I can’t function outside the house.”
“But you came to the hospital to see me,” Charlie reminded me. He continued to tousle my hair, and his touch grounded me in the moment.
