She didn't know why, maybe it was because he hadn't pressed her, or maybe it was because she felt so incredibly, irrationally safe with him, but she suddenly felt the need to tell him, or at least tell him some of it. "Remember when I said that I came to this school because it was close to home, but far enough away?"
"Yes."
"Well, that wasn't entirely true. To me it wasn't far enough away from home, not nearly far enough, but I couldn't afford anything else. My parents only live three hours away, in New Hampshire, but I don't go home for the holidays. I stay with my grandmother on the Cape. Sometimes my mom comes to visit me, but she never stays long, and my father never comes."
She took a deep breath to steady herself as she began to reopen wounds that weren't completely healed. "My graduating class was only thirty two kids, and we all knew where everyone else was going. No one was coming here, so I did. As far as I know, no one from the following classes has come here either."
He remained silent while she took another deep breath. Now that she was speaking, she suddenly found herself unable to stop. "In the middle of my senior year I started dating this guy named Jacob."
Her voice broke off as she shuddered involuntarily. She hadn't said his name in years, just saying it brought cold terror to her gut. Liam stroked her hair and back, easing some of the tension from her muscles, and giving her the strength to go on.
"He was the quarterback on the football team of the town next to ours. Our town was too small for a team so the kids in our school played on that team too. My friends and I went to all of their games; it was the only thing to do on a Friday night. Jacob was popular, outgoing, and good looking. I thought I was the luckiest person on earth when he asked me to go out with him. My parents wouldn't allow me to date until I was a senior, so he was my first boyfriend.
"We had been dating for about a month when we went to my homecoming dance. I was crowned queen." Sera snorted as she recalled how happy she had been that night, how childish, and naive. "It had been the greatest night of my life. After the dance we went to a party at my friend Lisa's house. I never wanted the night to end but I had a two o'clock curfew so Jacob drove me home."
She closed her eyes as she tried desperately not to shed the tears pooling in them. She nestled closer to him, needing to know that he was there, that Jacob was the past, and that she would never have to see him again. That he couldn't hurt her anymore. Liam's hands massaged the back of her scalp as he hugged her closer to him.
"He was drunk, but I didn't care, nothing bad could happen to either of us," she continued in a strangled voice. "He pulled onto a side road and drove to a place that we had gone to a few times before. It was private there; no one bothered us.
"He started to kiss me, and at first it was nice, you know. But then... I don't know; I don't know anything anymore." She blinked rapidly as she lost the battle against her tears and one slid free. "I can't believe I'm telling you this," she mumbled. "I haven't even told Kathleen. She'd be so mad at me if she found out I told you, and not her."
He clasped hold of her chin and lifted her head. She looked up at his handsome face, as he tenderly stared down at her. "You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to," he assured her as he wiped the tear from her face. The tender gesture nearly undid her. She blinked rapidly against the flood of tears filling her eyes.
"I know, maybe that's why I can tell you. Or maybe it's because for some reason, I don't know why, but I feel that I can trust you." Although, she often put her trust in the wrong people. First Jacob, then her parents, and most recently Michelle.
"You can trust me Sera," he vowed.
"I want to." His hand stilled upon her cheek as something flashed through his eyes, something that seemed to be filled with longing and wistfulness. Sera's breath caught in her throat and she knew that she could tell him anything, trust him with anything.
She raised her hand and took hold of his. She couldn't tell him the rest if she kept looking at him. She would get lost in him and forget everything else. For a moment she wished for that, but she knew that if he was ever going to understand her, then this was something that he needed to know. She lowered her head and buried herself within the warm security of his powerful arms.
"Like I was saying, I don't know what happened, but everything seemed to go from blissful, to frightening in an instant. I tried not to be scared, but I was. I had planned on losing my virginity to him that night, but suddenly I wasn't so sure that I wanted to anymore. I told him to stop, if only just to give me a few minutes to calm down and relax."
Sera's voice became tenser as she continued. Memories were washing over her, threatening to suffocate her with their intensity. She could suddenly feel Jacob's hands on her again, smell his stinking, alcohol drenched breath; taste her blood in her mouth.
"No matter what anyone says, I know that I told him to stop. But, he wouldn't. He just kept saying that this was what supposed to happen, that this was our night; that I had said I would. He ripped my dress, tore the front out of it. I started to cry, and he told me to shut up, to stop being a selfish bitch. I tried to make him stop, I screamed, God did I scream, and I beat at him until my hands were bruised, and numb."
Sera's words tumbled out in a heedless rush that revealed her intense grief. A fiery rage began to course through his veins as he thought of the man that had attacked her, a man that she had trusted. He knew that if Jacob had been standing in front of him, he would have killed him. He took a deep breath as he tried to fight against the animal thirst for revenge that was building inside him.
She took a hitching breath. "Then, he hit me," she continued, her voice small and extremely fragile. The sound of it tore at his heart, ripped into his soul. His arms squeezed around her in an attempt to block out the anguish of her past. It was impossible.
"That hurt so much," she whispered. "I nearly blacked out, but I knew that if I did, he would do whatever he wanted to me. I somehow managed to claw his face as he continued to fumble and paw at me. He bellowed and smashed a fist into the side of my face. Blood spurted everywhere. It soaked him, and my dress, as it poured from my nose."
She swallowed heavily and forced herself to stay focused upon the present, and to get it all out. "I think it was all that blood that made him come to his senses. It coated everything. He started screaming at me to get out of the car, that I was getting blood everywhere, and making a mess. He didn't have to tell me twice. I was out of there as fast as I could be. I walked home through the woods, clutching my dress together, and leaving a trail of blood behind me.
"When I got there, I couldn't talk to tell my parents what had happened. My jaw was swollen shut, and I was in complete shock. They rushed me to the hospital, my mother in hysterics, and my father screaming about drunk drivers. It wasn't until a few hours later that I was able to write down what had happened."
Sera stopped as tears spilled out of her eyes. She tried to wipe them away, but now that they were flowing freely, they wouldn't stop. "Sera, you don't have to say anything more. I understand."
"There's more," she whispered, lowering her eyes.
He tried to raise her chin back up, but she kept her face firmly averted. She couldn't look at him, when the shame was boiling up in waves, and the memories of Jacob's hands upon her were so vivid and real. She didn't want him to see her humiliation.
"Sera..."
"I have to finish. I have to." She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue speaking. "To make a long story short, my father called me a liar. He said that Jacob had told them that I had gotten drunk at the party, and taken off with a group of guys from his school. We must have gotten into a car accident, and I was trying to cover it up so that I wouldn't get in trouble. The kids at school began to whisper about me behind my back, and my friends abandoned me. You don't remain popular by calling the star quarter back a rapist.
"It didn't matter that people had seen me leaving with Jacob that night, or that there had been no other guys around. No one would believe that he could do such a thing. They all said that I had asked for it. That I deserved whatever happened, and that Jacob had done nothing wrong. Most of the guys already disliked me because I wouldn't date them, and I think the girls had always secretly hated me. They now had their excuse to turn their backs on me.
