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Any normal person would need a moment after news like that, but me? I crave the rest of the story. I need the beginning, the middle, and the end, even if I never recover.
“Did my mom know?”
Finn’s eyes dart to mine.
“That her boyfriend was a…” I can’t even say it.
He cringes. “He wasn’t her boyfriend.”
“But then how did she get pregnant?”
“You’re not hearing me, Dia.”
The need to vomit scrapes at the insides of my throat when realization digs its claws into me.
They weren’t dating.
He was a child molester.
One plus one equals…
“She was one of the victims, wasn’t she?” I choke out.
Finn squeezes his eyes shut, like the thought sickens him, and gives a small, reluctant nod. My palm jerks to my mouth, the veil of innocence that shielded me for eighteen years slowly disintegrating.
I’m the product of rape. I’m here because a creep forced himself on a young girl.
“Her name was Beatrix. She was fourteen,” Finn adds.
“Beatrix.” I taste my mother’s name, letting it roll off my tongue.
Then I understand.
Her name starts with a B.
The same letter that was written inside the collar of my Radiohead T-shirt. I loved that shirt before, but now that I know what the person who owned it went through, you best believe I’m going to cherish it for the rest of my life.
“Tell me about her. I want to know everything.”
Finn arches an eyebrow. “You sure?”
It sounds like a warning. Like this is his way of letting me know I’m not going to like what he has to say.
“I’m sure.”
“You know the foster home where you and your brother wound up before you got adopted?”
The answer comes to me in a flash.
“He was her foster dad, wasn’t he?” I gather.
Finn looks at me with a hint of pity, and his silence says it all.
“And she wasn’t the only one. You could make a country out of all the poor girls the bastard fostered and abused. It started long before your mom was put under his care.”
Disgust rolls through my stomach. “So, that was a thing for him?”
“Yeah. He’d crawl into their bed at night and…” His words trail off. “This went on for around five years.”
