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She heard him sniffle, felt him hold her just a little tighter, his breath hot on her neck. “The fourth of July.”
The fourth.
The day of the party, the day he’d stripped down to his trunks and dove into the pool, only to disappear shortly after.
“I hate it. I hate myself.”
“Please don’t hate yourself.” Katrina pulled back and cupped his face in the palms of her hands. “Don’t hate yourself. You were just a kid.”
“A kid who this kept happening to, almost everywhere they sent me. A kid who never stood up or spoke out. A kid who ran away. Until...until you.” He sniffled before leaving a kiss in her palm, shooting a spark throughout her body. “I couldn’t leave you.”
“But you did.”
“I...after I went home...” He pulled back out of her embrace and wrapped his arms around his torso. “I finally said no. And she said she’d tell her husband that I had...that I had...”
Katrina sobbed into her hand.
The woman who had raped him repeatedly was going to turn it around on him.
“And no one would have believed me, Trina. No one. So, I ran.” He shrugged, his shoulders staying up before he released them. “I just ran. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have told me.”
“And said what?” He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. “What would I say, Trina? What would you have believed? Because when...” His voice trailed off as he looked down at his feet. “That’s what they think.” His voice was small, almost childlike. “That I was cheating on you.”
They.
Emily and her father.
“You were...” She hated to say it.
She didn’t want to say it.
But she had to.
“You were raped, Ren.”
“They said a boy could never be forced, but trust me, it can happen.” He choked back another sob, wrapping his arms back around himself. “It can happen.”
Katrina closed the small distance between them and gently placed her hand on his arm. “Breathe.”
“I feel like I’m dying inside, Trina. I’m dying. And I have a daughter, one that I didn’t know about, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to leave her there, but what do I say to her? What do I say?”
He knew Miranda was his.
And he’d known before he got into his car and drove like a bat out of hell down Willow Creek Road.
The pieces were falling into a misshapen puzzle—dark, twisted, ugly, but whole.
“Is Miranda the reason that Emily contacted you?”
Lorenzo nodded. “She found journals, diaries, she kept dates that she was with me like they were trophies or something, and I can’t...I can’t get it out of my head. Fuck, Trina, I’ve been in therapy for years. Years. And I can’t get past the shame.”
“You got past it with me...didn’t you?”
His eyes softened as he looked at her. “You were my saving grace. But I was broken, so broken. I still am.”
She moved her hand back to his cheek, wiping away his tears. “You’re not broken.”
