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Saoirse sighed and he didn’t blame her. It’s not as though this was fun to talk about but he did hope it would make her feel better—to relieve herself of the burden of keeping this secret at least.
He did wish she would’ve told him before. He would’ve handled things differently. At least he knew now. He could be a hell of a lot more cautious. Not that he wouldn’t be careful anyway, but she was even more fragile than he’d thought.
“After he…put his fingers in me, he stood behind me, put a hand on my shoulder. Unzipped his pants, and jerked off. It was so awful. I closed my eyes but I could still hear it—his breathing and the sound of him—”
His poor little princess made a choking sound and he couldn’t blame her, he wanted to puke himself. He also wanted to murder this smarmy dickhead who thought it was okay to sexually assault women. What the hell?
“When he finished, he…on my neck, he…”
That piece of trash masquerading as a human hadcomeon her? Had marked her that way? He didn’t think she’d say it, but he could imagine his precious Saoirse weeping in the shower, turning up the water so hot it scalded her and scrubbing at her skin until it was raw to get rid of it. To get rid of him.
"Of course he’s evil not stupid so he wiped it off, first with his shirt and then with a bleach wipe. And then he left. It happened twice more, almost exactly like that except he didn’t bother with the scotch the next two times. I felt like there was no way for me to get away from it, no way for me to escape. And so I…I started drinking. I mean, more than usual since it’s not like I abstained before. On weeknights at first. And then right after classes were over. And then sometimes in between classes. And then when I woke up.”
Christ.
“I—I did dial it back after quitting law review since it was harder for him to get to me, but then I’d see him on campus or someone would say his name or I’d have a bad dream and… It’s hard enough getting good grades in law school when you’re not drinking yourself to death or hungover half the time, never mind when you are, and then add in having panic attacks every few days. My grades started to…”
She shook her head and he felt her tears on his skin as she rubbed her face against his neck.
“I can’t even say slip. They tanked. When I told my best friend at school about it, she told me never to mention it again. When I told my advisor she said she was sorry it had happened to me—such passive fucking language, like there wasn’t a person who had done it. Like it had come out of the sky instead of a man forcing himself on me. And then she told me to keep it to myself because it would hurt me far more than it would hurt him.”
Arthur’s stomach twisted, thinking about wondering aloud so casually why these women hadn’t come forward about their assaults earlier. He was such a thoughtless prick and Saoirse deserved so much better than that.
“After that, everything went completely to hell. I could barely do anything. I was a nervous wreck. That’s when the dean suggested I take a voluntary break before she had to ask me to leave. And then…then I came to you.”
