AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I don’t say anything. I just cradle her as the floodgates open.
“At first, I liked it. The attention. He made me feel special. I thought he saw something in me that made me exceptional. I mean, he istheTobias Taut. He had trained so many world-renowned champions and Olympic gold medalists, and he took an interest in me. My parents were over the moon. I was only six years old, but I knew that look—that pride that filled my father’s chest—when he dropped me off for my first training camp. I wanted to keep making him proud and to keep being the reason he looked that way. After that first camp is when they decided to move us from Idaho to Colorado. I spent a hundred twenty hours a week with Tobias and the other students. I was homeschooled. I lived and breathed skiing. And Tobias was the god of the mountain.
“It was good at first. I was so happy, but then things changed. It started when I was still very young. Small things that no one noticed. Not even me.
“He would rub my shoulders while I strapped into my boots. I just thought he was being nice. My dad used to rub my shoulders. Then, it became him wishing me luck and kissing my forehead. Again, that wasn’t a big deal. An uncle would do that.
“But when I was around twelve years old, after a particularly grueling day of practice, we were alone in the common area at his chateau one evening, and my ankles were just wrecked. I was wearing a pair of terry-cloth shorts and a ski-school T-shirt, and I was lying on the couch. Everyone else had gone to bed. I had taken some ibuprofen and was icing my right ankle before I went to my room. He came and sat on the end of the couch and picked up my feet and laid them in his lap. Then, he started to rub my feet. Digging into my aching arches. I remember closing my eyes and moaning because it felt so good. Then, he started to massage my calves, and again, it felt good. He began talking about an upcoming competition and some new jumps he thought I was ready to try as he squeezed my muscles, and his hands kept moving higher. When they reached my thighs, I just froze. I kept my eyes closed, and I concentrated on what he was saying. His fingers dipped under the hem of my shorts, and his knuckles brushed against me. I held my breath. Finally, I shifted my weight and kind of rolled to my side. His hand slipped back down to my foot. He never missed a beat in the conversation, and then he smiled at me and told me I needed to get some sleep. He stood up and walked off like nothing had happened. And I wondered if I had imagined it or if it had been an accident and he didn’t even realize he had done it.
“He ignored me after that. For weeks, he made me feel like I didn’t exist. I did everything I could to win his approval back. I didn’t know what I had done wrong. I was just a little girl. I missed my daddy. I wanted to please Tobias. So, the next time he rubbed my feet, I was so happy that he wasn’t mad at me anymore. I pretended to be asleep. If I was asleep and didn’t acknowledge it, it was like it didn’t happen. I could act like I had no clue. I just let him touch me so he wouldn’t be mad at me, and it went on for years.”
I tighten my arms around her as she continues, “So many times, I wanted to run away, I wanted to tell someone, but then I kept winning. I kept getting better, and I was scared no one would believe me. And this is going to sound so stupid, but I loved Tobias. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I did want to hurt him,” she cries.
“It’s not stupid. Not at all,” I assure her.
“The day of the trials, Dad was trying to hype me up for the run. He said that if I made it, Tobias and I were going to go to Sochi ahead of the team and train, and I just froze. In my mind, it was all going to stop as soon as I made the Olympic team. I would head to Russia with the rest of the team and once we came back I’d go pro. I was finally going to be free of Tobias, but I was never going to be free. Never.
“So, I got to the start, and I saw everyone waving and cheering. When I went airborne, I turned my foot to the inside. Just slightly. Just enough. And when I crashed to the ground and felt my knee pop, I didn’t feel any pain or panic. All I felt was relief. Relief.”
“It’s okay. You did what you needed to do to protect yourself. It wasn’t your fault. None of it. Do you understand me?”
“I let it happen,” she says.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I repeat.
“I loved him, and I wanted to please him.”
“You were a child, Zoey. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” she continues.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t fight back.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Morris.” My name is a strangled cry.
“Look at me. You were a little girl. He was a grown man. You trusted him, and he took advantage of that trust. It wasn’t your fucking fault.”
I can barely control the anger boiling inside of me and the urge to go and drag the son of a bitch from his room and pound him unconscious.
She doesn’t need that in this moment. Right now, she needs to be held while she purges it—all the fear and shame she’s been holding so close to the vest all these years.
So, I do just that.
She talks until she can no longer hold her swollen eyes open any longer, and I hold her all night long.
Morris
Zoey gets a fitful night’s sleep, and I don’t get a single wink.
When her alarm starts blaring in the bedroom, her eyes blink open, and she looks up at me:
We’re still on the couch in her place. Her head is in my lap.
“Hi,” she murmurs.
