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And it’s enough. It’s enough for me for now. I don’t expect him to know what to say.
And although I ran out of words before, they come back to me in a rush. I tell him I was eight with Bud, whom my first nightmare was about. I tell him I was nine with Thad, whose first attack on me I dreamt about tonight. I tell him how long I remember their abuse lasting and that I never found out if it happened to Kelle, too—I only ever saw her getting beaten by them and she would never talk to me about anything else.
Then I start babbling about how I’m certain nothing similar ever happened to Rae because itdamnsure never happened when she was with me, and after I got her, I asked her very carefully and thoroughly about Kelle’s boyfriends and her answers were satisfactory, not concerning at all.
And I tell him how my mom absolutely did not care, maybe didn’t even believe me, when I told her. Not one single time. Not about whatever form of rape Bud subjected me to, and not about what Thad unquestionably did to me.
And as I think back on how soul-shattering her indifference to my suffering was, I think about how I never risked that with anyone else.
I sob out to Landon something I’ve tried hard not to dwell on these last fifteen years: “I hate mys-self.”
He’s had a hand in my hair for a little while now, the other rubbing up and down my back.
That one pauses before he asks, “Why?” calmly, despite how his heart is pounding against my chest.
In a tear-thickened moan, I confess, “I didn’t t-tell anybody else. I d-didn’t even try.”
His breath hitches. “I’m the only other person you’ve told?”
“Y-yes.” I’m sickened by myself yet desperate to get this horribleness out to him. “I just—I just fucking sh-shut up about it after my mom didn’t care, so—so nothing ever ha-happened to them for it. I know Thad died, but what—whatif he did it to other girls while he was doing it to me? What if—what if Bud is out there, doing itnow?” I wail breathlessly into his shoulder. “It would be all my fault!”
He exhales unsteadily. “Liv.”
“I know.” Anxiety rises up and up through me, makes me feel dizzy and crazy and like God is going to snap me into hell any second now. “All those other innocent—innocent—”
“No.”
He pulls back, puts his hands on my cheeks, looks at me…and I’m not too much of a mess to notice his eyes are misty.
They grow mistier by the second, but his voice is level when he says, “Stop that thought right where it is. I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming you for any of this.” He swallows hard, and then his firm tone falters. “Baby, you weren’t supposed to know how to handle it. You wereachild. Even adults don’t always understand what to do with things like this, so don’t hate yourself. Don’t carry that guilt around.” His eyes dance over my face with such aching warmth that it makesmeache. “I can’t imagine what you felt like andI don’t blame youfor not being able to tell a bunch of people about it. Your own mother…. I mean, that must’ve just obliterated your hope of someone helping you, but that’s onher. It’s not on you. You’re not at fault for anything. I don’t think many kidswould’vetried to turn to someone else.”
I try to hold his gaze and calm down, keep my sobs from clawing out of my throat, listen to what he’s saying to me.
It’s hard. I’m damn near whimpering, teetering on the verge of really breaking down, and his eyes are glistening and it hurts me thathe’shurting becauseI’m—
I’m distracted by the slip of one of his hands down my neck, which frees up my cheek for a slow, gentle kiss.
My eyes fall shut because,oh myGod, it’s nice. It’ssonice.
But my shame is still burning in me and I’m sighing jaggedly, gasping in a new breath, huffing it out, gasping—
He whispers, “Breathe, Liv-Andria. You haven’t doneanythingwrong. Please believe me.”
I love the sound of his voice.
And I don’t know if my guilt over my silence can be assuaged this easily, but one thing is for sure: having someone validate me is nothing to wave off. It’s what I’ve wanted since all this began.
“Breathe,” he says again.
I make myself do it.
Time stretches out and tries to trap me in my misery, but I fight it, make myself listen to him, repeat his words in my head over and over:‘Breathe, Liv-Andria. You haven’t doneanythingwrong.’
At length, I stammer, “Ok-kay.”
I feel him shift an odd way. Then he echoes, “Okay.”
He shifts like that a few more times before I’m settled enough to reopen my eyes. As he looks at me, I see there aren’t tears in his eyes anymore but that his lashes are wet, as well as the places beneath them…yet not his cheeks. I wonder if he’d been wiping teardrops off his cheeks with his shoulders while I wasn’t looking.
