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Just as I had been opening the door to the pool house, Easton said something.
His voice had been sharp, more serious than I’d ever heard him before.“So, in other words, he was controlling you by dangling your academic future over your head? Essentially forcing you to fuck him by threatening to have you rejected from the school?”
I could still hear it, could feel those words stabbing me in the heart.
I felt my face get hot, and wet. I felt the saltwater drip off my cheeks and into my neck.
My dad, who’d been watching me, only looked down at his hands. “I had a client once who was a victim of a similar situation. She explained that she felt like her entire life was covered in a fog. That fog being the reality that her abuser gave her, and how it separated her from the reality of the true world.
“Penelope probably told a different piece of the truth to all of you because she was struggling to understand the truth herself. Her parents only knew a small fraction of what happened to her, and based on their response to that bit of information, she interpreted things in a very specific way. She spent months believing the worst of herself because that is what she had been manipulated into believing. And deep down, she probably knew she was being abused. But maybe it was harder for her to face the truth than it was for her to believe that she had done something wrong. I don’t know.”
My chest cracked open. I hid my face in my hands as my body wracked with emotion.
I always wondered how she had the courage to move across the world on her own. Now I realize that maybe she didn’t. Maybe once she got there, she absorbed back into her shell. She got lost. She was vulnerable. She was alone.
He preyed on that. On how young she was, how naive she was. He took advantage of that, and through the course ofyears, he convinced her she was nothing and nobody without him. That she not only needed to be saved, but he was the one to save her. Fix her. Help her. That she wouldn’t survive without him.
He used her, he manipulated her. Abused her.
It broke me that she’d endured that.
It broke me that instead of trying to understand, I pushed her away. When she was forced to confront those demons against her wishes, in front of an audience, I blamed her for it. I told her to leave. I focused on my own hurt and didn’t for one second consider the hurt that she’d been suffering from for so, so long. I spent my entire life trying to protect her from men like him. Yet, she found herself wrapped up in a cycle of abuse despite it.
I spent my entire life protecting her, and now I feel like I’m the one hurting her most of all.
I had justified every reason she had for keeping this from me. Played into every one of her fears.
I jumped up from my couch, running an anxious, frustrated hand through my hair. “Fuck.” Pacing across my floor, I ran that hand down my face. “Fuck.Fuck.” I actually felt as if I could vomit. I could see her face in my head. Could see those tears streaming down her cheeks. Her gemstone eyes strained and red.
Every time she said she wasn’t good enough for me.
Every time she asked me if I was sure about her.
Every time she felt less than. Felt unlovable. Felt unworthy.
This was why.Hewas why. He’d actually manipulated her into believing that she was to blame for all of it. Thatshehad done something wrong. Thatshewas a villain. Penelope carried that guilt, that pain, that denial around by herself for over a year. She’d been suffering in silence, allowing everyone around her to think the worst of her, because even after it was all said and done, she was so brainwashed that she still wanted to protect him.
And the way I reacted to it made her think that she had been right all along.
I looked at my dad. “She called herself a horrible, selfish, homewrecker and I… I didn’t…” I shook my head. I hadn’t responded to her. I hadn’t told her that wasn’t true. I let her continue thinking that of herself. Think I agreed.
I had to go talk to her. I had to apologize. I had to make sure she understood that my reaction was in no way a reflection on what had happened to her, or what she thinks she did, but everything to do with myself. I could be hurt that she lied to me. I could be upset that she didn’t trust me. But I had no right to make her doubt herself and all the growth she’s attained over the last few months.
I brushed past my dad and opened the front door before his hand gripped my shoulder, halting me. “Carter, everything you heard out there– that was the first time Jenna and Dan heard it too.” I turned to face him. “They have a lot to discuss as a family. Give them time to talk to her first.”
“How long should I give them?”
He scrunched his nose as if he was thinking about it. “Give them the night. Go over there tomorrow morning.” My face dropped. I couldn’t wait all night to speak to her. I couldn’t allow her to think I’d given up on her—on us—for that long. “For what it’s worth, I think she was still stuck inside that fog before you came back. I could see it, when it began to clear, and she was ready to try and wade through it. I think you helped herwantto wade through it.”
“She told me she was going to therapy. She started going a couple of months ago.” I hadn’t thought much of it. Nobody needed a specific reason to see a therapist. “Why didn’t she fucking tell me?”
“Only she can answer that. And Carter, if this is too much for you. I– I understand. I expect all of us to support her in this, but if it’s too much for you to continue your relationship with her, I understand. AndIwill support you through that. If we need to postpone renovations on the apartments, or if you decide you no longer want to move down there, I’ll sell it.”
I immediately shook my head. I would not even entertain the idea. “Dad,” I rarely ever addressed him that way, “it’ll never be too much.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“I’ve loved her my entire life.”
