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She looks at me with suspicion for a few tense moments before speaking. “I don’t think we have anything else to talk about, Byron.”
“I met Nathan tonight.” These four short words zap all of the color from her face, and she stares at me in shock.
“I don’t understand...” Her voice has grown hoarse.
“I saw you with him at the restaurant we went to with Jewell a little while back. I followed him after he left,” I admit.
“Why would you do that?” she asks, clutching the sleeves of the sweater she’s wearing.
“I was jealous,” I admit.
“Why in the world would you be jealous? You... you...” She’s momentarily loses her ability to say anything.
“Pleasetell me what happened when you first met him,” I beg.
She opens the door wider, allowing me in. I don’t question her and follow her into the living room, where she walks to a window and stares into the darkness.
“I told you about the crash, the one that put my sister in a coma when she was fourteen. And you know that my mother blamed me for it...” When she pauses, I make sure not to move a muscle for fear she’ll clam up. But she soon starts speaking again.
“After years of my mother’s bitter rages, drinking, and constant blame, I had enough. I felt guilty about being angry at her, at my sister, at the world, but I had to get away. I got a job at a small café, rented a room near the local college, and thought I was doing pretty dang well for myself. I visited my sister occasionally, but every time I did, my anger returned. My life was hell after the wreck, and there were so many times I wished I were the one in that bed, the one oblivious to it all. But those thoughts gave me even more reason to feel guilty, because I at least had a life to live, while she didn’t. No matter what I did, I was wracked with guilt back then...”
“You were just a kid, McKenzie.”
“Don’t, Byron. I’ve heard that a million times. If you don’t let me speak, I’m not going to be able to get through this.”
“I’m sorry. Please go on.” I want to reach for her, but I know she’s fragile and I want her to talk this out.
“When I turned sixteen, I met what I thought was a sophisticated, beautiful man. He was fifteen years older than me, but that was all part of the appeal. He had this smile that seemed to light up an entire room, and he came into the diner for months, flirting with me, andonlyme, even though there were far prettier waitresses working there.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I mumble before shutting up again.
“Even though I was young, I’d been living with trauma for a lot of years. Impressionable years, or so they call them. I never dated — hell, I’d never even kissed a guy at that point. I was shy and didn’t know what to think about all of the attention I was getting from this man. So when he asked me out on a date, I simply nodded yes. I was so overwhelmed it was the best I could manage.”
I feel thwarted when McKenzie closes her eyes. When her eyes are open, I’m able to read her expressions, and I don’t want to be shut out right now.
She continues before I need to prompt her. “We went on several dates over the next two months, and I fell irrevocably in love with the man. Well,irrevocablyisn’t quite the word, but that’s the way it seemed so long ago. He always walked me to my door, kissed me goodnight, and never tried to push it further than that. We talked about sex, and at first I was terrified to even consider it, but the kisses grew a little longer, and I began feeling things inside I never thought I’d feel — sensations I thought only existed in romance novels. So I told him I wanted to try... you know... soon.” The words seem to burn her as soon as she speaks them.
“One night he took me to his house, or what Ithoughtwas his house. It was on the outskirts of town, big, expensive — the kind of place where real artwork hangs on the walls, not just prints,” she says with a bitter laugh.
“McKenzie...” I’m beginning to hate myself for forcing her to take this stroll down the ugliest possible memory lane.
She continues anyway. “We sat down and he poured some wine, very good wine...” Another pause. This time there are tears in her eyes when she looks at me. “Then everything went black. When I woke up, I was in a big, horrible bed, lying... naked beside a man I didn’t know. My entire body hurt, and I was bruised all over. I felt blood under me on the sheets. I was terrified. I slipped from the bed, found my clothes on the floor, threw them on, then ran from the house. Nathan was waiting outside in his car.
“It turns out Nathan was really a pimp, a guy who made a lot of money at his job. He found inexperienced young women — of course, they had to be virgins — and he wined and dined them, made sure they were a perfect fit, a girl without ties, a girl who no one would ever believe if she cried rape, and matched them with a john who’d pay a lot of money for a night of... pleasure.”
“Crap, McKenzie...”
“The man I was dating wasn’t really dating me,” she says. “He was prepping me to be his next call girl. When it was the first time, when he had a virgin ready to offer, he got paid a lot of money. After that first time, some of the girls stayed on with him. He paid them more than they made in their pathetic restaurant jobs, and his clients were... how do I put this?” She takes a deep breath. “Men with particular tastes, but men who pay a lot for their twisted lifestyles.
“I took the blood money I earned. Iearnedit. And I ran far away. It took me a couple of years, but I saved every dime, made a few very good investments, and vowed to move on with my life, to not let that one moment define me for all time. The man who raped me got away with it. Nathan Guilder got away with it. I vowed to never let another man in my life get away with anything like it again.”
“Sadly, nobody can stop it from happening,” I say with a shake of my head.
“You’re right. I can’t stop it, but I’ve saved other girls.”
“I... I...” I’m at a loss for words.
“It’s fine, Byron. I get it. You assume I’m like your mother, out to get what I can get. I didn’t exactly make it hard to change your mind when I climbed into your bed,” she says, a humorless laugh escaping her lips.
