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I lean my head against the glass and start to whisper to the windowpane.
“How did we get here? Why did you leave me?”
I take a deep breath in and release it as slowly as I can, trying to gain control of my thoughts. The answers to those questions don’t matter. What matters is that I tell them my truth.
It’s now or never.
“Someone attacked me in the library,” I say loud enough for them to hear.
At my words, all three of them start to bicker.
“I told you it wasn’t safe here!” Caleb shouts.
Micah growls. “I’m going to fucking kill Ryan.”
“Do you know who it was?” Elijah questions.
My shoulders sag, and I shake my head.
“It wasn’t Ryan,” I explain.
“Then who?” Elijah questions again.
I look at the reflection in the glass and see the thirteen-year-old girl I used to be. I can see the first time the Beast took her from her bed. I can still smell the cigarettes on his breath and feel her shame as he exposed himself to her.
My eyes close, trying to shut out the image, but it’s just as clear behind my eyelids. No matter how hard I try, that will always be part of her story. And it’s her story that needs to be said.
“It was one of the men who raped me.”
For a moment, all of the air leaves the room, and I’m suffocating. My ears ring in the deafening silence, and I want to throw up.
“What did you just say?” Caleb whispers.
“When you were at Ventura?” Micah questions, his voice cracking.
But it’s Elijah’s silence that causes me to look back at him.
“Nothing to say?” I ask him.
Elijah just stands there, staring at me like I’m a stranger, but to my surprise he speaks.
“What do you mean ‘one of’?” Elijah articulates each word, like he’s trying to process them as they come out of his mouth.
I stare directly into his steel-gray eyes, catching a glimpse of the boy he used to be: hyper, carefree, funny… My eyes pool with tears again, and I try desperately to keep them from falling.
“Are you telling me that you didn’t know?”
He shakes his head, and his eyebrows draw in deeply. “No. How would I?”
I look at each one of them, ask them the same question, and get the same response.
“How could we possibly know what happened to you when you went to juvie?” Elijah snaps.
I turn back to the window. The sun has set. And now, it’s time for the rest of her story.
“Because it didn’t happen at Ventura. Not that men didn’t try…”
I trail off as all three of them start to speak, spouting out questions in rapid succession, but I stop them.
