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“Why?” I ask. Do they usually have sleepovers or is this something new?
“I filled him in on what was going on. I had nothing to explain why your mum was a mess in our living room or why you had a black eye and were in my bed. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t lie to him. CJ’s mum was raped. It’s how he was conceived.” He winces. “He just wanted to be near you.”
I feel my face pale. I hate that CJ and his mum have to live with that. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, not knowing what else to say. What do you say to that? He’s probably reliving his own nightmare right now. “Where do you think he went?”
“To see Allie, if I had to guess,” he rumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “You need to let your mum explain everything,” he tells me suddenly.
“She lied to me,” I bite out, the same betrayal I felt last night coming back. Allie, I can understand, but my mum? I can’t wrap my head around the fact she put me in danger like that. She’s supposed to be my mum, my protector, my saviour.
“She had no choice,” he states, like he knows the entire story.
“What do you mean?” I ask, wondering why everyone knows more than me. Even Cole, a complete stranger, seems to know more about what’s happening.
“Can we talk?” Mum calls, knocking on the door softly.
Cole gets up and leaves the room so it’s just me and Mum. She walks in, sitting on the bed where Cole was lying just mere seconds ago.
“He seems nice. I like him,” is the first thing she says, and I look up to the woman I’ve worshipped my whole life. My heart breaks when I see how much of a shambles her appearance is. She’s not the well-kept woman I know. Her clothes are wrinkled, her face pale with dark circles under her eyes, and her normally emerald eyes are dull and bloodshot.
“I need to know, Mum. I need to know what was so important you’d keep this from me and allow me to get hurt.”
“Baby, I never wanted this to happen,” she cries, taking my cold hands in hers. Last night, they felt so warm, so comforting, but now they feel as cold as mine.
“Then why did it happen? Tell me that.”
“Because he’s a sick, twisted son of a bitch, that’s why. You need to know, I never thought he’d hurt you. I still tried to get you to stay away from him the only way I could. His parents made us sign a non-disclosure agreement.”
“How? Why?” I ask, my head beginning to ache. “I don’t understand, Mum. Why? What does this have to do with whyyoucouldn’t tell me?” I demand to know.
“Because of my mum,” Allie whispers from the doorway. She looks no better than my mum and looks like she hasn’t slept a wink. She’s in her pyjamas, her hair wild and her eyes as bloodshot as my mum’s. I hate seeing them like this. I hate knowing it’s me who’s caused them to be out of sorts.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I repeat for the millionth time. It’s like they’re talking in riddles, not letting me process the information in time before hitting me with another goddamn riddle. I just want them to be honest with me. “You’re not going to hurt me by telling me the truth. I’m already broken,” I whisper.
“You’re not broken, baby. Don’t let him do this to you,” Mum pleads, her eyes filled with tears.
“But I feel it. Ineedanswers. How can I have known him for so long but not really known him? Why now? Why did he do it now?”
“Can you remember when we were in year nine and I was off school for three weeks?” Allie whispers, coming closer towards the bed. She looks scared, unsure, like I’m going to bite her head off or worse, attack her.
“I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll give you two some privacy,” Mum whispers, leaning forward and kissing me on the head. I close my eyes, savouring it. This is the level of comfort I needed from her when she arrived last night, not the bigger cluster fuck I was hit with.
When she leaves, Allie takes her place on the bed, looking down at her lap. “Before that, I had a major crush on Logan. I thought I loved him, but because of your friendship with him, I kept it hidden. I didn’t know how you felt about him. I knew he’d never look at me the way he looked at you. I was just the girl he put up with because of you.” She laughs bitterly, her eyes distant and in a dark place.
“One weekend, your mum sent you to your nan’s, so Logan asked me if I wanted to go over and watch a movie with him. I jumped at the chance, really wanting to spend time with him. Back then, I would have done anything to spend any time with him. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world when he asked me.
“We watched a movie, and it was getting late by the time it finished, yet I let him talk me into watching another. He got his dad’s alcohol out of the cupboard, and because I wanted to impress him, I drank it.” She swallows, her gaze growing distant. Unable to take seeing her in pain, I grab a hold of her hand, squeezing it gently.
“I only had half a glass, not even that because I didn’t like it. It tasted funny, and I remember feeling like the room was spinning. He asked me if I had ever been kissed,” she chokes out, hiccupping over her tears.
“It’s okay. It’s fine. We don’t need to talk about it,” I rush out, my own voice choked up, knowing what she is going through right now. Hearing her telling me what happened is turning my stomach, and for the first time, I’m glad I don’t remember anything that happened.
“You need to know why I couldn’t tell you,” she gets out, wiping at her eyes. “He kissed me and I kissed him back. In that moment, I was so happy. A boy had kissed me. Then everything changed. He started touching my breasts and I didn’t like it. I tried pushing him away so many times but my body was sluggish, heavy. I didn’t have control. He managed to get my trousers and knickers down before I managed to scream. He hit me across the face, but I didn’t stop screaming out. His mum came into the room and stopped him,” she tells me bitterly. “She called my mum, and I thought we’d go to the police station and report him. I wasn’t naïve. I knew what he did was wrong. But I trusted my mum. Why wouldn’t I? But then we were pulled into Logan’s dad’s office and I was signing a piece of paper. I didn’t understand, and I asked when we were going to the police.”
She shakes her head, twiddling her fingers in her lap, looking angry with herself and at her mum.
“It was a non-disclosure form you signed, wasn’t it?” I ask gently.
“Yes,” she sobs. “Mum told me it was for my own good and that I needed to keep my mouth shut if I didn’t want everyone knowing what I did. What I did!” she sobs out. “She made me feel so dirty. She made me believe I led him on, and because they all knew I had a crush on him, they told me no one would believe I didn’t give him permission. Mum got paid well, but I didn’t take the money. I didn’t touch it,” she promises, looking me in the eyes so I can see the truth in her declaration.
