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Instead of finding it amusing, she shook her head and started to take a step back. “Chris, I don’t- I can’t-”
He took hold of her upper arms gently, cutting off her retreat. “Hayley, listen, listen to me. You never have to do anything with me that you aren’t comfortable doing. If you want to sleep in the spare bedroom you can do that. That’s okay, Hayley. Whatever you’re comfortable with is okay with me. But after what happened last night, we need to come to some kind of understanding. I cannot keep taking rent money from you while we’re making out on my couch. It’s wrong, Hayley.
“Remember what I told you when we first met? I’m not one to take advantage. Either we take this thing to the next level or we end it. All of it. You don’t come over anymore, you don’t cook for me, we don’t spend time together. You can put the rent in my mailbox at the first of every month and you only call me if something goes wrong with the house and needs fixing.”
She put her face in her hands and her shoulders slumped. Chris didn’t think that boded well. “At least talk to me,” he requested. “Can you tell me what your concerns are? Hayley. I can protect you from the men who’ve hurt you. And there is not a chance in Hell I’d ever become one of them and I think you know that’s true.”
She looked up from her hands, slightly confused. “What?”
“You don’t have to tell me everything for me know the gist of it.” He pressed lips together and looked down at her. “I know you’ve been raped, Hayley.” She made a noise of protest and tried to move free of his hold, he let her go. “I’ve seen it before, honey. Overseas. Unfortunately, I’ve become rather good at spotting the signs. I know it happened when you were in college and it caused you drop out and leave home. I also know some fucker managed to weasel his way into your defenses and then beat on you when he should have been on his knees thanking God you allowed him into your life.”
She shook her head, miserably. “That never happened.”
Chris sighed. “Hayley, it won’t do any good to lie about it. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand, but don’t pretend-”
“There was no other guy,” she finally told him. “In Denver. I- that was a lie.” She swiped at an errant tear. “You don’t know me, Chris. I’m- I’m not too far off from what you thought in the beginning.” She looked up at the night sky and Chris gave her time to decide what she would give him. “A few months after I…got hurt, I bought a bus ticket to Dallas. I just had to get away. But it was too soon, or something, because this guy, on the bus, he saw me and he knew. He didn’t know who I was, but he knew what I was. He had a knife. And I was so scared that I just didn’t do anything at all. I couldn’t even call out for help. He took all my money because I was dumb enough to have it all in my fucking pocket. So I got off the bus, in a strange city, panicked, and I locked myself in a bathroom stall all night.
“I didn’t have much of a plan. I knew I couldn’t go home. I needed a place to live, but I couldn’t get one with no money. Not without a job. So I looked. And I looked, and I looked and no one would hire me because I didn’t have any I.D. On the day before I told myself I was going to give up and call my parents, I walked into a diner. No money, hadn’t eaten anything for two days. The owner was a woman. And she wasn’t going to hire me, either. But as I was leaving, she saw the bruise the guy had left on my arm. And she asked me if my boyfriend was going to come looking for me and make trouble.”
She shook her head and wiped her cheeks again. “I didn’t lie. Not that time. I just…let her think that. Because I was starving and I’d been sleeping in a bus station for five nights. It was still wrong. I get that. I know that. Because that happens to people. To women. Their boyfriends or their husbands hurt them and it’s awful that I let someone think that happened to me just so I could get a job. But I did it anyway. And I didn’t stop there. Once I left Dallas, I moved to Phoenix. And I put bruises on my arm. Because that lie was so much easier than the truth. And it worked. So I kept doing it. In every city. Different name, same lie.” She finally turned to look at him. “You don’t know me. Hardly anything you know about me is the truth. You don’t know what you’re asking. The things that could happen to you. You don’t even know.”
