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ONCE THEY DOCKED BACK in Laguna Beach, Garrett and Isla stood before her parents. The sun was setting, making the sky an enchanting mixture of purple and orange.

“It was great spending time with you, Isla,” Rebecca said as they walked to the end of the dock. “Let’s not wait this long to see each other again. Okay?”

Isla gave her mom a small smile. For once she felt comfortable around her and actually enjoyed her company. She’d dreamed about this kind of relationship with her mother and hoped they could continue cultivating it.

“I agree,” Isla said. “I had fun.”

Once they reached the shore, Rebecca hugged Isla and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Join us for dinner at the house soon,” she said, giving Isla’s hand a squeeze. “I’ll have Anna make your favorite meal.”

Isla chuckled. She did miss the house chef’s cooking. “You hate Anna’s lasagna. It’s too rich. Too fattening. Remember?”

Rebecca shrugged. “Like I said, whatever you want.” She held onto Isla’s arms. “I don’t want to lose you again,” she said in a low voice as the others said their goodbyes.

Isla’s eyes widened. She held her breath at seeing tears in Rebecca’s eyes.

Isla hugged her, tightly, pressing her cheek to her mother’s shoulder. “You won’t,” she promised.

When Rebecca pulled away, she dabbed the corners of her eyes with her knuckles and sniffled. “You two take care of each other,” she said, and she and Peter walked toward their hired car along with the Senator and his wife, and the others.

Isla watched them walk away, feeling good about the future. As she and Garrett sat in the back of the hired car, he reached for her hand. She smiled and leaned over, resting her head on his shoulder.

Life was good. Finally.

When they were dropped off at his house, the sky was dark and Isla was drained. They went inside and put their bags into his room.

She turned to him, taking off her shoes. “Well, that was much better than I thought it would be.”

Garrett began to speak when a knock came from the front door.

His brows knitted together and he headed for the door.

Isla followed, a faint warning in her stomach. “Who could it be?” she whispered as if the person on the other side of the door might hear her.

He shrugged. “Probably more reporters. They won’t leave me alone.”

She nodded and waited behind him as he opened the front door.

She gasped when she saw Clark standing there in the same clothes she’d seen him in the last time they’d spoken at Robin’s.

“Oh God,” she shrieked, her pulse quickening. “What are you doing here, Clark?” She stepped backward, visions of being pulled by her hair and slammed into the wall sending her into a panic.

Her heart raced as she looked him in the eyes. He didn’t look right. He looked angry...like he wasn’t really there.

He glared at her and then at Garrett.

“I don’t know what you want, and I don’t care. But you are not welcome in my home or around Isla,” Garrett said.

Clark didn’t respond, he kept his glare on Isla.

Garrett stood before him, blocking his view of her. “I think you should leave.”

“Out of my way, you limey bastard,” Clark said. He pushed Garrett aside, only to have Garrett twist his hand backward and jab him in the face.

Clark tackled Garrett, their bodies slamming to the wooden floor with a loud bang. Isla stood there, shaking, hyperventilating.

The things he’d done to her. Things she’d never told anyone, not even Robin. They came to her like a freight train, slamming her with the repressed pain she’d bottled up all of her life.

As Garrett and Clark fought, they became a blur.

Images flickered in her head in a dizzying sequence.

The first: being drugged at a party and having the lacrosse team take turns on her. She remember some of their faces, and how she had to look at them everyday for an entire year.

Could she claim they’d forced themselves on her if she was drunk and drugged and didn’t have the ability to say no? Would anyone believe one girl when she was up against a team of wealthy young men all with fathers and mothers just as powerful as her own?

“There’s only a little alcohol,” they’d said. “And mostly juice. I promise.”

She’d clawed at the walls of that bathroom with her nails, desperate to get away, yet too weak by whatever they’d given her. Their hands touching her. The violation of her body. It still haunted her.

Hours later she woke up in a dark room on a mattress on the floor, a boy sitting beside her asking if she was okay as she searched for her panties and cried softly into the darkness. That boy was the younger brother of one of the lacross team captains. She never got to thank him for looking over her while she slept.

The second: her mother slapping her across the face after hearing the rumors of her sleeping around.

She never believed that Isla had been a virgin before that party, and told her that she wasn’t a true Maxwell. Maxwell’s had integrity and class, something Isla would never have.

The third; Garrett never returning her emails or showing up to chat like they’d used to. After a few months, she was left exposed, seeking solace at bars and parties around campus that put her in the same position every time...a position where she never had the courage to say no to the men who took advantage of her. There were countless times that she could have ended up dead, yet someone or something always seemed to look out for her.

The fourth: Clark wrapping his hands around her throat and telling her that she was forbidden from talking to her parents or Robin ever again.

The images all became a blur as the shouts and grunts of the two fighting men faded into her head. She fell back hard onto the floor, a scream erupting from her mouth as all of those feelings escaped. Those demons of her past...she fought to keep them in for so long, but now they were free and there was nothing she could do about it but submit.

She shook on the floor, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, as her body seized and thrashed.

The pain was unlike anything she’d ever felt, and just when she thought she was dying, a cloak of black took over and didn’t let go.