I wake up to the smell of a familiar sweet citrus fragrance that gets stronger with every breath I take, causing me to sit up and look around my room. My heart slows when I spot my mother standing by my bedroom window, looking out. She’s so still I have to blink a few times to make sure she’s really there. “Mom?” Am I dreaming?
She turns around slowly, her tear-stained cheeks forcing me to throw the comforter off my body and stand.
“Mom, are you okay?”
She shakes her head, not uttering a word.
I walk toward her, and the sound that comes out of her mouth makes me pause. It’s a sound that you know is full of heartbreak. It scares me because my mother is never silent. Raquel Whitmore is known for being vocal about everything on her mind. It’s why my father loves her.
“Is Dad okay? Did something happen?” She breaks out into a sob the second she pulls me into her arms. “Mom, you’re scaring me.”
“He’s fine,” she manages to say. “H-he’s fine.”
I pull back slightly, confused and worried. “What’s going on? You never come to Seattle. Mom?”
My mother shakes her head as her sobs slow to a soft cry. When her eyes reach mine, they shatter every wall I’ve ever built, trying to protect them. Because she knows. She knows.
“I should have known. I should have seen that someone was hurting my baby!” She pulls me back into her arms and cries harder. “I-I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you, Zoë. I didn’t… Why… Why didn’t you tell us?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know how to feel. For years I’ve kept this from my parents and the moment I tell Owen…
He wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t tell my parents.
Would he?
“Did Owen tell you?”
Mom pulls back a bit, bringing her hands up to cup my face. She looks at me like I’m still her little girl. Like I’m sweet and innocent and her angel.
If only I could see that when I look in the mirror.
“Hilary came over,” she says, her voice shaky. “S-she wouldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know what she was saying.” Mom brings a hand to her chest, directly over her heart and rubs it roughly. “She said she was so sorry that she couldn’t stop it. When I asked ‘stop what’ she said he…he hurt you. Baby, I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you either.”
I feel something wet hit my cheek and slowly trail down until it falls onto my chest. “Does Dad know?” I whisper.
Mom wipes away my tears and shakes her head no.
A sob escapes my throat when I answer with, “Please don’t tell him. Please.”
We don’t say anything afterward. We just hold each other and cry over the truth that is breaking my mother’s heart. The truth that I tried to keep a secret for this very reason.
I never wanted to hurt the people I love.
Michael is dead.
No one had to know what happened. I’m dealing with it. Sure it’s taking a hell of a long time but I’m getting professional help. This is something I need to overcome.
My mother is heartbroken.
The Stevensons are too.
I’ve shattered our families.
They didn’t need to learn this gut-wrenching news.
They didn’t need to know.
I try to calm Mom down and I’m not really successful but I get her to take a few deep breaths until she’s not gasping for air.
We make our way downstairs, meeting Echo in the kitchen. There are a few burgers with fries from Carl’s Jr sitting on the kitchen table with three shakes sitting around them.
“I grabbed some food,” Echo announces, looking over at my mother. “I got yours with no mustard.”
Mom walks up to Echo and pulls her into a hug. “Thank you, sweetheart.” I hear the sob waiting to escape and I can’t handle it.
“Let’s eat. I’m hungry.” I thank Echo and grab some plates from the cupboard before sitting down.
Mom is the last to finish, I don’t even think she was really hungry. She cried twice while dipping her fries into ketchup. Echo and I reached over and squeezed her hands, silently telling her that we understand how she feels.
Echo leaves ten minutes later, not wanting to impose. She could never.
“The house…the house is almost ready,” Mom murmurs, wiping her eyes. She settles back into the chair and grabs my hand. “Your father is adding a few more things. We thought putting pictures up…” Her eyes drop and she winces. “I’ll look through the pictures before we hang them. We cried seeing how much you’ve grown up.”
“Can I see pictures? Of the house, I mean?”
I want to distract her from the horrible things she might be envisioning. Don’t think about it, Mom. You don’t want to know what he did to me. What he made me do. Please, don’t EVER think about it.
“I want you to be surprised. You’re going to love it, sweetie. It’s…you. You’d never want to leave.”
I smile as I stand and wrap my arms around her. “Some parents wouldn’t want their children to stay inside of the house all day.” When she looks up at me, water filling her sad green eyes, I lean forward and kiss her cheek. “Thank you for accepting my weirdness. Thank you for giving me books to read and fall in love with. They were my escape.”
And that causes her to fall apart in my arms again.
She asks if I’ll think about talking to a therapist. She was surprised to know that I’ve been seeing one already.
“But maybe you need someone else, someone you’ll be more comfortable with,” she encourages.
Clearly if I can’t tell my therapist that I ended someone’s life and almost ended my own that same day then something isn’t right between us. I need someone who can get me to fully open up.
I don’t want to talk about it with my mother though. I want her to go back to thinking my childhood was happy and perfect and full of love.
“I’ll ask if she can find someone for me. I promise.”
“I-I don’t want to lose you.”
I’m not going anywhere.
Mom stands, tilting her head back to look at me. She doesn’t say it but I see it in her eyes. She hates that this happened to me. She hates that a man she trusted broke my trust. She hates that he’s dead because she wants to kill him herself.
I see it all in her eyes.
“I love you, Mom.”
She pulls me into her arms, making me bend forward to fit in her tiny grasp. “I love you so much, angel.”
Hours later when I walk my mother outside and force her into a taxi to take her to the airport, I climb each step with a heavy heart.
They didn’t need to know the truth.
I look up at the darkening sky wishing it’d cry with me. I’ll take rain, lightening, and loud thunderstorms. There’s a storm raging inside me and all I want to do is scream until I can’t scream anymore.
Before I step through the threshold, a chill runs down my spine, causing goose bumps to rise on every inch of my body. I turn around slowly, listening to nothing but the wind howling. My eyes fall on a very handsome, very heartbroken man with forest green eyes.
He’s frozen on the steps leading up to me, one foot on the next step like he was on his way up but stopped when he saw me.
“Zoë,” he breathes.
I shut my eyes and wince at the sting hearing him say my name causes.
He didn’t believe me…
Who would even lie about something like that?
I turn back around and step into the house, trying to shut the door as fast as I can.
“Zo, wait. Please!” I hear him say as he runs up the steps. I shut the door and turn the deadbolt. “Zo, please, open the door.”
I stare at this piece of wood separating us. This is what it has come down to. Two best friends who love each other now nothing more than a faint memory.
“Zoë.”
He’s so close I can practically feel the vibration through the door.
“I miss you so much,” he murmurs. “I-I can’t… Zoë…”
My hand trembles, hovering over the deadbolt, ready to unlock it. What is wrong with me? He hurt me. I hurt him. I can’t open this door.
“I miss you so fucking much,” he says, his voice cracking.
I drop my hand and place my other one on the door, reaching for him even though he can’t see me.
“This doesn’t change my love for you, Zo.” I feel something hit the door and I’d like to think his hand is pressed up against the door, right where mine is. “It just means I need to love you louder.”
I cover my mouth before a sob can escape. He’s always loved that quote. I drop my hand and turn around slumping to the floor, crying for the love this man has for a girl who never deserved it.
“Zo, please open the door.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and count to one hundred.
“Please.”
I blame not having Echo home for what I do next. She wanted to give my mother and I some time alone so she left and said she’d be back later. She’s the one that reminds me that thinking of Owen causes me so much pain I can’t breathe.
She’s not here to stop me.
I get onto my knees and slowly reach up and turn the deadbolt.
I hold my breath for what seems like forever because the doorknob doesn’t turn.
Did he leave?
I wipe my eyes and stand up, slowly opening the door.
Owen’s eyes travel up, not believing that I did in fact open the door. “Zo.” He steps into the house and pulls me against him, kicking the door shut. “Fuck.” He hugs me to the point of almost suffocating me. When he pulls back, he slides his hands up my arms and into my hair.
“I love you. I love you so fucking much, do you know that?”
I blink back tears as I stare into his eyes. Eyes that cripple me.
I missed him so much.
I love him so much.
He suffocates and revives me at the same time. It physically pains me to look at him but it also crushes me when he’s not within reach.
“I’m so sorry for everything I said that day.” His eyes flood with tears and then he drops to his knees, hugging my legs tightly. “I believe you. I’m sorry for making you think that I didn’t. I was so confused but I believe you.” A muffled sob vibrates throughout my body as he buries his head into my stomach and cries. “I was supposed to protect you. I’m so fucking sorry, Zo.” A louder sob rips through him, and I die slowly. “I hate myself a little more each day seeing what I see when I look in the mirror. I wish I could change this. Me. I wish I looked nothing like him.”
I’m sorry he’s not the man you believed him to be.
We stay like this for a full minute, me holding his head against my stomach, and running my fingers through his hair until it becomes too much and my weakened knees finally give out and I join him on the floor.
I press myself against his chest, wanting his tight hugs again. I want to feel his warmth, his love, and his heartache. I want to feel it all because I put it there.
It is in this moment that I question if we’ll ever be happy again. Truly happy like we used to be when we were just children and adults didn’t become the monsters we feared at night.
Something this dark stays with a person.
It’ll never leave.
It’ll continue to eat away at you until it becomes too much and you’re looking for a way out.
“He was going to hurt her,” I whisper. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if he hurt Ari.”
Zoë, Fourteen years old
It was Owen’s fifteenth birthday and I forgot his present because I was too nervous about being in his house, being around the devil that stripped my soul from my body. Unfortunately, Owen’s father was the only one who could take me back home to retrieve the forgotten present. I would have walked but Michael insisted, making it hard to deny his request without raising suspicions.
My parents were already on their way to the airport for a family emergency. Owen was more important than my drunken uncle who always cried wolf so I begged Mom to let me stay behind. I should have just gone with them.
Heading down NW 113th Avenue, I was on edge. Being so close to the man that basically killed me when I was six years old was not comfortable. His eyes roamed up and down and side to side as he drove down the street that would bring me closer to my best friend. When we passed a house with a young girl playing with a puppy, Mr. Stevenson slowed and eyed her the same way he looked at me, only me. It was a mix of hunger and restraint. It was revolting. Because he shouldn’t be looking at children like that. Seeing it happening to someone who wasn’t me, made something snap inside me. I knew it was wrong; what he did to me, but I never spoke a word of it because I was scared. Scared of what people would say. What Owen would say.
Michael’s large hand left the steering wheel and landed on my jean-clad thigh. I closed my eyes and prayed he didn’t move it any higher.
Please, not after what he did to me in my own home.
“I’m going to miss you, baby girl,” he said, his deep voice causing goose bumps to rise on my skin. “You’re growing up so fast.”
“Can you please just drive?”
I opened my eyes and stared at the two-way street ahead of us. Living in Portland, Oregon my whole life, and always being around Owen, I’d been up and down this street multiple times. We were almost at Owen’s. And I couldn’t wait to get out of this car and give him his gift. Anything to keep the nightmare of what happened less than thirty minutes ago at bay.
It won’t happen again. He promised. He never breaks his promises. Not when I’m involved.
His fingers tightened around my thigh, squeezing hard.
Think of Owen. Think of his present.
I still had to add pictures into the incomplete photo album that I made with some of Mom’s help, and then wrap it up for him. There was enough empty space in the back to fill up in the upcoming years. I couldn’t wait for those moments. Time with Owen; it was my favorite gift.
I gripped the box with the photo album a little harder when Michael’s hand started to inch up my leg.
Oh, God. Please, don’t let this happen.
I thought it was over. He said it was. He said he’d never do it again after what he just did.
He said I wasn’t his anymore.
He let me go.
“Look at me.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because looking at him was like looking at the devil, bargaining for my soul. I might’ve fallen a little more into the dark bottomless hole if I let those last moments creep out of the locked box they resided in.
His hand moved up higher, touching a spot he shouldn’t be touching. Not on any person who wasn’t his wife. Especially not a fourteen-year-old girl.
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to believe that he wasn’t doing this again.
I was lying to myself, and it was like he knew it.
“Look at me, Zoë.”
I refused to.
My heart slowed its pace, preferring to stop beating completely than have to relive the nightmare that was my life.
He stepped on the gas pedal a little harder. He knew I was scared of driving too fast. I’d seen too many accidents on the news. I’ve witnessed too many deaths. I felt too much for strangers I didn’t know who lost their lives.
My heart beat faster as my stomach dropped. I wanted to open the car door and throw myself out just so I could be away from this man.
“Zoë, please look at me,” he pleaded. It was amazing how easily he could manipulate someone. I’d always been his victim.
If you look, he might stop.
I turned my head and stared at his forest green eyes; eyes just like Owen’s. They looked so much alike that when I felt my heart race just by being around my best friend, I felt dirty. Because I was in love with my best friend who looked just like his father, the man who has touched me inappropriately for the last eight years.
“You are so beautiful.” He moved his hand away from the apex of my thighs, and wrapped his fingers around my hand, pulling it away from the box meant for his son.
I watched my hand being pulled closer to him. I tried to pull my hand back when it was clear where he wanted my hand to go. “Michael, please. Stop.”
His eyes closed briefly when he set my hand down on his crotch and made me touch him.
He stepped harder on the gas every time I tried to pull my hand away.
Tears streamed down my face as I looked away, not wanting to see what I was doing to him. What he made me do to him for the last five years.
Please make this stop. Please!
I never wanted this. He took advantage of a child. He knew better. When I was six, I didn’t know that girls my age didn’t do those kinds of things to grown men; men the same age as my father. And as I got older, he started to threaten the one person I couldn’t live without.
I never wanted to hurt Owen.
This has to stop.
But Owen…my family…
It will never stop. That was the cold hard truth. As long as I kept my mouth shut this would never end. I promised myself I would never tell Owen. It would kill him. His dad was everything to him. I was just his friend.
Michael curled his fingers around my hand, forcing me to squeeze him. I felt his arousal underneath my palm.
I wanted to vomit.
This has to stop.
I thought about the way he was looking at that little girl. The innocent, little brown haired girl with the cutest giggle that ran across the yard with a boy her age, and a puppy chasing after them. She was only five years old.
She was my best friend’s baby sister.
She was the same age I was when–
He won’t touch her! He can’t.
He wasn’t supposed to touch me and yet, he did.
But she…
He’ll find a way.
He always does.
I made a split decision. I was always scared to speak of what he had done to me, but I refused to let him do it to someone else. I refused to be the reason why that little girl’s world would burn to ashes the way mine has.
I could stop it.
I could end it.
I would end it.
We were going so fast now, everything was blurring together. We were almost at the Stevenson residence. I was running out of time.
I eyed the steering wheel and glanced up at the street and then the side mirror. No one else was on the road. No one else would get hurt.
Do it. Do it now, Zoë.
I let go of the box in my lap and reached over the console, gripping the steering wheel. And I turned it right with all my strength.
I’m so sorry, Owen. I’m sorry, Mom and Dad.
Michael jerked in his seat, trying to grab the steering wheel but it was too late. He was screaming at me, and I was crying, my body stiffening, bracing for impact. I squeezed my eyes shut when realization hit that I was the only one wearing a seatbelt. Michael never did. He thought he was better than them. Nothing could touch him, he’d say. He was invincible.
Then the only sounds I heard were of tires screeching, glass shattering, metal crunching, and bones breaking as the car hit a wooden overhead power line pole head-on.
The world tipped over or maybe it was just me.
Moments passed where there was nothing but silence. I felt weightless. My arms were dangling over my head, the ends of my hair tickling them as the wind blew past me.
I cracked my eyes open slowly, watching photos fluttering around me. All of my memories, all of my happiest moments were mocking me, drifting away with every shaky breath I took.
I blinked a few times, my vision turning spotty as I looked to my left. Everything was upside down. And Michael wasn’t sitting in the driver’s seat.
The dashboard was a crumpled mess. It was so much closer to me than what it was normally supposed to be.
My body started to grow conscious of the pain, and it wasn’t until I heard the police sirens and the fire truck horns that I looked down and saw all the blood, all the glass embedded in my skin, and the weird angles my limbs were in.
Blurry objects started moving toward the car.
The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as I tried to speak. The smell of oil burning was strong as smoke filled the space around me. Breathing got harder; it was only going to get worse.
I was prepared to die.
And what made it easier was knowing that Michael was going to join me.
Forgive me. Mom, Dad, Owen…everyone…forgive me.
My eyes drifted closed when the pain became too much.
Let go, Zoë. Don’t be scared. Owen’s voice filled my mind, silencing the pain. I wasn’t trapped in a car anymore, I was with my best friend trying to hop over a fence before we got caught by the police, but it was too high and I wouldn’t jump down. I promise, I’ve got you.
Staring into his eyes, feeling it warm my insides, making me feel safe, I felt myself smile as I finally let go.
I was free.