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“It’s just… my stepdad, you know, he’s big on obedience and if I don’t do things his way and even when I do…

he uses any scraps of affection as a weapon.

” These are words I’ve written down. Words I’ve finally typed from my journal, for my memoir assignment, even though I know I’ll never turn something that vulnerable in.

And I know maybe I should stop talking and not tell it all to Cortland, because I know, deep down, this will never work out, but for some reason, I keep talking anyway.

“That night, I just thought maybe it’s what you wanted.

And I was scared, because Chase was so rough and Storm and Brinklin and you outnumbered me.

But I thought you wanted it, and so I convinced myself I wanted it, but I was screaming it in my head.

” I close my hand into a fist, pressing it to my temple.

“I was screaming so loud. Until you held my head in your hands, and it just all went… numb. And I thought, for you… I’d do it if it made you happy.

With me. Then that morning, you were sleeping so soundly, and I was so scared. And everything hurt, and…”

He grips my hand ever tighter.

“I got home the next morning. And my stepdad… he was waiting for me.” My throat constricts, my words raw. “He was drinking, and it was early, and he’d got home just a few hours before me. A mixed-up flight. Business delay.”

My eyes meet his, my knees trembling.

I open my mouth, an excuse on the tip of my tongue. But it’s six in the morning. My clothes are dirty, save for my shirt. Which isn’t mine at all.

But my jeans, the ones I never wear around Silas, they’re ripped and flecked with dirt just like my nails, and my hair, and…

Silas lifts his glass to his lips, taking a drink as he stares at me with dead eyes, just a few feet from me in the wide, marble foyer of our house.

His house.

“Where were you last night, Remi?” he asks again after a moment.

My heart is rattling around in my chest and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I was worried I might get pulled over on the way home. Worried I was still a little drunk from the night before. Worried everyone who passed me on the road could see what I’d done. What I did.

“I…” I want to beg him to hold me. I’m leaning against the door, my palms clenched into fists, the taste of blood and dirt in my mouth. I want to beg him to let this go. To let me cry. Tears sting my eyes.

He arches a brow, stepping closer. I see his knuckles blanch around his glass. “You what, Remi?” His words are so cold.

I inhale, catching his expensive cologne. So familiar, but there’s nothing comforting in it. Where have you been? I want to scream at him. My whole life, where have you been? After Mom died, I know you hated me. I know you still do.

“I was at a party,” I admit, wincing as I do.

He steps closer. My heart races. “Were you?”

I close my eyes, feel a tear slip down my cheek. “Yes,” I whisper.

“And what happened to you at this party?” Cold cruelty.

I know I won’t get sympathy from him. I swallow down a lump in my throat. “Nothing,” I lie. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going ? —”

“Nothing?” he questions, his voice louder, closer now.

“No. No s-sir.” I open my eyes and find him staring down at me.

“Why do you have dirt on your knees?”

I feel hot and uncomfortable. I want to run. But there’s nowhere to go. This hell is my home. “I-I don’t ? —”

He drops the glass. It shatters at our feet, but before I can think that through, he’s fisting my hair in his hand, yanking my head to the side.

I cry out as he gets in my face, shoving me against the door. “You look like you got fucked, Remi.”

I swallow down my fear, meeting his dark eyes. “I-I d-didn’t ? —”

“I know you’ve been seeing Cortland Adler.”

Cold fear washes over me, the warmth gone. “W-what?”

He smiles, his grip tightening in my hair. “Yes. I’m not as stupid as you seem to think I am, Remi. So why don’t you stop disrespecting me in my own house and tell me what happened to you last night?”

Another tear falls past my lash line, down my cheek. “Silas,” I whisper, “I didn’t… Nothing ? —”

He lets go of my hair, grabbing my arm in a bruising grip. “Did you let them fuck you?”

“N-no ? —”

“You are nothing but a fucking slut. You’re just like your mother.” He tightens his grip and I wince as he shoves me down to the floor, my knees hitting the tile.

But he comes down with me.

I can’t breathe, my heart pounding painfully in my chest as his hand finds my hip, slipping under the edges of my shirt.

Cortland’s shirt.

I can smell the alcohol on his breath.

It reminds me of last night.

I feel sick all over again, nausea washing over me in volatile waves.

His bare fingers are smooth on my skin, because my stepdad would never get his hands dirty.

Not where anyone but me is concerned.

He brushes his thumb under the hem of my jeans, and I feel dizzy, every movement of his finger against me so loud.

I can feel it. Hear it. Sense it too deeply.

He wouldn’t.

He won’t.

“P-please don’t ? —”

“Did you like being used?” he asks me quietly, his eyes on mine as he leans closer, forcing me back, until I’m on my elbows.

“Your mother used to enjoy being used, too. For pills and speed and fucking heroin, but maybe you do it for nothing at all.” His body is over mine and his cologne assaults my senses, and it reminds me of them and ? —

“Don’t do this,” I blurt out, my words shaky. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to ? —”

“If you’re just going to act like your mother, Remi, if you’re just going to let anyone have you, why shouldn’t I?”

Cold fear runs through my body and I’m numb and frozen and I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t…

I stare up at the man who has been a stranger to me my entire life, so close to me now, his hands on me where they shouldn’t be.

I don’t know this man.

I never did.

And in this moment, I wonder if he stuck around after Mom passed just for a moment like this.

His hand comes to the button of my jeans. But I won’t let him do this.

“It wasn’t just him,” I cry out.

His movements stop.

“It wasn’t just him, Silas, it was…” I choke on those words, but he stops, and I keep going. “It was four of them, I don’t know what happened. I was just drunk and…” I trail off. “I don’t know,” I whisper, “I don’t know what happened.”

There’s silence.

His hand still poised over my button.

But only silence.

Then he hits me before I can get the next word out, the back of his hand against my face. I taste more blood in my mouth. Fresh.

He moves away from me when he’s done.

And I’m seeing stars as my eyes fly open, his scent no longer so close, his body no longer over mine. I glance at my unbuttoned jeans, trying to process what just happened.

What he just did.

But before I can, he’s speaking again, and I’m ashamed that I feel relief. Fucking. Relief.

“You are a disgrace.” He sighs as I blink, my head pounding, my lip split. “Grab a towel, and get in the car. Sit on the towel. I don’t want your filth on my seats. If you still have your phone, call the police.”

My mind is racing with those words. “N-no, I don’t want to ? —”

He steps closer, and I scramble back, terrified. “You’re either a whore for me to use, or you got raped, Remi.”

No. That’s not… Is that… I didn’t mean they did that. I don’t know if they did that. I don’t know…

“Were you or were you not drunk?”

I swallow, but then I nod, slowly.

“Of course you were. They raped you, Remi. At least the Adlers have money. I have no idea what he sees in you, but perhaps you can get a settlement out of all of this, which is the most you could have ever hoped for from him.” He jerks his chin. “Now get upstairs, and get a towel.”

I stagger to my feet, turning from him, stumbling blindly up the stairs, shock settling in.

I hear him on the phone, behind me, and I vaguely register the words. A cancelled meeting. An excuse. Then, “Something bad happened to Remi.” Feigned emotion in his words. “I have to take her to the hospital.”

I’m sitting up, and Cortland is still gripping my hand, but it feels like everything has changed.

“I’m sorry,” I rush to say, speaking through the emotions welling in my chest. “I’m sorry I even… went to the police, and I’m sorry about the charges and everything and?—”

“You went to the police because of your stepdad?” he asks me quietly.

Nerves course through me, and I grip his hand tighter, but he doesn’t return it. “Cortland, I was scared and I?—”

“Answer me.”

I wipe the back of my bleeding hand over my eyes, looking into his. “You know what you did was wrong. You know I didn’t say yes, and you know I was crying and?—”

He lets go of my hand, standing abruptly as fear grips my heart. He threads his fingers together over his head, his back to me.

I think of my stepdad’s anger. The glass at the foyer that I had to clean up when we got back from the hospital. “Say something, Cortland.”

Silence.

Then he drops his hands, spins around, and he’s so distant as he looks at me. “You could have ruined my life.”

Shock. Shock is what I feel. Shock that he doesn’t care about how I felt. What Silas did. The ways he fucked me over. Like all of his guilt is gone in this moment. “Are you… serious? You don’t think that’s exactly what you did?—”

“You didn’t say no, Remi,” he reminds me, as if I don’t know that. As if I didn’t just tell him how I couldn’t. “You didn’t say fucking no and you didn’t try to stop any of us, did you?”

I stand then. “Fuck you,” I tell him. “You are nothing but a spoiled fucking?—”

“You think you’re the only one with a fucked-up parent, Remi?” He runs his hand through his hair, stepping back from me as if I’m diseased.

“It wasn’t enough that I was crying?” I ask him, my voice breaking.

“It wasn’t enough that I was staring at you while you let them use me?

It wasn’t enough that you took my virginity in the woods, in front of your friends?

” I hear the hurt in my words, and I wish there was more anger, but I can’t help it, and I don’t stop.

“And you didn’t stop them, because you’re a fucking coward ? ”

His eyes widen. He stabs his finger to his chest, coming closer, crowding me against the couch.

“Me? I’m the coward?” Those words are incredulous.

“You think I’m the fucking coward?” He smiles, but there’s nothing kind in it.

Dropping his hand, straightening, he rolls his eyes.

“You couldn’t say one fucking word that night. You couldn’t say one goddamn word.”

I feel the heat in my chest, in my veins, and before I know what I’m doing, I turn and yank the lamp from the side table, hurling it at him as hard as I can, the cord ripping from the outlet, a cry leaving my lips.

He grabs it by the base as it connects with his chest, then throws it behind him, where it clatters on the floor. “You wanna start throwing shit again now? You can’t use your words so you’re gonna act like a toddler?” he growls, stepping closer still.

I back up, my calves hitting the couch, and I have nowhere else to go.

“You almost sent me to fucking prison, ruined my goddamn life, because you couldn’t say one fucking word?—”

I hit him with the back of my hand, my bloody knuckles stinging as they connect with his face, another growl leaving my lips. His head snaps to the side, and his hand comes to his face as he stills, stunned for a moment.

Then I shove him, my palms planted against his chest.

He takes a single step back, hand still on his face. I think about that red mark before his bullshit therapy session. I wonder what he cries about in there. I wonder if he’s ever felt as hollow as I do.

I wonder if his remorse was always manufactured.

He drops his hand as he turns his head to glare at me. “Remi, don’t do that again?—”

I shove him again, harder this time, throwing all of my weight into it.

He goes back another step, his jaw clenched, his hands by his side.

“I loathe you,” I tell him, the words venomous . I get closer, having to tilt my head back to see him. “You’re no better than Silas. You’re no better than Chase. You’re nothing but?—”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see the problem here, Remi,” he cuts me off with cold words. He leans down close, his mouth hovering over mine. “Seems like it isn’t me after all. It’s not your stepdad. Not fucking Chase.”

I feel sick, my stomach twisting, my body tense, as if I can shield myself from the blow.

“ It’s you.” He doesn’t touch me, but he might as well have slapped me, the way those words feel.

“You’re the problem, baby. You’re sick and fucked up and looking for attention and when people give it to you, you decide you don’t want it that way.

” He laughs, stepping back, scrubbing a hand over his jaw before he drops it by his side.

“Well fuck that, Remi. I’m not waiting around until the next time you decide what I did wasn’t what you wanted.

” He shrugs, turning away from me and snatching my clothes up from the floor, throwing them at me.

No. I want to scream. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.

“I’ll call you a cab. Get dressed and wait for it outside. Have a nice fucking life.”