Page 75 of For Cowgirls and Kings

“Tell me Dale, what can I do? What did they do to you? If you just tell me, then I?—”

It’s like he has no idea how I feel.

A choked sob rips from my throat, “You’ll what? I’ve been a doll my entire life. Now I’m a broken doll. And no one wants a broken doll.”

His hand shakes; I can feel the vibrations as it continues to hover over my shoulder.

“You won’t even touch me. For fear of getting dirty, or breaking me I don’t know. But I’m already broken, don’t you getit? No matter how many showers I take, I’m still dirty. A dirty, broken doll.”

“Stop.” He hisses the word, but I can’t stop. The words pour out of me—a burst damn—and now that I’ve opened the floodgates, there’s no pushing them down.

“At first it wasn’t so bad. I was strong, although a little meek. I thought that would make them want to hurt me less, if I wasn’t standing up to them. But that’s what caused the first beating. And the second. And Mar—the oldest brother, he would tell them to rape me; they held me down and whipped out their dicks to do so, but then he made them stop. They jerked off and came on me, just to prove they could. To embarrass me. To show me that it would happen; to fear when it would happen.”

The memory of that first night flashes through my mind, so vivid that if there wasn’t sun shining warming my skin through the window, I could swear I was still there. At that point Rafael already seemed more hesitant than his brothers, even though he didn’t stick up for me. He did as Marco demanded, standing over my body, covering my hair in cum. But when it was all over, it was his hand, quivering with anger, that cleaned the evidence of abuse from my face.

I don’t know if it was guilt, or repressed good character, that made him disobey his brother in secret. But bitterness leaked from his pores like poisonous gas, and even as he helped me, I didn’t speak to him. I was completely and totally alone.

It was the first true blow to my soul, and it wasn’t the last.

Mateo’s entire body vibrates, but I forge on. I don’t open my eyes, I don’t look at him in the mirror. I can’t face his disgust.

“And then for a while I only beatings. Beat because I ate too much of the food they gave me. And then beat because I didn’t eat enough. Then I got beat because I had to use the bathroom so badly, and was hysterical that they wouldn’t let me use the toilet. They beat me so badly that time, and I had to go so badbecause I had held it for days that I did. I shit myself. And then they laughed. And then they beat me because I was disgusting.”

Tears flow down my face, mixing with the snot running from my nose, and I hate how strongly the words still taste in my mouth—foul and bitter and so fucking real.

“I lost track after that, I was barely conscious most of the time. But the night before I escaped, Mar—” I pause. I still can’t say his name; it feels too much like giving him more power. “He snapped, over what, I don’t know, but he came to me by himself, and”—I lick my dry, cracked lips—“then he made his brother’s hold me down and?—.”

The words are too hard, too close to reliving the entire thing, even if the memory of it replays like the most vivid movie over and over in my mind.

Mateo waits, barely breathing and I strain to listen to the sounds around me to calm my racing heart. In the distance there’s a lawn mower, and a cow bawling. Closer, there’s the sound of a cabinet door closing downstairs, and Tut’s quiet rumbling. And I hear Mateo’s heart, racing almost as fast as mine.

“Did he rape you?”

“No, not exactly.” That’s all I can say. I wasn’t raped, so I can’t claim that as my trauma to bare. But they did destroy me in every other way a human can be. And I feel as filthy as if he had.

“You’re safe.” Something about the way he says it, it’s as much for his reassurance as it is mine. And that does weird, confusing things to my heart. Because I don’t know what I’ll see when I open my eyes and look at his face—pain, sadness, disgust?

“I’m ruined.” I whisper, feeling the sentiment in my bones.

His hand finally falls, the full weight of it on my shoulder, andI sob harder.

He might be my friend, and the perfect punching bag, but his presence does something to my battered soul. Even when I want to hate him—because that would be easier than what I know in my bones I feel for him—I can’t.

“You’re perfect,” he states, his resolve solid as stone.

And for the first time in days, I don’t want to fight him. I just want to fall apart.

“Can…will you hold me?” I’m more vulnerable in this moment than I was on my knees, covered in my own waste. I feel like I’m falling through darkness with no idea where the top or bottom lies.

He grips my shoulders, tenderly with his enormous hand, and turns me toward him. I still don’t open my eyes. I still can’t face him. And then he crushes me to his chest, his hand pulling my head into the warm, firm heat of him.

I shatter, the weight on my shoulders finally crushing me.

But Mateo’s here, and maybe,just maybe,he’s strong enough to help me hold onto the pieces.

TWENTY-NINE

ADALENE