Page 120 of Saving Ren

“Older? Married? Both?”

“Ren. . .”

“Total. Fucking. Honesty. Gabe,” she leans in again and shouts.

I empty the contents of my glass, and I give her all the honesty she’ll ever likely be able to handle.

“You want it, here it fucking is. When I was fifteen, the woman my dad is now married to used to sneak into my bedroom and suck my dick. How’s that, Ren? How’s that for honesty? While I cried, she’d stroke me until I got hard, and I tried, believe me, Ren, I fucking tried not to let that happen.”

“Gabe,” she whispers my name and steps towards me, but now it’s me that doesn’t want to be touched.

“No.” Pushing back from the chair, I stand up and point at her. “No, you wanted this, and now you’re gonna listen. She fucked me up, Ren. Told me she’d tell my dad I’d made a pass at her. He was happy, for the first time since my mum died, he was happy.So I said nothing.”

I pace as I talk, attempting to fight off the need to vomit that accompanies this topic. No one outside my brothers, their wives, and my counsellor know about this. It happened twenty years ago, and it still does this to me.

“I let it happen. I got hard. I tried not to, but I was fifteen.”

“Gabe,” Lauren sobs out my name, looking and sounding more defeated now than I’ve ever seen her. She holds her arms out, and I move so fast, I crash into her.

“I tried not to come, I tried everything, but I couldn’t stop it, and I felt so ashamed, I still feel ashamed. . .”

Her hands come to either side of my face, and she pulls it down into hers. My eyes dance across her features as I try to take in what she’s feeling.

“No,” she says fiercely. “Do not ever tell me you feel ashamed. You were a child. What she did was wrong. Far out. This is what you wouldn’t tell me yesterday. This is why you got so angry.”

I nod.

“I didn’t know how you’d react,” I admit. “I wasn’t ready to lose you if you hated me.”

“No.” Her face contorts as she says the word and sobs. “No, Gabe, no.”

She lets go of my face and puts her hands on top of her head and takes in a few deep breaths.

Feeling drained and relieved, I sit back down in the chair and watch Lauren pace the deck.

“I need to process this. I’m so fucking angry. I can’t even. . . Gabe, just think for a minute, it’s a horrible thought, but imagine a man doing that to Ava when she’s fifteen, would you blameher? Would you think for even a second that it washerfault?”

“Fuck no.”

“So why is it any different? Is that as far as it went? Did she do anything else?”

“She made me put my fingers inside her. I knew what I was doing, I’d done it to a couple of girls before. . .”

“Was it consensual?” she leans towards me and asks.

“Of course it fucking was.”

“Exactly. Doing that wastheirchoice,yourchoice, plus those girls were probablyyourage. She’s a peodophile. There’s no other word for it. She sexually abused a child. I’m not judging you in any way, but does your dad know now?”

“No,” I admit.

“He had a heart attack just before I turned sixteen, so they decided to get married. I was going to say something then, but I was scared he’d have another heart attack, by the time I’d told anyone, they were married, and he’d had his second heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry.” She walks towards me as she speaks, curling herself into my lap, she wraps her arms around my neck and holds on.

“Who did you tell?” she asks into my chest.

“My brothers and their wives. They went fucking insane. Zac lost his mind; he still struggles with it now. I moved in with Cooper straight after. Like me, they were scared of saying anything to Dad because of his heart, but they threatened Jackie. They let her know that they knew.”