Page 43

Minutes later, we sit in the back seat of the town car, the center divider up, so we’re enclosed in this small cocoon of privacy. My feet bounce on the ground. Perhaps it’s because we’re shrouded in the darkness in this small space, I’m compelled to do something I’d never done before.

Another first with him.

“Charles,” I whisper, my eyes staring at the black divider in front of me. “I w-want to tell you what happened to me.”

His breath hitches, and he reaches toward me, gently clasping my hand in his. Before I draw down the bridge and let him storm the castle, I want to tell him the truth, the story I’ve never told anyone other than Alexis, Camden, the cops, and the school therapist.

I want to be brave…and I want to know if he’ll look at me differently.

If it is a mistake to open up to him.

He links his fingers with mine and gives it a squeeze before pulling me to his side, but I feel the tension radiating from his frame.

Blowing out a breath, I begin, “When I was sixteen, I was a trainee at a top ballet academy. I was a scholarship student, because back then, it was just Mom, Grace, and me. Mom wouldn’t tell us who our father was, so it’d always been just the three of us. Mom worked a lot. Grace also took on additional jobs outside her classes because fuck…everything in New York City was expensive, even if we lived in the shittiest place in the Bronx.”

My nose prickles as I think of the past, which seems a world away, and yet I can remember as clearly as if it happened yesterday. “I wanted to quit ballet too. It was expensive even with the scholarship. The shoes, the outfits. The extra fees. I could’ve gotten a job to help my family out. But Mom and Grace insisted I continue, because I had talent and I loved to dance. And I do…it was… is my life.”

I focus on the reassuring graze of his thumb on my hand as I get to the next part. “Things were going well. We didn’t have much, but we were happy. I was doing well in ballet. My instructor thought I was going places. But everything changed one night.”

I rake out an exhale, nausea starting to swirl in my gut. “There was a celebration—the end of a successful season. Like ABTC, we relied on the funding from rich sponsors and this was an event all of us were expected to attend. After all,” I scoff, “the sponsors wanted face time with the people they were spending money on.”

The car slows to a stop and Charles slides open the divider and murmurs something to the driver before leaning back. A second later, the driver’s door open and he leaves, leaving Charles and me alone in the car.

“You don’t have to do this for me. Only if you want to,” he murmurs.

I still don’t look at him because I’m afraid if I see him staring at me in pity, I wouldn’t be able to continue.

And I want him to know. If there’s someone I want to trust with this ugly truth, I want it to be the man who thinks roses are more beautiful with thorns.

“My best friend dressed us up. I was secretly excited because Grace and I never got to go anywhere—we couldn’t afford to. I wanted to see how the other half of the world lived—the women in pretty dresses and nice shoes, men in their expensive suits and shiny watches, just like the damn TV shows. The academy covered all the costs, and we had a blast. We stayed behind after the event ended because we didn’t want the night to end.”

I unlace my hand from his, my palm sweaty. I close my eyes, not wanting to see or hear anything, as I purge my memories of that night. “I had a boyfriend then, he was a dancer too, but Camden had to help out at home and couldn’t come. I got separated from my group and…b-but I was…I didn’t care. I was at the bar, feeling so very grown up.”

Fighting the urge to dry heave, I continue, “An older man came up to me—he looked like he stepped straight out of a fashion magazine, or a stock photo for a hot successful businessman. He congratulated me on my performance. He was charming, nice, didn’t treat me like a little girl.”

I tug the hem of my sweater. “I fell hook, line, and sinker for his smiles and charisma. I even felt guilty for being attracted to him when I had Camden.”

Shaking my head, I murmur, “I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just so excited. He asked me about my hobbies, my family—he seemed so genuine and interested in me. I thought nothing of it when he handed me a flute of champagne.”

My voice trembles as anger and self-hatred carve a fresh wound inside my chest. The argument I’ve made in my mind a thousand times since that night. “How could I have been so stupid? Lesson 101: don’t take food or drink from strangers. They teach that to toddlers. But I didn’t remember.”

I shudder and focus on Charles’s presence next to me. “I never had champagne before. Fancy stuff, you know? I felt like a new person, not the poor girl from the Bronx. I didn’t think…I shouldn’t have drank it. I remember thinking champagne didn’t taste that good. It was weird to have bubbles in alcohol.”

My cheeks are wet with tears, but I don’t bother wiping them away. “Then the world swirled around me and my nightmare began. I couldn’t move. I could barely speak. Everything was in fragments. Painful, terrible fragments. The next thing I knew, I was in a dark room, and there were multiple men there.”

“Fuck,” Charles mutters under his breath. I hear the horror and fury radiating from his voice. “Taylor, I—”

“No! Let me finish, or else I won’t have the guts to tell you the truth.”

He quiets, but he grips my hand in his, his fingers tightening almost to the point of pain. His forearm trembles on my lap, but he doesn’t say another word.

“I suppose it was both a blessing and a curse to be drugged, because I don’t remember everything. But then I also didn’t remember enough to ID the bastards and put them away. I didn’t know how many of them were there that night. I just remember hearing the sounds of men undressing, grunting, my dress being ripped from my body. The sensations, the pain, probably made worse b-because…”

I sob loudly, my tears free falling now. “It was my first time. I was saving myself, you see. I went somewhere in my mind, far away from it all. I didn’t know how long or how many times h-he, th-they…I don’t remember. I just remember one of them the most…light hair, light eyes, raspy voice. The smell of peppermint. It’s his voice I hear when the monsters in my mind come now. And do you know what the fucking cherry on top was?”

I swipe my tears from my cheeks, but they keep falling down. My chest is being cleaved in half, the pain so visceral I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal again.

“That monster did something to me, and my body betrayed me. He made me feel pleasure—it was cruel. I came even though I didn’t want to. My first orgasm. It took me by surprise and I felt disgusted, sick.”

Charles intakes a sharp inhale but stays silent. His grip is painful on my hand now, and I focus on the pain, the grounding pain, so I can continue.

“When I came to a few hours later, she shook me awake. I was naked in the back room of the lounge and she…sh-she took one look at me and ran off. She was supposed to be my best friend!” I pound my fists on my lap, experiencing her betrayal all over again.

“I remember the revulsion in her eyes. She was so disgusted. But she came back. She gave me some clothes she found somewhere then dropped me off at my apartment. She told me she was quitting ballet. I never saw her again.”

I begged Alexis not to quit when we were parked in front of my apartment. I needed her. I didn’t want to tell Mom or Grace what happened. I felt ashamed. Stupid. Dirty. But Alexis just shook her head.

“I fell apart, and I took a steaming hot shower afterward, wanting to clean myself of those monsters. But I couldn’t stay in the shower for too long or else Grace would suspect something was off. So I told her I caught a nasty bug and felt sick, and lucky for me, she bought it.”

Closing my eyes again, the tides slowly recede. The rest of the story is painful, but we’re reaching the end. “Then, the next day, Camden came by. He looked furious. He said he was worried about me going to a hotel lounge and he stopped by, hoping to surprise me. He…s-saw me with them through a small gap at the door. He didn’t even notice how wrong the situation was. A-And he said it looked like I was enjoying it.”

Fury replaces the earlier anguish—the sudden flood of emotions disorienting. I scream into the dark, “Like I enjoyed being raped by monsters!”

The R word. The first time I’ve used it in almost eight years. It feels cathartic and yet an avalanche of grief, betrayal, and anger slams into me. My breathing saws in and out of my lungs, and for a moment, I couldn’t speak. But I need to. I want to finish the rest of my story, even if that means he’ll leave me after this.

Because he’d be repulsed by me.

“Camden dumped me. He didn’t believe me. He asked why I didn’t go to the police if I was a victim. The truth was, I didn’t think. I just wanted to go home, to get clean and pretend nothing ever happened, but that was impossible. I did eventually go to the cops, but they took one look at me and said I didn’t have any evidence because I washed it all away.”

I scoff, my voice raspy. “As soon as they heard I had alcohol, and I was underage and from the Bronx, they probably wrote me off as some gold-digging delinquent. They didn’t believe me. I tried talking to the school therapist, who didn’t do shit. She kept focusing on the fact I couldn’t remember much. Was there a chance I made parts of it up?”

I shake my head and slump on to the seat, my body exhausted, my energy depleted. “Nobody believed me. My best friend and boyfriend both left me within forty-eight hours of the worst night of my life. He quit the academy the following month and cut off all ties with me. He never even apologized to me! Since then, I couldn’t dance Odette. I couldn’t be the beautiful white swan. I couldn’t let anyone close to me. I buried my anger and trauma into the deepest part of my heart. I was grossly violated, but I swore I’d protect myself in the future. I wouldn’t let my body or my heart be hurt again.”

The next words come out in a whisper. “I guess there was a silver lining—I didn’t get pregnant or catch any diseases. I never told my family, my other girlfriends, or even Lisa. Nobody else knows. I don’t want them to look at me differently, like I’m damaged. I don’t want them to feel sorry for me. I’m not the only woman this has ever happened to. Shit happens in the world and this just happens to be my pile of shit. I don’t want to be any different… I want the old Taylor Peyton to live on in their eyes.”

Slowly, I unlink my hand from his and fold my arms over my chest, my eyes still squeezed shut. “You once asked me what happened to me, if I hated myself, and I lashed out at you because,” a lump forms in my throat, “because you were too close to the truth. So now, you know everything. You’re the only person who knows all the ugly details. And to this day, those bastards are out there living their lives and I-I’m trapped.”

Pain tears my insides as I whisper the rest of the story, “I still hear their voices, the awful things they said to me. They mocked me, saying I must be enjoying my first cock since I was thrashing under them. They said no one would miss me. They called me little beauty. I didn’t want to be beautiful anymore. They called me Harriet. ‘Fly Harriet.’ For the longest time, I’d obsess over these phrases, trying to figure out what they mean, trying to make sense of why this happened to me. But it was useless. I realized there was no way to rationalize what these monsters did to me.”

I brace myself for judgment, for the same words of betrayal and cold revulsion I heard from Camden, the horror I saw in Alexis’s eyes, or the pity from the cops or the therapist. I wrap my arms tighter around myself, needing to brace for the inevitable.

But instead, I feel his large hands on my shoulders as he turns me toward him. His reassuring scent wraps around me like the sweetest embrace, and I want to cry. I want to melt into his arms, but I’m also afraid to open my eyes.

I’ve never felt so naked before, like a rose in the barren winter, all the beautiful petals gone, only the ugly thorns remaining.

Who would love me now?

Maybe that’s the secret I’ve been hiding all along. The biggest fear in my lovesick heart. The reason I haven’t let anyone close is because I won’t ever have to be disappointed when they don’t love me back.