She grabs a water bottle out of the diaper bag and follows after me.
“Just spit it out, Dee. It’s killing me. All night, I was worried about what you wanted to talk about. I could tell by the tone in your voice that something’s going on, but I can’t figure out for the life of me what it could be.” Her green eyes look so dark when she’s worried. She’s biting on her lip and fidgeting with her hands.
I start at the beginning and tell her about my parents, the boys I used to date, and how all those relationships ended. I tell her about how I didn’t have any real friends until the day I met her. She takes it all in, nodding her head a few times here and there to let me know she’s listening. I can tell she’s getting upset when I mention how bad things had been growing up with my parents, but she kept silent.
Then I tell her everything I’ve only spoken about to Dr. Maxwell and Maddox about. I finally reveal the secrets about her ex-husband that I have held in for so long. She only lets out a few shocked gasps, her hand shooting out to hold mine when I relate how he broke into my office and beat me.
“I should have done more to get you out, Izzy. I was just so scared of what he would do. I could see it in his eyes. I don’t know how I knew, but I just did. I sat by and let him hurt you, Izzy.” When I meet her troubled gaze and see the tears in her eyes, it breaks my heart, and the tears that I have been holding back start falling freely.
“You’ve been beating yourself up this whole time, haven’t you?” I nod my head, but before I can open my mouth, she interrupts. “Brandon was a sick man, Dee. You have no idea how much it hurts to know he got his filthy hands on you, but nothing that happened during my marriage is your fault.” She’s trying to keep her emotions in check, but the tremble in her voice gives her away.
I pause for a second to get ready to finish my story, and gaze out on the beautifully landscaped backyard. I must have been silent for a while, because her whispered question makes me jump.
“What aren’t you telling me, Dee? I know you. There’s more isn’t there?” Her voice is begging me to prove her wrong.
“Yeah, there’s more.” I take another breath and look back over to see her face awash with pain. “When he finally got done using his fist he told me that if I tried to contact you in any way, that he would kill you,” I whisper on a sob. Her tears are coming quickly, and I know I have to get the rest out before she starts to cry in earnest. “And then . . . then he took the only thing left to take from me.”
She starts shaking her head begging me to shut up.
“I’m sorry, so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me, but he said he would kill you! I tried to keep my eyes on you, but I was so terrified that if I even tried to warn you, he would take you from me completely.”
Her body is heaving with her sobs, and it’s hard to tell who is crying louder at this point. She grabs me and pulls me into a tight, painful hug. We sit there, rocking together for a while, before she pulls back.
“He raped you, didn’t he?” she asks a few minutes later, her voice calm despite the fact that her hands are shaking violently.
“Yeah, he did.”
If she hadn’t have jumped slightly, I wouldn’t have thought that she heard me since I’d spoken so lightly.
“I’m trying to process this. I really am . . . I can’t even wrap my head around all of this, Dee! Why didn’t you tell me years ago? Even after he was gone? Did you think I would blame you? God, never! I’m upset because you had to go through that alone.” She wipes her eyes with her shirt and tries to calm herself down. “You’re like my sister, Dee. Why couldn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know how. It seems so simple now, looking back, but then, all I saw was another man turned monster. It wasn’t even about the rape, Izzy. That was terrible, but I survived it. I was worried about you and what would happen if I didn’t find a way to save you.”
She grabs my hand and holds it tightly. “You did save me. That night that I called you, you saved my life that day and every day after. I wish you had told me about this years ago, but thank you for telling me now. For trusting me with this.”
We sit here both with our own pain, for a few minutes when I feel her hand constrict against mine. “You aren’t done, are you? If you were done, you wouldn’t look like that.” Her eyes are wide and panicked with the unknown fear of what else I have to tell her.
“I’m not done.”