I consider not telling him. I’ve never told anyone, after all. It’s been my own personal albatross, my own personal hell. But I’ll tell him. I know it before I even really make the decision. I know it as surely as I know that the soft velvety material of the couch tickles my bare feet when I wiggle my toes. I don’t know why, but I feel like it’s important that I do. And, for once, I don’t question it to death. I just go with it.
“It’s hard to know who to trust,” I begin with a sigh. Cole doesn’t assure me that I can trust him. He doesn’t beg me to divulge all my secrets. He doesn’t try to convince me to spill my guts. He simply waits. Silently. Rock steady. In true Cole form.
I drag my gaze from the fascinating fire in front of me to the fascinating man across from me. I meet his eyes. I examine them. I dissect them. I search for an agenda, for some plan he might have to hurt me, to hurt Emmy. I find none. I find nothing more than a gentle yet cautious curiosity. It’s his peace within the moment, it’s his unspoken patience, his unshakable steadiness that carves out the dread and replaces it with resolve. Maybe it’s just time to share my load with another human being. Maybe it’s just time to let someone else take the weight, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
“But I’m going to trust you.” Still, he says nothing. He only watches me. Within the silence, though, there’s a solidness, as though the very air whispered to me that Cole is a rock and that I can lean on him as much as I need to. He can take it. Although he’s broken, he’s still strong enough to bear it.
“My parents left for Papua New Guinea when I was fifteen. They were both involved in Doctors Without Borders before I was born. I wasn’t planned. I ended up being a surprise that they weren’t particularly thrilled about. I changed their lives in ways they didn’t want changed. They were never mean to me, but they weren’t able to hide it either. They gave up the fight eventually and left me with my Aunt Lucy so they could do one more tour. Or at least that’s what they said. They sent cards for Christmas and for my birthday every year, but that was it. I haven’t seen them since I was fifteen years old.”
Cole’s eyes drop to my lap where I’m rubbing circles on my thigh with my index finger. A nervous habit. I’m sure he’s figured that out. I can feel all the emotions, all the fear and…aloneness that I’ve fought to overcome creeping back in, like the memories themselves have life. Or that they can steal it.
Cole’s expression is unreadable. I should expect no more. He hides what he’s feeling well. Until he wants it to show.
“Anyway, Lucy is a lawyer. Ambitious. Controlling. Cold. It didn’t really surprise anybody when she married Ryan, a guy ten years younger. She was thirty-five, he was twenty-five. He was an on again/off again underwear model who looked really good in a tux. She was loaded and bought him whatever he wanted. That dynamic worked for them.”
I drop my eyes when I feel the frown tug my eyebrows together. It happens whenever I think about this part. Whenever I have to acknowledge that maybe my parents knew. Although I hope they didn’t. Just the idea that they might’ve known steals my breath for just a few seconds. The sense of betrayal is that intense. I have to concentrate on inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling, willing myself to calm.
I clear my throat. “I don’t know if Mom and Dad knew about them. I like to think they didn’t, but…I could never be sure.”
I pause again, wondering if I’ve made a mistake by going back, back to a time that nearly killed me.
“Eden, you don’t have to do this. I shouldn’t have asked,” Cole says quietly, drawing my eyes back to his. His face is still handsomely inscrutable. It’s probably better that way.
“I want to.” And I do. Although it’s hard to think about and talk about this time in my life, I feel like I need to tell him. Like he needs to know this about me. About us. It’s like it has to come out. And maybe that’s good. It has eaten away at my insides for too long. “Ryan drank a lot. Always smelled like alcohol. He was up at all hours. Slept at weird times. He was the party boy. The arm candy. The trophy husband. And he was okay with that. I guess I should’ve known that it took a certain kind of man to live that kind of life. I just had no idea what kind of man.”
I take a deep breath and try to relax my tense muscles. I remind myself that I survived. That Emmy and I both did. And that we are safe. That calms me somewhat, but my stomach is still in a tight knot as the first words roll off my lips.
“The first night he came to my room, he said he’d heard me scream and thought I was having a nightmare. I didn’t remember screaming, but I couldn’t say for sure that I didn’t. I thought it was kind of sweet when he pushed me over and climbed in bed beside me. I’d never had someone who actually cared enough to check on me when I had a nightmare.” I hate the sadness in my voice. I hate that what I had thought was an act of kindness ended up being something awful and dirty, and that it devastated a young girl who only wanted to be loved. And to not be alone.
“But then it started happening more. He’d tell me that he heard me scream, even when I didn’t remember having a nightmare. But then one night, I realized what was happening. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted him to be someone in my life who cared about me. But he didn’t. He only wanted me for…other reasons.”
I’m staggered by a wave of nausea as, out of the blue, the sweetly alcoholic smell of Ryan’s breath assails me. It’s as though he’s kneeling beside me, whispering all the things he plans to do to me. Just like he used to. Just like I hated.
I focus on reality, on the scent of logs burning only a couple of feet away, and the subtle soapy aroma of the man across from me. All that is here in the present. Where the past can’t hurt me.
“The first time it happened, he’d crawled in bed with me and I’d fallen back asleep. I don’t know how long he waited, or how long I’d been asleep, but I woke to his hand under my nightgown, slipping into my panties.” My throat is tight, like a strong hand is curled around my neck, something that happened a time or two when Ryan was drunk. I struggle to swallow, to find my strength. To push the words through to my mouth, out past my lips, into the air where they’re free. “I stayed perfectly still for a few seconds. I didn’t know what to do. I think I even thought maybe he was dreaming. Or that I was. Only I wasn’t. And neither was he. The instant I reached for his hand, the minute I was going to ask him to stop, he rolled me onto my back and pinned my arms to my side. He was so strong and…he was so heavy…I-I couldn’t move. I-I…” I lean forward, fighting the burn in my lungs, the burn in my eyes.
He’s not here. He can’t find me. These are just memories. Memories can’t hurt me. Not anymore.