“It would kill me if I did anything to remind you of what happened then.”
“I know.” I squeeze his hand and take a deep breath before continuing my story. “When I tried to fight back, he would hit me. He restrained me, beat me with a belt… I thought it would never end. And when I thought it couldn’t get worse, he shoved it down my throat, and I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe.”
“That’s enough, Nat.” With his arms like bands of steel around me, his tears wet my face and neck. “You don’t have to say another word.”
“I’m okay, and I want to tell you the rest so we can never talk about it again.”
He shudders and draws in a deep breath. I can feel his agony, and in that moment, I am absolutely certain he loves me every bit as much as he says he does.
“On Sunday afternoon, he told me to get up and take a shower. I hurt everywhere. He came into the shower and scrubbed me, violating me all over again as he washed himself off me. After, he grabbed a huge handful of my hair and brought his face down close to mine. He said if I told anyone what he’d done, he would fire my father. He said my dad would go to jail for the stuff he’d done and our family would be homeless. He said no one would believe a fifteen-year-old slut over the governor, and that if I breathed so much as a word to anyone, he’d kill me. I’m not sure what exactly came over me, but I had this vision of him doing the same thing to my sisters. When he told me to get my stuff and get out, I walked straight to the police station, which was half a mile from the governor’s mansion. I was so scared because of the things he said he would do to me and my family if I told, but I knew I had to protect my sisters or he would do this to them, too. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“God, Nat. You’re incredible. That you could be so clearheaded after what had been done to you.”
“I stayed focused on Candace and Olivia when I told the cops what’d happened. I was afraid he’d go after them or other young girls, which is how I was able to report him. At first, I could tell the cops didn’t believe me. I mean, when you think about it, here I was, this fifteen-year-old nobody accusing the governor of Nebraska of raping me—repeatedly. But he’d left bruises that forced them to take me seriously. They took me to the hospital… That was almost worse than what Oren had done. They gave me something in case I’d gotten pregnant, and the exam… It hurt so badly. I cried the whole time. I had to have stitches and… it was horrendous.” I take the napkin he hands me and wipe my face and blow my nose. “Except when I saw Dr. Richmond the other night, I haven’t been to a doctor again since.”
“And here I am asking you to go on birth control. I never would’ve asked you to do that if I’d known.”
I comb my fingers through his hair, needing to touch him, to comfort him. “You’re hearing this story for the first time. Don’t forget it’s old news to me. I don’t think about it every day anymore.”
“It’s going to be a very long time before I don’t think about it every day.”
“Is it going to change everything between us?”
He raises his head off my chest. “What? No, of course not.”
“If you treat me differently now that you’ve heard the dirty details, that will hurt me.”
“Nat… Christ… If anything, I love you more than I already did.”
“There’s more.” I’m determined to get through this and be done with it, so I press on. “The cops called my parents. They came to the hospital, and with my permission, the detective in charge told them what’d happened. My father looked at me like I was insane. His exact words were, ‘Are you out of your goddamned mind?’ He absolutely refused to believe that his precious Oren could’ve done what I was accusing him of. He also looked really scared. I found out later why. He’d been up to his elbows in all sorts of shit for Oren, and he had to testify against him to keep from going to jail himself. Somehow, I can’t imagine how, he managed to hang on to a job in state government.”
“What about your mom?”
“She believed me. I could see it in her eyes, but she was completely under my father’s control. He was in charge, and she did what he told her to. He said if I went forward with this, if I pressed charges, I was dead to them.”
“How could he do such a thing to his own child, especially when you’d been so badly hurt?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never understood the dynamics of his relationship with Oren. The cops told him it was no longer up to me. Oren had scrubbed me clean, but he hadn’t removed every trace of himself from me. They had DNA evidence and were moving forward with charges. ‘As we speak,’ the lead detective said, ‘Stone is being arrested.’ Hearing that, my dad dragged my mother out of the ER, and I’ve never seen or talked to them or my sisters again.”
“Good God, Natalie.”
“The sad part is, I wasn’t even surprised that he chose Oren over me. At least he was consistent.”