Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 140604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 703(@200wpm)___ 562(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 703(@200wpm)___ 562(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Olivia knew it would be bad, but her gut tightened. She knew what was coming next. “He started hitting her?”
“No. He would never do that. He would never leave a mark. Physical violence wasn’t his thing. He appeared gentle, but you know there’s always another side to a person. Heather had been in the house for several months when it happened. I often wondered how long it had been going on. How long she endured. One night I was thirsty and I got out of bed at two in the morning and her door was slightly open. I heard something. I was worried, so I looked in,” he said in a monotone. How many times had he been forced to tell this story? “He was on top of her and she was crying. Our eyes met in the dim light and she looked so hollow. Like she didn’t think anyone would help her. She thought I would close the door and say nothing.”
She was sure that wasn’t how the story ended. “You didn’t.”
His head shook. “I did not. I pulled him off her. She said something about not being a whore. That he thought she was a whore like her mother. I saw red, and I don’t remember the rest until the cops came. I remember Garrett yelling and pulling me off him and then the cops were there and Heather wasn’t. She ran again. So there was no one to say what happened. I dragged him out into the hall. He gave his story from his hospital room. I attacked him when he found me with Heather. I was the one hurting her, and he was the one trying to stop me. They believed him. The DA decided they couldn’t get me on sexual assault since they couldn’t find Heather to testify and it would be my word against Bob’s, but they charged me with attempted murder because one of the other boys said he heard me telling Garrett I wanted to kill him. He was lying, but they all loved Bob.”
How alone he must have felt. How utterly hopeless. “Did they send you to juvie?”
“Baby, I was seventeen. They tried me as an adult. It was funny because I had no idea why I reacted like that. Not at the time. The public defender made me see a therapist who told me it was because I’d seen something similar happen to my mother. Maybe more than once. I was a child then and couldn’t help her.”
She ran her hand over his hair, a soothing gesture. “So you were triggered. Master, I don’t care how bad it was. He deserved it all. Even if you had killed him. She probably wasn’t his only victim. How bad was the trial?”
“It didn’t get to a trial. I was young and scared, and they offered me a deal. Twenty years or I risked more. I didn’t know what to do. I took the deal because it seemed impossible. I even wondered if I saw what I saw at one point. The prosecution had their own therapist. He asked a lot of confusing questions. He made me think I wasn’t right in the head at that moment.”
She wanted to rip apart everyone who chose their own comfort over his justice. “How did you get out?”
He should still be in jail.
“Heather came back. She’d cleaned herself up and been through her own therapy. She also had a little girl with her.” He sounded so broken it hurt. “I think that girl is what did it. She came back and told the police what happened that night. They said she had no proof. She said she did. DNA.”
Olivia’s eyes closed with the tragedy of it all. “Her daughter. The bastard didn’t even protect her.”
“Needless to say, everyone wanted it cleared up quickly. For the girl’s sake.”
“No, it was for all the adults involved who failed. They failed. You get that, right? They railroaded you because the other choice was far messier. They protected the system and allowed it all to continue rather than facing the truth and cleaning it up. They swept you under the rug, and they didn’t have to think about it again.” It made her sick, but she knew that was how the world worked sometimes. “Did you push for a new trial?”
He seemed so weary. He was still talking, but his body had relaxed. “Garrett was studying hard by that time. Prelaw. He knew a new trial could take a long time, and there honestly was no guarantee. It was still something of a he said, she said. Bob changed his story and said she came on to him. It shouldn’t have mattered because at that time she was fifteen, but we both know how the court looks at teen girls with records.”