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THE SUN SET IN THE West fields, churning the sky a watercolor of purple, pink, and orange. In the barn, the horses fed on hay and sweet oats, while the cattle grazed on grass and corn. Inside, Lexie’s mother paced the living room.
Lexie sat on the sage green sofa, a pale blue quilt about her shoulders, and a cup of tea in hand. Despite the heat from the mug and the soothing chamomile, a chill shook her.
The memory of her father’s strong grip on her just hours before was hazy. She was told he carried her inside, where she slept for several hours before waking, bleary-eyed and with a killer headache. But she barely remembered any of it.
Had she finally lost her mind? This nightmare she was living, maybe it would eventually kill her.
Her mother paced in front of her while her father stood in the corner of the room, frowning with his hands clenched inside the pockets of his worn blue jeans. Apparently, they had stayed by her side, waiting for her to wake. Now that she had, their expectations hung in the air as she explained again, “I don’t know what happened.”
Her thoughts were mottled, a confusing montage of what happened earlier in the afternoon, as she searched for an explanation. “One second I was in Anderson Outfitters, and the next second, I was outside on the concrete. I thought the man in the parking lot was him. I swear he passed me. His profile, his clipped stride, they were so similar. He even smelled like him. But it wasn’t...” She shook her head. “It couldn’t have been.” Swallowing, she closed her eyes. “It was so real, everything about it, and I swear I thought he was coming after me.”
But it had all been in her head.
Nodding, her mother glanced over at her father, and for the first time since Lexie’s admission, she noted the dark circles under her eyes, the lines creasing her forehead, the worry etched in her expression.
The muscle in her father’s jaw twitched, flexing below his cheekbones. Gone was his usual gentle and even-tempered manner. Nothing tender or soft was left of his demeanor, and when her mother glanced back at Lexie and said, “You must have had a PTSD attack,” his eyes filled with tears.
“What?” Lexie choked on a laugh. “Post-traumatic stress? No.” She shook her head. “That’s for veterans, war heroes, and stuff.”
“I’ve done some reading and research in the last few weeks,” Gail continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I wanted to get a sense of what you might be going through. Rape victims often have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s not uncommon. You said the man in the parking lot looked like your rapist? The sight of him, the familiarity, must have triggered your emotions and memories from that day. It makes sense.”
Lexie glanced down at her expanding waistline. She should’ve jumped when she had the chance. “I’m going up to bed now,” she whispered.
“What?” Her mother put her hands on her hips.
“I’m tired.” And I don’t want to deal with any of this, she wanted to say.
A wave of emotion swept through her mother’s eyes as she moved towards Lexie on the couch. “You broke down in a parking lot today. You thought your rapist was with you, trying to attack you. Lord knows what may have happened had Elliot not been there. He said you clearly thought he was someone else. You were trying to fight him off at first, yelling at him to stop and get away. You were curled up in the back of his truck semi-unconscious, whimpering like a wounded animal. And now, after all of this, once you are finally conscious and coherent, you want to just go to bed? Just like that? Like nothing happened at all?”
“You talked to Elliot about me? About what happened today?” Lexie asked.
Gail threw her hands up. “Of course I did. What did you expect? I had to find out what happened. Lord knows you weren’t going to tell me.”
Tears stung the back of Lexie’s eyes as her stomach roiled, her face burning in anger.
What did they want from her? What did her mother expect? “I don’t know what you want me to say!” she shouted.
“Anything would be nice. Something.”
“Did you tell Elliot about me?” The thought hit her like a whip, sharp, piercing through skin and flesh and bone.
Her mother stepped back, her jaw softening, gaze darting to the window.
Turning to her father, he also avoided her gaze, eyes fixed on the painting above the fireplace.
Swallowing, she tried again, “Did you tell him I was raped?”
“Yes.” Gail crossed her arms in front of her body. “I’m sorry that I did so without your permission, but I thought he needed to know,” she said, her tone defensive.
“You told him. How could you?” Lexie’s heart rattled against her ribs.
“Because you never talk about it. You don’t talk about what happened, Lexie. You haven’t so much as even mentioned your rape since the day you told me. And maybe I don’t want to hear the details because they would sear themselves into my mind with more permanency than any branding iron ever could. But I would listen to every horrid detail if I thought it would help you—if hearing everything would make you feel better.” Her mother’s body trembled with the force of her words. “You don’t talk about it though, and you need to. You need to talk about what happened to you. You can’t keep all of this bottled up inside!”
Moving closer, her mother reached out, her voice pleading, desperate, yet strong. “Holding everything in—your pain—is like poison. I see it eating you up inside, but you won’t share. You won’t share the burden of what happened.”
“That’s because it’s not your burden to carry. It’s mine,” Lexie snapped, jabbing a finger into her chest. “I was raped. This happened to me, and no one can do anything to change that. You can’t just clap your hands and make it disappear! My telling you only hurt more. I can see the anguish in your eyes. Telling you, knowing, hurts you.”
Her mother’s throat bobbed. “I know we can’t take away what happened, and it kills me that I can do nothing more for you—that I, nor your father, can take away the pain. Until you talk about what happened, though, he controls you. Your silence only further empowers him. You’re keeping yourself hostage to the events you had no more control over than the weather. Don’t do this to yourself. You did nothing wrong. Nothing.”
Lexie’s eyes filled and spilled over. The truth hurt, but maybe it’s what she needed to hear because her mother’s words filled her with clarity.
Part of her wanted to run away. To leave this all behind. But she couldn’t run from this any more than she could turn back time and change what happened to her.
Tears streamed down her face, as pain seeped from her body like an open, festering wound. In two long strides, she fell into her parent’s arms, drowning in their embrace.
“We’re helpless to save you,” her mother said. “You have to save yourself. Please.”
Her father squeezed her so tight she could hardly breathe, but she relished it, letting their arms protect her, support her, and lift her up. Because she wasn’t the only one hurting, and ignoring what happened, hurt all of them more. Like the proverbial skeleton in the closet, her assault was always there, hiding in wait. They all felt the wicked presence her rape imposed, and silence did nothing but feed it.
“If I find him, I’ll kill him,” her father murmured into her hair, his voice so low she wondered if she heard him right. Until he repeated the grating words, startling in their violence. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him...
Always the mediator, the soft-spoken, kind-hearted one, she had never before gleaned so much hatred from her father. Vengeance was not in his blood, but he spoke with such conviction, she believed him.
Only then did Lexie realize the extent to which her rape and her silence hurt them.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she choked on a sob, along with the knowledge that as long as her own pain, her own suffering and shame, were so raw, her rape would continue to wound them. She hurt; they hurt. Because they had to stand by and watch her, this half-woman, this shell of the daughter they once knew, meander through her life with a bitterness so strong it ate her up inside.
The hatred she felt toward Brent raged inside her like a wild beast, alive and well. He destroyed her. He hurt her family. The certainty that her life would remain forever changed was only a subset of her anger, but she clung to the feeling. Because at the moment, hate felt a whole lot better than her pain.
* * *
LEXIE RUBBED THE DARK notch in the honeyed wood. She sat at the kitchen table her father made when she was a little girl and stared out the window at the rain. It was late and sleep evaded her, so she slipped downstairs in the dark, to the kitchen for a snack.
The half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich sat on a plate in front of her, a comfort to her rumbling stomach, but not her nagging anxiety.
The sound of the rain, heavy on the roof, helped ease Lexie’s mind only slightly. Something happened today after her episode at Elliot’s store and the conversation with her parents. Her mother’s words broke something free inside her. She was right. Lexie could no longer keep quiet because her silence would destroy her. If she held back, kept the feelings about her rape to herself, she only hurt more, while further empowering Brent in the process. By keeping quiet, she gave Brent what he wanted, she let him win.
Along with this revelation, the day’s events brought on a second epiphany. Whether she liked it or not, she was raped and survived to tell her story. She wasn’t dead, so she needed to stop acting like a corpse and try to start living. Recovery was the only way out of this. She needed to find a piece of the old Lexie, even at the expense of having to merge her old self with the new one. The choice to live her life, not just get through it was the only one she could make. Being active in her survival was imperative. Otherwise, what was she doing here? She may as well go back to Pittsburgh, to her balcony and the cold concrete beneath her feet and jump.
She made the decision after she discovered she was pregnant that she would not end her life. Unwanted or not, monster or not, a hideous reminder of her rape or not, Lexie would not terminate the life inside her. Nor would she end her own with his spawn within her. She came to the farm to live out her months until delivery and she could give the baby up. Afterward, she hoped to pick up the pieces of her life. But in order to move on, she needed to make some changes. Living her life day-to-day like a zombie was not helping her.
Lexie got up from the table and moved to the cupboard over the sink. She removed a glass, turned the sink on, and filled it, then took a deep drink.
She had a lot of things to do. First, she had to tell Sienna what happened—at least in part. Eventually, Sienna would either badger it out of her or get tired of Lexie’s silence and stop caring, but Lexie bet money on the first scenario. Still, as battered and bruised as she was, she didn’t want to wager on her friendship. It was the one relationship that had meant the world to her over the past ten years.
So she would call Sienna first thing in the morning and ask her to drive up to the farm so they could talk. Then she would tell her about the rape, minus any mention of Brent. Sienna had every right to know the man she was married to, but it was too soon, and Lexie was finally finding her legs again. She needed to crawl, not sprint. Telling her best friend that her husband was not the man she thought he was, was more like running a marathon.
As for the pregnancy, Sienna would see that for herself. The discovery might be hard for her, due to the years of infertility, of praying, hoping, wishing, for her own child, but Lexie knew she would be supportive. She wondered, however, what her reaction would be to the news she was not keeping the baby. Would she be angry? Resentful?
Lexie shivered at the thought.
How could she tell her best friend, who wanted a baby more than life itself, that she was pregnant and giving hers up? Part of her feared Sienna would ask to adopt the child, and although Lexie would do anything for her, giving her child to Sienna was not an option. At least not while Brent still shared her bed. Besides, the baby would be a constant reminder of what happened, one she couldn’t bear, and as a result, if Sienna raised her child, their friendship would all but vanish.
The second thing Lexie needed to do was make an effort to live life on her own two feet. She needed to get an apartment or find someplace to rent. She liked the idea of staying close to Andover, at least for the time being. The support of her family was invaluable, and even though only she could heal herself, having them around was important. Because her mother never let up. They never gave up on her. They stood next to her in battle, comrades in arms, helping her to carry her sword.
Lastly, Lexie needed to contact the adoption agency. Only she could do that, and she would ask for no help. Sienna, as well as her parents, would find the arrangement of her adoption too painful. Sparing them was the least she could do.
Despite the anxiety of talking to Sienna, the complexities of finding a place to live, and contacting an adoption agency, facing Elliot scared her most. But how could she not go see him after what happened?
Lexie had changed since she left, in more ways than one. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that he knew about her rape, knowing the baby inside her was unwanted, but it had been so long, maybe he, too, had changed. Would he secretly acknowledge that the life she had left him for had backfired? She didn’t think so. Smug and Elliot didn’t seem to quite fit the memory of the man she had once promised her life to. But seeing him for the first time since she left would be hard. A lot of fear accompanied the notion of confronting him. After all, she had been the one to do the hurting where he was concerned.
What would he think of her now? And how would her body react to the sight of him after all this time?
She had loved him once, fiercely, passionately. While she physically left town years ago, a piece of her had stayed behind. And that piece resided with him.
An image of him, all tanned from the sun, golden curls sweeping around his ears and brushing the back of his neck, with eyes so blue she could set sail in them, came to mind.
The memory hurt, so she shook her head, clearing her thoughts.
Moving to the trash can, she threw the uneaten portion of her sandwich away, then left the kitchen. With the soft glow of the moon lighting the way, she climbed the stairs. Each step carried an inexplicable weight as her thoughts drifted over all that had happened in these past months and what was yet to come.
When she left her hometown years ago, she had never really said goodbye. Instead, she merely shoved Elliot Anderson into a tidy compartment in her mind and her heart, hiding him away in the dark. But smothering her feelings for him hadn’t put out the flames. No matter how many miles she had put between them or how much time had passed, he still flickered like torch fire in her heart.
To face Elliot, meant fanning the flames. It was dangerous. And for the first time since she left, she wondered if that’s precisely why, after all this time, she had never done it.