by Emma Roberts
"Morgan, what are you talking about?”
Her voice was tiny against the onslaught of emotion that was rising up inside me, but it was just enough to push me over the edge into telling her the truth. Into coming out with the truth that I did my best to keep from everyone.
"When I was a kid, my father’s friend abused me for years," I explained. I felt oddly removed from myself, as though I was talking about someone else entirely. Maybe because I didn’t talk about this a lot, the reality of laying it all out there for someone else to hear made me feel as though I was drifting distantly out of my own body.
She didn’t respond. I wanted her to, but she didn’t. She sat there, silent, staring at me. I wanted to meet her gaze, but I was worried that if I did, my ability to actually speak to her would vanish.
"He was in the business too – they both were," I continued, speaking faster now. "And the shit – the shit he did to me, you have no idea."
I wanted her to say something, but she didn’t seem to be able to come out with a word. I was terrified, telling her all of this, and I hated that I was so scared. This wasn’t my fault. This wasn’t something I had done wrong. But still, speaking to her about it, I felt like I was speaking it into existence, as though I was going through it all again right here and now.
"You think I deserved that?” I demanded, my voice hollow. "You think that because my father was in the industry, I deserved to have that happen to me?"
My words hung in the air between us, and I closed my eyes and gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"And what about the actors and the producers when I was growing up?” I continued. I felt as though I couldn’t hold back any longer. I needed her to hear this. I needed someone to hear it. I had held it in for so long, carrying it with me as though it was my shame to hide from the world at large.
"Did I deserve it from them too?” The words came tumbling out of me, so fast I couldn’t stop them. "Is that how the world works? Should I have avoided this whole thing because I knew I was asking for all of this?”
I finally turned to look at her, and her eyes were so heavy with sadness that I felt a lump rise up in my throat. This stuff had hurt me, of course it had, but I couldn’t imagine what it felt like for her to have this piled down on top of her out of the blue. I had held it with me for so long that it felt like second nature, but she was just finding this all out now.
"Have you ever spoken to a therapist about this?” she asked quietly. I shook my head.
"My parents knew what was going on when it was happening," I admitted. "They didn’t want me to go to a therapist. They thought it would blow everything up, ruin the family. They said I would never get away from it if I told anyone, that it would follow me around for the rest of my career..."
I stopped talking. The worst part was, they had been right. I had seen what coming out about this stuff had done to the people who were brave enough to speak up. But it had followed me my whole life anyway – my career be damned, this had crippled me in ways that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Keeping it in had probably made it worse.
"Jesus Christ," she muttered, and I turned to her again to see that she was crying. Tears were coursing down her face, and I hated myself for making her feel like this. Why had I thought this was something she needed to hear? She was horrified. She would never look at me the same way again. My emotions were flailing around; I couldn’t hold down my reactions.
"You’re the first person I’ve told," I replied, staring out over the road beyond. Cars were whipping by, probably filled with people who had thought better than to spill their deepest, darkest secrets to a woman they still barely knew. They probably knew it wasn’t exactly smart to pull this shit on someone that you wanted to be with.
After a long, long pause, she reached out to me and took my hand. The human contact made me jump; my skin prickled for a moment, panic launching through me. She was going to tell me this was too much for her to take, and she was going to leave. She was going to ask me to take her home, and that was the last I was going to see of her. The last few days flashed before my eyes, and I felt a sharp stab of sadness upon fearing that it was all over.
"Morgan." She spoke my name, and the world seemed to stop for a moment. I had no idea how this was going to go. I had never done anything like this before. I had nothing to compare it to.
"Morgan, I’m so sorry this happened to you," she continued. She touched my face and guided it toward her gently. Somehow, her hands on me didn’t feel invasive or too much – I often flinched from a touch like this, especially when I was feeling emotional. But with her, it soothed me.
"You didn’t deserve any of this," she continued fervently. "I can’t even...I can’t even get my head around it. Nothing you could have done would have meant that you deserved this."
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. I just needed her to keep on talking.
She hooked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward her; gently, she leaned forward and planted a kiss on my lips. She was crying now.
"Don’t cry," I pleaded, lifting my hand to wipe her tears away. She brushed my hand back down.
"This isn’t about me," she assured me. "I’m crying for you. I can’t believe...your parents, especially. What they did to you, Morgan, what they didn’t do for you – it's plain evil."
I lowered my head onto her shoulder and let it rest there. The position was awkward, but I needed her near me. I needed someone near me right now. To prove to me that what had happened to me hadn’t made me toxic in some way. As long as she was beside me, I knew that I could manage this. I had no idea how, but I would find a way.
"I’m sorry this happened to you," she murmured again, and I felt the wave of emotion rise up over me again. I couldn’t believe I had been holding this all down. More than anything, I was angry. I was furious. None of this was fair – what I had been through, what my parents had put me through when they had found out, all of it was so infuriating.
She wrapped her arms around me as though she could sense everything that I was feeling. I couldn’t believe I’d just told her all of this. It was so...wrong. She was already carrying so much on her shoulders, and I had laid this on her as well. We barely knew one another, but I had shared the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I had promised her a fun weekend, a way for the two of us to blow off some steam and for me to prove to her that I was worthy of working for her charity.
She let me lie against her until the pain had begun to subside. It felt as though I had torn open an old wound, making my body ache, while the anger seeped from me agonizingly. I listened to the sound of her heartbeat and watched as the tears dripped down onto her lap below me. But I didn’t let go.
Usually, when I was this close to a woman, there was one thing on my mind and one thing only, and that was finding some way to turn this closeness into sex. But with her, I didn’t want that. I mean, I was still attracted to her, of course, and there was still plenty I wanted to do as soon as we were back in the real world. But I didn’t need that. I could be close to her without wanting to take her. I just needed her close to me, and she was giving that to me. And that was the sweetest, most intimate thing anyone had given me in a long time.
I wasn’t sure how long we sat there, but the light dimmed outside, and rain started to fall on the window. But eventually, the anger started to fall away. I was still raw with feeling, but I could make it through. I could survive it, at least for the rest of the day. At least until I got home. Because Kari was there with me, and she’d listened, and she hadn’t left, and she had told me it wasn’t my fault. And that, even though I hadn’t known it, was everything I had needed from her.
16
Kari
Damn, it was always hard getting back to work after a break. Especially one that had been as eventful as the days I’d shared with Morgan.
It was strange, being back in the real world after all of that. It felt as though I had been on the set of a movie or something, living out some
life that could, in no way, actually be mine. I was too normal for that, too average. When I was with him, I was something special. And that was hard to let go of.
I mean, I would find a way through it, I knew that. Because it was over now, and I had to get back to what remained of my real life. The kids had been so happy to see me when I had gotten back, and I had been all teary at getting to hug them again. Clara had smiled as she’d watched us reunite, a big pile of cuddles and love.
"You have a good time?” she asked me after the kids were in bed and she was helping unpack my bags and put everything back where it belonged. She pulled out some of the new clothes and raised her eyebrows at me.
"He took you shopping?” She giggled, twisting the ski pants this way and that. I knew I would have no reason to keep them after this, but I didn’t care. They were to be a reminder of one of the best trips of my life, and I wasn’t letting them go anywhere. I took them from Kari and tucked them away in the back of my wardrobe.
"Yeah, I had a great time," I replied. She squeezed my hand.
"Well, that’s the main thing." I smiled at her. I was so lucky to have a friend like her around, I really was.
"Thank you so much for taking care of the kids while I was away, Clara," I blurted out, giving her a quick hug in thanks.
"Well, as soon as you’ve caught up on your sleep, you know I’m going to want to hear every detail," she replied, grinning as she pulled back from me.
"And you will," I promised her. "I just need to rest up first, alright?”
"I’ll allow it," she waved me in the direction of my bed, and I was grateful that I wouldn’t have to delve any further into what had happened over the course of the few days Morgan and I had spent together.
Because if I was being honest, I had no idea what to make of any of it. It had all been so damn much – from the sex to the food to the adventures, to him pulling over on the side of the road to spill his guts to tell me something he had never told anyone before. I could still remember how it had felt to have him open up to me in that way. It had felt so raw, so rough, so uncontrolled – but I had needed to hear it. Now that I knew that about him, I could put together some of the pieces that had been missing until then.
But now the weekend was over, and all of this information was just buzzing around in my brain with nowhere to go and nothing to do about it. I didn’t know where to take it from here. What should I do? Call him up and tell him that I was far from done with him? We were in different parts of the country; it wasn’t like I could just ask him out again.
Sitting here at work, it was hard to stay focused on the screen in front of me. I just didn’t give a damn about anything but him. And taking care of him. And having him take care of me.
"Afternoon."
A voice drew me from my stupor, and I looked up to find Adam’s girlfriend sliding by the open door to my office. She was dressed in a flawless black sheath dress, her hair tumbling down over her shoulders in a golden wave. She was carrying a bag with his lunch in it and eyeing me from the corridor.
"Afternoon," I replied curtly. I didn’t have time to sit about and gossip with this girl – I had things to do, stuff to take care of. She swept her gaze up and down me – normally, I would have been thrown off by the comparison between the two of us, but right then, I didn’t give a shit. I knew she was just trying to unsettle me, remind me that she was the one on top and that she was the one who had managed to sneak my husband right out from under me. Frankly, she could have him. As soon as she gained more than five pounds, he would be out the door and looking for the next desperate model to roll into his bed and bring him his lunch of an afternoon.
Besides, if that woman had any idea where I’d been the last few days, she would be singing a different tune. I hadn’t exactly publicized it, but it was a sweet little thrill I got to carry around with me all the time. Morgan, the movie star, had swept me off on an incredible sex-filled jaunt that I knew I was never going to forget. How many women working in an office on a Monday morning could say that and mean it?
I got to my feet and closed the door, letting her know that I wasn’t going to be rising to the occasion this time around. Normally, I would have let her hard looks and gorgeous figure sting me, but today, I had other things on my mind. Bigger things. Things that extended way past the walls of this office.
I sank back into my seat and stared at the emails in front of me. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do today. I had thought it would be easy, sliding back into work like I had never left, but everything had changed since the last time I’d sat in this seat.
I closed my eyes, leaned back in my chair, and let my mind run through the memories of everything that had happened while I was with Morgan. I knew that I was only making things harder for myself, but I just couldn’t resist. He was tantalizing – everything we had shared had been so intense, more than anything I could ever have imagined he could give me. I was falling for him, tumbling head-over-heels for him, and it was far too late for me to stop it.
But that was dangerous. How many women had he been through in the last six months alone? I could look up the numbers, check out every event he’d attended with a different lady on his arm. That wouldn’t have been encouraging. As soon as he got tired of me, I would be out on my rear end, and that would be it for us. He was probably only interested in me because I offered something different, a break from the Hollywood grind. When the next pretty girl glanced in his direction, he would be dropping me faster than I could say “ankle injury.” And all I would have left to show for it would be some fancy ski-wear that I knew I would never have any reason to put on again in my life.
I had tried to tell myself, as we’d traveled back together, that the only reason I felt as strongly for him as I did was because it had been so long since I had really felt a connection to anyone. I had denied myself real feelings, real affection, because the thought of letting that back into my life after I had been hurt so badly by it was too painful to consider. Now, I was just getting a little drunk on it, getting tipsy on the feeling of being wanted again – especially by a man who was as utterly desirable as Morgan. I would get over it soon enough and see that he was obviously wrong for me, and then I would be able to move on with my life.
I hoped.
I hadn’t heard from him beyond a text he’d sent to ask if I had returned back to the house alright. He had offered to drive me right to my front door, but I had turned him down. I knew I wasn’t ready for him to meet the kids yet. Besides, it was obvious that he’d needed some time to process everything that he had told me when we had been pulled over on the side of the road. I knew these things took time and space to work through, and he was going to need a hell of a lot of it to process what he was dealing with.
Which was a bummer for me because I wanted to see him again. Ugh, I couldn’t stop going around and around in my head. I felt as though my brain was about to burst out of my skull; it contained too many thoughts to bother keeping in any longer. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose – and that’s right when my phone buzzed.
I reached down to check on who was texting me, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was Morgan.
"Hey, didn’t hear anything from you last night," he had written. "Assuming you got home safely?”
"You assumed correctly," I replied. "Sorry I didn’t message you. I was so tired after I got in that I guess I forgot."
"Glad to hear I exhausted you," he texted back a moment later, putting an instant smile on my face.
"Don’t go patting yourself on the back quite yet," I replied. "I’ve got two kids; I’m always tired."
"Fair point," he agreed. "You feel like another break?”
"What do you mean?”
"Dinner, tonight," he suggested. "Just the two of us."
"I’ll have to check in with Clara, but I’ll let you know," I replied, biting my lip. He wanted to see me again. He really wanted to see me again. That was something, right? That was more t
han something. That was a whole lot of a thing.
I hurried to text Clara and let her know about our latest date – I hoped she wouldn’t mind covering for me too much. A moment after I sent the message, she fired one back, practically insisting that I go out while she take the kids for a while. I grinned broadly. This was happening. This was totally happening.
I felt a little guilty about leaving the kids for another night, but it had been so long since I had actually taken some time for myself – I needed this. They said you needed to have time just to yourself to be the best person that you could be, right? That was what I would tell myself, anyway. I knew that guilt was normal – as a mother, you never stopped feeling it, not really. But for now, I would put it on the back burner and focus on having a good night out with Morgan.
I wasn’t exactly dressed for an evening on the town – I had a black pencil skirt with a silk shirt tucked into it, with a pair of flats so that I could navigate easily around the office when I had to run from room to room. There were a pair of heels stashed in one of the cupboards around here that would fit me, and my bag was full of makeup that I had tossed in it with the hopes of actually slapping some on before I got to work this morning. I could come up with something that passed for date night, couldn’t I? Yeah, I could make this work. One way or another.
As the time rolled around for our date, I started getting a little fluttery. How was he going to feel now that we were out of the little haven of his place up in Colorado? Maybe he would want to just head back to his place and hook up again, and I would have to break it to him that I could hardly stay overnight anywhere now that I was back in town. My kids would figure out that something was going on, and I had no intention of exposing them to this. At least, not quite so soon. He was a movie star, and I had a feeling that dropping them into the middle of whatever was happening between me and Morgan was only going to confuse them – and me. Besides, it didn’t strike me that Morgan much liked children, even though he had gamely played along with fixing up the toys while he had been with me.
