Sarah stood on my porch just as she had Sunday night, only now, the sun was shining, the sky clear and blue above her. She was staring at her feet when I opened the door, but slowly, her gaze climbed until her eyes connected with my own.
She didn’t have to say a word for me to know she’d been through the same hell I had the past few days.
“I’m sorry I came by unannounced,” she said, voice surprisingly steady and firm. “I know our lesson isn’t until this evening, but I wanted to come by earlier to talk. If that’s okay.”
That guilt that had somehow washed away at the sight of her crawled its way back up, sticking to my throat and making my next swallow nearly impossible as I stepped back, holding the door open for her. “Of course. Please, come in.”
Rojo had been impatiently waiting behind me, and as soon as I moved, she squeezed through, greeting Sarah with a wagging tail and wet, sloppy kisses to her hands.
Sarah smiled, bending a bit to pet Rojo as she made her way inside. When we were all in the foyer, I closed the door behind her, shoving my hands in the pockets of my gym shorts.
“Thanks for coming by,” I said, snapping my fingers at Rojo to let her know it was time to calm down. She sauntered over to the couch, tail still wagging and eyes locked on Sarah, begging her to join. “I’m sorry the house is kind of a mess,” I continued, running a hand back through my damp hair. “I’ve been… busy.”
Sarah nodded. “Oh, it’s okay. I understand.” Her eyes washed over the living room — the empty cans of beer, blankets strewn everywhere, pillow on the couch where I’d tried to sleep since the bed was no reprieve, ashtray on the coffee table, evidence that I hadn’t cared enough to even go outside to smoke.
Then, her gaze turned to me.
She swallowed, the constriction of her throat all I could watch as her eyes took in my naked, sweaty chest. They lingered on my navel, dropping briefly to where my abs met the band of my shorts before they popped back up to meet my eyes.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” I scrambled over to the couch, plucking the sleep shirt I’d worn off it and tugging it on. “I was just about to get in the shower.”
Crimson shaded her cheeks, but Sarah didn’t otherwise acknowledge the fact that I’d been shirtless. “Can we sit?”
“Of course.” I hurried into the kitchen, pulling out a barstool for her like a fucking idiot. I even held it there, like a waiter about to scoot her in and ask if she’d like sparkling or spring water.
Sarah’s eyes softened a little, a smile touching the edges of her lips as she took a seat.
“Do you want a drink or anything? Water?”
“I’m okay,” she answered.
Sarah wouldn’t look at me now, her gaze solely focused on her hands, which were folded in her lap now. I slid onto the stool across from her, throat sticky and tight. Every apology I’d had seemed completely deficient now that I had her in my house. And the sickest thing was, in that moment, with her sad eyes cast down and unable to look at me, I wanted to kiss her just as badly as I had Sunday night.
I was the worst kind of fucking person.
“Sarah,” I breathed, swallowing down what nerves I could. “I am so sorry about what happened.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head like my words had caused her pain, and it killed me when I realized I actually had. A sharp pang of guilt ripped through me, and I winced against it.
“I wish I had more to say, some sort of… I don’t know,” I said, words scrambled as I tried to find the right ones to say. “Reason, I guess. Or excuse. Something to make what I did—”
“Please, don’t apologize, Reese,” she said, eyes still squeezed shut.
I frowned, wishing she’d look at me. My hands reached forward, but I stopped myself before I could touch her, planting my palms on the granite, instead. “But, I am. I am so fucking sorry, Sarah. What I did was inexcusable. I betrayed your trust. I—”
“There’s no one I trust more than you,” she said, cutting me off again as her eyes flew open. Her breaths were labored, her cheeks flushed as she looked behind me at the fridge. “I’m sorry, I think I actually would like some water.”
“Of course.” I popped up, plucking a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water from the pitcher in my fridge. Sarah downed half the glass once it was in her hand, and she kept her fingers wrapped around it like a safety blanket once it was back on the counter.
“I don’t want you to be sorry about what happened…” she said after a long moment. “It’s me who’s sorry.”
I frowned. “You? Why on Earth would you be sorry, Sarah? You did nothing wrong.”
A bawdy laugh left her throat, and she shook her head, eyes still on her hand that wrapped around the glass. “I jumped off you, screaming, and then bolted out your door like a crazy person.”
My stomach twisted at the memory, guilt strangling me like actual hands around my throat. “Honestly, I don’t feel like that reaction is out of place at all after what I did.”
“Stop saying that, stop saying what you did like you punched me instead of kissed me.”
We both quieted at that, at the verbal admittance of what had occurred. It was like skirting around the word somehow kept us in a safe ring, and now we were back in the wild, back where there were no lines or rules or designated areas where we were supposed to reside — me in one, her in the other, never to cross over.
Sarah sighed, her eyes flicking to mine before they fell to her hand again. “I wanted you to kiss me, Reese.”
I closed my eyes, letting out a long, slow breath through my nose to calm the energy that sparked to life inside me at her words. I wanted to pull her into me, to kiss her again, to say to hell with what anyone thinks. But all of that was dangerous — for her, for me. And even if she’d wanted to kiss me, too, she’d been the one to say stop.
I was the older one, the teacher, the one who should have been in charge. And yet it was her who was strong enough to say no, to remind me where we stood.
I’d failed her.
“Sarah…”
“No, please, Reese.” She gripped her glass tighter, pulling it toward her like it was the water she was pleading with, or like it was me she held in her hands. “I came here to explain something…” Sarah shook her head, biting her lip against the tears welling in her eyes. “But it is so, so hard for me to even consider telling you what I’m about to. And I don’t know how this is going to come out, or what you’ll think of me when it’s all done. I just… I need you to just listen to me. Please. If you can.”
“Of course, I can,” I said, and this time I reached for her, wrapping my fingers around her forearm with a squeeze. I willed her to look at me, but she still wouldn’t. “Whatever it is, I’ll always listen to you.”
I couldn’t do anything right, couldn’t comfort her the way I desperately wanted to. She pulled away from my grip like it had burned her, eyes squeezing shut again as she tucked her hands under her thighs. She stared at the ground, at the counter — at anything but me.
And I couldn’t blame her.
I couldn’t find any fault in that innocent, wide-eyed girl who sat across from me, who had trusted me, who I’d betrayed. Now, she was here to tell me something that was so hard for her that she was visibly shaking, and I had a feeling I already knew what she needed to say.
We can’t do this, Reese.
You’re my teacher, I’m your student.
I’m sixteen years younger than you.
You work for my uncle.
I’m leaving for New York, I have my whole life ahead of me. And you… well, you’re nothing. You’re not what I need.
You’re not what would make me happy.
“I don’t know where to start,” she whispered after a long while.
I sighed, swallowing down any hopes that were still alive. “It’s okay, Sarah. You don’t have to say it. I know. I know what happened can’t happen again, and I know—”
“I was raped.”
&
nbsp; Her hands clapped over her mouth as soon as the words were out, her eyes wide in horror as they lifted to meet my gaze. Tears welled over those golden irises so quickly she didn’t have time to try to stop them before they broke the levy of her lower lashes, falling down her cheeks to meet where her hands still covered her lips without so much as a blink.
For a moment, she stared at me like she couldn’t believe she’d said what she had, or like she was waiting for me to run, like somehow I would be tempted to bolt after what I’d just heard.
The only thing I was tempted to do was full on Hulk smash whoever the motherfucker was who put his hands on her without permission.
Everything slowed in that moment — my breathing, the strong beat of my heart in my chest, my thoughts. They almost came to me like zombies in a fog, slow and gruesome, disappearing again before I could latch onto them and digest them fully. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but try to breathe and loosen the menacing grip my fists had wound into.
I wanted to murder him, and I didn’t even know who him was.
More than that, I wanted to pull Sarah into my arms, shelter her from the pain, from the memory, from the tears falling freely from her eyes. I’d never had an urge to protect someone more in my entire life.
But all I could do was sit there, breathing.
And even that took all my effort.
Sarah dropped her hands into her lap along with her gaze, tears still leaking out of her eyes. Every now and then, she’d sniff, reach a hand up to wipe the wetness from her cheeks — all the while staring at her lap while I stared at her.
Nothing that came to mind felt right to say in that moment. I wanted to ask her who it was, when it happened, what happened to him when she told someone — did she tell anyone? I wanted to know if that motherfucker was in jail or if I could get his address and kick his ass myself.
But none of that would help Sarah. None of that would take her pain away.
I wasn’t sure anything ever could.
“It was my professor,” she whispered after the longest time. Her face broke again with the admission, letting more tears run freely. “That’s why I left Bramlock.”
My entire body squeezed on the next exhale, hands shaking as I ran them back through my hair with my eyes still on her. “Wolfgang?” I asked. “Wolfgang Edison… he… he…”
“Raped me?” Sarah asked, like she knew I didn’t even want to say the word. Her voice was stronger as she lifted her eyes to mine. “Yes. He did.”
My nose flared, muscles tensing with the urge to fly to Florida and fuck him up. No wonder she’d freaked out at the end-of-the-year concert when I’d mentioned him. I’d brought up the biggest monster of all right before she was about to perform. He was her professor, her teacher — the one she had to spend the most time with, the one she trusted the most.
I sobered at the realization that I was the same.
And I’d betrayed her trust, too.
She seemed almost numb as she stared at the kitchen counter. “It sounds awful when I say it out loud. You know?” She shook her head. “You always hear about it happening to other people, see it on TV, on the news, in the movies… but when it actually happens to you?” Sarah swallowed. “There is no more shameful pain in this entire world.”
I sucked in a breath that scorched my esophagus.
“Sarah,” I breathed her name, shaking my head as I swallowed past the burning thickness in my throat. I felt sick. I felt responsible. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry this happened to you.” I shook my head. “And you have nothing to feel ashamed of. Okay? Do you understand me? Nothing.”
Her face twisted again, eyes welling as she nodded.
Silence fell over us, Sarah sipping her water as I stared at the granite counter between us. I’d never been in this position, never been the one a woman trusted to tell something like this to. I was at a loss for words, and the longer the silence stretched between us, the shittier I felt. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, tell her it would be okay.
I wanted to go back to Sunday night and take back what I’d done.
“Sometimes, I feel stupid for not seeing it coming,” she confessed with a sniff. “There was this gut feeling, you know? Not at first. Not at any point in my first year working with him, if I’m being honest. But, sometime in my sophomore year, I started to feel his attention more. Sometimes, he would comment on my appearance, or touch me in a way that felt wrong. Like, once, after a rehearsal, he held his hand on the small of my back as he talked to the rest of the performers. It didn’t feel wrong, since it was in front of everyone and all, but… it didn’t feel right, either.”
Sarah paused, her eyes lifeless as they stared at the granite counter.
“But I didn’t question it. I trusted him, perhaps blindly. I just… I never thought…” She bit her lower lip, blinking several times. “Maybe if I wouldn’t have dressed the way I used to, or if I had talked to someone when I first felt uncomfortable. I mean, maybe I led him on, by not outright rejecting him. Maybe—”
“Sarah,” I interrupted, squeezing her hand in mine. I lowered my gaze until she looked at me. “It is not your fault. His actions are his responsibility, not yours. The way you dress, the way you look, the trust you gave him, the time you spent with him — none of that is permission to touch you. Okay?”
She looked down again, and the burn in my chest shifted, transforming in a need for her to understand.
“I don’t want to talk about it more right now, if that’s okay,” she said, blinking away the tears that were beginning to form again. “I just… I wanted to tell you because that’s why I ran. I wanted you to kiss me, Reese. And I wanted to do more than just kiss. But… I’m damaged goods. I’m fucked up.” The words came from her lips in bursts between her cries. “He was the first to touch me… to ever have me. And when you were touching me, I felt amazing. It was perfect. I wanted you. For the first time, I wanted to be kissed, to be touched… but then… I saw him. And felt him. And…” she choked, more tears falling. “Remembered him.”
“Jesus Christ.” I stood, rounding the counter until I was standing next to her. She turned in her stool just as I approached, standing when I reached her, and I pulled her into my arms and held her as tightly as I could. “I am so fucking sorry, Sarah. I am so sorry. But you’re okay. You’re safe. Okay? I promise.”
I wished I could hold her so tight I could take away what had happened, take away the pain, the memory. She cried harder now that she was in my arms, her small hands fisting in my t-shirt. And I gritted against the urge to break everything in my apartment since I couldn’t break Wolfgang’s face. He’d taken something so precious from her, something so delicate.
My blood was boiling.
And under that anger was the true feeling — helplessness.
I was confused, and grappling for something — anything — to say or do to make it all better.
“I want you to know how thankful I am that you felt comfortable enough to tell me this,” I said after a long moment, still holding her in my arms, hoping the physical comfort would help my words sink in more. “And I also want you to know that what he did to you, it does not define who you are. And it does not define who you aren’t.”
Sarah whimpered a little, fisting her hands in my shirt, and I tugged her in even tighter. I couldn’t get her close enough, couldn’t surround her with myself enough to feel like it was adequate protection.
“And I want you to know you didn’t do anything wrong,” she mumbled into my shirt, the one she was staining with her tears. She pulled away enough to look up at me with a sniff. “You didn’t. Okay?” She rolled her lips together. “But we… we can’t…”
“I know,” I said, finishing for her. “I know. You don’t have to say it.” Then, I tilted her chin with my knuckles, searching her eyes — the eyes of the strongest woman I’d ever known. “I promise, Sarah, that I will never hurt you again. I will never betray your trust. I respect you, and the
boundaries between us. And I’m so sorry I ever made you question that.”
Her brows pulled together, eyes welling with tears again as she shook her head and buried it in my chest. I soothed her, holding her tight, one hand cradling her head to my chest as the other held her to me.
The pain she felt radiated through me, and I closed my eyes, chest aching as the unwanted imagery hit me. Had he held her down against her will, forced himself on her and not listened when she’d screamed for help? My stomach twisted, nausea washing over me at the thought. I knew he wasn’t in jail, and that was perhaps what upset me most.
How was he still teaching? How was he free to do whatever he wanted, and Sarah had to live with what he’d done to her?
I squeezed her to me tighter, shaking my head as a resolve set deep into my bones. As Sarah sobbed, as she broke in my arms, I repeated the vow I’d made to her, over and over, until it was solid as steel.
The need I’d felt before to protect her expanded, taking over everything inside of me. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to forgive myself for adding to her pain, for showing her yet again the way the power of a teacher can be abused. But I knew one thing was certain.
I would do everything to keep her safe.
And I would never cross that line again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
Sarah
I learned very quickly after that day that if there was one, solid truth about Reese Walker, it was this: he was true to his word.
I asked him not to tell anyone what I’d told him — namely my uncle — and not to pressure me into telling anyone else, either. After all, I’d already tried to tell someone, and I saw how far that got me. It was over, what had happened between me and Wolfgang, and I wanted to leave it behind, to let it go.
Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series Page 68
