Poser (26 page)

Braeden

And there it was.

The truth.

The secret I wanted to tell, but never could.

Her face was splotchy, her eyes swollen and red. The sound of her sobs in the bathroom would likely haunt my soul long after I was dead.

Was I the cause of this, or was this the reason I never wanted to tell? Everything was blurring together—moments, thoughts, feelings.

I couldn’t even fathom how she must feel, what she was seeing in her mind.

I just hoped she didn’t remember the details. I just hoped she would be able to find some kind of peace.

She is never going to forgive me for this.

“You knew!” she yelled, as if I hadn’t heard her the first time.

I stood there under the force of her wrath and nodded once. “Yes, I knew.”

A sob racked her shoulders and she hunched in on herself a little. I stepped forward to go to her, but the second I moved, she straightened and took a step back.

“How?” she demanded. “How did you know I was raped before I did?”

I flinched. I hated that goddamned word. I hated it more than anything. It was ugly, it was violent, and the fact it was now associated with the woman standing in front of me made me want to kill.

“Maybe you should sit down,” I said, calm. I felt anything but, but Ivy was enough of a storm. She needed the balance.

“I will not!” she yelled. Prada went under the bed. “I deserve to know!” She angrily dashed away her tears with the back of her hand.

She looked so small and fragile just then, standing there with my clothes hanging off her slim form. Her curves were hidden in too much fabric, and her hair was brushed severely back from her face.

“I’ll tell you everything,” I vowed. “I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

She sobbed. “A long time? How long have you known?”

“Since the end of last semester.”

She gasped. “
Six
months?” She said it like it was a long time, but to me, it had felt like an eternity. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.

“Because I knew it would do this to you,” I admitted, weary and filled with defeat.

She stared at me, angrily.

“How could I?” My voice cracked. “How do you tell someone they’ve been abused in the sickest possible way?”

She flinched.

“Ivy, baby.” I stepped forward.

She stepped back. “No! Don’t call me that! Just tell me.”

I rubbed a palm over my face and started to talk. “I was so pissed when that Buzz of you and
him
went all around the school and after everyone started ridiculing you. I could barely see straight or think straight.”

“You called me a slut,” she deadpanned.

“Yeah, I did. I’ll regret it ‘til the day I die.”

She fell silent, and the angry look on her face calmed just a bit.

“Anyway, you and I were still trying to figure us out. I was so in love with you even then. I was scared as hell to be in love, and here you were, the one I wanted above everyone, being tortured by the #BuzzBoss.”

She started to say something, but I held up my hand.

“So after the night in your dorm and the Buzz with the pic of you and me, I decided to put an end to it. I wouldn’t have someone hurting you like that. So I started thinking, started piecing together stuff that no one ever saw before. I went to Missy’s dorm room. I charmed her roommate and went inside. She was drunk and didn’t pay attention to what I was doing, so I went through Missy’s laptop.”

“And you figured out who she really was,” Ivy said, sounding more like herself.

I said a silent, quick thank you to God, because seeing her fall apart in the bathroom scared me.

“Her computer was filled with files. Files and files full of information, pictures, and texts. She had an email account set up with hundreds of emails full of gossip and speculation. She had enough material on that computer to get her through an entire year of notifications.”

I still marveled at how sly she’d been and how well she had us all fooled. Hell, I probably never would have figured it out if she hadn’t shared that picture she took off my phone. When I realized she’d been the only one left alone with it, I knew it had to be her.

“What does any of this have to do with me and being raped by Zach?” She wrapped her arms tightly around herself once more.

I could still see her shaking, and I knew she was in danger of going into shock. Hell, I was worried sick she was going to fall over.

Taking a chance, I snagged a blanket off the end of the bed and went to her slowly. She watched me carefully but didn’t say a word. I draped the fabric around her shoulders and tugged it across her chest.

Her hands slid up to pin the sides together. “Thank you.”

“Please sit down, baby.”

She frowned when I called her that, but this time she didn’t yell.

“Keep talking,” she ordered, and I would have smiled at her cute, demanding ass, but there was nothing cute about this moment.

Nothing at all.

I nodded and backed up to sit on the edge of the bed, keeping my feet planted on the floor.

“Missy had an entire file of pictures from that night, Ivy. Zach sent them to the #BuzzBoss, not knowing it was her. I went through them. They make it incredibly clear what happened to you.”

Ivy dropped into the chair near the door, surprise draining the color from her face. “Missy knew?”

“Oh, she knew. She knew almost right after it happened. The file was dated in the fall.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth and leaned forward so I couldn’t see her face. Her shoulders shook imperceptibly, and I knew she was crying again.

She had a right to cry, and I wouldn’t tell her not to.

“Keep going,” she said, her voice hoarse, and she didn’t look up.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I didn’t want to believe it at first. It made me sick, so fucking sick. I should have been there that night. I should have protected you.”

The torment I felt ripped right out of my chest. I could still remember that night, the way it felt like someone had punched me with a pair of brass knuckles when I realized what I was seeing.

Ivy was watching me again, her eyes wide. I shook off what I was feeling and pressed on.

“I deleted the file. I wiped it off her hard drive and removed any trace it was there. I didn’t want her to get all pissy again and use the pictures on the feed.”

“You just deleted them? It’s evidence, evidence against him!”

“I emailed the file to myself before I did.”

“You have the pictures?”

I knew what she was thinking. I shook my head adamantly. “You’re not looking at them. I won’t fucking allow it.”

“It’s not your choice.”

“The fuck it isn’t!” I yelled. For the first time, my temper got the better of me. “Look at you! You think I’m gonna give you even more shit to be sick over? This is why I didn’t fucking say anything to begin with!”

The force of my words and the emotion behind them spurred me up off the bed, and I paced across the room toward the windows.

“It wasn’t your decision to make.”

“Maybe not,” I said, my voice level. “But it was my choice. Perhaps it was the wrong one, but I did what I did because I love you.”

It was like she hadn’t heard my words, because she completely ignored them. “What was in the pictures?”

I turned from the window. “What do you remember?”

“Not very much,” she admitted, her voice forlorn. “Mostly just flashes, memories of how I felt and how I couldn’t do anything.” She paused, and I swallowed. “I remember saying no, Braeden. I didn’t want him.” Her voice started rising again.

“I know you didn’t, Ivy. I believe you.”

That seemed to calm her. “He was rough and sort of mean. I remember the sound of him breathing… the ragged way he… his grunts.” She squeezed her eyes together, and I spun around.

I stared at the curtains, but seeing only red, I fought with the urge to put my fist through the wall.

“He taunted me,” she whispered. “I remember his words. He seemed to know I wouldn’t remember, but he’d told me…”

A beat of silence passed after her voice faded away.

“He told you what?” I ground out.

“He told me that deep down, I’d always know what happened.”

A shout forced its way out of me, and I lunged at the dresser, sweeping my arms across it and knocking everything onto the floor. It made a loud crashing sound, and I was pretty sure at least one thing shattered, but I was too busy heaving to even see.

That son of a bitch.

It wasn’t enough that he raped her? He had to taunt her too?

Motherfucker was probably the reason she panicked when someone touched her suddenly. No wonder her body lived in the knowledge of what she suffered; he’d practically conditioned it to.

I. Would. Kill. Him.

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t remember, why I still can’t,” she said, once again like my outburst hadn’t even registered.

“If I hadn’t seen those panties, I might not have ever remembered.”

I didn’t want to ask. But I had to. “Were you wearing those that night?”

“Yeah. I thought I lost them.”

A trophy. He took a trophy to remember what he’d done to her.

I took a deep breath and told myself to chill. I needed to get through the rest of this conversation without trashing our house. I forced myself toward the bed to sit down.

“He drugged you. The pictures show him putting a roofie into a beer. You drank it. He took you back to your dorm, and then he… And afterward, he broke into Rimmel’s laptop.”

“Why would he do this to me, Braeden?” she asked.

The question broke my heart.

I went to her, knelt in front of her chair. “I don’t have an answer for that, baby. I don’t know how anyone could hurt someone as perfect as you.”

“You did too.” It was said without heat, without accusation. It was a statement. A fact.

A spear to my chest.

I did hurt her. I wondered if, in her eyes, that meant Zach and I were the same.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. The words weren’t enough, but it was all I had.

“I’m tired. I want to go to bed. Alone.”

I nodded and moved away from her. I knew she’d want to be alone. It was to be expected.

I’d give her space. I’d give her whatever she needed.

I walked out of the room. When I turned back, she was behind me, the door handle in her palm. Without another word, she closed it, silently, right in my face.

I blew out a breath and leaned against the wall. Gutted, that’s exactly how I felt.

I didn’t think I could feel any worse.

Until she started crying again.

She tried to hide it in the pillows, but I still heard. I heard every single whimper and gasp.

It was hard not going to her; it was hard not pulling her into my arms. But she didn’t want me. I wasn’t sure she ever would again.

And so as minutes turned to hours, I stood there in the hall and listened to the woman I loved cry until she was so exhausted she had nothing left.

Ivy

I refused to go to Braeden’s mother’s for Thanksgiving.

I couldn’t pretend that way. I couldn’t go sit and smile and pretend while I ate turkey and pie and watched giant balloons pass by on the TV.

I was done with posing. I was done with it all.

I just wanted to be alone.

I wanted to grieve for what was taken from me.

My choice.

My knowledge.

My decision on how I would deal with it.

He told her I was sick, that I must have some kind of flu bug. My temperature wouldn’t go down and I didn’t want to risk making everyone else sick. I admit I sort of smiled when I heard him arguing with her on the phone because she wanted to come over and check on me. She was a nurse after all.

“I know you love her, Mom,” Braeden muttered out in the hall. “But she’s resting. She’s taken the cold meds and is asleep. If she’s not better in a couple days, I’ll drive you over here myself.”

A few beats of silence.

“Mom,” he groaned.

A few more.

“Mom!”

I hoped she grilled him the entire dinner and made him uncomfortable and made him tell even more lies so he could cover up what he’d done.

I was so angry with him. So hurt and confused. Not only had Zach violated me, but so had my best friend and my boyfriend.

It was a triple whammy of betrayal.

As I hid in my room for days, barely coming out, I reasoned out what Missy had done. And why she’d done it.

My guess was she never planned on showing those photos to anyone. She never planned on letting anyone (including me) in on what really happened that night. She probably had the same motive as Braeden; she wanted to keep me from getting hurt.

But then she changed her mind.

She got pissed when I slept with B, so she lashed out and posted that picture.

She probably had no idea it would lead to Braeden finding her out. Angry people make mistakes, and she’d been angry.

No wonder she kept hanging around, kept trying to find a way back into our circle. She wanted to know if I knew. She wanted to know if I was going to rat her out for the shitty stuff she’d done.

Maybe I would.

But really, I probably wouldn’t. Ratting her out would only make it harder on me. I was so incredibly exhausted. I slept for almost three days and then hid in the covers with Prada and my thoughts.

I called off sick to work, knowing I might get fired for not showing up on Black Friday. But the second I spoke into the line, my scratchy, hoarse, stuffy voice totally convinced Monica I wasn’t faking.

Braeden came and went. He kept his distance just like I asked, but he was still there. He brought me food, which I barely ate. He brought me coffee (I drank that) and made sure Prada went outside and got fed.

He never tried to touch me. He never asked to sleep in here, and he never even grabbed stuff from our closet or the drawers.

I was too hurt to think about how he was feeling. I was too angry to care.

But as the days passed, I found my eyes lingering more on him when he would appear, before I retreated back into the small world I existed in.

Mostly, I asked myself the same question over and over again.

It wasn’t why.

I knew why. The why might not make sense to me, but really, it didn’t have to. I knew deep down, being raped wasn’t my fault. The why wasn’t about me. The why was about Zach and whatever the hell was wrong with him.

A single question haunted me most.

Was it better to know the truth or would it have been easier to think it had been a one-night stand from hell?

Some days I felt certain knowing the truth far outweighed the rest.

But then sometimes, usually when I would lie awake in the dark and stare up at the glowing stars B and I put on the ceiling, I would wonder…

Wouldn’t it hurt less if I didn’t know?

I was torn.

On the fourth day, somewhere in the house a door slammed. Rimmel wasn’t due back from Thanksgiving with Romeo until late the next day, so I knew it wasn’t her.

It was totally possible it had been Braeden, but he hadn’t slammed anything since that night he shoved everything off our dresser. It all still lay broken and scattered.

I heard some raised voices and sat up a little straighter, wondering what was going on.

Footsteps stomped up the stairs, and Braeden’s angry voice grew louder. “I told you she’s sick! Leave her alone!”

“If she’s too sick to see me, then she can tell me herself!” Drew yelled back.

My brother! What in the world was he doing here?

The door burst open and Drew stepped inside.

His footsteps stuttered almost immediately. He took in the dark room, the messy bed, and probably my zombie hair and face in complete shock.

He really hadn’t believed Braeden when he said I was sick.

Had he thought I was tied up in here?

“Ivy,” he said.

Braeden hovered out in the hallway, peering past my brother at me.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. He looked terrible. It was like I hadn’t realized until just now. My heart felt bruised, so much so that I pressed a hand against my chest and rubbed.

What was happening to us?

Annoyed, I didn’t answer. Drew stalked to the door and slammed it right in Braeden’s face.

“Get dressed. You’re going to the hospital.”

“What!” I shrieked. “No.”

“Don’t argue with me, young lady,” he said, sounding more like my father than my older brother. “I didn’t believe you were too sick to call and talk to Mom on Thanksgiving.”

Guilt pierced my heart. Braeden called and told them all what he told his mother.

“And I didn’t believe you were still too sick to call now, so I came back.” He said it like it proved something.

“And?” I asked expectedly.

“And you look like shit. I’ve never seen your hair look so bad. Your skin is so white you look like a ghost, and this room smells…” He wrinkled his nose. “And it doesn’t smell good.”

“Rude,” I snapped. I had a right to be smelly.

“If you’re this sick, then I’m doing what bonehead didn’t do.” He hitched a thumb at the door, leading me to believe bonehead was Braeden. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“No?” he countered like it was a dare.

I stared him down.

He marched across the room like he was going to yank me right from the covers. I prepared to kick him.

His foot crunched over some broken glass and he stopped. Looked down. His eyes rounded at the mess all over the floor.

“What the fuck happened here?”

“Nothing.” I sniffed.

Drew’s eyes narrowed and a deadly calm took over his body. “Did he do this?” he growled. “Did he hit you?”

My mouth fell open. The fact that he would accuse Braeden of all people of hitting a woman was just ridiculous.

“No!”

“Don’t you dare lie for him.” Drew whipped the words at me. “Do you have bruises? How long has this been going on?” As he fired questions, he paced the room, his shoes crunching over even more glass. “I’m gonna kill him.”

He stormed toward the door.

“Wait!” I yelled.

He glanced over his shoulder.

My body slumped. “Braeden would never do that.”

“Then what happened?”

The only answer I had left was the truth. I wasn’t going to lie. I hated lies. Besides, my brother would see through them in three seconds flat.

“You should probably sit down,” I said and readied myself to say out loud what Zach had done to me.