Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (19 page)

The moon reflected off the still surface of the lake’s inky surface and shimmered slightly when a soft wind
kicked up, rippling the water into echoes of each other that swam toward shore. Outside, night birds called, wind blew, the ocean roared.

Inside, there was only the still-muttering television, Cash, her, and
memories
.

God, they felt thick as summer gnats on the meadow, flying around her face, blinding her to all but the past. And as they raced through her mind, unfettered, Jo wanted to curl up and groan until they passed. But this time, she wasn’t at home. She couldn’t turn out the lights and burrow under her covers. She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin, to fight that inclination.

Cash walked toward her, carrying two chilled glasses of white wine. He handed her one and she instantly took a sip, letting the cold, tart liquid slide down her dry throat. After a moment, she said, “Thanks. And um, sorry about the meltdown, but seeing him like that really hit me hard and—”

“Don’t,” Cash said, and was forced to make a conscious effort to dial down the fury churning inside him. “Don’t apologize to me.”

She turned her back on the view and leaned one shoulder against the glass as she looked at him. “I don’t respond much better to anger than I do to sympathy.”

“Tough shit. You get ’em both.” He looked down into his own glass and studied the wine as if trying to read a crystal ball. The truth of the thing was, he’d lowered his gaze to keep Jo from seeing just how much her admission had affected him. “I can’t help feeling sorry for what happened to you so long ago—or for wanting to beat the shit out of that guy,
now
.”

She inhaled sharply, deeply, and blew it out again in a rush. “You don’t need to feel bad for me. I’m fine. I survived.”

“This is surviving?” he demanded, as the anger crashed and rolled inside him like storm surf. “Faking your way through sex you obviously didn’t want or enjoy?”

She stiffened. “Didn’t mean to take a punch at your ego.”

That little dart hit home with an almost surprisingly sharp sting. “You think
that’s
what this is about?”

“No.” She said it quickly, without hesitation, and Cash knew she meant it. He could see it in her eyes, those pale blue depths that shone with more emotion than he’d ever seen there before.

She took another sip of wine, and used her free hand to idly pull at the belt of her raincoat. “I know that’s not what you meant, so now I guess
I’m
sorry.”

He hated knowing she was in pain. Hated seeing her emotionally beaten. He’d much prefer her spitting and snarling, arguing, threatening to hit him with a hammer.

This
Josefina broke his heart.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said softly, and took a chance, reaching out to lay one hand on her arm. When she didn’t shake him off, he didn’t know if he was pleased or sorry. He wanted to comfort, but more than that, he wanted her to not
need
comforting.

Jack lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Moonlight speared through the open curtains and lay in silver strokes across the whitewashed beams. Bear’s big head
on his leg felt like a comforting blanket, and he stroked the dog while his mind wandered.

It wasn’t too bad here, he thought. Nana liked him and Jo was turning out to be pretty nice. Cash was great and now Jack was on the baseball team. So that was good and stuff, but there was still something that tickled his stomach and sort of made him nervous.

Papa was coming home.

He loved his father, but right now everything was good, and once Papa got back, things would be different. He wouldn’t see Cash so much and Jo would go away, back to her own house. And, he realized, he would miss her. She didn’t talk to him like he was just a little kid. And she was fun, too, and knew lots of stuff.

“But maybe,” he said softly, and the big retriever lifted his head and perked his ears as if he were listening to the boy. Jack grinned. “Maybe tonight they’re gonna
kiss
and get all mushy together and then I can show Jo and Cash that it’d be good to have me around and then maybe they could get married or something and then I could live with them. What d’ya think, Bear?”

The big dog snorted, laid his head back down, and closed his eyes. Jack ran his head over the dog’s smooth head and smiled. Didn’t really matter what Bear thought, he told himself.

It was a good plan.

“What happened?” Cash kept his voice quiet, careful.

Her mouth twitched, then flattened out again just before she took another sip of wine. When she’d swallowed, Jo cupped the glass between her hands and
Cash saw the straw-colored liquid slosh against the sides of the glass as her hands trembled.

“It was a long time ago,” she said softly.

“It was yesterday,” Cash argued.

A moment ticked past and then another. Finally, she sighed. “You’re right. Ten years ago and it’s as fresh to me as if it had happened last night.”

“Tell me, Josefina,” he urged, keeping his voice low, hardly more than a whisper. Tentatively, he cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, and stared into her eyes. “Talk to me, Josefina. Trust me.”

She sucked in a breath and slowly released it again as she shook her head gently. “Trust isn’t something I’m long on, Cash. Not anymore.”

“Can’t say as I blame you—but I’m not
him
.”

“No,” she said, stepping away from him and taking another long drink of her wine. “You’re really not. You irritate me sometimes, Cash,” she said, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But you don’t scare me.”

He hated knowing that she’d been scared before. That she’d had to fear anyone. But he felt only relief to know that she didn’t fear
him
. “Glad to hear it.”

“He didn’t, either,” she said. “Scare me—at first.” She walked, taking slow steps, around the edge of the sofa closest to the window, to the far wall where she stared up at an abstract painting—vivid splotches of red and blue paint bisected with swirls of green. “We’d been dating for three weeks. Spent almost every day together. He couldn’t seem to see enough of me. He was gorgeous—tall, funny, charming. He said all the right things,” she admitted, and turned around to look at him.

Moonlight washed over her, making her face look
paler, her soft blue eyes nearly silver. Even from a distance, Cash felt the pain rippling off her in thick waves. It took everything he had to keep from going to her. But he knew it was more important to give her the room she needed to keep talking.

“He took me to a party at his frat house.” Jo shuddered, took a long sip of her wine, and wrapped both hands around the glass, her fingers smoothing up and down the heavy crystal. “Every kid in school was there, I swear. Could hardly move for all the people. Music blaring, guys shouting, girls laughing. I can still smell it. Beer, perfume, cigarettes, and sweat.”

She shook her head, blew out a breath. “He said he wanted to show me something up in his room. A surprise, he said.” She lifted one hand and rubbed her right temple gently. “I was excited. Happy. God. His room was a wreck,” she remembered. “I actually thought it was cute. Guy, pigsty. Didn’t realize it was the personification of his soul.”

She shook her head and got back on track. “He closed the door and grabbed me. At first, I thought, Ooh, manly. So strong, so sexy. God, how pathetic. I kissed him back—I kissed him back and then he tore my shirt and told me that it was time. He’d waited long enough.” She frowned. “I remember being confused.” She choked a laugh. “Jesus.
Confused
. And asking him what he was talking about. What he was doing. I’d already told him that I was saving myself. Stupid, I guess, but I was like the last living virgin in California. Too much Catholic school probably, but—”

Ah God
. Empathy washed over Cash and did battle with the fury crouched inside him. He wanted that bastard’s face beneath his fists. Wanted to hurt him as he’d
hurt Jo. Wanted to make it all go away and erase the shattered glint in her eyes.

And he couldn’t.

“Josefina—”

Her head snapped up, she took the last swallow of wine and met his gaze. “No. I started this. I’ll finish it.
He laughed at me
. I still hear him in my dreams sometimes. That laugh, as he pushed me onto the narrow bed.” Her eyes glazed over and there was a faraway tone to her voice, as if she’d slipped into the past and was trapped there. “The sheets were dirty and bunched up under me. The room smelled like stale sweat and rotten food. The music pounded up from downstairs, shaking the windows. I heard them rattle behind my head and I remember thinking that whoever’d built the place had done a crappy job. Stupid thing to be thinking while being raped, but—” She shrugged halfheartedly. “He unzipped his jeans, tossed my skirt up, and tore my panties off. I screamed then, but he hit me and told me to keep quiet.”

“Damn it, Jo—”

She shivered, a bone-racking chill that sent a matching cold to the pit of Cash’s stomach.

“No one had ever hit me before—” she said. “The pain . . . blossomed, kept getting bigger, but I was too shocked to really feel it. But I kept quiet. Really quiet. I was screaming inside, but stayed quiet so he wouldn’t hit me again. I remember I kept thinking, This isn’t happening. Not really. It’s just a nightmare. Wake up, Jo. Wake up! But it wasn’t a nightmare and I couldn’t wake up. Couldn’t get away.”

“I’m so sorry . . .”

“He used a condom.” She spoke up quickly, avoiding
his sympathy as if she were dodging a bullet. Then she coughed. “At least he was a careful rapist. He was on me in a second and while he—he grunted in my ear. His breath felt hot and smelled like beer.”

She wrinkled her nose in memory and Cash knew she was back there. In that tiny room. Reliving every moment of it all.

Cash felt his chest tighten until breathing was nearly impossible. His heartbeat thudded heavily and the roaring in his ears almost drowned out her voice. God, he wished he didn’t have to hear this. Wished she didn’t have it to tell.

“It seemed to last for
years
,” she said, her voice hardly more than a sigh. “And when he was finished, he stood up and looked down at me. I was crying. Still quiet, though, because he still seemed so mad. I was sure he was going to hit me some more. But he didn’t. He zipped his jeans and he told me to get over it. It was just sex. Everybody did it and God knew I was nothing special. Then he left me there and went back to the party.”

She cupped one hand across her mouth and looked at him through eyes brimming with tears that tore at him.

“I don’t even remember how I got back to my dorm room across campus,” she said. “But I did.”

“You didn’t report him?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I—couldn’t,” she murmured, and set her empty wine glass down onto a nearby table. “I showered for a few hours, and then the next morning Papa called to tell me Mama was sick.”

“Jesus.” He couldn’t even imagine. He hadn’t had a
close family, but he’d seen Jo’s in action and there was none closer than the Marconis. They had a bond that could withstand anything. That would have encircled Jo with the kind of love and support she so desperately needed. Yet she hadn’t told them.

“I couldn’t tell them then,” she said, walking again, back to the windows overlooking the lake. She stared past her own reflection at the night beyond. “When Papa called, the whole world shifted. But—”

“But what?” He took a chance and walked over to her. Every step measured, Pounding loudly against the hardwood floor. She didn’t back away, didn’t turn from him or raise her defenses. And a part of him was sorry. If she’d taken a battle stance, she would have been the Josefina he knew. This woman was fragile, ready to splinter into a thousand pieces, and Cash didn’t have a clue what to do or say.

She glanced at him, then turned her gaze back to the moon-washed lake outside. Bending her head forward, she rested her forehead on the cool glass and closed her eyes. “The rape—that’s not the worst part.”

“Jo—”

“When Papa called,” she whispered brokenly, “and he told me that Mama was so sick, all I could think was, Thank God.”

Surprise flickered through him. “Why?”

“Because it gave me the reason I needed to leave college. To run away. To run home.” When he didn’t speak, she turned her face to him and, with tears swimming in her eyes, she said, “Don’t you get it? I was
grateful
that my own mother was sick. How twisted is that? How
hideous
is that? I used my mother’s pain as an excuse to run from my own problems. I’ve always
felt guilty about that. It’s like her dying was partly my fault.”

“That’s nuts.” He grabbed her, but she yanked free of his grasp instantly.

“No it’s not,” she said firmly, “it’s
karma
.”

“You can’t seriously believe
you’re
responsible for your mother’s death.”

Jo’s brain snapped back into focus at the incredulous tone in his voice and for one brief moment, she wanted to kick her own ass for opening this little can of ugly worms. But too late now, she told herself. She’d opened her big mouth and told him things she’d never said aloud before. Had barely admitted to
herself
before.

Maybe he really
was
some kind of hypnotist.

“Not logically,” she said, feeling an inward twist of fury at the situation, herself,
him
. “I’m not an idiot. I know I didn’t cause my mother to die just by being a coward. But there’s that little voice inside me, the one that keeps me from walking under ladders, that has me knocking wood for luck. The same voice that halfway believes Nana really can cut a storm in half by clacking two sticks together.
That
part of me believes.”

He cut through everything she’d said and homed in on one thing—one word—that had been buried in the avalanche of words. “How are
you
a coward?”

Jo wanted more wine. Actually, she wanted a vodka tonic with extra lime. But as shaky as she was at the moment, she so didn’t need liquor on top of it all. Instead, she’d face Cash down and finish this. She’d say it all. Everything she’d felt, everything she’d lived with for ten long years. And when she was finished, she’d lock it away again.