Kade—my strong, solid, untouchable Kade—sits on the couch with his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking silently.
I don’t go to him. I don’t touch him. I don’t even breathe too loudly. Because I genuinely don’t know how he feels about me right now. Maybe he’s disgusted. Maybe he sees me differently. Maybe he doesn’t believe me. And God knows, I barely believe myself.
So, I wait. I let him fall apart in his own time. And when his breathing finally steadies, I move quietly to the drink cabinet, and pour a large whisky.
He wipes his face. But his eyes remain swollen and red, and so full of pain.
“Will you tell me?” he murmurs.
I hand him the glass and sit beside him, but not too close. “All of it?”
He nods.
I swallow hard. “I remember being with the girls. They went to dance, and I sat with Martha. The barman brought over two glasses of wine, said a man at the bar bought them. It was too busy to see who. I shouldn’t have accepted it, but it was hot and the wine tasted nice.” My voice shakes. “I’d never really seen the harm in it before.” I force myself to continue. “Martha went to dance. I finished my drink. I went to find the toilets and everything just… twisted. My head. My eyes. I couldn’t focus. A man told me the bathroom was through a door. I didn’t see him clearly. I was so dizzy. The door led outside into an alley.”
I feel myself drifting, like I’m back there. Like I can smell the concrete and taste the panic.
“I remember I wanted to call Fern, to have her come find me. Then, I think I dropped my bag. He was suddenly there, and he smashed my phone on purpose. He called me Queenie.” A sob rips out of me before I can stop it. “I thought it was you,” I whisper. “I couldn’t hear properly. Everything echoed. I could barely stand.”
“You were drugged?” Kade’s voice cracks.
I nod. “It’s taken me weeks to piece it together. Some of it felt so unreal, like I dreamt it. He… he got me on the ground. I couldn’t move. Or shout. I remember some of his words, and that horrible smell… his weight.” My hands shake violently. “I didn’t know what was happening. Not fully.”
Kade closes his eyes, agony twisting his features. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, voice thick with grief.
“Because I didn’t know at first. It sounds stupid, but my brain felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. When I came home and went to the bathroom—”
“The blood,” he whispers, cutting in. He covers his mouth, devastated.
I nod. “That’s when I knew something awful had happened. I was so sore. Fern took me to a private doctor. She did tests. She confirmed it.” Tears blur my vision. “She said the bruising was consistent with assault. A few days later she called back and said I’d been drugged with Flunitrazepam or Rohypnol as it’s known.”
Kade’s jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind.
“She gave me the morning-after pill. I told her we were trying for a baby. She said I couldn’t risk… you know. I took a test first to check I wasn’t already pregnant, but she said it wouldn’t show anything that early. And we’d had so much sex that week…” I try to smile but it shatters halfway. “I thought I killed our chance.”
Another sob breaks out of me. Kade’s hand lands on my knee—hesitant and gentle.
“You did the right thing,” he murmurs.
“I had my period because I took that pill. And now… now it’s late.”
He flinches but doesn’t probe.
“Christ,” he breathes. “I asked him to watch you.”
“He told me.”
“You confronted him?” His voice is horrified. “After everything he’d done?”
“I didn’t know it was him. I thought it was Rabbit. I wanted to know why someone was following me.” My throat tightens. “He grabbed me. Tried to do it again. I… I had to stop him.”
I break again, crying into my hands.
And then, slowly, Kade’s arm comes around me. Carefully. Like I’m made of glass.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says, his voice raw. “You should have told me. I’ve been going crazy thinking you were leaving me for someone else.”
