"You know what, Mother?" I say softly. "You’re right. Iwaswith a man. For the entire seven days."
Her face turns ashen.
"He showed me how to shoot a gun and play pool. He made me drive his truck."
She gives a slight shake of her head.
"I slept in his bed. He kissed me. Even touched me.Everywhere. And then he had sex with me," I tell her calmly, watching her gasp for air.
"Ienjoyedit. Each. Single. Second. And you’ll never know who he is. Because this ismylife."
Then I drop the fork carelessly on the plate, get up without pushing my chair back under the table, and go to my room.
For the first time since he sent me away, I feel something other than this emptiness. I feel satisfaction.
It’s cruel, but I just had to make it clear to her that she can’t decide everything anymore. No matter how much she tries to isolate me and influence me with her strange views, she won’t be able to take away what happened between him and me.Never. And she’ll have to live with the fact that she can’t do anything about it.
I realize how wrong I was on a Thursday.
It has been weeks since I returned to my mother because I had nowhere else to go. I’ve accepted the grief and pain as friends and live with them. But on this day, something joins them that shouldn’t be there: horror.
I’m just coming out of the bathroom when my mother positions herself in the hallway, blocking my way.
"Cole Walker will be arrested for child abduction and sexual abuse." It sounds as if that should make me breathe a sigh of relief. But hearing his name—after all these hours, days, and weeks—knocks the ground out from under me, so at first, I don’t understand what exactly she just said. As if in a trance, I reach for the doorframe next to me and hold on to it because my legs are threatening to buckle. "What?"
She smooths out her dress, lifting her chin. "He’s going to prison for what he did to you."
No. This can’t be happening. They can’t…
"How?" I ask breathlessly as panic rushes through me.
The smile that spreads across my mother’s face is so cruel that I take a step back.
"I found that little hiding spot of yours while you were gone. And after you refused to tell me anything, I just had a feeling," she replies with a shrug. "I checked it again and found the phone. The police were able to determine who bought it. They’re on their way to him as we speak."
"But why did you do that?"
My mother tilts her head before answering as if I were a stupid child. "Because he needs to be punished. He touched you, took advantage of you, and made you do things you didn’t want to do. I told the police that you confided everything to me, but you’re far too traumatized to give your statement properly."
Her voice sends shivers down my spine. She sounds triumphant.
"They can’t do that," I say, stunned. "He didn’t do anything."
She clicks her tongue disapprovingly, tilting her head to the other side. "Oh really? Who do you think they’ll believe? A concerned mother, or a traumatized child and a man with a criminal record?"
Iron chains—arm-thick and unbreakable—wrap around my throat and cut off my breath as she utters her last words to me before turning away, leaving me alone with this new, all-consuming horror.
"Cole Walker is going to prison."
FORTY-THREE
COLE
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?"
The click of handcuffs accompanies the police officer’s last words.
Before I can answer, Jules’s voice calls out. "Cole? Who—Oh my God!"
