“Were they seeing each other before you split?”
I shook my head. “I thought about that a lot in the beginning, but I really don’t think so. They claim they saw each other at a bar one night about six weeks after we broke up. They’d met a few times at family events, so they already knew one another. When I found out, I got the ‘we didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear’speech.”
“Are you still in love with him?”
“God, no. I’m not sure if I ever was, if I’m being honest. Brendan was a safe choice for me.”
“How so?”
“He was a nice guy from a good family and…he didn’t want to have sex.”
“You didn’t want to be pressured?”
I shrugged.
Jagger studied my face. “I’m not going to judge you. Lord knows I have my own issues with sex. But if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
“No, I…” I looked away, trying to decide what to tell him.
What I wanted was to tell him everything, which was truly crazy because I’d been through three therapists and never wanted to tell any of them anything. I’d opened up to the last one more than the first two, but I’d neverwantedto share my story with anyone. To this day, not even Brendanknew what had happened to me. I’d only ever told Miles and my mother, and my mother had shared my story with Edmund. Yet right now I took a deep breath, ignored the churning in my stomach, and turned to face Jagger—and my own fears.
“I told you I was a virgin, but that’s not technically true because I’ve had sex before. I just have never had it willingly, so I consider myself one.”
Jagger stiffened. At least the top half of him did. His hands clenched into balls so tight, his knuckles turned white. “When?”
I looked down. “I was sixteen. I graduated high school two years early and enrolled at NYU. It happened during my second semester. Apparently, I was just as good a drinker then as I am now.” I forced a smile as I started wringing my hands. “I was struggling, trying to fit into college life, so I didn’t tell people my age. One night, I went to a party and started talking to a cute guy I’d never seen before. The party was in a fraternity house, and he’d said he was a member. I had no reason to doubt him. He looked like the rest of the guys there—preppy dress shirts, tapered shorts, and expensive loafers. After an hour or two, he asked me if I wanted to go up to his room. I said okay because I wanted to fool around. I didn’t have much experience with boys because I’d skipped grades, and the people around me were always older and saw me as the brainy little kid. But when we got up to the second floor and went into his quiet room, I got cold feet and told him I wanted to slow things down. He said okay and offered to go get us some new drinks. He said we’d just hang out, get to know each other. An hour later, he was on top of me, and I couldn’t move my arms and legs or speak. He’d given me some drug they use on animals that acts as a paralytic.”
Jagger closed his eyes. When they opened, there was barely any blue left; his pupils had taken over. “What happened to him? Please tell me this story ends with him locked up or dead?”
I shook my head. “I wish. Afterward, I felt ashamed. Like it was my fault that it had happened. It was a bad decision to go up to his room while I was drinking at all, so I blamed myself. Plus, he took my license from my purse before he left and told me if I told anyone, he’d show up at my house while I was sleeping and do it again.”
“Jesus Christ. His nuts should’ve been chopped off while he was under the same paralytic he gave you, so he had to lie there and feel as helpless as you did.”
I swallowed, but the big lump in my throat didn’t go anywhere. “Eventually, I confided in Miles about what happened, and he talked me into going to the police. There was no physical evidence anymore, but they opened an investigation. Turned out it wasn’t the first time someone had told a story like mine. A few months earlier, there had been a similar case in a neighboring precinct where a kid pretended to be part of a fraternity and sexually assaulted a student at a different college. He also took her driver’s license. Every year, he sent both of us cards on our birthdays.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The vein in Jagger’s neck bulged.
I shook my head. “A month later, I dropped out of school, and the sicko continued to send birthday cards for the next three years. They stopped when I moved to California to go to Stanford. So either he knew I left, or got bored with scaring the crap out of me once a year.”
“Fuck…” Jagger got to his feet and started to pace. He pulled at his hair by the roots. “What did the police do? Ask a few questions and call it a damn day?”
I’d always been afraid to tell people what happened because I didn’t want them to look atmedifferently. Jagger’s reaction was nothing like I’d expected. He wasn’t soft or tempered, afraid I’d break like glass; he wasangry. And that hit my heart hard. A confusing rush of emotions washed over me, and tears spilled down my face.
Jagger was mid pace when he noticed. “Oh fuck.” He dropped to his knees, lifted me into his arms, and held me close. Every other time this man touched me, even a simple hand at my back, I’d felt a rush of hormone-filled adrenaline pumping through my veins. But this touch was different. He held me so tightly it bordered on painful, yet every muscle in my body gave way. I buried my head against his chest and let it out.
My mind has always worked like a storm that never stops, spinning from one topic to the next, never taking a break to relax. But in this moment, the world slowed, and I thought about nothing except how good it felt to be held by Jagger Langston, how safe I felt.
Jagger and I stayed that way for a long time. The distant sound of my mother’s party continued seventy feet away, the sky’s pinks and purples faded to darkness, and yet it somehow felt like it was just the two of us.
Eventually, my sniffles slowed to a stop. I pulled back and looked up at Jagger with a hesitant smile. “Well, that…took a turn.”
He smiled. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Actually, yeah. I haven’t spoken about it in years. But it wasn’t nearly as hard to tell you as it was Miles and my mother.”
“Time helps heal most wounds.”
My eyes rose to meet his. “Most?”
