“I’m fine.” He might have a minor panic attack later, but he was keeping his shit together for his sister’s sake. “This is about you, not me. I’m so glad you could tell me about it. Holding it in just makes it worse. Believe me.”
“I know. I just . . . didn’t want Mom and Dad to know the details, and me and Taisha can’t talk about that stuff.”
“I’m glad you told me about it. And I promise I won’t tell our parents. Not unless you want me to.”
“Fuck no.”
“If this goes to trial, they’ll hear all about it.”
She grunted. “It probably won’t. The lady officer I spoke with said most assaults like this get settled out of court. Plea deals or something.”
“You aren’t thinking about backing down, are you?”
“Nope. Just thinking realistically. I’m taking this as far as I can so maybe other girls are taken seriously if he does this again.”
Dom squeezed tighter, then relaxed his hold. Roxy was the strongest woman he’d ever known. So much stronger than Dom had been. He’d shouldered his own burden silently for months, until it threatened to destroy him from the inside out. Maybe all of that had happened to him so Roxy could learn and not make the same mistake he’d made. She reported it, while he’d done nothing.
“So you guys performed already, huh?”
The abrupt conversation switch had Dom floundering for a few seconds, before he realized she meant XYZ at Unbound. “Yeah, earlier today.”
“How was it?”
“Brutal at first, but once I started playing, it was magic. And a lot of fun.”
She untangled from their embrace so she could look him in the eyes. “How do you think you guys did?”
“Honestly?” Dom pulled on the memory of that adrenaline rush. Of looking down into the sea of faces and seeing Trey. “I think it was our best set ever. But the competition was pretty amazing. Anyone could win.”
“Nah, XYZ will win. You fucking deserve it, bro, after all you’ve been through.”
Dom’s stomach got squirrelly. “Yeah, well, I can’t exactly go up and sway the judges with my tale of woe. The competition isn’t about who deserves it, it’s about who plays the best.”
“You’re still going to win.”
He loved her unwavering belief in his band, despite her having only come out to see them twice in their almost four years of existence. She believed in her big brother.
A knock on the door preceded Starr’s reentry. She held a wood tray that contained two bowls and spoons. “You two need ice cream, too.”
“Thank you, Starr in the sky,” Dom said.
She beamed at the nickname, then deposited the tray at the bottom of the bed. She returned to the blue rocker.
Dom leaned forward and grabbed two small bowls of ice cream. Only vanilla for him, but all three flavors for Roxy.
“These are perfect, thanks,” Roxy said.
“I know,” Starr replied, then began rocking.
Dom relaxed against the headboard and ate his ice cream, stupidly glad that Roxy had reached out to him. Her situation tonight could have been horrifically worse, and he was grateful that Percell had had the foresight to give Roxy some self-defense skills. Before her adoption, Roxy had endured years of being passed around from one foster home to another, livingwith indifferent adults and other unwanted, maladjusted kids. Emotional abuse was still abuse, but that didn’t stop Dom from thanking God and any other deity out there that she hadn’t been raped tonight.
No one deserved that kind of pain.
Dom fell face-first into his own bed around midnight. The mattress and sheets felt like heaven after sleeping on the hard ground, but even though his body was exhausted, his rioting brain wouldn’t allow him to fall asleep.
After spending time with Roxy and Starr, he’d gone downstairs and endured some invasive, if well-meaning, questions from his parents about his own mental state. He told them what they needed to hear—that he was fine, Roxy’s situation hadn’t dredged anything up. But to be honest, Dom wasn’t totally fine.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the dark ceiling. He’d spent too many high school nights staring at that ceiling, unsure of his own emotions, not caring if he woke up the next day or slept until graduation. The total lack of interest in anything except getting through as normally as possible so no one suspected.
