She probably shouldn’t tell him. What good would it do, really, to share her ultimate teenage humiliation with him?
But she really did care for him so much now. She wanted him to understand why she was who she was, why she could only go so far with him. “You know Digger’s Trail?” In densely wooded wilderness a few miles from town, Digger’s Trail wound upward into the mountains.
“Yeah, I know it.”
“I used to go there to get away by myself, when things were rough, when I needed to be alone. Before we broke up, I would go with the boy who dumped me. Anyway, a few weeks before high school graduation, those girls who were bullying me, they followed me up there...”
Even nine years later, it made her heart beat a lurching rhythm in her chest, caused sweat to break out on her upper lip, to remember it, the way they’d surrounded her, slapped at her, mocked her, called her all the usual hideous, cruel names.
“They had a rope. They overpowered me and tied me to a tree. They put a burlap sack over my head and left me there.”
“My God. For how long?”
“A few hours. Eventually, a couple of tourists found me.”
“Tell me you went to the sheriff.”
“No, I did not. The tourists tried to talk me into reporting the incident. I refused. I thanked them. I said I was fine, and I went home.”
“Fine? You weren’t fine.”
“No, I wasn’t. But that’s what I did, the choice that I made at the time. I was eighteen and I had my pride, and I decided to handle it myself.”
“How badly were you injured?”
“Not at all—not physically, anyway. All they did was slap me around and back me into the tree so that one of them could throw the rope around me and they could tie me up.”
“It was still an assault.”
“Yeah. But I’ll say it again. I did what I did, and it was a long time ago.”
“But you did retaliate?”
She nodded. “That night, I broke into the school, jimmied open their lockers, tore up what was inside them and poured pancake syrup on what I’d already ripped to pieces. Nobody caught me, and I felt vindicated.”
“And then what?”
“And that’s all. Believe it or not, after that, it was over. Those girls never bothered me again and the boy stayed clear of me. Looking back, I think maybe those girls actually scared themselves with what they did to me on Digger’s Trail.”
“You could have been attacked by a cougar or a bear. You could’ve—”
“I know. And after that, I was angry for a long time. Nobody messed with me. Everyone left me alone, and I was fine with that. I was through with Bronco High and the boy who broke my heart and those mean girls and everything else about this town. I left for college in the fall, and I moved to Billings as soon as I graduated. I’ve lived there ever since.”
He got up, circled the table and went to stand above her. “Come up here. Please.” He held out his hand.
She eyed it cautiously, but then finally put her fingers in his. He pulled her up and into his arms. With a sigh, she leaned into his solid strength. “I did get therapy. I worked through it. I really am okay.”
He held her a little closer. She felt his lips brush the crown of her head. “You’re a fighter, that’s for sure.”
She looked up at him then. “And believe it or not, the experience has helped me as a teacher. I’m pretty sensitive to what goes on with my students. If someone’s being bullied, I usually pick up on it and I take the necessary steps to make it stop. I make sure the offender is dealt with and the victim gets help.”
“That’s good.”
“I think so.”
“That old boyfriend of yours still needs his ass whupped, though.”
“Not by you, he doesn’t.”
