But that won’t help, because the damage is done. “It’s about Rob,” I say, the words bursting out of me. More words I can’t take back. “Because I said things about Rob and they’ve got them on camera.”
There’s a long moment, and something about the stillness of it makes me look up at them.They’re watching each other carefully, something I can’t identify in their faces. Kurt gives the tiniest of nods and Paula turns to look at me again.
“Talk to us, Becca,” she says. “Tell us about it.” She squeezes my hand once more.
We’re going to have to have this conversation eventually, and it’s nothing the show doesn’t already know. “Rob wasn’t who you thought he was,” I say, feeling my face crumple. “Not with me, anyway. He was a good father and I know he was a good son, but he wasn’t a good husband.” I can’t bear to look at them. “He was terrible to me. Not physically, but he was controlling and mean. He would tell me how stupid I was, how useless, that I’d never be able to survive without him, that I was a horrible mom, and my girls and everyone else deserved better, and—” I draw in a shuddering breath, and I force myself to open my eyes, to see the pain I’m putting on them.
They’re looking at each other again.There’s pain in their expressions, definitely.
But I don’t see surprise. Disbelief. Horror. Any of the other things I might have expected to go along with it.
A pit of dread forms. “What?” I say, my voice cracking.
Kurt swallows, links his thick fingers together. “We, um. We had an inkling that maybe things weren’t so good with you two.That maybe, well. Maybe Rob wasn’t treating you as kindly as we’d like.”
The air is totally sucked out of me.Tears freeze on my eyelids, quivering on my lashes. “What?” I look over to Paula, who isn’t meeting my eyes. “You knew?”
“We overheard a few times,” she says. “And we suspected there was more. We’d see how you’d get, how low you’d feel about yourself—”
“You knew.” I’m stuck on repeat. “You knew.”
Kurt clears his throat. “We knew Rob could be a handful sometimes, that he liked to be in charge of things—”
“Things?” My voice is too high-pitched. “Like me?’
Paula flinches.
I yank myself away from under her arm and stand. My legs don’t feel like they can support my weight, but I can’t sit there next to her anymore. “Did you ever say anything to him? When you overheard, did you ever . . .” I trail off, because I can read the answer on their guilty faces. “You didn’t. You didn’t ever say anything to him, and you never said anything to me. Years and years of this, and you knew and you never saidanything.”
“We didn’t want to interfere in your marriage,” Paula says weakly. “We wanted to support you the best we could, but it didn’t feel like our place to—”
“Towhat?” I spit out, and she flinches again. Rage is cutting through the ice, hot and sharp. “To try to stop your son from destroying me?To let me know that what he was doing to me was wrong?That he was wrong aboutme?”The tears are spilling over again, but they might as well be lava, hot and thick. “You left me alone there! You pretended to love me, and you left me there all alone to be abused by him!” I’m yelling now and possibly the show is recording this, but I don’t care anymore.
“We do love you, honey,” Kurt says, and Paula nods desperately, her own eyes shining with tears.
“We do,” she says. “We always told ourselves that if you ever came to talk to us about it, we would tell you that we knew and do whatever we could to help—”
I let out a bitter, incredulous laugh. “So it was on me, then? IfIcame toyouto talk about it?” I press my shaking hands to my head. I feel more than ever like I’m losing my mind. “I kept this to myself for years because I was terrified of losing you or hurting you, and it was a secret thatburiedme.”
“We didn’t want you to have to keep it a secret,” Paula says, wringing her hands. “We hoped you’d tell the therapist all about it, and that she could help you work through it.”
Oh my god, the therapist.To help me with my “grief.”They were giving me someone else to unload on, because they didn’t want to deal with it. Paying for school, too, being so supportive of me working toward my restaurant, dating again.
It was all because of guilt.
“Becca—” Paula stands and reaches for me, but I step back.
I’m struggling to breathe again.I was manipulated for so long, I remember telling Nate, when I was stepping back away from him, too.I was sucked into believing someone loved me and then I was torn apart, piece by piece. “I have to go, and you have to go.” I turn toward the door.
“Becca, honey, if you’d just listen to us—” Paula says.
“I’ve already heard enough. Send the girls up to my room before you leave so I can say goodbye.”
I open the door.Thankfully, no one’s in the hallway. I’m hit by a wave of wishing that Nate was standing right there, that I could fall into his arms and sob into his chest.
The wave freezes over. I don’t have Nate. I still don’t know for sure if I ever did.
Maybe I never had anyone.
