That was about to change, but I never wanted Mum and Jasper to know everything. It would be too much.
“You really want to know now? You’re sure?” I asked, curling my trembling fingers into my palms.
I watched her gulp. She didn’twantto; shehadto.
“Yes. I need to know before I hear it court. Do you think you can?”
I had managed to go four years without completely shattering her heart. Now, I was going to finish the job. She was right, though. It would be better telling her like this rather than in a courtroom full of strangers.
“Okay,” I said, building another ten metres onto the wall and telling her the facts robotically, as if I were giving her a shopping list.
It was cold and detached and the only way I could get the words out.
I didn’t stop when she started crying or when it looked like she was going to be sick, even though I wanted to.
She sat silently, pale faced and wide-eyed, as I told her how Dad had watched everything Frank did to me, right from the beginning. How scared I was and how afraid I’d become of my own father. I told her how I’d blamed myself for years—how I’d thought it was all my fault. When I told her that I’d tried to tell her a week after it’d started, but Dad had gotten to me first and told me not to talk again, she sobbed.
“Honey, I…” She gasped for breath and pulled me into a hug. “I-I don’t know…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.” I sank into her side, trying to disappear.
Now, she knew. Now, she would have those demons inside her head, too.
“You are so brave, my beautiful girl.”
I didn’t feel brave. I’d run halfway across the world to escape from everything.Tiredanddesperatewere better words I would use to describe myself. I was tired of trying to move on. Tired of seeing their faces. Tired of being scared that they would somehow get to me again.
But I had to keep going, as exhausting as that was some days. I was determined that one day I would make it.
I would think about my past less and less, the way I had before the trial stuff started again. There would be nothing else coming up. I could finally let the wounds scab over and heal. The scars would remain, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Her hands shook as she picked up her mug. She didn’t drink anything. “I keep trying to think of things that I missed… but there’s nothing.”
“Because we didn’t let there be anything. I didn’t want you to find out as much as he didn’t. Dad told me so many different things over the years. He told me that you would hate me, you wouldn’t want meanymore, that Jasper and I would be taken away, that it would kill you, and that you wouldn’t believe me. I was so scared. As I got older, I thought you might believe me, but I knew it would break your heart, and I didn’t want that. After it stopped, I convinced myself that everything would be okay, so I forced myself to leave it in the past.”
“I believe you. I would have always believed you.”
“I know that now, and it means a lot.”
Mum pulled me into another hug; this one was tighter, almost rib cracking.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s going on here?” Jasper asked, appearing in the doorway. “Oh, I see—having secret hot chocolate moments without me. I’m hurt.” He pretended to stab his heart.
Mum sighed and shook her head in discouragement.
“Sit down, Jasper.” She got up to make him a drink.
“Sorry about earlier. I wasn’t thinking. We cool?” he asked, taking a seat.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Let’s just forget it.”
“Okay. So, what are you two talking about? How awesome I am?”
Mum snorted, which made me laugh.
“See? This is why I’m unable to love,” he said, waving his hand in Mum’s direction. “Well, actually, it was Abby whoring herself to another man, but you’re not helping. When you’re sitting in your big death chair in the retirement home, crying to yourself about never seeing your only son getting married, just remember it was half your fault.”
“Jasper!”
