Chapter Thirty Two
Raleigh
*He’s going to break up with me.*
*I’m going to lose him.*
*Fuck!*
This is all I can think about as I stare at my dead phone, rocking back and forth on the floor, as tears trail down my cheeks.
*I cheated on him.*
*With Brady.*
*It doesn’t matter that I didn’t want it. It doesn’t matter that he forced me. The fact of the matter is that I cheated and now I’m going to lose Lincoln.*
I stand up from the floor, make sure that the door is locked, not ready to face any of the other partygoers and make my way over to the bed in the middle of the dark room. I climb in, crawl to the middle, and curl up into a ball as my tears come harder and faster, my breathing becoming ragged as I lose control, my emotions and fears getting the best of me.
I feel the bed dip and I jolt awake, scrambling away from the large body looming over me. “Don’t touch me!” I scream, my eyes immediately filling with tears as fear consumes me that Brady is back to finish what he’d started earlier.
“Baby,” the voice says, moving closer but I shove myself further away from them, perching against the headboard.
“Get away from me!” I cry. I can feel my chest becoming tight as I gasp for air, unable to get enough of it into my lungs. They say something else but it just sounds garbled, my ears ringing as I struggle to breathe, my vision turning dark even with the brightness of the room.
“Shit!” Someone says before arms surround me, trying to hold me down.
I scream and scream, lashing out at my attackers as I kick and hit, fighting with everything in me, much like I should have done before, consequences be damned.
Suddenly they’re gone, their hands and arms removed from my body along with their body heat, I realize as my skin tightens with goosebumps as the coolness in the room settles both within and around me.
“Ray,” Serenity’s voice breaks through the ringing in my ears, but it doesn't force away the fear or remove the elephant on my chest that won't allow me to breathe, or make my eyesight return back to normal.
“Ray, it’s me,” she says gently. “Can I come near you?”
Not trusting my voice, my throat raw from both crying and screaming, I nod yes in answer. I feel the bed dip beneath her weight and instantly flinch, fear consuming me once more that this is some kind of trick that Brady is playing to lure me into some false sense of security.
“It’s okay, Ray. It’s just me,” she says as if sensing
my fear. “Lincoln and Boston are here in the room with me too,” she tells me, her voice gentle.
At the mention of Lincoln and his brother, I shake my head back and forth furiously. I can’t handle seeing him right now, seeing the betrayal that I know I’ll find written on his face.
“Do you want them to leave?” She asks, her voice sounding like she’s turning away from me as she asks the question.
I nod once more, trying desperately to get air into my lungs.
“No,” one of the brothers says causing my pulse to skyrocket. “I’m not leaving her.”
“Please Lincoln,” Serenity says, “I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise, but right now, she needs you both to go.”
“You already let something happen to her,” Lincoln growls, the clear anger in his voice causing me to tense up once more and release a whimper as fear consumes me once more.
“Please,” Serenity pleads, her voice sounding desperate. I’m slowly getting more air into my lungs, the panic subsiding as the realization that Brady isn’t in the room, that he’s not here to hurt me again. The more oxygen I’m able to breathe in, the more the weight on my chest lessens and the clearer my vision becomes until I can make out the three figures standing a few feet away from me out of the corner of my eyes.
“I can’t—”
“Please,” I manage to choke out the single word, cutting off Lincoln’s refusal to leave.
Silence surrounds us for several long seconds before I hear him release a deep sigh and then in a resigned voice he says, “Okay but Baby, I’ll be right on the other side of the door if you need me.”
I manage to nod in response as I bring my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs as I try to ward off the chill in the room and bury my face against my lower thighs.
As soon as the door shuts, I feel the bed dip and then Serenity’s arms are around me. “Oh, Raleigh,” she says, her voice sounding just about as broken as what I feel. She holds me like that for a while as she allows me to cry, instead of forcing me to talk, like I know she wants to do.
Once I’ve finally managed to stop crying, Serenity pulls back, taking me in for several long moments before finally asking, “You want to talk about it?”
*Not exactly,* I think but just shrug, not even knowing how to put into words what happened or everything that I’m feeling.
“Did Brady…” she starts, the mention of his name causing panic to consume me once more. “It’s okay. You’re safe.” Serenity says, cupping my cheeks and forcing me to look at her as she reassures me that he isn’t going to hurt me. When I’ve calmed, she begins again. “Did *he*,” she says, this time avoiding using his name, “force himself onto you?”
I nod, unable to say vocalize the answer to that question.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she cries, her eyes filling with tears as she pulls me into her arms once more. “I can’t believe…” she mutters, then sighs. Pulling back, she gives me a serious look as she says, “I know it’s going to be hard but you have to go to the police about this.”
“No!” I shout, shaking my head furiously.
“But Ray, he *raped* you. You have to go to the police,” she says, her eyes pleading with me.
“He didn’t rape me,” I manage to say, my voice only barely above a whisper.
“What do you mean?” She asks, her face scrunched up in confusion. “You said he forced himself on you…”
“He did,” I say with a nod. “But he didn’t rape me. He just…*touched* me,” I say, my voice breaking as I say the word touched. “I tried to fight him. I begged him not to…” A shutter works its way through my whole body at the memory of him making me come. With a sob, I say, “I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“Oh, Ray, there’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with you,” she tells me, wrapping her arms around me once more.
“Yes, there is!” I demand through my tears, “He made me come.”
“That doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you, sweetie,” she says, pulling back and grasping ahold of my hands.
“But, how could I have been so terrified, so repulsed by what he was doing to me, and still come?” I ask, then finally, voice the one thing that I can’t seem to stop wondering about because nothing else makes sense. “What if somewhere deep down I liked it?”
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