“What happened to you?”

Her voice is broken when she answers. “His name was Andy.” She spits his name like it disgusts her to have it pass through her lips. “Fucking Andy. Sounds like a sweet, dorky dude, right? He even looked like it. Tall and skinny, glasses.” I feel her shake her head again, her body jerking with the motion. “But he was wiry. Is. He is wiry.”

I grind my teeth as I shake with rage. But I don’t say anything. I won’t rush her. I won’t stop her. So I wait.

“I was twelve when he and my mom started dating. Back then, I wanted to look like her. I was happy I resembled my mom. She was still pretty, not like she was before she started using, but still, I was proud I shared her looks.” She huffs a frustrated laugh.

“The very first time I met Andy I knew something was wrong with him. The way he looked at me made me nervous. Everything about him was so intense, but he treated me like an adult. Made my mom back off me when she’d lose it. I started to like him because when he was around, things weren’t so bad. He brought food to the house. Good food, too. No Ramen noodle bullshit. Name brand cereal. Fresh bread. He kept my mom happy for the most part, helping her with some of the bills, kept the alcohol flowing. Two weeks. That’s how long it took.” Hope shivers and inhales a quivering breath.

“She passed out, drunk or high, I don’t know which. I was in the living room watching the movie he rented.” She opens her eyes finally and a tear rolls down her cheek. “Don’t ever ask me to watch Happy Feet.” It takes her second to continue and in that moment, I feel the anger coiling inside of me.

“Andy carried my mom back to the bedroom and then... I shouldn’t have been wearing one of my mom’s old nightgowns. I was a kid. I should have been in flannel pajama pants or something. I should’ve gone to my room when she passed out. I knew better than to stick around her boyfriends. I—I should’ve... He sat too close, but I kept watching the movie. I could smell his cologne. It was so strong it burnt my throat, stung my nose. I still remember that smell.

“When he put his hand on my leg I realized I had made a mistake, but it was too late. I was alone. All I could do was stare at his long fingers as they slid the nightgown up. I didn’t stop him until it was around my waist. I don’t know why I let him get it that far. I should’ve—I should’ve stopped him.”

Hope pinches her eyes shut and more tears fall from her lashes. I wrap my arm around her shoulder and crush her against my chest. The need to jump up and beat the shit out of something is so strong. I think I might puke. My eyes burn and I know I’m shaking as bad as she is. I don’t want to know. I need to know, but I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to kill this guy. I’m going to hunt him down and I am going to fucking kill him.

She sniffles, tearing me away from my murderous thoughts. “I smacked his hands away and he laughed. He fucking laughed at me because he knew I was weak. He touched me, Mason. He touched me everywhere. And the whole time I begged him to stop, he kept telling me I was beautiful. Like it was my fault he was a filthy fucking pedophile. Like he couldn’t help himself.” She pulls away from me, her chest rising and falling too quickly as if she’s fighting for breath.

“He made me touch him. He took my hand, controlled it. Controlled me. Forced me to do what he wanted. I had never kissed a boy, but I was jerking my mother’s boyfriend off in our living room while a cartoon played in the background. All while he explored my twelve year old body with his disgusting fingers. There were things about my body I didn’t know about; parts I had never thought to touch, but Andy introduced me to them all.”

Hugging her arms around herself, Hope drops her head, staring at the scars on her inner thigh. “I didn’t even understand what happened when he got off. All I knew was he let go of me and I ran into the bathroom. I locked the door and I went nuts. I tore the shower curtain from the rod. I threw every bottle of my mom’s hair shit, all her make-up, anything I could get my hands on. I destroyed the room. I was so angry. Because if I was angry, if I was pissed as hell, then I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of my tears.

“I punched the wall over and over again and the pain started to calm me down, so I kept slamming my fist into anything solid. My knuckles were bloody and I don’t know why, but I wanted more blood. I needed more blood to leave my body. Like the memory would leave with it. I pounded on the mirror until it shattered and it cut the shit out of my hands. It felt so good, Mason. It felt good. I felt nothing but this insane physical pain. I was numb to the rest. For that moment, it was like what Andy did—it didn’t happen. Do you know the only thing worse than what he did to me is?”

I don’t think she expects me to answer. I couldn’t anyway if she did.

“My mom was pissed about the bathroom. She didn’t ask me why I did it. Didn’t even care about my fucked up hands. All she said was: Clean it up.

“You asked why I did this to myself.” She moves her leg so I can see the marks of her suffering. “This makes me forget. It releases all the torment that lives inside. It erases him. It makes all the things that remind me of him easier to deal with. It draws it out and makes it disappear for a little while.

“I’m not beautiful. And if you knew what’s contained within me, you would see the truth. This—” She jabs her leg hard enough to turn her pale skin whiter. “This is so much uglier inside.”

It hurts to swallow and it takes several tries. Twelve years old. Kellin’s age. I grit my teeth as I work my jaw. My eyes are wet and I press my palms to them.

“Mason, I’m ruined. I can never give you what you deserve. I’m incapable of loving someone like—like you want. I will never be able to do it right. I will never deserve to be loved.”

My breathing is erratic. I shove myself to my knees and grasp her arms, pulling her toward me once again. “Sometimes never is a distorted perception. I love you, Hope. And I’m not the only one. I know you care about me. I see it in your eyes. I feel it. Everybody needs love. Everybody. And some people need it more than others. You’re a liar if you say you don’t. I’ll do that for you. I’ll love you. All you have to do is let me.”

The wind whispers against my back as if giving me a nudge toward her and I take it as a sign. I propel myself into her, pushing my bare skin to hers. I need to feel her. I need her to feel me.

This is real.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I whisper.

With a broken sob, Hope twines her arms around my neck. She claws at me in her attempt to secure her body to mine. My chest aches as my heart drums with a mix of sadness and bittersweet relief. I can feel her racing pulse against my flesh, matching my own.

“It’ll be all right. You can trust me. I won’t hurt you. I won’t let anyone ever hurt you again.”

I feel her nod as her tears run down my neck. “I do. I trust you. I...I—need... Mason.” I don’t know what she’s trying to say, but I can feel her struggle to get it out. “I love Skittles.”

Chapter 26

Hope

While we wait for Kellin, Mason tells me about the different places he’s lived. Eight different schools in five years. Nine homes. Four states—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Sixteen “girlfriends,” he thinks. Six part time jobs ranging from a weekend dishwasher to working concession at a movie theater. The way he talks, with a distant look and small frown, it sounds like he wants to settle somewhere permanently. But it sounds nice to me. Getting a fresh start, seeing new places. I’d love to do that. My mom and I moved around a lot, but always within the same twenty mile radius in Ohio.

“Where was your favorite place?” I ask.

“Home. Illinois. I had friends there. I went to the same schools my dad did. We lived a block from the house he grew up in. That’s why Mom wanted to move. Everything reminded her of him. She couldn’t stand it, but she didn’t realize how much I needed those reminders. Kel doesn’t even remember most of those places. They were a part of Dad and he’ll never know them.”

“Maybe you can take him sometime,” I suggest softly.

“Yeah. I’ve thought about it. I planned to move back when I turned eighteen and he could visit, but I couldn’t leave them. They’re the only family I have left.” I understand that. I don’t have any family unless you consider my absentee father, which I don’t. If I had someone, I wouldn’t be able to leave them.

“What are your plans for after graduation?”

He glances out the window staring at the kids pouring out of the school. “I don’t know. I stopped applying to colleges because we kept moving. Probably just go somewhere close while Kel’s in school. Pick up a job that’ll work around my schedule. Dad had a life insurance policy, nothing big, but Mom took what was left after the funeral and split it up between me and Kellin. It’s more than enough to cover community college. If Mom hadn’t kept it in trust until I turned eighteen, I probably would’ve wasted it on a car by now.” He turns to regard me. “What about you? Any big plans after you graduate?”

“I wanna go to school. I don’t wanna end up like my mom. But my grades aren’t good enough to go anywhere, so I’ll do the community college thing too. I have no idea what I wanna be when I grow up, though.” I flash a smile.

“You don’t wanna do something with music?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I love music, I just don’t know if I want to have to do it. Don’t read into this, but I kind of like kids, so if I could do something with kids and music, that’d be cool. I’m pretty much a C student, though. I don’t know if I’d make a very good teacher.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily have to work at a school. You could do something like musical therapy maybe.”

“If I could help kids with emotional issues by using music, I think that’d be my dream job.”

“I think you’d be good at it. Kids and music.”

“Guy and Chase count on the band making it big. I don’t even know if there still is a band now with Park and everything. I don’t want to rely on it. And I don’t want to do it forever. I need to find a real job, and soon. Alec and Jenny get money from the state for fostering me. Once I turn eighteen, they’ll lose that money. I can’t be a burden.”

“When’s that? Your birthday?”

“Not ‘til November, but I’d like to have something more saved than the ninety-four dollars in my dresser.”

“November what?”

I raise a brow. “Tenth.” He nods at the steering wheel.

Kellin stops outside the car with the raise of his eyebrows. The gesture is so Mason, I smile. “What’s going on?” he asks. “Where’s Mom’s car?”

“At school,” Mason explains. “We’ll pick it up on the way.”

I wait for Kellin to get in the back before I shift in the seat. “How was school, Little Man?”

He buckles his seatbelt and grins at me. “I got my schedule changed. I have lunch and a free period with Misty now.”

I arch my brow and give him a knowing nod. “Did you ask her yet?”

“Ask her what?” Mason inquires as he pulls onto the street.

“No. Not yet,” Kellin says slowly. His cheeks turn pink and he fumbles the zipper on his backpack.

“Why not?” I ask.

Kellin shrugs his thin shoulders. “What if she says no?”

Oh. Boys can be clueless. “What if she says no to what?” Mason grunts, obviously irritated that he doesn’t know what we’re talking about. “And can you put your seatbelt back on, please?”

I flop onto the seat and buckle up. “She won’t say no, Kel. I promise.”