“If you can be so courageous, Nicoletta, so can I. This will be difficult for both of us. This has to do with you. If you want to, stay, but, tesoro, it won’t be easy to hear.”
She nodded because she could see it was difficult for him. She had no idea what that meant, but at least it put them in it together. He settled back against the leather, his arm once more circling her shoulder, his fingers urging her to sit back as well. It took a moment for her to realize he was waiting for her to settle close to him before he started, so she fit herself next to him, her thigh touching his. For no reason at all, her heart began to pound. Anxiety was already setting in for both of them.
“We had the reports from the social worker as well as the investigators, which were much more thorough and detailed. I read those reports far more often than I should have. It made me crazy. When it was my watch, I would sit in Nicoletta’s bedroom while she slept. She had terrible nightmares.”
Taviano scrubbed his hand down his face, as if that would stop the memories from coming. Nicoletta could feel the waves of anger pouring off of him. She didn’t look at the others. She’d lived through those nightmares. She didn’t need to see reports. She knew firsthand what was in them.
“I’d watch her fight, hear her pleas. No one should have to suffer what she did. No one. She was mine to protect. I wasn’t there for her. I couldn’t do anything to help her. I watched her try to self-destruct and I knew why. I even understood. I felt so damned helpless. I still do. Who does that to a beautiful young woman? What possesses anyone to do that kind of thing to someone else?”
Nicoletta could feel Taviano shaking. There was genuine distress there. Not just anger. Real distress. She knew he was close to tears. That would kill her, if he broke down. He was so strong. So invincible. She was rising up, a powerful woman in spite of what had happened, in spite of the brutality done to her. She was becoming someone confident, someone she had been destined to be all along. Maybe different, but still strong and compassionate, a woman able to function and live her life, choose her own way. She had chosen Taviano.
She turned her head up to his and nuzzled his neck just to show solidarity. She didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want to make things worse emotionally for him, but she wanted to find some way of showing him she stood with him. She had learned to distance herself when any discussion of her step-uncles was taking place. For the most part, she had become good at that.
Nightmares persisted. She had plenty of triggers she still worked on. She didn’t like discussing the details of what had happened to her, but if her counselor insisted when the nightmares got too bad, she did. This was about Taviano. She could do anything for him, and she would. He made her feel safe, and she would find a way to make him feel just as safe.
“The nightmares were so bad at times that I found myself going to the house when it wasn’t my time to watch over her. I would soothe her. Sit on the side of her bed and talk to her, sometimes wake her.” He cupped the side of her face, turning her head toward his. “Do you remember?”
He asked her so softly, so intimately, she didn’t think anyone else could hear. Of course she could remember. She felt the tears burn behind her eyes. She knew tears burned behind his because they both had shed them. Holding each other. She’d fought him at first, and then she’d let him share those terrible times. She hadn’t wanted to. She didn’t want anyone to know, least of all Taviano. Beautiful, perfect, handsome Taviano.
Three men forcing themselves on her at the same time. She had told him everything, sobbing, sometimes even hitting him, punching, her body wrapped up in damp sheets, thrashing wildly, a mess. Taviano had been there night after night, and during the day she’d be so humiliated she’d snipe at him and be ugly, yet he’d come back to get her through the torment of reliving the ugliness that had been her unrelenting night.
He told his family about those nights, holding her while he did so, rocking her like he had every night. What it was like for her. For him. How it felt for her to have to know the family was aware of what had happened to her. What it was like for him to have to know he couldn’t undo one single moment of her torment.