Straight to the point.
I gulp some water down. Stalling. “Some of it.”
“Which bits?”
When I take another gulp of water and continue stalling, he says, “Zara, I found you in a bad fucking way last night. The kind of way I’m fairly fucking sure you’d hate to be found in. And then you told me some shit that happened to you. And let’s just say, either you and I are gonna talk about it or I’m gonna take you to your mother right now and make damn sure you and she talk about it, because I have it in my head that you haven’t talked to anyone about this when that’s exactly what you need to do.”
My breathing slows and my muscles tense while I stare at him in silence, swallowing down the feelings that refuse to go away.
He’s right, I was in a bad way, and I don’t even need to know how he found me to know that. The fact I took that drink from Tommy tells me that. I’d already decided not to rely on alcohol anymore, but then I went and used it instead of finding other coping strategies.
It’s time for me to make a change in the way I’m dealing with this. And because his eyes are filled with fierce compassion, I find myself saying, “I had a panic attack when I got to the cinema, and long story short, I ended up at that party because Marissa called me in the middle of my panic and helped me.”
“You have these attacks often?”
“I’ve had a few.” My voice drops when I say, “I think they’re getting worse. Maybe.”
“You drink to avoid them?”
My heart rate picks up knowing I’m about to say something that’s going to give him the perfect in to ask me the thing he really wants to know. “No, I drink to forget the things that caused them to start.”
He works his jaw. “What happened that night?”
He said I told him some stuff last night, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what. By the hard set of his face, I’m guessing I told him stuff I wish I hadn’t. Since I did, though, and since I don’t know what I said and what I didn’t, I figure at this point I may as well just tell him the full story.
I give him the rundown of how the night started. At the club. With friends. And how I stupidly ended up going back to a hotel for a one-night stand. It’s at this point, my shame starts to kick in and I want to stop talking. But I don’t. I need to get this out.
Stopping to take a long sip of water, I gather my courage. “I wanted to experience sex with a guy who knew what he was doing. You know, an older guy who didn’t fumble around when he tried to get me off.” I stop and take a deep breath to steady myself. I also remind myself that when Fury learned of my abortion, I felt no judgement from him. He already knows the worst thing I’ve done. “He was rough, but I let him do what he wanted. And then afterwards, when he kicked me out, I was too ashamed of what happened that I didn’t want to call Holly or anyone and ask them to come pick me up, so I walked home.” I stare at him as the horror of that night floods my mind. “It’s my own fault I was mugged. I shouldn’t have been at that hotel and I shouldn’t have been on the streets by myself.” My guilt is brutal as I whisper through tears, “It’s my fault I had to kill a baby.”
His blue eyes turn to steel. “He raped you.”
It’s not a question, but a statement. And it’s violent, the way it crashes down between us. “No.” I shake my head with determination as I wipe away my tears. “No, he didn’t.”
“You said last night that you told him no. Did I misunderstand that?”
“It wasn’t rape. I said no to begin with, but then I…. I went along with it.”
His jaw clenches, and it feels like he’s working really hard to keep his shit together. “If you said no and then just went along with it, that sounds a fuckuva lot like rape to me. You only say it once, Zara, and any man worth anything fucking knows what it means.”
“I get that, but it wasn’t like I was kicking and screaming for him to stop.”
“But you said no and he kept going. Did he use force of any kind?”
Shame fills me at the thought of what happened that night and my cheeks heat as tears fill my eyes again. “Yes, but I didn’t stop him.” It wasn’t rape. I wasn’t raped. I didn’t stop him.
He’s still not happy with what he’s hearing. His eyes are so hard I have to look away. “Zara,” he says, and I hear the restraint in his voice. He’s trying to keep that hard tone locked down. He’s failing though. “Look at me.”
Brushing my tears away, I do as he says and meet his gaze again. Some of the hardness is gone, replaced with that same compassion I saw earlier. “My father beat the fuck out of my mother for my entire childhood. He liked to force himself on her, too. She always said no. He always ignored her. I will never agree that it’s not rape if a woman says no and the man doesn’t listen. If you never uttered the word yes or something to that effect after you said no, it was rape.”
Flashes of the guy’s face while he fucked me, gripping my hands and holding me down with the kind of brute strength I never had any hope of escaping pass through my mind. He’d used a soothing tone throughout, convincing me to let him keep going. I said no to begin with, but I didn’t fight him off when I felt overpowered. And
he didn’t stop when I told him some of the stuff he did hurt. If I really think about it, with the way Fury has framed it, a good man wouldn’t have continued; not with the way I responded.
I sob as I relive everything. All the shame. All the guilt. All the self-blame. It all comes back and instead of trying to stop myself from feeling any of it, I allow every bit of it to consume me. And for the first time, I feel like I can breathe. Trying to stop myself from feeling has been exhausting. A constant battle in my mind and body. I feel like I have space in my lungs that was filled to the brim before, blocking air from getting in.
Fury’s hand curls around to the nape of my neck and he moves off the stool to stand next to me. Pulling me close, he comforts me, and I stay with him like this for a long time.
When I lift my head and wipe my face, I softly say, “I haven’t told anyone about what happened with that guy, but you were right; I needed to.”