Written in Ink (Montgomery Ink #4)(51)

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m saying this all out of order. I should start at the beginning.”

Griffin pulled away only to unscrew the bottled water and hold it to her lips. She swallowed a big gulp and nodded in thanks. He knew what she wanted before she did…

“In high school I did pretty well academically. Got all As and knew I would be going to college. I wasn’t the all-star athlete or popular girl who would end up valedictorian with those grades. I was just an average good student, if that makes sense. I took the right classes and had a few friends who I hung out with. Everything was good. Not great, not bad. I didn’t hate high school…until my senior year.”

She took another sip of water and let Griffin run his hands up and down her thigh, comforting her.

“I had AP History with Mr. Sanders. Jeff Sanders. He was the awesome teacher with the great reputation. The one with the fantastic smile that the single moms—and some not-so-single moms—tried to flirt with. He was the one that the teenage girls and some of the teenage boys had crushes on. He was the popular one. Everybody loved Mr. Sanders.”

The last part she bit out through clenched teeth, and Griffin cupped her jaw. “Baby…”

She liked when he called her baby. When he called her Fall. She just liked him.

But that wasn’t what she was talking about then.

“There were always rumors about him, you know. How he slept with a couple mothers, but anyone who heard that and loved him said it must have been the slut women making up stories. It was always the woman’s fault for daring to want to sleep with him. Mr. Sanders could do no wrong.”

She shook her head.

“There were also rumors about him with the girls in his class, even the ones that hadn’t quite reached eighteen yet. Everyone was allowed to pick their seats in his class, but for some reason, the front row was always girls. Usually girls who wore skirts. I never knew how he made that work out for himself.” She shuddered. “He sat me in the front row my senior year. I loved wearing skirts, loved the way the silk felt on my legs.” She sighed. “I still do. I wouldn’t let him take that away from me.”

Griffin squeezed her thigh. “Good.”

She smiled sadly. “He paid special attention to me. I was young enough to think of it as him being a good teacher. At first. Then it became…more. He would ask me to stay after class. Would gently brush my hair back as he leaned closer. It scared me.”

“That man deserves to be shot.”

She rubbed his hand. “It gets worse.”

“Tell me,” he repeated.

“When I told my parents about it, they brushed it off.” Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them back. If she started crying again, she wouldn’t make it. “They brushed it off. They thought I was just making it up. This was Mr. Sanders. He wouldn’t do that. I was just confused.”

“Fuck them.”

She sniffed. “Yeah, f*ck them. They were wrong. Maybe they would make a different choice now, but they were wrong then.”

“Fall, tell me all of it.”

“He got angry when I told him I’d told my parents. One day he cornered me after school and said that I was bad. That because I had told my parents, even if they didn’t believe me, that I would be punished. He had all the power and I had nothing.”

“Did he touch you, Autumn? Did he hurt you?”

“He never raped me. Never touched me inappropriately. I never gave him a chance. He was obsessed with me. He left me notes, was always where I was when I went to the movies or to my job at night. He was always there. And no one believed me. It was all coincidence, they said. They blamed me for trying to harm a good man’s reputation.”

Griffin squeezed her hands. “What happened next? Why are you running?”

“The day after graduation, things went to hell. You see, when I was so scared during my last half of the semester, my grades slipped. I passed everything, but I had brought shame and humiliation to my family. I didn’t go to graduation, didn’t go to any parties. I just stayed at home.”

She shuddered.

“That’s how he found me. While my parents and brother were out to dinner as a family,” she hiccupped, “he came into my home. I don’t know if he wanted to kill me or…well…you know.”

Griffin let out a low growl, and while that should have scared her, it settled her more than it should have.

“I hit him with a frying pan of all things. I had wanted eggs, and it was the only thing close. He came at me again, hit me until I bled. I screamed and screamed. And no one came. I hit him again with the skillet and escaped with my cell phone.”

Griffin moved then, pulling her onto his lap. “Baby.”

“I called the police, but the captain there was friends with Mr. Sanders. Best friends, in fact. There were things about alibis said, and the fact that I was a liar. Some said I must have hurt myself.” Griffin cursed. “Others said it was a home robbery or my loser boyfriend—which I didn’t have, but they all thought I must have—that’d hit me. No one could believe it was Mr. Sanders.”

“I don’t understand how no one would take your word for it. You had bruises, baby. They should have taken that as fact.”

“They didn’t. No one believed a teenage girl where a very, very smart man went against her. His reputation was intact, while mine was tarnished. I was on a scholarship for the college I had planned to go to. It was revoked on account of my…transgressions with the police, as it wasn’t a full academic one but also relied on my honor.”