Valorous(26)

My hands begin to tremble and my stomach aches. “My mom dropped me off at the governor’s mansion after school on Friday. She said she’d see me Sunday and to keep a close eye on the kids. All the stuff she always said. We’d done this a hundred times before, so it was no big deal. Except… When I went into the house, the only one there was Oren. He said Stephanie and the kids would be home soon.”

“Take a deep breath, sweetheart. That’s it… If it’s too much, you don’t have to tell me.”

That’s when I notice there are tears in his eyes, too. This is killing him to hear as much as it’s killing me to recount it. Knowing Flynn is right there beside me, that he feels this almost as deeply as I do, gives me the courage to continue.

“He was drinking when I got there. After about an hour, he told me Stephanie and the kids were in New York visiting her parents for the weekend. I was confused. I made the mistake of asking him why I was there. He… He slapped me hard across the face and said I knew exactly why I was there, that I’d been ‘coming on to him’ for years, that I was ‘hot for it’ and all sorts of other things I didn’t understand at the time.”

“Son of a bitch.” Flynn’s voice is a low growl. “It’s a good thing he’s already dead, or I’d kill him with my own hands.”

“He tore my clothes off. I tried to fight him, but he was so much bigger and stronger than me. The whole time it was happening, I was in a state of disbelief. That this man I’d known all my life, my father’s closest friend… I couldn’t believe he would do this to me. He hit me and choked me and told me he’d kill me if I made so much as a sound.”

“Motherf*cker,” Flynn whispered as he wiped away tears on my face and his own.

“The first time happened in the family room. It hurt so badly, I passed out from the pain. I think he drugged me at some point, because I was in and out of it for what I later discovered was two days. Every time I came to, he was inside me, hurting me.”

“On the plane,” he says haltingly, “when I woke you up that way, did it make you think of the attack?”

“No. You had me so turned on. I didn’t think of it.”

“It would kill me if I did anything to remind you of what happened then.”

“I know.” I squeeze his hand and take a deep breath before continuing my story. “When I tried to fight back, he would hit me. He restrained me, beat me with a belt… I thought it would never end. And when I thought it couldn’t get worse, he shoved it down my throat, and I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe.”

“That’s enough, Nat.” With his arms like bands of steel around me, his tears wet my face and neck. “You don’t have to say another word.”

“I’m okay, and I want to tell you the rest so we can never talk about it again.”

He shudders and draws in a deep breath. I can feel his agony, and in that moment, I am absolutely certain he loves me every bit as much as he says he does.

“On Sunday afternoon, he told me to get up and take a shower. I hurt everywhere. He came into the shower and scrubbed me, violating me all over again as he washed himself off me. After, he grabbed a huge handful of my hair and brought his face down close to mine. He said if I told anyone what he’d done, he would fire my father. He said my dad would go to jail for the stuff he’d done and our family would be homeless. He said no one would believe a fifteen-year-old slut over the governor, and that if I breathed so much as a word to anyone, he’d kill me. I’m not sure what exactly came over me, but I had this vision of him doing the same thing to my sisters. When he told me to get my stuff and get out, I walked straight to the police station, which was half a mile from the governor’s mansion. I was so scared because of the things he said he would do to me and my family if I told, but I knew I had to protect my sisters or he would do this to them, too. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“God, Nat. You’re incredible. That you could be so clearheaded after what had been done to you.”

“I stayed focused on Candace and Olivia when I told the cops what’d happened. I was afraid he’d go after them or other young girls, which is how I was able to report him. At first, I could tell the cops didn’t believe me. I mean, when you think about it, here I was, this fifteen-year-old nobody accusing the governor of Nebraska of raping me—repeatedly. But he’d left bruises that forced them to take me seriously. They took me to the hospital… That was almost worse than what Oren had done. They gave me something in case I’d gotten pregnant, and the exam… It hurt so badly. I cried the whole time. I had to have stitches and… it was horrendous.” I take the napkin he hands me and wipe my face and blow my nose. “Except when I saw Dr. Richmond the other night, I haven’t been to a doctor again since.”