Very Bad Things (Briarcrest Academy #1)(56)

“They took pictures. And it didn’t look like rape in the pictures. It looked gross and terrible, like I wanted it,” I choked out, wiping my face with my hands.

“Maybe he posed me, maybe he didn’t. I don’t remember,” I whispered. “I loved him, but never like that. He said it was my fault because it’s always the girl’s fault. He said no one would believe me,” I croaked. “I finally got the courage to tell Mother and she said that . . .” I paused and bit my lip.

“What? What did she say?” he asked, holding his breath. My gut told me he knew what was coming. He’d lived with her for years; he knew the strict rules she lived by. Even he lived by them.

“She told me I was making it up, that Finn only loved me as a brother should. She called me a liar.”

My dad shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus.”

“I thought she’d told you.”

“No, never.”

“I was only a kid, and I didn’t know what to do. I should have told you myself, but I wasn’t old enough to make the right choices.”

“How did you stop him?” he asked, his voice strangled with emotion.

“I told him I would kill him, and I meant it,” I said savagely. “After I saw the pictures, something snapped in me. I stole all the knives from the kitchen and placed them around the room, in the corners, in my nightstand, under my pillow. I stabbed him on his arm when he tried again. Blood was everywhere . . . he had to go to the emergency room. He told you it was a bar fight.”

Darkness, black and crushing, rose to the surface. I rubbed my temples, trying to erase the thick memories in my head. “He messed up though when he gave the pictures to me because I could see his face on some of them. I told him I’d show them to the police,” I said, dying a little inside at the thought of actually showing them to someone.

Dad’s entire face had whitened at my words, and tears ran down his face. I looked until I found the crescent-shaped scar on his cheek. One birthday, my parents had gotten me a huge dollhouse, and he’d gotten that scar when he’d been putting it together for me. I’d watched him work on it, because I was eager to play with it, so I’d seen the drill when it bounced off the dollhouse and flew back to nick him in the face. Most dads would have lost their cool or cursed, or at least stopped for a minute to take a break, but not Robert Blakely. He’d wiped the blood off his face with a tissue, and without a word had gone right back to putting that dollhouse together. My whole life, he’s been emotionless and reserved like that. But right now he looked destroyed, like he’d aged ten years while sitting here.

I thought about the invisible scars I had, the ones that would never really heal, and I continued, “In the beginning, I fought him as hard as I could, but he was always bigger and stronger, and after I while I felt paralyzed, like it wasn’t really happening to me. I just let him,” I cried, bowing my head in shame, remembering how weak I’d been and how easily I’d given in.

Disgust filled me. Why hadn’t I fought back more?

Maybe it had all been my fault. Maybe I was a whore like Mother said.

He scooted his chair over to my side of the table and took my hand. “Nora, I’m sorry.”

I sensed the guilt he was feeling, but it didn’t stop me from saying, “Nothing will change what happened to me. You should have been around more,” I said bitterly. “I’ve never been first with you or Mother.”

“Your mother,” he began and stopped, looking around the room, seeming to search for the right words. “I’m not excusing her for her part, but when I first met her, she’d dropped out of college to have Finn, and she was all alone. Her family was very religious and wanted no part of an illegitimate child. They’d disowned her. We fell in love, got married, and told everyone Finn was mine. But she had control problems, and getting her high-profile job as anchor, it’s made her worse.” He stared at our hands. “I haven’t been the father you needed.”

“This is the most we’ve talked in months,” I reminded him.

He reached over and awkwardly hugged me, and I patted his back, feeling like I was comforting him.

“Why do you stay with her?” I asked, pulling back.

He sighed. “What would people think if I left? There’s never been a divorce in my family, and together we’re a strong force. People respect the Blakely name.” He shrugged. “She’s on her way to the top in television, and I do whatever I want. Why would I change it?”

Indeed.

I nodded, acknowledging in my head that we were a screwed-up family. I wondered if he would confront either of them. He was as fixated on society and reputation as Mother. My gut told me he was genuinely angry for me, but that still didn’t mean he’d go to the police and drag our family name through the mud. In the end, our prestige meant more than I did.

Later, as I watched him get into his Mercedes and drive away, money was on my mind. He’d left me several hundred in cash, but he didn’t say if he would again. I didn’t want their money anyway, but I did need to help out Aunt Portia. She’d been the one feeding me, buying me clothes, and paying my cell bill. Thankfully, the Volvo had been a gift from my now dead grandparents on my sixteenth birthday, so it was mine. I didn’t want my parents’ money, but I did want my thirty thousand in prize money and ten thousand in scholarship money I’d collected when I’d won the spelling bee. I needed every single cent to get through college. Yeah, I had a scholarship to UT, but I’d still have living expenses. He’d said he’d consider making me the primary on the account that holds all my money, but he’d have to run it by Mother.