Page 238 of Hide and Keep

Arthur knew he had a sick fuck on the property terrorizing his daughter and he didn’t do anything about it. Not only did he put the blame on Ever, but he’s been forcing her to sit in front of Ryan night after night, letting the piece of shit watch her eat.

“What’d you do?”

“That day you saw me in the pool was the first time I used it in months and I only did because I knew he wouldn’t be up there. I didn’t know he was in the pool house or else I wouldn’t have gone in the pool at all.”

I misread her response to my accusation that day. She wasn’t scared of being caught. She was scared of being preyed on again.

I misread everything.

“That’s all you did though? You just stopped swimming altogether?”

She filled my bed with rat traps, my room with bats, for less. Way fucking less.

Why didn’t she retaliate against him? I would’ve.

I, Crue Brantley, a twenty-five-year-old man with more bulk and skill and experience on my side, would’ve. I’m not Ever and it’s not fair to say what she should’ve done. I can’t begin to imagine how she felt at that time.

“Yeah. You know…kind of like how you stopped living.” She peeks at me.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“After what happened with Yasmin, you stopped living.”

I shake my head. “That’s not…” What I did? Yeah, kind of. But why I did it? No.

I don’t think so.

“Yaz wasn’t the reason I shut down and stopped trying in life. The world being against me was.”

“Why did the world turn against you?”

“I told you already. Because they thought I was a predator.”

“But you weren’t.”

“No. Far from it.”

“Because you weren’t the one pushing for sex.”

“No. It was…” I catch myself at the very idea and scoff. “Yasmin wasn’t a predator. She was my girlfriend.”

“How many courtrooms do you think that kind of excuse has been used in? People rape their spouses all the time.” Ever lowers her eyes before whispering, “Labels shouldn’t give anyone free rein over someone else’s body.”

“As true as that is, I don’t think Yaz…”

“Sexually assaulted you?”

I say, “Yeah,” but I shake my head, this whole turn in conversation catching me off guard. We were talking about Ever, not me. I’m a guy. I can’t—

“You were okay with what she was doing to you?”

My head shakes harder. “I don’t… I didn’t say that… I just…felt like I didn’t have any control,” I admit for the first time, even to myself.

Ever asks softly, “What else did you feel?”

“When Yaz was doingthat…” I don’t know what the fuck to call it. “I was extremely uncomfortable, bordering on freaking the fuck out. And not just because I was driving, which was not great either.”

I was a new driver, on the road at night, distracted to the point I could barely see through the windshield. Not only was it not great, it was fucking terrifying.

---