Page 51 of Love is Angry

I don’t know whether to be furious or…I don’t even know.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I say, raising my chin. “You won’t have to worry about your family. Not because of me.”

I’m disgusted. And disappointed. Though I’m not sure why. This is how they deal with things in this family. The kids are oblivious. Rhue gets to look down on me and treat me like a fucking monster, and Julian gets a scolding. That fucker deserves to have his balls cut off. But what am I going to do about it?

I’m fucking helpless and worthless.

“Madison, I will stop him. I promise you that,” Roxanne says.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I’ll be gone and out of your lives. Let’s just leave it at that,” I reply and walk out.

Roxanne won’t come after me. I know it. She knows what she has to do, and I…

What the hell am I going to do?

Rhue is convinced I willingly gave myself to his father. Julian Echeveria is a disgusting monster, and I fear that his wife has done nothing but enable his sick behavior. I wonder how many messes of this kind she has swept right under the rug.

Outside the mansion, I feel like I can breathe again. Not freely, not easily, but there’s more air in my lungs outside here than there was when I was in there.

I slip through the service gate and realize I’m falling apart. Every part of me aches. I can’t stop crying. I can’t erase those moments from my mind. That rape is a page in my history, now. Indelible. I don’t want it to define me, yet I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, either.

Chapter 22

Madison

The sun cuts through the forest’s rich emerald canopy with blades of golden light. Some slice through the lace curtains, and I can see dust particles rising and fluttering all over. It’s quiet. I get up from the couch and stretch for a good minute. Every bone in my body crackles uncomfortably. A bed would have been better, but Rhue took the only bed in this cabin. After what we did last night, I was better off on the couch.

“Fucking idiot,” I reprimand myself and limp my way toward the window. My leg is still asleep, dammit. This couch will haunt my bones for the next couple of days, at least.

I sneak a peek outside and am stunned by what I see. Lindsey and Cameron slept on the porch last night. They’re still there, huddled and spooning on the rattan couch, swaddled in blankets and jackets. The empty beer cans litter the porch, and there’s a raccoon currently treating himself to whatever’s left of the cheese cracker bag on the makeshift barrel coffee table.

I guess this means they passed the hazing ritual, but I do wonder if the Acolytes came to check up on us during the night. I certainly would have, had I been in their commando boots. I remember what Cameron and Lindsey were doing last night. Nowonder they’re tired. I then remember what Rhue and I were doing last night, and a familiar heat creeps up to my cheeks. My body betrayed me. My body experienced some changes last night, too. Sensations I never thought I would ever experience again.

Julian took so much from me.

Yet Rhue came back, and in his own way, tried to make it better. He almost did, too, but I am too damaged. Too guilty and miserable. I have yet to forgive myself, and until I do that, I cannot even dare to consider the possibility of ever trusting him. He hurt me, too. He mocked me. Deceived me. Played with my heart.

Sure, in his mind, I deserve it and worse. Maybe I do. I should have stayed home that day.

“How are Romeo and Juliet doing?” Rhue’s voice is so close, it makes me jump.

I bump into him and curse under my breath as I whirl around and nearly bump into him again. “Oh, for f—”

It makes him laugh, but I am still angry, so I push him away.

For a moment, the world stops spinning. Rhue gives me a long and dark look. It spells nothing but trouble, and I have slept poorly on that couch. I’m not equipped in any way to handle any more of him at this point. Too much has happened. Rhue Echeveria is nothing but danger, and I am terrified of letting myself get close to him again.

Chapter 23

Rhue

Everything about Madison Willis makes my heart turn and twist in the most painful ways, yet I cannot get enough of her. I have spent the past year working so hard to hate her. Convincing myself that I do, in fact, hate her. I almost succeeded in making her life hell, too, upon our unexpected reunion. And, for a while, I was convinced that I was doing the right thing.

Or rather, the righteous thing.

But her pain finally reached me. It awakened the soul I put to sleep when I saw Madison with my father. It brought back the suffering. The bitterness. The disappointment. That acrid feeling of rejection. The anger of her betrayal blinded me. I am not entitled to her. I never was, yet I treated her as though she owed her misery to me, somehow.

“Sorry, Maddie, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I say, then quickly realize I called her Maddie. She was always so strict about who gets to call her that. She’s going to give me an earful, now, but I deserve it.