Page 73 of Broken Melody
“Wow. That’s all?” she asks trying to make a joke again, but I don’t laugh, I can’t. And she sees me unable to do so. She reaches a hand to me, brushes my cheek this time, then looks at the guys and kindly requests, “Can I have a few minutes with Maddox? I promise I’ll explain everything soon, but I’d like to talk to him first if that’s okay.”
They all leave but not before each of them squeeze her hand and tell her they are happy she’s awake. When they’re gone, I lean down and kiss Sailor gently on the lips, quickly and nervously, not wanting to hurt her. “I was so scared,” I tell her honestly.
“I’m sorry.”
“God, why are you apologizing? You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one that’s sorry.”
She shakes her head, “Maddox, I have something to tell you.”
“It can wait. You don’t have to tell me anything right now. You’re still recovering.”
“No. I need to talk to you,” she insists. “I need to tell you about Adam.”
“Adam? Is that the man that was in the dressing room with you?” I choke out.
“Yes.”
“You…you know him?”
“Yes.”
“How did he get in there with you? Why did he hurt you? The guys said he wouldn’t say a word while they waited for the police. Jace took care of everything to do with him. He’s not been my immediate concern.”
“He was at the meet and greet. He threatened to tell everyone about our past if I didn’t meet him in the dressing room.”
“Why didn’t you say something to me? To anyone? I don’t understand.”
“Because…because what he had to say could ruin the band.”
“And so you put the band before your own safety? That just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maddox. Let me talk to you, okay? You can yell at me afterwards.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
She takes a deep breath and briefly closes her eyes. When she opens them, she’s looking at me but she’s not really seeing me. “When my parents died, I had no family. My grandparents had passed away, my mother was an only child and my father had a brother that died at a young age. I didn’t have any family. My parent’s were all I had in the world.” She swallows thickly and I squeeze her hand. “Before I could even wrap my head around their loss, I was put into the foster care system and ended up in a foster home quickly. My guardians were a man named Lex and his wife, Cara. The two of them were wonderful at putting on a show for the state. But in truth, they represented everything you’ve seen and heard about bad apples being foster parents so they can get a check from the state. That was the situation I was forced to live in. People that could care less about me, made me fend for myself, were harsh disciplinarians, only purchased the bare essentials for me, and constantly told me what a pain in the ass I was.”
I squeeze her hand while feeling pain imagining a young Sailor having to deal with people like this.
“I wasn’t alone in their home. There were four of us all-together, two children younger than me - Bree and Carrie - and then eventually, almost five years later, Adam came into the home as well.”
“Adam was your foster brother?”
She nods. “He was, yes, and he was a very angry kid. I know that he didn’t have a father, and his mother was in jail for something, though I’m not sure what. He hated me. We never got along; he even picked on me at school. At home, I found him several times digging through my stuff. He would steal money I earned from my part time job, take notebooks and pens. I would do my best to ignore it and eventually realized I needed to find a hiding spot for the things of mine that were most important.” She pauses and swallows thickly before continuing. “He ended up finding my hiding place and the thing that shifted our already dysfunctional relationship was when I found he tore the head off of my childhood doll. It was a doll my mother and father gave me. I was rushed out of my home so fast, I only had a few things of mine, things that reminded me of them – my doll, a blanket, a book. I was devastated. I didn’t care it could be sewn back on, I didn’t care that it would make him angry, I initially let all of my prior unspoken anger toward him out in one angry diatribe – I told him what I thought – about him, what he had done, everything. I was seventeen and withheld nothing and then I told on him like a child and I didn’t care, I was so devastated. He got in a fight with Lex and Lex hit him. Lex told him he was tired of his shit and to knock it off or he could find a new home.”
“A couple days later, I was asleep in my room. Tired after a long shift at my job, I came home and went to bed quickly. I woke up…” she stops and seems to take a moment to compose herself. She shifts on the bed, then grimaces in pain.
“We can talk later, baby. You should rest. You don’t have to tell me all of this right now.”
“No. I want to get through this. It’s just not easy. I woke up to a hand covering my face. It was so tight, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t…I couldn’t scream. I think you know what I’m going to tell you.” My stomach drops and it burns. My hand that isn’t holding hers, bunches into a fist. The hair on the back of my neck rises. I know exactly what she’s going to say. I’d give anything to be able to turn the clock back, and save her. Anything. “Adam…he…he…. held me down. He…hurt me.” A tear falls from the corner of her eye and it’s like a shot to the heart. I grab it and kiss it. She smiles and it seems to calm her. “I was a virgin and that was my first time…” she whispers in pain and pauses again. I’m grateful because I need a moment to compose myself too. “He said horrible things, did horrible things. I can still remember the weight of his body on mine. The smell of his breath, the gouges he made with his nails and his harsh breathing. It would follow me into my dreams for years. I thought it would never end. I tried to think about something else, anything. I just wanted to mentally remove myself from what was happening to me.”
“Sailor,” I say her name with such pain in my voice unable to keep my emotion to myself.
“I told my foster parents, you know. I told them what he had done and Cara slapped me and said I was lying and trying to get their money taken from them. Lex told me that if I was telling the truth, fact is, he didn’t give a shit and that if I opened my mouth I would regret it. It’s funny; I knew they didn’t care about me, so I’m not sure why I told them. I don’t know what I thought they would say or do.”
“Why didn’t you tell a social worker? Didn’t they visit your house and check up on you?”
“No. The system was messed up in that small town. They didn’t do their monthly visits routinely at all and I was close to the time for aging out of the system. They were too sporadic and honestly, Lex and Cara were friends with the woman. The system was corrupt. And I was counting down the days until I turned eighteen and could leave. I was afraid of being thrown back into the system and god knew where I would have been put next.”
