Page 67 of Gideon
“I just can’t,” she sobbed, looking at me with these wide, doe-like eyes that were so filled with anguish that I felt myself break over and over again at every gaze.
“I know. I just want to make it better. Can I hold you? Can I get you anything?” I tried, wanting to reach out to her, even just to hold her hand. Anything to provide her comfort as she processed and worked through this terror she felt. I only wish I understood what had caused it. I knew it was my father. I knew that being around any of the Elders could likely be triggering for her, but, then again, she had been around the Elders often through her years here in Zion. Why now? Why this moment? I just wanted to understand.
“Please don’t touch me,” she begged.
“I’ll do anything, Naomi, just tell me what happened. What caused this? I’m all ears. No judgment. I swear it,” I pleaded.
“You don’t understand, Gideon,” she cried out, her anger and frustration surprising. I pushed myself to not show that emotion on my face.
“Then help me understand. Talk to me,” I pleaded, working to not yell in my own frustration. Seeing this woman, mywife, cowering against the wall like this was tearing me apart inside and there was nothing I could do. Mostly because I had no idea what in the hell was happening.
“You don’t understand,” she broke down, weeping with her forehead resting on her knees, rocking back and forth. I stayed silent, hoping she would continue. “You don’t get how hard it is.” Her voice broke with a sob as the tears came faster.
“Being around them… day after day? Do you have any idea how hard that is for me?” She nearly yelled into the room. I stayed stone still and silent as she began her rant. She needed this. And I needed to listen.
“I have to walk around this place, day in and day out, surrounded by the people who stole me away from my parents. Who fucking kidnapped me! Who abused and terrorized me in that cabin. They screamed at me, degraded me, and when that didn’t work, they tortured me and hit me. They tried to beat my memories out of me. They literally beat me into submission, Gideon.” She sniffled hard, swiping angrily at her tears as she narrowed her eyes at me with every word.
“Do you have any idea how hard that is? How hard it is to see these men? To smile at them and pretend that their torture worked? To live in constant fear that I will slip and my face will show the truth? That I remember every fucking minute of their abuse?” she angrily spat at me.
“I couldn’t possibly imagine what you’ve had to go through. But I want you to know you’re safe with me now, Naomi. I promi—”
“Oh, fuck off! No, I’m not! Don’t you get it?” She laughed humorlessly, with more anger and bitterness than I had ever heard from her lips. I was taken aback, stunned by her sheer outburst of rage.
“Naomi, I —”
“Gideon, your father is the man who took me.”
CHAPTER17
NAOMI
I don’t know what had come over me. To blurt out such a horrific truth in such a way was completely tactless, especially towards a man who had shown me nothing but kindness from the moment we had exchanged wedding vows. He had been a complete surprise from minute one. He’d opened up to me, when he didn’t have to. And when I had asked for security, he hadn’t even questioned it. Not once.
And there I was, blurting out the horrible truth in its entirety like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. It was everything.
I had sat there, leaning against the wall as the terror of having that man in this house still vibrated through my very bones, and I just blurted it out. Gideon sat stock still, his eyes slightly glazed over as he processed what I had just said.
Then again, based on his utter lack of reaction, perhaps he wasn’t reacting at all.
“Gideon? Did you hear me?” I asked, much more subdued than I just had been moments before. He remained unmoving, completely unaffected other than the fact that his eyes were unfocused, like he was in a trance.
“Gideon?” I repeated a little louder. I watched as his fists tightened against his criss-crossed knees. “Gideon, are you okay?” I asked, unfolding myself from the wall, concerned for my husband. To receive news like that and just sit there? It was absolutely the last reaction I had expected.
I’m not sure what I had expected, but not this. Anger, yes. Sadness or guilt, sure. Denial, absolutely, that one most of all. But this? This was unnerving. It was worrisome. I felt my terror recede as concern for him took hold.
I scooted closer to him, reaching a hand out to him slowly.
“Gideon?” I just barely touched his hand when he yanked back from me, making me gasp. He wouldn’t look at me.
“How?” he growled, a whisper barely pushed out through his tightly clenched jaw.
“How what? How do I know?” I asked for clarification. My hands still felt shaky. In truth, all of me felt shaky.
“No!” he shouted, making me jump back again. “How can you even look at me?”
“What?” I asked, completely and utterly confused.
“How…” he trailed off, finally looking at me with anger and tears and guilt in his eyes. “How can you stand to be in the same room with me? Knowing what my father did to you? Christ, Naomi. How did you get through our wedding? How have you managed any of this?”
