Page 65 of The Photograph

As she closes the door behind her, I stare blindly at the clear skies above the city.

I’d bled enough that day.

I haven’t slept since that day. Every time I close my eyes, I see Aelin’s face awash in pain and guilt chokes me.I am not and will never be your little whore.

My cell vibrates and tension fills my entire body.

“Cal?”

“How soon can you get over here?”

Already on my feet, I yank the door open. “Be there in fifteen.”

Eleven minutes later, I knock on Caleb’s door.

After we back-slap-hug, I follow Cal to the main room where he aims straight for the bar and pours two full tumblers of whisky.

When he offers one to me, I shake my head “I’m good.”

Cal pushes the glass in my hand. “Trust me, brother, you’re gonna need it.”

I settle in one of the two brown leather armchairs while Cal opens his safe concealed behind a black and white framed picture of the Sahara Desert to retrieve a folder he gives to me.

“This is classified, and she was a minor at the time, so the files are sealed.”

More tension seizes my shoulders as I open the file. There’s a picture of Aelin as a child. I turn the page slowly and frown. Three out of four words are redacted, hidden behind a black, thick line.

I whip my eyes to my friend’s. “Tell me.”

Cal unclenches his jaw. Half seated on the windowsill, he leans his back against the only wide window of the room.

“Aelin was adopted in a sealed adoption at the age of two by Richard and Martha Lockwoods from Leslieville”

The name is familiar.“Lockwoods?”

Cal grunts. “Yes, as in Judge Lockwoods married to food supplies heiress Martha Zeph. The Lockwoods had one daughter, Cara, but Mrs. Lockwoods couldn’t have more children. But before I continue…”

Cal pulls a picture from the file and hands it to me.

“This is Cara.” He hands me another picture. “This is Aelin.”

The two girls look so similar they could pass as twins. “Fuck.”

Cal sits in the armchair across from me with his legs braced apart. “The girls grew up with the best money can buy and were part of the picture-perfect family Lockwoods needed for his introduction into politics. Cracks into the perfect family started to show when Cara left at the age of seventeen after a huge fight with Mother Lockwoods and never returned. Drugs were mentioned, but there wasn’t any real evidence.”

I clench the glass hard as Cal resumes. “Everything went on as normal as any family until Aelin, aged twelve, came back to school after spending nearly three weeks at home for an undisclosed illness. She went to the nurse complaining her belly hurt after her dad put his hand and hurt her ‘there’.”

He pinned me down to my bed and raped me with his fist.

My heart races while my chest tightens. Cal clears his throat. “The school nurse, who like most people in the town, didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, didn’t report it, as is the law. Instead, she called the mother to pick up Aelin, who didn’t return to school for another week. Boys, older boys started telling whoever would listen that Aelin was promiscuous and always wanted it bad. A few of them claimed she often performed sexual acts on them, and some said they slept with her. By the time she reintegrated school, she had a reputation as the town’s little whore.”

At the age of twelve?

Barely registering the file dropping on the floor, I set the glass on the coffee table and fist my hands tight. “Go ahead.”

“A few weeks later, her class went to visit the Hammersmith hospital where Aelin asked a female doctor why her belly hurt so much all the time. Dr. Nareen Ahmed, resident OB GYN, examined her and alerted the authorities for suspected sexual abuse. They interrogated Aelin with her parents present even after she clearly named her father as her abuser which is against procedure. A case was opened by Child Protective Services. The local police, the doctors, and the investigators, all from Leslieville, concluded Aelin was troubled and recommended a psychological assessment.”

Cal empties his glass before he sets it on the coffee table next to mine. “What nobody saw coming was the young lawyer, Christopher Wend, who got hired by an association for victims of sexual abuse to defend Aelin and actually fought for her. The Lockwoods wanted a judgement behind closed doors, which was granted by the judge, a close friend of Papa Lockwood’s. The Lockwoods wanted to put Aelin back in the system. Wend talked to Dr. Nareen Ahmed who agreed to testify.”

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