The Stranger, Mark Ayre [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

it as easy to talk to me as I to you, what better person could there be on which to unburden oneself?"

Abbie considered. Then said, "I might say as I don't often date, as I get on with you, I want this to be a pure, beautiful experience."

"How can anything be pure when such dark secrets hang over our heads like poisonous rain clouds?"

"How poetic," said Abbie. "If you have time for a third job, you should consider writing greeting cards."

"You know you use humour as a defence mechanism?"

"Well, it was that or this knife," said Abbie, lifting it from the table, "but I'm loathe to ruin this fine table linen with your blood."

He raised his eyebrows, though his smile had become a smirk.

"Okay, okay, I'm proving your point," she said.

Abbie's coffee was no longer hot, now warm. She took a few gulps. Coffee left to go cold was vile, and Abbie was keen to avoid the experience.

"My past might just scare you away."

Bobby placed his hands on the table, one over the over.

"You don't have to tell me anything," he said. "I'll still open up to you. If you want."

Abbie considered. There was no escaping the past. No forgetting it. Every day it haunted Abbie, tore at her insides. How long had it been since her last emotional bloodletting? How long since she let it out? Had she ever? Even with Bobby, she could not release it all, but some of it? How long since she'd felt a connection like this? It didn't change anything. She was still leaving town tomorrow and would never see him again, so why not open up?

She lay her hands on the table, as had he. Placed one over the other, as had he. She edged them forward until they were close to the table's centre. He did the same. So the tips of their fingers were only an inch apart.

Because there was no other way to do it, Abbie went direct to her trauma. While she spoke, she looked at the clean white linen because she could not bear to meet Bobby's eye.

"When I was sixteen, my brother savagely beat and permanently disabled a guy who was almost a cliche in his popularity. Handsome, smart, good at sports, funny, rich. Everybody loved Harry. He was so well-liked it was almost a blessing that Paul, my brother, was arrested within hours of the attack. If he hadn't landed behind bars, an angry mob might have chased him as though he were Frankenstein's monster. Public execution would not have been out of the question."

Already feeling her chest constrict, Abbie removed her upper hand from the lower and took her coffee, drank over half of what remained, and placed it down before replacing the hand from where she had taken it.

"After my brother's arrest," she continued, "my mother cornered me in our dining room, grabbed my jaw and slammed me against a wall. Through tears, she made it clear my brother was in jail because I was a slut. Because I had disobeyed her and had failed to keep my legs closed. She wasn't entirely wrong. I was no slut, but it was my fault. Six days previously, I had snuck out of my room on my sixteenth birthday to attend a party. My mother had forbidden me to go, but that was out of the question. After all, my invite had been personally delivered by the most popular boy in school."

Bobby’s hands were still stacked. Abbie noticed the way his skin stretched as one hand squeezed the other. As though they were doing battle, and the hand on top had the upper hand. No pun intended.

Abbie watched those hands as she continued. "When I arrived, Harry offered me a drink. I wasn't sure about alcohol, being a timid, quiet girl, but he convinced me to have just one. One was enough because he’d slipped something into the cup. The rest of the night is blurry. I know for sure that Harry raped me but couldn't tell you how many of his friends also had a go. I believe it was between two and six."

Bobby couldn't stop himself. His hands came from the table to his mouth. There were tears in his eyes.

The smile was gone.

"When, the next day, I told my family what had happened, my sister gave me a hug. She was only thirteen, but she alone gave me what I truly needed. My father couldn't look at me. In silence, he left the room. My mother made her feelings clear. She didn't believe Harry had drugged me. She told me this was what happened when I disobeyed my parents and went drinking. When I spread my legs for any boy who smiled at me. By this point, Paul had also left. Unlike my father, he didn't go upstairs to listen to his music but ran off to find the boys who had hurt me. He was due to go to university that summer to study Mathematics. Thirteen years later, he's still in prison."

Abbie stopped. Dried her eyes. She had intended to go further. To talk about the pregnancy one of her rapists had gifted her that night. How, despite its origins, that baby had given her hope in those dark days. At least until it was taken from her.

If she could have got past the loss of her baby, she might have gone further, to Violet's death and to Abbie's final, awful confrontation with her mother.

But she couldn't. Not today. Maybe not ever.

Taking his hands from his face, Bobby placed them atop hers. Though there were tears in his eyes, he forced himself to look at her.

"I'm so sorry."

"For what?" said Abbie. "This happened so long ago. You're right. I never talk about it. I deal with it as best I can, but it's always there. For so long, it consumed me. Harry was disabled, but the rest escaped punishment. No one believed me. There was no jail time."

"So they got away with