The Broken Sister Part 21

"Yes."

"Are you safe until I get there?"

"Yes."

"All right. I'll be there in minutes." He hung up and she sat down on the curb, huddled in her coat, staring at the party across the street and remembering... longing... hating... and glad she wasn't part of it.

His car came to a screeching halt and he parallel parked right in front of her. He jumped out and was striding around the hood. He wore jeans and a t-s.h.i.+rt and his brown leather jacket that he so rarely wore. It was always startling to see him dressed down. Tristan was almost always impeccably dressed. What had her heart flipping over even more was the black slippers he had obviously jammed on his feet in his hurry to get to her. He was all hot and s.e.xy and intensely mad or confused by her, but his feet in his slippers had a small smile touching her lips.

She really liked him. Every single thing about him.

Her feelings about him were to a degree she couldn't explain or find the words to articulate. He made her feel so many things. Happy, valued, cared about, loved, confused, interested, and interesting. He made her feel like she could do and be more than she was, while making her claim exactly who and what she was. He left her being a better person and yet accepting of who she was. If that wasn't a healthy, positive relations.h.i.+p to have with a man, then what would be? Why did she always hold so far back? He had more than triple times proven himself to her. He had earned her trust and yet she still withheld it from him.

It was a c.r.a.ppy thing she'd done, calling like she had, in middle of the night with some cryptic statement about needing him while she stood on a city street corner in middle of the night. It was a typical drunk-girl-being-clingy thing to do. But she wasn't drunk. She hadn't been drinking, she'd been commiserating. And it made her feel a lot of things. Things bubbled up in her that she hadn't let in for two years and in fact maybe ever. She had called who she now needed to help her deal with this if she was ever going to move past it.

He ran his hands through his hair, which spiked up and back down all tousled up. His eyes were red-rimmed. "What happened?" He kept striding towards her as he spoke. He no more than spoke then his arms were wrapped around her and sweeping her up into his embrace tight against his chest. He didn't care what she wore, what her make-up looked like or how her hair was fixed. He didn't f.u.c.king care about all the stupid surface things that she let make her feel insecure. He cared about her. All that made her Kylie McKinely.

She let him nearly pick her off her feet as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laid her hands flat on his back. She tucked her head against his shoulder. He pushed her back and stared into her eyes.

"Did something happen to you? Why are you out in the middle of the night? What's going on?"

"Nothing happened to me tonight."

His lips touched the side of her face, just at her temple. When he lifted his face his eyebrows lowered and his forehead furrowed. He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened his eyes she could just make out the gleam in them. "But something did happen to you?"

"Yes."

"Someone hurt you?"

"Yes."

"Who? Who hurt you?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter who. Okay? I don't want to talk about who. This isn't about who right now, it's about what. And that has been as much of an issue for me as who. What matters, right now, is I'm ready to tell you about it."

"What were you doing out here?" His hands rubbed along her upper arms. "Were you at that party?"

"No. I wasn't at any party. But I was, the night I was hurt. All I did was go to a party. Just like all those girls over there in that house. They're just there to party, drink, flirt, eat, dance, dress s.e.xy, and have s.e.x. They are there to act young and wild. They aren't committing any kind of crime that deserves punishment. I was sitting here watching them all stream in and out of the front door. So many leaning on each other in drunken stupors or talking and hugging in drunk-happy talk and bonding. They are funny. Sweet. I was watching them, realizing they don't deserve to be called names or even worse. They just don't deserve that, do they?"

"No. They don't deserve any kind of punishment for that."

She closed her eyes. "I didn't know that. I thought, I truly believed I deserved it."

"Deserved what, Kylie?" His tone was low and deep. It traveled down her nerve endings like he was reaching out to caress her. It was full of tenderness, care, and fear. She could hear the apprehension in the cadence of how his voice rolled over her name.

She opened her eyes and looked into his blue eyes. "To be raped."

His hands were on her waist and they flexed in response to her words. They tightened and released her as he took in a deep sharp breath. Almost a gasp. "I can't tell you about it because I don't remember it. I was drugged. I wasn't drunk or stoned, at least not stoned by my own doing. I was slipped something and woke up in this room, naked and alone. There was blood and s.e.m.e.n mixed on my thighs, between my legs and on the mattress under me. It was one of the scariest, most disorienting moments of my life. I was just there. Like poof it happened, but I have no idea how it happened."

"Do you know who did it?"

"I know who I was with and whose room I woke up in. So yes, I know who did it. Plus, I saw him recently..."

"And he admitted it?"

"No. Never. He just watched me with this sickening, c.o.c.ky, knowing smile on his face. His gaze traveled over me and this small grin lifted his mouth like he was re-living something, like seeing what I looked like under my clothes."

"Who?" His tone was desperate, raw sounding. "Who did this to you?"

"You believe me?"

His eyes shut and he suddenly pulled her against his chest. He bent his head so his mouth was right at her ear. "I believe you."

She wilted against him. "You're the first person I've ever actually willingly told about it. Will you take me to your place? I was walking home from a friend's and I saw this party and it got me thinking and all I wanted just then was... you. I wanted you, Tristan."

His hands spread flat on her back and he kept moving them all around, almost like a nervous or rea.s.suring habit. His arms completely surrounded her and she let him guide her to the car. He didn't speak and neither did she. She stared out the window, surprised she'd told him and more surprised by the lack of stomachache accompanying what she did. She had finally told someone. It was epic for her. It was reaching out and willingly trusting someone with something that hurt her so much. Yet she didn't know how to describe why.

They got to his building and into the elevator. She poked the toe of her boot at his slippers. "Pretty hot there, Mr. Aderly."

His smile was half its usual wattage and show of teeth. He was upset, disturbed by what she'd told him and couldn't tap into the humor that usually edged their interactions. "Not at two in the morning when my girlfriend calls from a street corner."

"You were worried about me?"

He shook his head and finally reached out to put his hand around her waist and draw her nearer. He rested his forehead to hers and stared into her eyes for a long drawn out moment. "Always, Kylie. I'm always worried about you."

She let him take her hand and lead her into his apartment. They quietly undressed without turning on any lights and slipped into bed together. There was no kissing, no groping nor feeling each other up. Instead, they clung to each other in the silence of his room. "I don't want to talk about it a lot. It's huge for me that I initiated this. Let me take my time with what I say or I don't say. This isn't like the thing with my dad. I'm not running off to tell my mom and I'll feel a little better."

His hand held hers and rubbed the pad of skin by her thumb as his other fingers twisted in hers. Finally he asked, "Did it help to tell me? At all?"

She leaned towards him and kissed his lips softly, with just the barest pressure of her lips to his. "Yes, I think it did. But I need time to let it all sink in."

"s.p.a.ce. No hovering. I know. I speak Kylie."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you need lots of s.p.a.ce to process anything new or unusual or disturbing to you. Anything that stresses you and you don't want anyone worrying over you daily or hovering over what you're doing. No clinging. No neediness. No constant calling or questioning what you're up to. If you say you're at a friend's tonight, you don't want me asking who it is, what you're doing, or why you left there to walk home at two in the morning."

She reached her hand up to push down the clump of hair springing off his forehead. She kept running her hands into his slick, straight hair for the comfort. He was right, she realized. She didn't like to be questioned all the time or hovered over or clung to. She never really connected it all up. Perhaps that's why she didn't let friends and past boys get too far or stay too long into her life. A small smile tugged her lips up. "You really do get me."

"I really do."

"Why? Even my mother doesn't totally get that about me. Nor Ally."

He stared into her eyes. "Honestly? I have no idea why. I just do."

"Do you want to know where I was tonight? Do you trust me? Do you worry I was out with some guy."

"I don't. So no."

"I was with a friend I'm working on a project with. It's a she."

He smiled. "Thank you. For telling me."

"Thank you for coming to get me, no questions asked."

His mouth twisted. "I'd come anywhere for you. Get that, okay. Anytime, anywhere, I'll be there. I'm sorry. So sorry about what happened to you."

"I am too. But it's enough right now that you know about it, okay? No hovering. I can't handle that. Not yet."

Tristan held Kylie's sleeping body against his own as sleep evaded him. She had told him. That which had drawn him to her, with the intent to harm her, had finally been revealed to him. He should have asked her side of this months ago. But he hadn't because at first he'd believed she was delusional and didn't understand what she had experienced with his brother. Then... well, then he'd really begun to know Kylie and he started to clearly understand she wasn't confused or broken or out for revenge or... a liar. Kylie didn't lie.

But that meant his brother raped her. He couldn't bear the reality of that. He felt like suddenly flinging her off his body and running several miles down the road to avoid the feel of that reality.

He didn't tell her who he was because he now feared, with a physical repulsion, losing Kylie. He wasn't wrong about her or how he felt. He loved her fiercely. He loved her completely. He loved her despite everything he'd done wrong in finding her. He loved her despite what it meant for his future with his family and most of all his brother.

Still, grabbing on and admitting his little brother was a rapist?

It was unfathomable. So he ignored it. He didn't do anything. He tried not to see or talk to Tommy. Which was an easy feat with his family.

But now? She needed his help, his caring, and his understanding. He could easily get sick from not telling her the truth right here and now. But the ability to do so left him nearly paralyzed. He was weak, pathetic, and scared. So scared to tell her what he knew. That he knew the story she told him... Just an entirely different version of how Kylie knew his brother.

Friends. It was a quick friends.h.i.+p that developed over the next few weeks between Kylie and Cadence. They cut through the usual get-to-know-each-other c.r.a.p because their first ever conversation was about their most deep-down secret and suffering. It made for quick and real bonding. They met a lot, mostly at Cadence's dorm because she was afraid to walk around campus alone at night. Something she chided Kylie about, but finally gave up when Kylie just gave her a secretive smile and said she was fine, really. She could handle it. They met sometimes at school or had lunch together. It wasn't long before they were deeper friends than Kylie was with Meredith or even her sister right now. They talked about their families a lot because of the topic that most connected them. They were each other's confidantes and champions and they got each other's pain, even if they channeled it in totally, completely opposite ways.

Cadence was practically a virgin, with only one boyfriend she'd had s.e.x with before Tommy happened to her and no one since. Kylie listened openly to Cadence's fears and anxieties with encouragement. She tried to explain to Cadence there was nothing dirty now with s.e.x, if it was s.e.x she chose.

It was the first time she thought her desire, need, and liking of s.e.x was something she was lucky to have. Especially after lying cuddled and safe next to Tristan after they made love in ways that never felt dirty or scary or unhealthy. She was especially grateful then she hadn't let it skew her desire and want to have s.e.x. Look at what she'd found.

They were very different kind of girls, but this thing, it connected them like long-lost sisters. As her own sister wasn't speaking to her, and had all but fallen off the radar, Kylie clung to Cadence.

Then one day, after lots of research and figuring out how to go about this, Cadence leaned back in her desk chair and said, "What does your boyfriend think?"

"About what?"

"Tommy? What happened to you?"

"I did recently tell him what happened to me. I didn't feel ready to tell him who."

"I thought you said he was great. Understanding. Supportive. Seemed to get you? You didn't tell him who did this to you?"

"I've only just began to think maybe I didn't do anything wrong. You don't seem to get how heavily I judged myself or being there and worse, my intent for being there."

"Which wasn't to get drugged, raped and your memory erased. Right? You get that now, Kylie?"

"I am starting to get that. Do you ever think we are lucky?"

She snorted. "How do you figure? Lucky us?"

"We don't remember. We don't know what he actually did to our bodies. We didn't feel the pain. We could go on-"

"As if nothing ever happened? Except you didn't 'just' go on. I agree, not remembering the experience probably is a far different experience than rape without being given a f.u.c.king sedative first. But do I think we're lucky? No. It drives me nuts wanting to know what he did to me. Where did he touch me? Was it just him? Were there others? I had pain though. In places I never wanted to have s.e.x. I know something was put in me. Yet I can't say what it was."

She shuddered. Cadence was like this. Bold. Vocal. Out there. She was out there with everything she had to say or had experienced. The things Kylie didn't want to sit around contemplating. Yes, she'd had the pain. She'd wondered... so much she had wondered what Tommy had done with her p.r.o.ne, vulnerable body. Had others been there? Had they laughed at her, sprawled out, naked, skinny, incoherent?

"Maybe you should tell your boyfriend who it was. You need to start somewhere. Get used to talking about Tommy Tamasy. If we do this, you'll have to get better at that. What if we have to testify against him? It says here any accusations against another student will be investigated before an arbitrator, and both parties will have the right to be heard."

Just tell him. Just say the name: Tommy Tamasy. She needed to chant it, repeat it, and accuse him, so the power of that name was removed from her brain. It made Kylie's hands start to sweat however, picturing physically verbalizing the words. But she nodded.

"Kylie?"

"I heard you."

"I need to know if you can do this. I don't want to be left standing there alone again, the complete fool. I was okay facing it once. But I need to know you're in this with me. Until the end... whatever the outcome we get. Fail, succeed or somewhere in between, I just can't face this alone, like I'm some kind of crazy spurned ex-lover who is merely trying to smear Tommy. He spun a pretty convincing story about me being an unpopular freshman who came after him for revenge when Tommy didn't want to date me. That I was so hurt I couldn't handle that he didn't want to be with me beyond s.e.x. Just..."

Cadence so rarely seemed vulnerable. Kylie clasped her hand to hers. "I promise. I won't chicken out."

"Thank you. And maybe start with your boyfriend. Or parents. Just someone. So I can believe you're really going through with this. I need you, Kylie." Cadence's voice cracked. She was just such normal, nice person. It was beyond comprehension to Kylie how anyone could ever want to hurt her.

Kylie nodded, steeling her spine. She was in this now. For good. For real. Until the end.

Chapter Seventeen.

KYLIE HAD BEEN BUSY since the new quarter had started at school. She had taken on another cla.s.s than normal so she was taking more than a full quarter's credits. Plus with the interns.h.i.+p one of her cla.s.ses required, she was often too busy for her and Tristan to see each other. She worked at The Acorn of course. At least once a week Tristan had dinner there, in her section, and the management had yet to guess they were dating. She was that good about doing her job. No lingering. No favorites. Just her secret little smiles and subtle flirting. She had a few new friends too, and the longer he knew her she seemed to get somehow happier. Calmer. More open. It did something to his heart. Lifted it up with joy and pride. He felt like the real version of who Kylie really was had just started awakening and believing in herself enough to let her s.h.i.+ne. It started since she saw her father and told her family about it. Though they often talked about Ally's anger and withdrawal over Kylie seeing their dad, he tried to encourage her to stick strong to what she thought and felt and let Ally come around.

But then she'd called him that night, in middle of the night.

And everything in his entire life had finally and fully intersected. Only she still didn't fully comprehend it all yet. He leaned his head down on his desk as he contemplated yet again, for the thousandth time with the hundredth desire to puke, how could he keep this from her? He had to tell her. Who he was and how he came to know her. He just didn't know what to tell or how to tell her so he didn't lose her. He was confident if he could find the right moment, the right way she'd be mad at first, but see his predicament. He hadn't set out to fall in love with the girl who he went after to figure out how to stop her from claiming his brother raped her. He didn't mean to get involved. But if their connection could just get deeper and she could know him more and more, maybe she could trust Tommy had nothing to do with what Tristan was doing with her or felt about her.

Even if he hadn't quite figured out what had happened between them. Or what would happen when they all figured out his connection to both of them. But the problem was, he knew deep in his heart that night, Kylie hadn't been lying or confused. She wasn't wrong.

The thing with believing her, with fully giving into the obvious, would be to admit his brother was a rapist. He didn't know how to do it. Yet he couldn't deny it. Needless to say he might be getting an ulcer from all the stress. The constant worry. At first he'd not been careful to keep his name from Kylie. He'd hoped to get caught and end this charade. Now? Now, he was desperate not to. He was nearly crazy not to lose her.

She was of course... Kylie. She made it easy to not tell her. She was unlike any other woman he'd ever been with. There was no clinging. She didn't infringe on his life other than what he asked her to. She accepted his separation of his family and her with little question. She was so respectful, kind, and nice she made it easy to keep the ongoing lie with her.

He might regret it. He had doubts and fears, but he thought if enough time went by, she'd understand how much he loved her and that he kept up the facade out of love for her, fear of losing her, not out of anything nefarious.

His grandfather had not been happy with him of late. He'd been obtuse about what happened with Kylie and him, simply claiming she was handled. He'd buried himself in client orders, overseeing billing, marketing, and worker's complaints, all trying to keep his grandfather from realizing who he was seeing.