The Broken Sister Part 26

He shook his head. "He's my brother, Ally. I love him. I don't-I didn't think of him as some kind of pervert hiding in bushes at night to jump out and attack college coeds walking around after dark. But he's the same as that. A predator. A monster. To imagine he drugged Kylie... I can't think about it, okay? The images hurt so much I can't breathe. I thought at first they were after Tommy for our money, and drawn to him by his popularity. I thought he wasn't a rapist. I didn't know... I still don't know what to do with it."

"But why date her?"

"I fell in love with her. I met her and from the start it was like my brother vanished. All the stuff that drew me to her overshadowed why I first found her. It was about us. Getting to know her was only about her. How I felt was about her. Not Tommy or how I came to meet her."

"How did you reconcile what she accused your brother of? Did you think she was lying? Or did you think your brother was?"

"I thought perhaps she'd gotten drunk and didn't remember." He put a hand up. "I know how asinine it sounds, okay? I told myself every lie to try and not find an answer to this. I just wanted to be with her and pretend all that led her to me wasn't real."

"But it's the most real part of it all. How do you do that, Tristan? How do you ignore the part where you choose? How do you avoid choosing who you believe?"

He dropped his head into his hands, shaking it. "I don't know. I didn't know. I just didn't. I kept them separate. I-"

"Pretended she wasn't raped."

"I didn't pretend it," he finally answered, "I pretended it wasn't my brother who did it."

"Who did you think did it then?"

He whipped around. Kylie stood in the doorway. How long? He had no idea. He closed his eyes against the sudden rush of feelings. "I don't know. I just used to know my little brother... the boy I remember... I don't know what to do with it."

"You never asked me. You never sought out my explanation. Why?" Kylie said.

"I'd have to choose you then."

Her gaze searched over him. "You believe me?"

"Yes," he finally whispered, bending over as the pain in his gut increased. It was like someone kept hitting him over and over. His brother was a rapist. His brother raped Kylie. The images suddenly started streaming through his brain, an unbroken picture. He gripped his temples as the blinding pain tore through his head.

"Tristan?"

He couldn't stop the pain so he pressed harder on both sides of his head. His eyes shut. His eyes filled with tears, which he tried to keep inside his eyelids.

"We're going after Tommy. That's why we're here." Ally's voice was strong and cold. The opposite of Kylie's. He was glad she had Ally.

"That's why I gave you access to what I have. This is everything. If I think if anything else I'll-"

"What the f.u.c.k are you doing here?" Tommy's voice came from the hallway, a loud, roaring bellowing scream at Kylie. She flinched and ducked into his office without a second's pause. Tristan opened his eyes and jumped to his feet. Tommy appeared in the doorway.

Tristan immediately stepped in front of Kylie, who easily seemed to forget he'd lied and tried to use her. She stood behind him. She backed up, her eyes wide as she stared at Tommy. She hit a file cabinet with a dull thud and stopped. Tristan turned and stood in front of her. He leaned in and whispered, "He'll never hurt you again." He put his hand out, palm up and flat. She stared down at his hand and then back up into his eyes. Finally, she nodded slowly, and her small, cool hand slipped over his. He closed his fingers, entwining hers in his. He nodded back, mouth pursed.

Then he turned to face his brother; the rapist. His stomach cramped and a surreal feeling enveloped him. How could the rapist, the monster, the bad guy, the criminal... be his little brother?

His heart felt like it had morphed into a chunk of steel. But instead of cold and hardened to deal with all this, he felt like it was so heavy it was going to push him to his knees. He felt inert. Nothing in his life had prepared him for how he was going to face his brother as the person who raped a woman. A woman who stood behind him, legitimately scared of Tommy. Her hand was gripping his with all her might. He squeezed back. She was protected behind his back. He was the physical barrier between his brother and the girl he loved. Here he was protecting her from his own brother. It was a cruel twist of fate that he'd fallen in love with one of his brother's victims.

Tommy stared at him, then Kylie, and did a quick perusal of Ally. His jaw locked and his eyes narrowed. There was physical disdain and disbelief reflected in his brother's expression, but it was his gaze that tore into Tristan. His eyes gleamed with hurt, regret, and betrayal. It all s.h.i.+ned out of his little brother's eyes at him.

"You want to tell me what's going on here, Tristan?" His voice was now low and smooth, almost sickeningly calm and chilling.

"How are you even here?"

"Philipp called dad about you being here with two girls. I decided to come see..."

He felt Kylie's body tremble at the sound of Tommy's voice. She pressed into his back then and all his concern s.h.i.+fted from Tommy to her. Kylie won. He realized it in a split second. She won his loyalty. There was no longer a battle raging inside him over who to believe, who to betray. He knew it was the scared, shaking girl behind him who had his loyalty.

"We're erasing all traces of my a.s.sociation with Kylie so she can seek disciplinary action against you through the school." Tristan had to pause as the stabbing pain of the reality of the situation seemed to ripple through his nerve endings, taking his breath away. He finally added softly, "For rape." He held his brother's gaze across the small office. Twenty years pa.s.sed between them. Tommy's eyes widened and he started to slowly shake his head. He kept shaking it.

"You can't... you can't actually think I raped her. You know she's lying. She's just a s.l.u.t who wants it from anyone who offers."

"She isn't," Tristan interrupted him, his tone low and loaded with warning. "Tread carefully. You feel the need to defend yourself with me, but don't disparage her."

Tommy shook his head. Teeth gritted, he insisted, "I didn't do anything to her she wasn't partic.i.p.ating in. She just changed her mind about it later. G.o.d, you can't-"

Kylie pressed tighter to Tristan. He felt her tremble.

Tommy started to step forward but Tristan put his arm out. "Stay back."

Tommy's mouth dropped open and both his hands fisted at his sides. "You think... you really think I did this? What the f.u.c.k are you doing? Protecting her? From me? Like I'm some kind of violent criminal you can't trust what I'll do to her? I'm your brother! We are brothers, Tristan, and you're going to turn your back on me, for... this piece of..."

"I really am going to protect her from you." He glanced back at her and her worried, confused gaze met and held his. He shrugged just enough to try and convey his sorrow. "Like I should have from the start."

Silence hung thick and ugly between them. Like black tar had been thrown out to coat the room. "Do you have any idea what this means? What you're doing?" Tommy's voice was soft and almost menacing.

"Yeah. The right thing. I'm finally doing the right thing." Tristan kept his body in front of Kylie's and felt her lay her hand flat on his back. Her handprint's warmth seemed to imprint on his skin and he closed his eyes for a prolonged moment. She was speaking to him without words, like she could so easily do. She was supporting him now, in this moment, as she was facing the person who raped her. Yet her never-ending compa.s.sion was being directed towards him and not herself. He drew strength from her touch, her ability to still feel anything towards him after what he'd done to her. "Get out of my office, Tommy."

"Get out..." He started to repeat as his mouth popped open. "You can't mean you want me to just leave? We should... talk about this or something. Work this out. We can't just..."

"We can. I don't know why you turned into this. I won't proclaim to ever understand, but I will never again condone it. But right now you need to get out of this office. Get away from her, now." Tristan pointed at the door. "Or I will force you out. I'm bigger than you are still, so don't make me do it." Tommy didn't budge. Tristan sighed and added, his voice heavy with fatigue, "Please, don't make me, Tommy. Just turn and walk away right now. Please." He sounded desperate, almost scared, like a small boy begging the school bully not to hit him again, but it was the opposite. Tristan knew he could take his brother and he didn't want to. He didn't want to hurt Tommy, he just needed Tommy to leave Kylie alone.

Tommy stepped back, still staring in unbridled disbelief at his brother. He took a step, then another and another until, shaking his head, he spun on his heel and was gone. Tristan wilted in relief and sadness as the room stayed completely silent.

He turned finally. His hand was still linked in Kylie's. Her eyes were huge and hollow. It wasn't like anyone could leave this confrontation feeling anything but gut-level hurt and aches. He shook his head. Tears gathered in his eyes as he stared into hers. "I'm sorry."

There was so much more he needed to say. He needed to get on his knees and beg forgiveness and retribution. He needed to tell her how sorry he was for what his brother did to her. He needed to undo his own actions that sought to destroy her. He betrayed her. His family... There was no listing out what his family had done to her. And the only recourse he had were two stupid, insignificant words that were supposed to make up for all this? He knew it didn't even touch it. It didn't even reach the level of a start.

She didn't flinch, she didn't turn away or start to cry. She stared him in the eye as he kept staring at her, and it felt like an entire conversation of hurt, sadness, pain, betrayal, sorrow, caring, and love pa.s.sed between them. Ally stood up from his desk. She cleared her throat. "Kylie? Are you okay? I mean, not okay... but... that was awful."

He dropped his head and Kylie's hand. Kylie came away from the file cabinet she was hovering against all out of fear of his brother. The magnitude of that fact; his brother was a rapist, would not stick in his head.

"I'm okay," she said quietly. He was too choked up to begin to speak. He was reluctant to let her go but she withdrew and wrapped her arms over her stomach.

Ally came around the desk to Kylie. She wrapped Kylie in her arms and hugged her to her chest. "He's a dirty, rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.d pretending innocence. It doesn't change what he did to you. Okay? I won't doubt you. Neither will Mom and Donny. Never again are you alone against him."

Kylie hugged her sister back, but her gaze strayed to Tristan and then away. He had no idea what she felt towards him. She most likely detested him. He deserved that.

"You weren't going to come up here, why did you?"

"I don't know," Kylie answered Ally. "But I did. I think I wanted to talk to Tristan."

"Do you still want to?"

His head popped up in surprise and a faint bit of hope. She nodded. "Yes. Why don't you give us a few minutes alone?"

"Here? You want to do this here in his office? His family's business? Why don't we at least go somewhere more neutral?"

"Because we're here. It's okay, Ally. Just wait for me? Okay?"

Ally scoffed. "As if I'd ever leave you alone in Tamasy territory. Never again. I'll be right outside the door. Waiting." She glanced at Tristan, the message clear.

Ally pa.s.sed him and then, they were alone. He shook his head, the exhaustion making his limbs feel heavy.

"Do you really believe me?" Kylie said.

"I know you can't believe that I do. But it wasn't an act. I just didn't want to believe he could do that."

"It was a shock to me to realize he'd do that too. I doubted myself for a good year. I'd argue with myself that I must be wrong. I mean, why? Why would he bother to do it? All he had to do was ask and I'd have had s.e.x with him. You understand that, don't you? I wanted to have s.e.x with your brother."

He shook his head. "I understand whatever your motivations were you didn't deserve what he did."

She tilted her head in consideration. "Why did you never ask me? In all this time we were together and spent time together, why didn't you ask for my side of the story? You could have used it against me. Made sure to spin it around to suit Tommy's and your needs. Why didn't you ask me who it was?"

"I haven't been with you to suit Tommy or my family's needs since I met you. I'm not sure I ever was. I was irritated, beyond irritated, when my grandfather came in this very office with this stupid a.s.signment that I needed to go neutralize first Cadence and then you so that Cadence's claims couldn't be given more credence. I swear to you, Kylie, when this first started, I believed my brother. He's always talked rude and crude about girls. They were either hot or not, he was sleeping with them or not. You can imagine the language he uses. I just thought he was young and blowing off steam. Arrogant, but never, not once, did I consider he was dangerous or actually did this."

"I don't understand, what changed your mind? I would have slept with you the night you walked me home from work. It would have been done, right then. I imagine you were supposed to get pictures to discredit me. I asked you in, but instead you asked for a date. I don't understand you... Why didn't you do it then?"

He dropped into the chair in front of the desk. Defeated, he agitatedly kept running his hands through his hair and linked his fingers behind his neck. He finally leaned forward, staring down at the carpet. "I'm just a manager, Kylie. I don't think I was ever going to actually do anything. Not like Grandfather was thinking. I mean, sleep with someone for some nefarious reason like that? It has and will never be my way. I just wanted him off my back. I obviously let him influence me far too much. But to actually go through with it? I don't believe that was ever my intent. I might have intended to talk to you. Maybe. But I wasn't really interested in the task of managing Tommy's current crisis. But then, I met you."

"And?"

"And everything in my life changed."

"I don't really know how to believe that."

She slipped into the chair next to him. So quiet and una.s.suming. So the entire center of his life now, and yet she wouldn't believe him. "From the first moment you smiled at me there was something in me that responded to you. The first conversation, whisper, touch, kiss, I felt something different than ever before. It wasn't a week before I told Morgan we were no longer s.e.xual together. It was you. It was just you."

"How did you think this would end? You knew about Tommy. The thing I didn't think you knew about, you knew the entire time."

He shook his head repeatedly. How to explain what seemed asinine in retrospect? "I don't want to insult you with what I first thought. I used it to justify hanging around you without telling you who I was."

"Try me."

"I wanted to believe you were mistaken."

He saw her twist around in the chair, her agitation obvious. "How did you think I was mistaken?"

"I wanted to believe you'd been drunk and blacked out. That you didn't realize you two had s.e.x and just thought..."

"When did you change your mind?"

He peeked up at her, surprised at the mild-mannered tone to her voice. "I think I always knew better. I couldn't fathom how to admit to myself that the brother I love was a rapist."

"He did it. I don't know if you're still conflicted on that. But he drugged me and had s.e.x with me."

Tristan's stomach squeezed and he nodded as he stared almost blindly at his feet. "Tell me what he did to you. Tell me what you suffered. Tell me what these last two years dealing with it all alone has been to you."

"Who am I telling? Tommy's brother, who doesn't want this to be true but is coming to grips with it... or my boyfriend? Who am I telling, Tristan?"

His head jerked up at her quiet, but stern question. He stared into her eyes. She didn't cry. She didn't flinch. He suddenly ignored everything, what he should or should not do or be or act. He simply fell to his knees, kneeling before where she sat, her hands clasped in her lap in the chair beside him. He put his hands on hers and looked up into her eyes, which were wide with shock at his sudden close proximity. "You're telling your boyfriend. If you'll still have me. I swear from this day forward, I will never keep things from you. I will protect you from anyone and anything that wants to hurt you, especially my brother. I believe you, Kylie. Please tell me about what Tommy did to you... and tell me as your boyfriend. And then, maybe you can find it in you to forgive me, and believe me."

She licked her lips and then nodded slowly. "I had a thing for him. A crush. It was supposed to have been harmless and fun. I wasn't looking for a boyfriend or a husband. I just enjoyed liking him. You know the feeling? Of seeing someone from a distance and feeling that thrill? I liked going to parties and antic.i.p.ating if he'd be there. I had no expectations of him noticing me. I mean, he was Tommy Tamasy. I knew what that meant. This is a small enough college I understood the social hierarchy and where I fell on it compared to him. But it was a distraction. I didn't think it would harm anything, or change the course of my life in any way."

Her hands grew cold as she spoke. He gripped both in his as he stared at their clasped fingers. He glanced up at her. "It shouldn't have."

"I remember talking to him that night. I was so flattered. I thought I might pa.s.s out. I thought maybe for that night he was into me. That was okay with me. That's what's so stupid about this entire thing." She raised her eyes to him, eyebrows lowered, perplexed, and her lips compressed in a flat line. "All he had to do was ask. I wanted to have s.e.x with him. That night. Right then. All he had to do was ask me. Why? Why didn't he just ask me? I just don't understand why it even had to happen."

It was extremely hard to listen to her. To comprehend this night two years ago that occurred between the woman he now knew and fell in love with and his little brother. He could clearly picture every part of her story as she described it. Kylie and Tommy talking, smiling, flirting as people moved and undulated around them. Drunk and loud and fun. A college party.

And all Tommy had to do was ask her to have s.e.x. Tristan gripped her hands in his. He pushed gently on them to get her to lift her head to meet his gaze again. "I don't think we can understand. He's sick. Not you. You didn't do anything wrong. He did. He decided rape was a fun way to spend the evening. I don't pretend to know why. Okay? I can't understand why for you. I hope you realize drugging someone and forcing s.e.x on them while they are out of it isn't something I've ever contemplated, wondered about or desired. It disgusts me. But not you, okay? You don't disgust me, you never have. Tommy does. When I think of you..." He drew in a deep breath and lifted his hand to cup her chin. "When I think of you lying there, at Tommy's will, unbeknownst to you, his victim, it makes me want to go hurt him. I don't know how to fix this. I want to. I want nothing more than to fix this."

She shook her head. "You can't fix it. You just learn to live with it."

"Did you?"

"I think I'm starting to. I was messed up from it at first. It was so odd. To know my body had been used in ways I could not recollect. It was kind of like trying to recall the memory of when my dad left. There was nothing concrete to remember or grab onto as a point of reference. I knew that I'd had s.e.x, yet nothing about it was in my memories. I felt dirty and used, yet I couldn't name one thing he actually did to me. I don't know what Tommy looks like naked or what he did to me that night. It makes the potency of the experience somehow altered. I don't think I understood until about now that I am allowed to call myself a rape victim. And it took Cadence to teach me that."

Tristan shook his head over and over. His voice was hoa.r.s.e when he whispered, "Is there any way you could forgive me?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes."

So simply and so easily Kylie spoke her forgiveness. His gaze caught and held hers in a pleading, almost desperate prayer. "Believe in me again?"

Her hand crept up from her lap to rest over his hand that still held her face. "Yes." It was a whisper, a near breath of air she spoke. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "You are the kindest person I know. I don't deserve it; your forgiveness or your trust." His eyes opened and he found her sad gaze on his. There was so much pain. Tommy. Kylie. His brother. Her rapist. He didn't know the first thing about making sense of it all. He just knew how he felt about the girl before him now.

"What if I want you to have both? My forgiveness and my trust? What if I still want you?"

His eyes fluttered open. Her hand tightened over his. "I was there too, Tristan. I felt everything between us, and unlike the rest of my life where I doubt and I'm unsure, I know what was between us. I know you speak the truth how you felt about me. And more, I know you aren't like Tommy."

Her words released something in him. His body fell and he buried his face against her lap and wrapped his arms around her thin, small back and waist. He clung to her. Something about her trust, her belief in him, changed something deep in him. She didn't think he was like his brother. The relief was sharper than any other feeling he'd ever had. The guilt he felt over what his own brother and then grandfather and then he had tried to do to Kylie was thick in his heart. But for her to release him of suspicion of being that evil. That bad. She didn't even ask him. She just knew he wasn't a rapist. It was an odd feeling to be on his knees clinging to a girl who he needed to hear didn't think he was a rapist.

That she didn't hesitate to forgive and believe in him humbled him. He didn't know how desperate he was to know she didn't think he was capable of such evil. Because he wasn't. He knew that as much as he knew his own name, and that he loved this girl he clung to desperately.

He lifted his head and started to draw her head to his own but stopped, hesitating. "Can I kiss you?"

She smiled. "You don't have to ask me. You don't have to treat me as fragile or broken. I'm no different than the girl you first kissed against my door. I'm perfectly well and fine and unbroken when I choose to be with the man. And I choose you."

He leaned in and touched his lips to hers. Gentle, sad, consuming, their lips touched. Her hands crept up to hold his face and brushed up into his hair. He released her and pulled her to him so he could hug her full against his body. Standing up, he supported her against him. "Are you going to tell me now, you might forgive me, but there's no way we can be together? It's too complicated? It's too wrong? It's too-"

She pushed her fingers over his mouth to shut him up. "No. I'm not. Tommy isn't going to determine what I am in my life ever again. If you choose to let him determine who you can be with, I can't stop that. But for me? No. Will it be easy? No. Obviously. You are going to lose your brother and possibly the rest of your family. I have no idea how they'll react. I'm going after your brother, so that could be something you can't stand or deal with. Maybe you'll lose your job. I don't know. What I do know is it won't be my fault. It's his fault for doing it to me and putting me in this position. But I am willing to try if you are."