When Love Walked In

Chapter 33

                  

Chapter 33

            By then, everyone knew what happened and the expression in their eyes changed when they looked at me. All the energy I had summoned at one point was gone, and I couldn't find the words to go on. Gustavo picked up where I had left off and continued.

            "The authorities put her in a mental hospital, saying she was unstable," he said.

            "Those damn bastards," Jules spat.

            Gustavo continued to speak, but he looked a hundred years older. He told them about my nightmares. How I'd make up in the middle of the night. Screaming my head off. How I'd have . . . . episodes; How they started to come back.

            Victoria whispered to me in French, "The nightmares came back?" I nodded at her.

            "Are you still taking pills?"

            I shook my head. She didn't say anything else. Damien watched us with a curious face but didn't say anything.

            "Episodes?" Damien's dad said from where he stood in the entryway into the living room, his shoulder up against the door frame. "What exactly do you mean by episodes?"

            "George!" Heather exclaimed.

            "What? Is there something wrong with me wanting to know what we're getting ourselves involved in?" He cast me a glance. "I don't need Damien getting into trouble a year before he's supposed to graduate."

            "Uncle George . . ." Taylor started to say. "Please don't."

            "Are you suicidal?" He continued, completely ignoring her. "Is that what this is all about?"

            "She just told us what this is all about," Tony said. "Were you not listening?"

            "There's more to the story. What else are you not telling us?"

            "George, this girl has just confided to us the wrong that was done to her when she was only twelve years old," Heather said in a stern voice.

"I'm not stupid. The look on her face says she's holding something back and I want to know what that is," he looked right at me, making me want to shrink back in my seat. Damien took my hand in his and squeezed it. "Dad. Drop it, okay?"

His eyes shifted to Damien. "You know what that something is, don't you?"

Damien didn't say anything but lowered his eyes. "Keeping secrets from your father, boy?" His father continued.

"Sir," Gustavo started to say.

"I-!" Everyone looked at me. "I killed him."

"Amber," Victoria said.

I swallowed. "The man who . . . raped me. I killed him." I felt like someone was stabbing me over and over again, making it hard to breathe. "I have nightmares of him . . . coming back from the dead and hurting me."

The faces of Damien's family were frozen in shock.

"Shit," Dan breathed.

Tears were falling from my eyes like raindrops. "I'm a monster."

"No, you're not!" Damien protested. "That bastard is the monster. You did what you had to in order to survive. Anyone else would have done the same."

___________________________________________________________________

We left not too long after. I had caused enough tension in their house for one day.