Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
I winced, then shook my head. “I can’t talk about that.”
Garrett reached for my hand and held it firmly in his. “You’re trembling,” he said, scowling. “Fawn, does Gypsi know who her father is?”
I shook my head and snatched my hand out of his, then scrambled to get out of the bed. I needed air. I couldn’t breathe.
“Baby, this reaction is not fucking okay. Something happened to you. Something that is still affecting you twenty years later. I need to know what it is.” Garrett’s tone was fierce.
I wrapped my hands around my waist and began to pace. “No, no, you don’t. Gypsi doesn’t want to know. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Garrett was in front of me then, taking me in his hands and stopping me. His eyes bored down on me. “This is fucking with my head, Fawn. I don’t like it. I know there is a darkness in those beautiful eyes that I see on occasion, but I let you have your secrets. I wanted you to tell me when you felt comfortable. But we’re getting married, and you haven’t said a word.”
I stared up at him, panic clawing at my chest, remembering the events that had led to my pregnancy. The horror I never wanted to think about again. I never wanted anyone else to know.
“Did Billy and Carla Day have anything to do with this?” he asked.
I paled, and my stomach twisted in a knot. “How do you know those names?” I whispered.
Flashes of their faces came back to me. I struggled to shove them back in the box I kept them in.
“I did some research. You weren’t talking about anything besides your life once you had Gypsi. The few times I mentioned it, your mood shifted. You looked haunted, and I hated it. I wanted to know why.”
I shook my head and shoved at his chest, trying to get him to back away from me. “You had no right.”
“You are going to be my wife,” he argued. “I have a right to know why there are demons that you don’t talk about. That you hold in and pretend like they’re not there.”
“NO!” I shouted. “I DON’T—” I broke off into a sob and covered my face as the truth of my past rained down on me for the first time since I’d managed to mentally shut it away. Pretend it hadn’t happened.
I’d been given my Gypsi Lu. The most precious gift. My daughter, my best friend. The reason I survived and found joy again. She’d saved me. How could I ever let the terrible things that had happened to me, that brought her into this world, affect me?
“They don’t exist,” I chanted to myself. “They don’t exist.”
“Fuck, Fawn.” Garrett’s voice sounded as if he was in pain as he pulled me into his arms.
I needed the comfort that came from him.
He ran his hand over my head as he soothed me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. I love you.” Every word that fell from his lips held a twinge of anguish he couldn’t mask.
He did love me, and I trusted him.
It had been twenty years. Maybe it was time I told someone. Faced my demons and accepted that I’d survived it. I hadn’t just survived, but I lived fully. I was the mom I’d never had. I was better than my past. I had beaten the demons that tried to destroy me.
“They took money from men. Two different men. Then, they held me down, tied me up, and let the men rape me.” The words had never once crossed my lips. I’d never been able to admit it. To accept that I’d been violated. That my virginity had been taken from me in such a horrid way.
Garrett’s arms tightened as he held me. “Who?”
That one word made me shiver. His voice had taken on an edge I had never heard before.
“I don’t know the names of the men,” I admitted.
“Who sold you?” he asked.
“Billy and Carla,” I whispered. “They drugged me. I wasn’t always conscious when it happened. I fought against it so hard that they had to sedate me.”
The words were coming out now, and I realized I couldn’t stop them. I needed to say it. I had started this, and I had to finish.
“I woke up one morning after being drugged. Billy and Carla were passed out with needles of whatever they were shooting up littering the living room floor. I knew I had to go. That I would have no other chance. I went to their room and found the stash of cash I knew Carla hid under the mattress, and then I ran. I took a bus to the next state, then got off and took a different one.
“I was living in a run-down motel room that I paid for weekly while working at a Laundromat when I started getting sick. The owner told me I was pregnant. I hadn’t even realized it. I was a kid, and I had to be told—” I let out a small wail at the memory. Because for one brief moment in my life, I hadn’t wanted my daughter. I had been terrified.