Bad Girl by Night (23 page)

Another nod, but she still appeared frightened for him, and all he wanted in the world in that moment was to take care of her.

But first he needed to finish telling her—now mainly to make her understand that, even as sick and awful and damaging as abuse was, it didn’t have to destroy you. You could take control of it if you tried hard enough.

And so he told her about that day and how the man named Larry Downy had lured him into his car, driven him to his apartment, taken him inside and touched him, and then made Jake touch him, too. “Then he dropped me off late at school and said he was gonna go look for his dog some more, like nothing ever happened.

“The only saving grace,” Jake went on, “was that I had a really great family. The kind who had taught me I could come to them with anything, and even though I was confused and scared shitless by what had happened, I told my dad about the whole thing. He went to the police, and it took them a while to track the guy down from what I could remember about his car and his apartment, but they eventually identified him and found out he’d been tried but not convicted of child molestation before.

“Only, by the time they got a name on him, he’d cleared out. His apartment was a dive—a rent-by-the-week kind of place. I’m pretty sure he moved around a lot, to get away with what he was doing to kids. But the most important thing—for me—is that my mom and dad got me the help I needed right away.”

“What kind of help?” she asked.

“I saw a therapist named Dr. Jim—for years.” Another image entered his head: the kind man with the big mustache who’d put him at ease from the start. “Saw him a lot when I was little—less frequently later on. But it wasn’t until the end of high school that I quit seeing him altogether. And don’t get me wrong, by the time I was sixteen, I was pissed to be going to therapy, making up fibs about it to my friends, especially when it didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with me. But the idea was for him to make sure I stayed in good shape through the time I started dating and having sex, you know?”

“Well, it must have worked, because you seem . . .
fine
. You seem incredibly well-adjusted. Unlike me,” she added.

“What happened never goes away completely. But thanks to Dr. Jim and the fact that my parents didn’t run from the problem or pretend it didn’t happen, I . . . at least
understand
myself most of the time. I understand my reactions to certain things—I understand my urges, all that. So . . . mostly, yeah, I’m pretty well-adjusted. And in retrospect, I’m thankful I put up with all those years of seeing Dr. Jim.”

“So what did Dr. Jim do that made things so much better?”

He thought back, tried to put it into words—words that might help
her
the same way they’d helped
him
. “He taught me, from almost the moment I met him, that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t do anything to make it happen. He taught me the difference between healthy sexual responses to things and unhealthy ones, and he even encouraged me to make my own decisions about when it was right to act on my desires and when it wasn’t. Mostly, for me, in the end, I decided it’s all good as long as it’s consensual and doesn’t hurt anybody or take advantage of them in any way.”

Since Carly had looked pretty freaked-out as he spoke, it surprised him when a small smile formed on her pretty face. “So what would Dr. Jim think about using a pie as a sexual aid?”

A grin stole over him. “Probably that for all his hard work, I turned out pretty kinky.” He let out a laugh, then got more serious. “But like I said, if everybody’s into it—and old enough and sane enough to consent—it’s all okay.”

Her cheerful expression faded as she asked, “When . . . when we were with Colt, did it freak you out when he came on me? I mean, when . . . you know . . . some of it got on you?”

“No, baby,” he said, eager to put her at ease. “I’ve told you before—the whole thing was hot. And if I have any issues left at all . . .”

“Yeah?”

“They’re about control.”

She bit her lip, clearly understanding where he was coming from. “That’s why I ended up feeling like you were almost fighting me that first night.”

He nodded. “If I decide to give up control, that’s cool. But when somebody decides
for
me, that’s harder. Even when it’s all in the name of good sex.”

Her eyes widened. “Exactly! It’s completely the same way for me.” But like before, her sudden brightness dimmed. “Do you have any idea whatever became of the man who hurt you?”

He shook his head. “It eats at me sometimes. Because I figure he’s probably hurt a lot of other little kids, too. Even now, I occasionally check around for his name, on the Internet, or in criminal databases, but he’s never there. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one, you know? Whether it means he faded off into the sunset—or that he’s still out there doing bad stuff and getting away with it. He was a fairly young guy when he molested me—around thirty—so chances are he’s still out there living and breathing . . . somewhere.”

“Did you do what you told
me
to do? Did you forgive him?”

“Dr. Jim made me understand that something hideous had probably happened to the guy to make him that sick of a human being. And that didn’t excuse it, but it might at least explain it. That helped. Some anyway. So, yeah, more or less, I learned to forgive him.”

He rolled to his back in bed, staring at the slow whirl of the ceiling fan overhead, still holding Carly’s hand under the covers. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t want to go all psychiatrist on you, but . . . at the very least, you oughta get yourself a few good books on this subject and read them. You can’t shove this back into the closet, you know? It’s a lot healthier to deal with it, and just learning about it might help you out a lot.”

“So you aren’t gonna tell me I should seek professional help?” she asked, sounding surprised.

He supposed he must have come across as a huge therapy devotee. “If you’re up for it, sure. But most people aren’t. I wouldn’t have been if I’d had a choice—but I was a kid and it was forced on me. And it was the best thing that could have happened to me, too. But you’re an adult—you get to make your own decisions. Just doing some reading about it to start out will make you feel less alone.”

“
You
make me feel less alone.”

“I’m glad, Carly,” he said, turning his head on the pillow to look at her. Then he squeezed her hand tighter. “And I’m here if you want to talk more about it, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered. Then . . . “Is this why you became a cop?”

He shrugged. “I just always felt the urge to . . . protect people.” And he’d never particularly connected what had happened to him when he was seven with his career choice—but now that she mentioned it, it made sense.
Sometimes it’s a lot easier to dissect other people than to dissect yourself.
“So . . . probably, yeah.”

Tired of talking about all this—tired in general because it was late—he tried for a small grin and asked, “So, it’s the middle of the night. Are you gonna kick me out or can I sleep over?” He hadn’t stayed overnight up to now because she’d been so skittish about him—he hadn’t wanted to freak her out any more than he already had. Things between them had been crazily intense, and yet at moments there had remained a lot of distance between them—the kind you couldn’t measure but could only feel. And now, tonight, that distance seemed to have closed completely.

She shook her head against the pillowcase. “No—you can stay.”

“Good.” Partly because he didn’t particularly feel like getting himself up and dragging his ass home this late. But partly because his heart was kind of . . . filling up with her. Because sure, it hadn’t been his dad who’d hurt him, or even anyone he knew—but he understood something about what she’d been through . . . and now the whole way they’d met made sense.

Life was funny.
If her father hadn’t hurt her that way, I’d never have met her. She’d be happily married to Chuck. I’d be the new cop in town and she’d just be pretty Mrs. Gardner who won the pie contest. And she and her husband would laugh over how much he’d had to spend to save her from eating pie with Barlow Jones.

But . . . maybe none of that mattered because maybe he wouldn’t feel such a strong bond if they hadn’t both been through something similar. He wondered, deep down inside, if he hadn’t worried, from the moment he’d met her here in Turnbridge and figured out she had issues about sex, that someone had hurt her this way. He supposed he just hadn’t wanted to jump to conclusions, to assume that anybody with hang-ups had been molested.

Yet now that he knew, he felt all the more tied to her, like what had started out as a tiny string of chemistry between them in Traverse City had thickened, strengthened, transformed into a big, solid, twisting rope entwined with wild-growing vines.

And he didn’t want to break away from that. He just wanted to take care of her. And he wanted to make her strong. He wanted to show her that she could free herself from all this—that anything Desiree could do, Carly could do even better.

 

 

O
ver dinner at the Grizzly Grill, Jake had told her he was leaving the next day for Chicago. Before accepting his job with the Turnbridge Police Department, he’d asked for this time off to visit his parents, who’d moved to the Windy City around the time Jake had gone to the police academy. His brother and sister were coming, too, and bringing their families; they planned to spend the week celebrating his father’s sixty-fifth birthday and retirement by playing golf, fishing, and having quality time together.

And even as attached as she felt to Jake now, Carly thought maybe it would be good to have the coming days all to herself—so she could process what she’d finally acknowledged about her past.

Jake had stood with her on Saturday morning, kissing her goodbye and sweetly asking if she was okay. She’d just nodded. She felt a little numb, a little strange, but underneath all that, she had the strong sense that, “I’ll be all right—I promise.” And then she’d kissed him some more before finally sending him on his way.

After which she had called Tiffany Cleary, who was always up for odd jobs, and asked if she wanted to make some summer money by manning Winterberry’s for a few days.

By noon, she was driving to a bookstore in Cherry Creek—God knew she couldn’t check out the books she sought from the Turnbridge Public Library, if they even
had
such books—and she soon found herself thankful for the store’s large selection when she discovered exactly what she was looking for: a book on sexual abuse, and another on incest.

An ugly, ugly word, but she supposed that was what she’d suffered. As she’d acknowledged when talking with Jake, she’d simply never permitted herself to think about those horrible nights long enough to give them a label. After all, who wanted to accept that they’d been abused?

Carly then spent the following days up in her apartment reading. She even did some exercises the books suggested. As a first big step, she went to her father’s graveside and talked to him. Only in her head, but before it was over, it began to feel . . . healing.

Then she followed instructions from one of the books to write a letter to her abuser, addressing what he’d done, and then forgiving him for it. It wasn’t something meant to be delivered—it was more like getting it off your chest and onto paper. Just as Jake had told her, the book explained that the forgiveness was for
her
, not her dad—it would allow her to let go of the tremendous hurt inside her as much as possible and move on.

Continuing as the book directed, she read the letter out loud. She’d cried during the process, but she supposed that was to be expected. Then, after the shop was closed Thursday night and Tiffany had gone, she walked out to the little patio in back where she kept a picnic table and grill, and she burned the letter. And though that part had sounded completely cheesy to her, she felt exactly what the book had promised she would—as if all those bad, heavy feelings were burning up, too, then drifting away as the breeze carried the ashes up Maple Street.

“There you are! What’s going on? We’ve been worried about you.”

She flinched then, looking up to see Beth Anne rounding the corner to the patio, eyes wide with concern. Had she seen Carly setting a piece of paper on fire in the grill?

But before she could formulate an answer, her friend went on. “Tiffany said you asked her to watch the shop this week, but she didn’t know why. Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

All right, good—Beth Anne hadn’t seen her burning her letter. According to the book, it was entirely her choice whether she chose to tell anyone about the abuse, and she’d decided to keep it to herself—and Jake. The important part, she’d learned, was just dealing with it in some way.

“Well?” Beth Anne asked.

Crap. Maybe it hadn’t been the wisest thing to disappear for days without telling anyone. But it had made sense at the time, and she could handle this. “I’m . . . fine,” she replied, and it was only as that word left her that she realized she truly
did
feel fine. She wasn’t suddenly perfect inside, and maybe she never would be—but the fact was, she felt far more fine than she could ever remember.

Beth Anne, however, just looked all the more alarmed. “Then what’s the deal?”

And whereas Carly normally felt nervous and on the spot when her friends expressed concern about her, now she found herself responding in a shockingly calm manner. Maybe that came with feeling fine. “I’m just . . . taking some ‘me time.’ I don’t do that enough.”

“As in never,” Beth Anne pointed out, and then wiped her hand across her forehead. “
Whew
, now I can be relieved. And I’m glad you’re doing something good for yourself for a change. But, uh, what’s the occasion?”