Family Ties (12 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

My fingers are twined with Jason’s as he walks me to Chemistry at the end of lunch.

“Lucky you, getting out of school early,” he says, teasing.

I frown. “I wish it was for something better.”

“I know, Parker.” He squeezes my hand with light pressure. “I wish you didn’t need to go at all.”

We stop in front of my classroom and face each other.

“I’ll call you when I get home from practice.”

“After dinner.”

He touches his lips to mine in a brief kiss. A small shudder ripples through my body. He breaks away. Whatever that just was, I like how it feels.

Sam pulls out the sandtray pictures of my family and lays them out. “The last time you were here alone, you did this for me. Are you ready to do some drawings?”

“Okay.”

“Great,” she says, enthusiasm radiating from her while retrieving a clipboard and a pencil from the desk. “I want you to do a genealogy.”

“A what?”

“A family tree.” She takes the pencil and draws a circle next to a square and connects the two with a line. She writes “Tibby” in the circle and “Simon Parker” in the square, then sets the pencil down. “I want you to draw a short line down from that connecting line and then another line going across at the bottom.”

I pick up the pencil, following her instructions.

“Good. Now, at each end of that last line, draw short lines going down and then circle at the bottom of each. Write your name in the first circle and your sister’s in the second.”

I do as she directs again.

“Here comes the tricky part. We need to add your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.”

My breathing hastens and heat spreads through me. Panic sets in. I should know this. People know their family. Arissa and Jason know theirs. “But I don’t have any.”

“I’m pretty sure you at least have grandparents.”

“I don’t know them or any other family I might have. My parents don’t have any pictures and they never talked about their families.”

“We’ll do this later, then.” She returns the items to the desk.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize, dropping my head. I’m a colossal failure.

“Sara, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“But I should know about my grandparents.”

“Remember when I told Andrew and Rose that your family was different which is why your family experience is different?”

I look back up. “Yes.”

“This is the same thing. I’m sure there are kids who know all about their aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents and there are other kids like you who don’t know.”

“Other kids like me?” My mind wanders back to the first time my father raped me. I shake my head. “No way. Impossible.”

“Maybe not
just
like you, but they’ve gone through or are going through similar experiences. Would you be interested in meeting some other kids who were abused in a group therapy setting?”

I contemplate quietly for a few minutes. My ever-changing world continues to change at a fast pace and meeting other kids like me would be overwhelming. “No.”

“Okay. If you change your mind, let me know.”

“Sure.”

“Sara, don’t worry about not knowing your extended family. Blood doesn’t always define family. The Parkers are your biological family and won’t be a part of your life anymore. You get to decide who comprises your family from here on out.”

I press the phone between my ear and shoulder, drying my hands on the kitchen towel while talking to Jason.

“She’s right, you know. You decide who your family is now,” he says.

“But you know your grandparents.”

“And I haven’t seen or talked to them in a year. Does it really matter that you don’t?”

I huff. “Why do you have to be right?”

“I’m more than just a pretty face, Parker.”

I hear his grin through the phone. “Much more,” I say, unable to contain my smile.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Andrew and Rose wait with me outside the gym. I rub my arms briskly against the chill of the fall air.

“Sweetie, do you want us to bring your jacket?” Rose asks.

“I’ll be okay once we get in the car.”

Heavy metal doors clang open and echo in the empty courtyard. Jason exits through the doorway, talking to several teammates, in a gray team t-shirt and black cargo shorts. A duffel strap presses across his torso with the bag behind him.

Jason breaks off from the group and saunters over to join us.

“Great game tonight,” Andrew says.

“Thanks, Andrew.” He pecks me on the cheek, rubbing his hands up and down my arms in response to my shivering. “Where’s your jacket?”

“I forgot it.”

He pulls his bag around to his side, fishing out his warm-up jacket.

“Thanks.” I slip into it.

“We’ll see you at home, sweetie. Have fun at the party,” Rose says as they head for the front parking lot.

The rest of the team is already at Rob’s house when we arrive. The house is packed and Fall Out Boy pours through the speakers. Jason keeps me close as we make our way through the horde of dancing teenagers.

“J!” Rob yells, throwing his arms up in the air when we step into the kitchen.

“Robbie!”

“Sara!” He tugs me into him and wraps his arms around me.

“Hey, Rob.”

He drops one arm and keeps the other around me. “What can I get you to drink?” He waves his free arm in a grand gesture at the counter of two-liter soda bottles.

“Coke, please.”

“You want anything in the Coke?”

I stare at him unblinking, unsure if I heard him right.

“I’m kidding!” He lets out a hearty laugh. “My parents are upstairs. They’d kill me.”

I laugh out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Rob gives me a light squeeze before letting me go.

“J?” he asks, pouring my drink.

“Same, thanks.”

We take our drinks to the living room and Marcus waves us over to the front window. We exchange pleasantries and they talk excitedly about the game.

An arm snakes around my shoulder and I startle, nearly spilling my drink. I look to my right and Steve gives me a lazy grin.

“Jeez, Steve.”

“Sorry, Sara,” he apologizes, still grinning. “I didn’t know you were coming with J tonight.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You haven’t before.”

“Because I wasn’t allowed to before.”

“Oh.” He stoops over, taking a whiff of my Coke. “You need something for that.” He drops his arm, unscrewing the cap of the metal flask I didn’t notice before in his other hand.

No way in hell. “I’m good,” I tell him.

“Just a little,” he insists. “It won’t kill you.”

“I don’t want it.”

He lifts the flask to my cup anyway. I move it towards Jason and his flask follows.

I raise my voice. “I said
no
.”

His brow wrinkles and I can’t figure out his facial expression. It’s somewhere between hurt and anger. “Don’t be a pussy.”

Jason seizes Steve’s wrist. “Back off, man,” he warns, his tone chilling. Yet another tone I’ve never heard him use before.

“I’m just trying to have some fun,” Steve explains, a jocular smile spreads over his face.

Why are the guys “just trying to have some fun” such assholes?

“She told you she doesn’t want it. Leave her alone or I’m telling Coach.” He releases Steve’s wrist and slips his arm around my waist, pressing me to him.

Steve’s fun-loving look changes to wide-eyed shock. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” he challenges.

We watch Steve lumber off to the back of the house.

“What’s with him?” Jason asks Marcus. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“His parents told him they’re getting a divorce last night,” Marcus states.

“Damn.”

My eyes remain on the hallway he walked down. “It’s not easy having your life turned upside down.”

Jason kisses my head. “He could learn a thing or two from you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Sam listens with her usual attentiveness as I tell her about my first date with Jason.

“I felt so happy when he dropped me off. When I found my father in my room, waiting for me, I knew I couldn’t let him rape me again…” I trail off as distress seeps in.

My stomach tightens and I hunch over. I want to throw up. Trembling takes over, turning my breathing rapid and shallow. My head lolls from dizziness.

What have I done?

Sam places her hand on my shoulder. “Slow, deep breaths, Sara.”

I inhale while counting to five and peer up at her. She doesn’t look upon me in revulsion, only the same understanding and empathy she always shows me.

The breathing quells the tightness, trembling, and dizziness. Surfacing tears burn my eyes. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

She offers me a box of tissues, her expression never changing and her tone still light. “But it did happen.”

I pull a tissue out and dab my eyes as I dip my head in affirmation.

She has me detail every rape from the first one, including the pregnancy and abortion.

“You just did a very brave thing, Sara.”

“I didn’t mean to.” I sniffle, taking another tissue. Months of therapy weakened my carefully constructed vault holding my last secret. It lays around me, a crumbled mess.

“Remember the first time you came here?”

I nod, wiping my nose with the new tissue.

“This is one of those things that I have to report,” she informs me.

“No!” I protest. “Everyone will find out. They’ll think I’m a freak.”

“I’m sorry, Sara. I know you’re afraid, but this is to protect anyone else that your father might hurt and to make sure you stay protected.”

She calls Rose into the room and I repeat the story I kept hidden from them. “I’m sorry, Rose,” I say after I tell her about my last night in my childhood home. “I was embarrassed, even though you already witnessed my father beating me.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She yanks me into a tight embrace. “Never be sorry for your father’s actions. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She’s right, Sara,” Sam says, after Rose breaks away from hugging me. “Rape is about power and control.”

He lost control when the Jerichos moved in. When I asked about boys, he found a way to gain some of the power back. I let him off the hook by keeping the secret.

I can’t let him keep that power. 

Sam explains to Rose that she needs to report this to Child Protective Services. “I don’t know what CPS will do given that Sara is out of the home, but lives across the street.”

“We’ll move if we have to,” Rose says, her mind already made up.

“No,” I say.

Rose turns to me with her mouth agape.

“He has to pay. I won’t let him dictate my life again and punish me for what he did.”

“What do you mean?” Sam questions.

“I was always punished for what he, Mother, and Victoria did. Bruises, cuts, broken bones. I had to clean up the messes they made. Now this. No. Not anymore.” 

Sam gives me a reassuring pat on my shoulder. “I will call in the report as soon as you leave. Now, you need to tell Andrew and decide if Arissa should know. An investigator should be calling within twenty-four hours of my report.”

Rose and I leave in silence.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, newly formed tears falling as she starts the car.

“I tried so hard to keep it a secret, Rose,” I respond, tears of my own surfacing again.

“You could have told us.” She wipes away her tears and drives us out of the parking lot.

“I thought you would hate me,” I admit.

“I could never hate you, Sara. I love you as much as I love Arissa. Nothing you do or say will change that. This whole mess is not your fault.
You
are the victim. Anyone who would treat you as if you were to blame lacks compassion and empathy.”

“I feel like it was my fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t do anything to stop him until he tried to rape me after my first date with Jason.”

“Sara, he was abusing you before you knew how to defend yourself or that you should. Parents are supposed to protect their children, not use them as their personal maids and whipping girls.”

Andrew arrives home from work while Arissa is out with Damian and we’re able to talk without worrying about eavesdropping.

“I don’t want her to know yet.” I decide. “Maybe if it goes to court, but not now.”

“We’ll respect your wishes,” Andrew assures me.

“And Jason.” I add.

“Are you sure about that, sweetie?” Rose asks. “It might be a good idea if you tell him.”

“I don’t want him to know.” Final answer.