Stepbrother Soldier: A Forbidden Military Romance Novel (13 page)

And telling the whole story would put me at a serious disadvantage in
terms of safety and, more importantly, the element of surprise. If the Admiral
knew I was going to go public, he’d have more than enough time to prepare for
whatever I could throw at him. And he had connections. No, my best bet was to
stay under the radar until it was time to come forward with the media on my
side.

Luckily, I cared a lot less about the money than I did about the
academic issues. I knew Ashton had his own money from the military, and I was
confident once I went public that the Admiral would pay for what he’d done:
with time in prison, hopefully, but also in money. And money wasn’t the big
deal for me, anyway. It was the simple need to be vindicated.

But that still left my academic career to worry about. I didn’t know
where to start. I lamented not knowing any of my friend’s or professor’s
numbers by heart. It would take some digging to find the numbers I needed.

Shooing Ashton away from the computer while telling him about what the
bank had told me, I logged into Facebook and started firing off messages left
and right, leaving Ashton’s number as my primary contact. Flipping back and
forth between e-mail and Facebook, I sent out the same sort of message to
everyone who mattered.

Dear X,

I am writing to inform you that I have been the victim
of fraud. I did NOT pen that editorial. I cannot, at this time, say exactly who
is perpetrating this, but I can say that I am actively pursuing means to
rectify what he has done. I have also NEVER plagiarized anyone else’s work, and
have no idea what sort of evidence or proof my accuser has that I stole his
work. The same person who wrote that editorial is the same person behind the
plagiarism accusations, I am sure.

I am sorry for any stress this has caused you,
but rest assured it has been far more stressful for me. If you have any
information that could help me come forward and clear my name, I please,
please, please urge you to share it. As I am currently unable to return to
campus, I am entrusting you to defend me as much as you possibly can against
these accusations. If you cannot, I will not hold it against you, but your
support during this time is of paramount importance to me.

Please, trust
that I remain the upstanding and diligent peer and student that I have always
been.

With slight changes for different people, that’s the gist of the
message. I pulled up the earlier e-mail about my suspension and the number to
call to discuss the hearing. With shaking fingers, I dialed.

“You have reached the voicemail of Linda Hurley. I am not in the office
at this time. I will return on Monday at 9am. If you need immediate assistance,
please contact the general hotline. Otherwise, leave your name, number, and a
detailed message, and I will return your call.”

I’d forgotten it was Saturday; there wouldn’t be anyone on campus to
help me. It, unfortunately, also meant that most of the e-mails I’d just sent
wouldn’t be read until Monday morning. After leaving a message with Ashton’s
phone number, I hung up and sat, staring, at the screen as it flickered.

There wasn’t much else I could do. I’d woken up so determined and
energetic that morning; now I felt drained. More than anything, I wanted to
crawl into a bed, any bed, and stay there for weeks.

“Take me home,” I said, head in my hands. I was amazed I wasn’t crying
again; it had seemed like crying was about the only thing I was really capable
of two days ago. Now, it was like there was nothing left inside me. I was
emptied out. Out of rage, out of sadness, out of everything.

Ashton gently rubbed my back; I wanted to lean back into his hand, to
hold him by the waist, but that same nagging guilt kept me at bay. Getting up
slowly, I let him lead me out to the waiting pickup.

The ride home was as silent as the ride into town, with the added
weight of my waning spirit. It seemed to take forever. I didn’t care. If all I
did for the rest of my life was drive down that same stretch of road, never
getting anywhere, that would have been fine with me.

15

I let Ashton do the work of explaining what had happened to Jane. I’d
had a hard enough time telling her about what had happened the night we left
Kansas; I didn’t want to have to explain anything to anyone ever again. I
drifted up to the guest bedroom Jane had prepared for me and lay down in the
bed.

I stayed in the bed long enough for the day to turn to dusk. I just
lay there, not sleeping, watching the shadows grow long and then short again.
Occasionally, I would hear noises from downstairs or from the other rooms on
the second floor. I didn’t really pay any attention to them. I didn’t pay
attention to anything. Not even my own thoughts.

I let scenarios play out in my head, without interest. Scenarios where
I was victorious, scenarious were I was defeated, scenarios that ended in a
stalemate. None of them made me happy, or sad. They weren’t real, I knew. They
were just the best my brain could do. If I’d learned one thing over the past
few days, it was that no scenario you make up in your head would ever match
real life.

Around seven or so, the smell of warm food began to drift up the
stairs. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything all day; I was hungry as
hell. But I couldn’t drag myself from the bed.
What’s the point of eating,
I
lamented.
What’s the point of anything?

I felt like a depressed teenager, whose boyfriend had
broke
up with her or parents got divorced or something. I
remembered those years of hormones and emotional roller-coasters all too well.
I thought about how spiteful I was sometimes, doing the same thing I was doing
just then to my mother. She’d make a delicious meal and I’d smell it and want
it, but I would refuse to come down and eat.

It was that thought that finally got me out of bed. The thought of my
mother. She wouldn’t want me to keep being that spiteful girl. She wouldn’t
want me to lay in that bed feeling sorry for myself. She would want me to get
up and eat and laugh and plan my attack. She would want me to make up for the
fact that she’d unknowingly married a monster. That he’d fooled her all those
years, only to attack her daughter once she was gone.

I can only explain my body’s reaction to that thought as insane. I was
suddenly filled with incomparable anger; my breathing sped up, my heart raced,
my hands clutched into fists. I jumped from the bed, staring wildly around the
room, wanting to break something. But nothing in there was mine; I didn’t have
the right to destroy anything there.

I glanced out the window, which looked out onto the back of the house.
Metal glinted at me from the rising moon. There was an old tree stump with an
ax lodged in it; one on side was a pile of freshly split logs. On the other
were logs yet-to-be-split. Figuring I could put my destructive energy to good
use, I flew down the stairs, ignoring the sound of my name being called from
the kitchen, and burst out the front door.

Rounding the house, I just kept picturing the Admiral’s face. At the
wedding to my mother. Smiling at me on graduation day. At the funeral. Across
the dinner table. Smiling, frowning. The Admiral yelling at me when I was a
teenager. The Admiral hugging me at the airport. All the times he’d given my
mother a peck on the cheek or wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

I hauled the ax out of the stump and set up a log; I’m not exactly the
strongest person in the world, but farm work had helped me grow up with enough
muscle to split a log or two. I heard the satisfying whizz of the blade through
the air, felt the shock of its impact travel up my body, saw the log fall into
two pieces.

And then I did it again. And again. And again. I don’t know how many
logs I ended up splitting, only that in the end I was panting, my muscles
screaming, legs shaking. The overwhelming rage was gone, but not the pulse of
vengeance. I was as determined as ever to give the Admiral what was coming to
him, all the malaise and emptiness of the day washed away by a tide of
righteous anger.

I let the ax drop to the ground and stumbled, my body sore, through
the back door of the house, which opened up into the kitchen. Jane and Ashton
turned to look at me, both wide-eyed, from their half-empty plates.

“Christy, what…” Ashton started to speak, but
Jane interrupted him.

“Thanks for doing that for me, Christy. Come have some vegetable
casserole,” she said, her look of shock dissolving quickly. She gestured to the
plate she’d set out for me. I shook my head, even though I was even hungrier
than I’d been before.

“We all need to talk about what we’re gonna do,”
I said through gritted teeth.

“Maybe so, but you need to eat some of this casserole. It’s delicious.
You’ll love it,” Jane said firmly, her tone implying that this was a command,
not a suggestion. Reluctantly, I approached the table, sliding into the seat.
She doled out a gigantic portion of the casserole, which really did smell
heavenly.

“But what about…” I started to say.

“Shut up and eat,” Jane said, fixing me with a glare that wilted any
desire I had to rebel or press on. Ashton was still looking at me wide-eyed.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked, watching me shovel food into my
mouth. It
was
delicious, but I wasn’t
focused on the taste. I just wanted to eat quickly so Jane would let me talk.
But the more I ate, the less I felt the sense of urgency that had led me to
burst into the kitchen in the first place.

“I’m fine, now,” I said between bites. He looked scared but turned
back to his food, eyes still on me. Jane had already finished the last few
bites on her plate and was sitting with her hands folded, also looking at me.
She was actually looking at me quite intently, from head to foot, as though
sizing me up.

I couldn’t tell, by the way she was looking at me, what it was,
exactly, that she was judging me on – or whether or not I was passing whatever
mental test she was performing. She could have been looking at me and thinking
this girl is fucked,
or she could have
been thinking
I like her spunk,
or
she could have been thinking
she kind of
looks like Emma Watson when she eats.

As I finished the last few forkfuls, I pushed the plate away, matching
Jane’s stare with one of my own. She gave me the slightest hint of a smile and
unfolded her hands.

“Come talk to me in the living room,” Jane said, pushing her chair
away from the table. “Ashton, will you take care of the dishes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ashton said, looking at me pointedly. I followed Jane,
settling into the couch next to her. She’d already started a fire, and the room
was lit with dancing shadows.

“I know this all looks pretty simple, and I seem pretty simple, but
believe it or not, I was a brainiac like you, once. Went to Wellesley. Studied
philosophy, which got me a whole lot of nothing in my life ‘cept headaches. But
I kept up reading,” she said, gesturing to the packed shelves. “I know a bit
about how the world works.”

I nodded, eager to hear her opinion on how I
should proceed.

“If you’re going to come forward, you need to know some things,” Jane
said, leaning back in the chair. “You’ve got a case, but now they’ve got one,
too.”

“Who’s they?” I asked, leaning forward myself.

“Whoever he’s got on his side. The whole damn Navy, probably. The whole
damn military. All those lawyers and politicians. And he’s done some damage to
your credibility already. The plagiarism is one
thing,
the editorial is another. It looks like you went crazy, and crazy doesn’t bode
well for women crying rape. The timeline is too short, now, you see? It’ll look
like you’re just saying things desperately to make excuses.”

“But I’m not! And, I mean, I
didn’t
do any of those things, so I should be able to prove that!”

“Sure, but the public, they love a juicy story. They always do. ‘Crazy
liberal accused of plagiarism, goes off the deep end, accuses high-ranking
military official of rape?’ That’s a flavor of the week if I ever heard one.

It’s going to be excruciating, the way they’ll treat you. You could
wind up the next poster child of women gone mad, and crying wolf. Your face is
going to be everywhere. People will dig up things you did when you were a child
to prove their side’s right. Any skeletons you got in your closet, they ain’t
stayin’ there for long, child.”

Ashton,
I
thought, the name echoing slowly in my mind as I considered everything she was
saying. I didn’t have many skeletons in my closet, but he was one of them, for
sure. I mean, screwing your stepbrother wasn’t illegal, but it was still pretty
messed up.

“And that means you and my nephew had better get a hold of
yourselves,” Jane suddenly said, her voice cracking like a whip through the
room, my own thoughts reflected in her words. My jaw dropped as I stared at
her.

“How did you
know
?”
I asked, feeling shame and guilt creeping in to join my anger and fear.

“Shit, all you gotta do is look at the way you make the eyes at each
other. Now, it’s no business of mine, and you ain’t blood, so I don’t care. But
the media? They will eat you both alive for that. I guarantee it. And I’m sorry
to play favorites, but if you drag Ashton down with you, you’re on your own as
far as I’m concerned,” Jane said, shaking her head.

I could understand that; as much as I’d grown to look up to Jane, I
was no more than a stranger to her, really. We’d never met before the day
before, and she had no real reason to care about me.

“I understand,” I said, twiddling my thumbs. She’d said she didn’t
care and wasn’t bothered by it, but being called out on something I
knew
was considered so wrong didn’t feel
good anyway.

“So, you want to go forward?”

“Yes,” I said, with no hesitation. I’d heard everything she’d said,
heard it crystal clear. I hadn’t just heard it; I’d
understood
it.

You don’t get four years deep into a political science major without
knowing a thing or two about the news media. I was scared. But I was angry.
More angry
than I was scared. Far more. It was one thing for
the Admiral to attack my body, but my mind, my reputation? No. I would never be
the girl to cower in front of him. I wouldn’t let him destroy me.
 

I’d do it for me. And for my mother. And for Ashton, and his mother.
And for Jane, and for the girls that came before me. I’d do it because I was
Christy Starling, and I fucking could.