Not Until Moonrise by Heather Hellinger Read Free Book Online

told her to run. She shut her eyes and fought the sickness, fought the wave of memory that threatened to swallow her.
       But it was too late. She could hear the drone of nurses speaking in the hallway, she could smell the disinfectant and see the white walls and feel Jackson’s hand folded around hers—
       —carefully, as if he were afraid of ripping out the stitches that ran up the insides of both her arms. A wonder she hadn’t sliced through the tendons, the doctor had said. Earlier, it had hurt, but not now.  The nurse had fed something into the IV, and now she felt as painless and white as the gauze wrapping her arms.
       “Howie… raped you.”
       Jackson didn’t like the word, she could tell from the effort it seemed to take him to get it out. He wouldn’t look at her, but she nodded anyway.
       “He’s been doing this for…”
       “The first time when I was fourteen, right after Christmas, and then not again for almost a year. And then… well, more. But sometimes I just have to blow him, or jerk him off—”
       “Stop. Jesus, stop.” Jackson pulled his hand away, stood up fast and turned to the window that looked out on the hospital parking lot, macadam baking under a hot sun. He turned his ball cap backwards, then frontwards again. “Jesus. Why didn’t you say anything?”
       Kate bit her lip. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. And I could deal with it. As long as it was just Howard, I—”
       “Why wouldn’t I believe you? You don’t trust me now?”
       Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Her eyes were hot behind the lids, and panic tightened her throat. “Please don’t go.” She could barely speak past the constriction. “Please. Please don’t leave me, Jack, I love you—” And then she was crying too hard, and couldn’t speak at all.
       “Katie, stop crying.” Jackson crossed back to her, frowning hard. “I’m not going anywhere.”
       She tried to stop, but that was hard too. Harder, when she saw the blank expression in his eyes, the way he wouldn’t quite touch her hand. Probably he would never touch her again. And he wondered why she hadn’t told him?
       “What do you mean, when it was only Howie?”
       A chill went through her. But she had committed herself to the truth now. Jackson deserved to know exactly what kind of damaged goods he was getting. She swallowed, struggled to get herself under control. “Noah… Noah found out.”
       “Noah.”
       She nodded, stared down at her arms. “A few months ago. And Howard said if Noah told people, everyone would know what a slut I was. But maybe Noah wouldn’t tell anybody if I… So I did. But he still went and told Adam, and Adam told Josh—and what’s the fucking difference in everybody knowing I’m a slut, if even when it’s a secret I still get treated like one? I don’t care anymore who knows.” Her voice rose as the anger built, a wave of red cresting against white opiates. She sealed her eyes and tried to clench her fist, but it wouldn’t clench. Pain shot up her arm. “I never asked for it. No matter what they say. I never wanted what they did to me, not ever.”
       Jackson’s hand moved over hers again. His fingers laced with hers, squeezed while she cried with as much relief as anger. He knew, and he had taken her hand anyway. She had always known she could trust him with her body. But maybe—it was too soon, she knew she shouldn’t dare hope—but maybe she could trust him with the rest of her as well.
       But when she opened her eyes, his face still frightened her; there was something terrible and blank there.
       “Do you really want to kill yourself?” he asked.
       She swallowed. “It wasn’t—I… I don’t know.”
       “Howie, Noah, the rest of those fucks—they’re the ones who deserve to die.”
       Fear sliced through her sharper than any razor, and she gripped his hand with weak fingers. “Don’t you dare do something