The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage by Matthew Wayne Selznick Read Free Book Online

waited.
    She looked at me and spoke in a rush. “I’m gonna tell you something I should have told you already. I’m sorry I didn’t. We’ve had…other things to deal with this last year. I didn’t want to add to it.”
    “Okay…”
    “But, you have to promise me, Nate—you can’t freak out. This is my thing, and I’m talking to Dr. Creighton about it, and I’m working through it, along with the whole cabin thing; I’m figuring it out, but it’s something that takes time. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “You have to say it, Nate.”
    After confirmation that she and Carson Meunetti had had sex—that Carson knew her in a way I still, after almost a year, didn’t—I didn’t think there was much left to freak out over.
    I nodded. “I promise not to freak out.”
    She took a deep breath.
    “Okay. Okay.” She exhaled hard. “Okay.” She looked at me.
    “So, right before the day of Car’s parents’ plane crash, we were all at a party at Preston’s. I got…I got a little messed up, and…I came really, really close to being raped.”
    She closed her eyes, took another breath, and opened them again.
    It was her turn to freak out, so I figured it was my turn to be the stable one. I found another slot in my skull for this new information.
    “Really close, you said. So…it didn’t happen?”
    “Not, like, technically. You know.”
    I understood perfectly.
    “Okay. So, this guy. He’s, what, off in jail or something? He can’t get to you now, right?”
    As if he’d have a fucking chance, with me around.
    “He got taken care of,” Lina said. I could tell that wasn’t the whole truth.
    “What does that mean…?”
    “He never bothered me again. He wouldn’t.”
    “He’s…wait, he’s not in jail? He got away with it?” The safe zone was dissolving around this new knowledge. “How’d he get away with it?”
    “You said you wouldn’t freak out!”
    “I’m…” I checked myself. “I’m not. Sorry. But, who is he? What happened?”
    She shook her head. “No, Nate. Please. This is something I’m working out. I’m trying to handle it. My own way.”
    I gaped at her. “You won’t tell me?”
    She threw her hands in the air. “You just got done telling me you’re going all Andrew-crazy, and shit! Look what just happened!”
    She held her open palm in front of my face and shook her head again. “No. Please.” Her hand dropped, found mine, and squeezed. “Let me deal with this my way, Nate. You promised. Please. Be patient about this.”
    I didn’t get it at all. Somewhere out there was some fucker who tried to rape my girlfriend. Somewhere out there was some fuckwad who had messed with Lina’s head so badly, we couldn’t be what we should be to each other. Some fucker had hurt her—had stolen from us, damn it—and he never paid for it.
    “Why didn’t you turn him in, Lina?” It was driving me crazy. It didn’t make sense.
    “Everything happened so quickly,” she said. “I mean—literally. The time between that and Car finding out about his parents…it was hours. What happened to me, what happened to him…it doesn’t compare.”
    “Sure it does!”
    “No.” She shook her head firmly. “It doesn’t. Something really bad almost happened to me…and that was bad enough. But something horrible did happen to Car, Nate. There’s no comparison.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You couldn’t.”
    I wanted to argue that. I wanted to mention my father was a half-crazy homeless animal man and my mother had kept it a secret the first fifteen years of my life, and, hey, that’s got to count for something.
    I bit my tongue.
    “Who else knows?”
    “Please don’t ask me, Nate. You do, now. I hope that makes our…stuff…easier to understand. I just…I want to keep it mostly my thing. For now. Okay?”
    “Is that what Dr. Creighton wants you to do? For your therapy?”
    “He thinks it’s important.”
    She was lying.
    “Okay.” I sighed. I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed