"You know, don't you?" Tears fell in waves down her cheeks, and instantly, I understood what she meant. "Did she tell you?"
"You knew? You knew Sean never raped her and never said anything? You never did anything about it?" I huffed and shook my head, retreating a step. "You both need help. You're both fucked up in the head."
"What did she tell you?"
"That she made the whole thing up. She lied about being raped and put an innocent man in prison because of it. He served time for something he didn't do and then ended up taking his own life because of it. I walked out after that."
"So she didn't tell you everything," Marie replied, sorrow filling her tone.
"What more is there to know? I don't need to know anything else."
"I'm assuming she told you Sean didn't rape her, which is true. And I hate what that lie did to him, to Gabriella, and to me. What it did to our relationship. But that doesn't mean she wasn't raped."
I was stunned into silence. My head grew heavy as the earth began to tilt. I had to force myself to take in enough oxygen to keep from passing out. I didn't want to believe her. Gabi had confessed the truth, and I wanted to believe this was just another lie to keep me by Gabi's side. But there was something in Marie's eyes, in her tone, in the way her bottom lip quivered that told me that wasn't the case.
"She was raped, Dane. It just wasn't Sean."
Bile rose up the back of my throat and I had to hold onto the wall beside me to keep from falling over. I didn't know how much more I could handle, and wasn't sure I could keep listening. But she had my attention. "And how do you know this?" I asked carefully.
She was hesitant as she stood there and wiped the tears from her chin. I wanted to scream, shake her, something to get her to answer me. But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything other than stare at her and ignore the ringing in my ears.
"Because she came to me after the first time it happened."
The ringing in my ears grew louder and only made the pressure in my head worse. I bared my teeth and clenched my fists, refraining from physically lashing out at this woman. My words were clipped as I angrily gritted out, "The first time? How many times was she raped?"
She shook her head while staring at the ground. I took a step until we were toe to toe and repeated my question. The vicious tone I used caused her to flinch. She finally looked up and admitted, "I don't know."
"You don't know? She came to you-her mother-and told you someone had taken advantage of her against her will, and you don't know how many times it happened? What did you do about it?"
"Nothing," she answered in a breath of air so quiet I almost didn't hear it. I had to have misunderstood her. But somewhere deep inside, I knew I hadn't. I was so angry I could have punched a wall. I wanted to strangle Marie. Pure, uncontrolled rage burned in my chest, and I knew if I didn't step away from her, I would've done something I'd never be able to take back.
In a low tone, to prevent her neighbors from overhearing, I asked, "What kind of mother knows her daughter is being abused and doesn't do anything about it? What kind of human being does that?" My words were slow, cautious, and heavy with disgust.
"I know, and that's something I've had to live with. It's something I'll always have to live with. I let my daughter, my only child, down when she needed me the most, and nothing will ever make that go away. I wish I could go back and change it, but I can't. I made a decision that I thought was best, but it wasn't."
"How in the hell could you possibly think doing nothing about it was for the best?"
"Gabriella came to me right after I married Peter. We had only lived there for about a month or two. She said her stepbrother made her feel uncomfortable. I kept telling her to give Todd a chance. It was difficult because he was so much older than her. She was fifteen and he was twenty-three. But we were a joined family and I wanted her to have a relationship with Peter's son."
I felt sick to my stomach. My throat burned with the vomit that threatened to come up. I couldn't even look at her. I turned away and braced myself against the wall with my hand on my knee, hoping to calm down. I knew I hadn't heard the worst of it, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle more.
"It was a few months after that I noticed she didn't want to leave her room. She didn't want to be around anyone and stopped talking. She had always been a bit of a shy child. I don't know if she's ever talked to you about it, but we used to live in shelters before I married Peter. We bounced around from homeless shelters to boarding houses, the streets, and state facilities, before we finally moved here. Peter saved us; he really did. So I just thought she was having a hard time adjusting to actually having a home. We weren't used to having all the things Peter provided."
I growled through gritted teeth, not giving two shits about the life they used to have.
She took a deep breath and continued. "I finally asked her one night what was going on with her. It took her a little bit, but she finally admitted it to me. She said Todd came into her room one night and … " Marie couldn't finish her sentence, and I didn't need her to.
I whipped around so fast it made Marie stumble back a step. "She confided in you and you didn't do anything about it?"
"What could I do?" she cried, tears running down her face.
"Call the fucking police! Shoot him. Cut off his dick!"
"And go back to the shelter?"
I couldn't believe what I heard come out of her mouth. "That's what you were so fucking worried about? Being homeless?" Oxygen wouldn't reach my lungs and I started to feel lightheaded. The anger had consumed me. My entire body shook uncontrollably until I leaned forward, bracing my hands on my knees, and took a deep breath. When the wave passed, I stared her right in the eyes and said, "You allowed your daughter to get raped at the age of fifteen by a twenty-three-year-old, and all you worried about was where you'd live. You fucking disgust me."
Unable to listen to her anymore, or even look at her, I turned toward the driveway. I needed to get out of there. I decided I'd be the one to go see about Gabi and get her the help she needed, especially after hearing Marie's confession. She admitted to not doing right by Gabi once, and I wouldn't allow that to happen again. The anger and hatred I'd felt toward Gabi was now sheer pain and sympathy. My heart literally hurt for her.
But Marie followed me, begging me to listen. "It's not like I didn't do anything. I asked Todd about it and he said it wasn't true. I thought maybe Gabriella was making it all up because she didn't want to live there anymore. I didn't want to leave and have nowhere to go if it wasn't true."
Reaching the hood of my car, I turned around. "Did you think he'd admit it? Did you really think if you asked him if he raped your daughter, he'd say yes?"
She hesitated. And it proved to be the longest few seconds of my life. "I didn't know what else to do. She never mentioned it again, so I thought she made it up."
"When did you know she was telling the truth?" I barely got the question out. I didn't want to ask, nor did I want the answer. But since I'd heard this much, I needed to know the rest. I couldn't continue to live with only part of the story.
"Just after she turned seventeen, she came to me and said she was pregnant."
I thought about it. We were dating when she turned seventeen. We'd been having sex, but I always wore a condom. I felt as if I were holding my breath, waiting for her to keep talking. So many thoughts ran through my head, and I couldn't keep any of them straight. I never knew she was pregnant, and I couldn't understand why she never told me. Unless it wasn't mine … but it could've been mine.
"I thought my life was falling apart. I never wanted my daughter to end up like me-pregnant in high school. I told her you needed to step up and do the right thing, whatever that may have been. But she admitted it wasn't yours. I thought she was saying she had cheated on you and that's why she came to me about it. I wasn't expecting her to tell me it was Todd's. I didn't believe her at first. But then she said it had been going on since the first time she came to me about it. I wanted to kill him, I honestly did. But instead, I went to Peter. I told him what had happened, and he demanded she get an abortion. I didn't question it. I didn't think anything of it. I just figured it was in the best interest of Gabriella if she got one."
"You're a fucking idiot," I spewed. "He wanted it aborted so there wouldn't be any evidence of rape. How did you not see that? How could you be so fucking blind?" My rage took over again and I was back in her face.