* * * *
How did he do it?
Jesse watched him unload the picnic basket he brought, wondering what it was about him that made her feel so comfortable. Not one member of her family asked about her job, not one. They never allowed her to talk about her life. Thinking about her time with her family, most of her time was spent listening to them talk about their achievements.
Everyone disappeared when she tried to talk. All of them thought she still suffered and preferred not to listen.
Jake only listened to part of her life. He still saw her as damaged. How could she move on when no one would let her?
“Thank you,” she said.
“What?” he asked, dishing out little portions of everything onto a plate.
“For letting me talk. It has been so long since I’ve talked about work or anything.” She frowned, looking up at him. “It’s insane.”
“No, it’s not insane." He offered her a spoonful of something. "Open.”
Opening her lips, the flavor of a pepper pasta salad exploded on her tongue.
“Good?”
“Very good. I like everything with spice in.”
“Do you cook?” he asked, offering her something else.
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“Yes, I love cooking. I live in a small one bedroom house on the outskirts of the city. I’ve got a proper range cooker but I don’t always get a chance to use it.” Her family rarely asked her to bring anything to dinner.
They’ve been there for you.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“What?”
“You were thinking something you didn’t like, what was it?”
“Erm, I was thinking about my family and how they’ve been with me over the years. I don’t know.” Tucking some loose strands of hair behind her ear, she stared out over the lake.
“They’ve been there for you yet you feel they’re keeping you trapped in a little box labelled fragile?”
She gasped, turning back to look at him. “How do you know?”
“I know you. You’re a lot easier to read than you realize.” He shrugged. “You’re not a hard person to understand.” Another forkful of food was pressed into her mouth.
“They rarely let me talk about my life after what happened.” She ate some more food, watching him as he took some for his own.
“You talked to someone about what happened?”
“Yes. I’ve been talking to the same woman for the past ten years.”
“Tell me how you feel. Don’t hold anything back.”
“You’re a stranger. I can’t talk to a stranger about this.” She sat up, crossing her legs in front of her.
Ryan placed his jacket over her legs. “I’m not having any other man looking at your pussy. You were showing everything that’s mine.”
Heat filled her cheeks at the intensity of his stare.
“Thank you.”
“The psychiatrist you spoke to started out life as a stranger. Why not talk to me? I’m not going to hurt you or make you tell me something you don’t know.” He passed her a made up plate, which she took from him.
Watching him eat she found herself relaxing in his company. “Once I start talking about what happened people have a tendency to disappear.”
“I’m not walking away, and I’m not asking you to relive what happened. Just talk about your own feelings about what you want.” He ate in between talking.
Silence fell as she stared across the pond. Unlike her family, Ryan wasn’t pressuring her or demanding that she seek help. He wasn’t even trying to make her see someone to help her deal.
Licking her dry lips, she thought back to that time.
“I was taken for two days,” she said. “He tied me to a chair to start off with.” They sat in the open air with people walking around them but not too close they could hear her speaking. “He talked constantly about the future. At first I was terrified, actually I was scared throughout it all. I didn’t know who he was, and I wanted to go home. He fed me and at night he, erm, he forced himself on me but it wasn’t painful beside the loss of my virginity.”
Ryan touched her hand, offering her strength.
“Anyway, afterward I found out he’d done it to other girls in three different states. They finally found him and it ended in a shootout where he died.” Eating some of her food, Jesse talked about what happened without feeling sick or hurting. She only wanted to get passed everything and to move onto something more.
No man ever stuck around after she told them the truth. Jesse told Ryan everything, how the man had made love to her rather than physically hurt her.
“I had nightmares a couple of weeks after but once I talked with my psychiatrist I stopped. I’ve always been able to deal with everything that’s happened to me logically. It hurt and I hate the fact I suffered it but I don’t want my whole life to be about what happened over ten years ago. I’m stronger than that.” She pressed a hand to her heart really feeling the words she spoke down to her soul.#p#分页标题#e#