Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
She stared at me for a long time, a hundred different emotions playing across her pretty face.
“What?” I demanded, sounding nasty and condescending. I figured she’d get mad and huff away, but she didn’t. I wasn’t that lucky.
“Let me get a look at you.” Her gaze swept my whole body then, and I tried to make myself even smaller under her scrutiny. Then she bent low and took my chin in her hand, turning my head from side-to-side to examine me, her eyes narrowing. “God, Jamie, did that fucking culero hurt you? Do I need to call 911?” Her eyes softened, even as the corners of her mouth tugged down in an involuntary expression of what could only be disgust. Her fingers trembled slightly as they gripped my chin.
“You don’t need to call anyone,” I said, embarrassed that she’d even considered it.
Layla’s Mexican accent always came out when she was trying to make a point or to be funny, but especially when she got emotional. “Are you sure, Papi?”
“Don’t call me that, Layla!” I snatched out of her grasp and looked away, trying to see into the darkness of the woods that lay just a few yards away. I found myself wondering if I could stumble into them and disappear, never to be heard from or seen again. Maybe I’d die of exposure like the people you hear about on the news. “I’m not your papi anymore.”
“No shit,” she said sourly. “I think I got it now.” She plopped down on the ground beside me, unconcerned about the dirt or the possibility of being attacked by creepy-crawlies like most girls would be. My sister would be having a fit, but not Layla. She’d always been cool like that.
“I think I need to be alone right now,” I told her, working to control the quivering of my bottom lip. I still had plenty of crying left to do, but I’d be damned if I’d let her see me break down again.
She looked at me, and in the sliver of moonlight slanted across her face, I caught her eye roll. “You’re crazy if you think I’m leaving you alone at a time like this. I may not be your girlfriend anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. God, what he just did to you.”
My heart was suddenly pounding in my throat, the heat of intense embarrassment creeping up my jaw and onto my cheeks. “Um… What did you see exactly?”
She snorted out something akin to a laugh. “Believe me, I saw enough. That fucking bastard. He…” She bit her lip, her eyes darting uncertainly from side-to-side, her voice dropping to an almost-whisper. “He raped you, Jamie.”
“No!” I yelled, horrified that she could think such a thing— that she would use such a distasteful word. Kage didn’t deserve to have a word like that attached to him, not ever. It hurt my heart just thinking about it. “He didn’t. That’s not how it was, Layla. I was asking for it, I swear.”
“That’s what assault victims say,” she pointed out soberly. “When their husbands beat them and stuff, you know? They say they deserved it. I’ve seen it a million times with my step-sister, a couple of my mom’s friends, on Law & Order SVU…”
“But in my case it’s true. You don’t understand us… how it is between us.”
“He attacked you. I saw it with my own eyes,” Layla insisted, taking a deep breath. Then she hung her head and began to speak quietly, purposefully, like she was narrating a vivid scene playing behind her eyes. “I heard the two of you arguing from the guest room. I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t help it. The window beside my bed overlooks the back yard— right there.” She pointed to the window, as if I didn’t know the layout of the house I’d lived in since birth.
“I tried to ignore the shouting,” she continued. “It’s none of my business, right? I mean, I knew your boss wasn’t happy and that something wasn’t quite right. You guys kept exchanging these looks that… well, to be honest I didn’t want to think they were what they looked like. And he was pissed from the minute he saw me, Jamie. I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t like me. Then when you two walked outside together, I was like hmmm… maybe there really is something fishy going on.”
She looked over at me, waiting for me to refute her tentative accusation. When I didn’t, her face fell. She took a slow, deep breath and continued to recount the story I didn’t want to hear, especially not coming out of her mouth.
“Anyway, I just decided to go on to bed, because I didn’t want to know what was going on between the two of you. But then you were yelling, and I got worried. I resisted the urge as long as I could, but I finally had to peek out the blinds to make sure you were alright. That’s when I saw him jump you. You were running down the hill, and he tackled you, and I could tell even from far away he wasn’t playing. For a minute, I thought I was seeing things, ‘cause it looked like he tore your pants down and started—” Her voice broke off, and she couldn’t finish the thought. “I was stunned for a couple of minutes before I could get my feet to move and try to come help you. By the time I got to the back door, that culero had pulled up his pants and was just walking away like it was nothing. I wanted to run after him and beat his ass, but if he could do what he did to you, no telling what he could do to me. That fucker is scary, Jamie— those eyes. When he looks at me—” She shuddered, unable to finish.