Chapter Eight
“Please, don’t. Please...” She whimpered. She started to cry with tears of fear and anger.
“Oh baby, don’t cry.” He told her in the same menacing voice. He looked down at her and gave her a twisted, sick smile. He place his hand at the bottom of her shirt and moved it up. He grabbed her breast underneath her shirt and watched her catch her breath. She tried to stop him but her hands couldn’t move. They were tied to the back of the bed. “You like that, don’t you?” She shook her head. “Don’t lie to me!” He yelled.
“Please stop. Please let me go. Please.” She begged him. The tears continued to flow down her cheeks.
“I don’t think so.” He replied very threatening. “I’ve just begun to start.”
She wanted to scream but couldn’t. He slapped her when she tried. She was helpless. She was scared and knew exactly what he was going to do to her. She looked at him, pleading with her eyes to let her go. He laughed at her plea and started to unbutton her blouse...
Arlet shot right up from her bed. Cold sweat mixed in with her tears streamed down her face. Her pillow was damp from it. Her breathing was short and rapid. She looked frantically around the dark, empty room, checking that he wasn’t there. Knowing that no one was in the room besides herself, she laid back down in her bed. She couldn’t go back to sleep, fearing she would go back. She walked over to the light switch, turn the lights on and ran back into her bed and started to cry vigorously.
Down the hall, Nick couldn’t sleep. He didn’t know why. Was it because he was used to being up during the night and sleeping during the day? No, that wasn’t it. What was it? What was bothering him? He didn’t have any answers. The image of Arlet early that night was still in his head and the way she reacted when he asked why she was crying still rang in his ears. That was it. She was crying. But why? That’s what was bothering him. He wanted to know why she had been crying. He wanted to know what caused her to cry like that. His first thought was her ex-boyfriend. But he knew that wasn’t it. It was something much deeper than that. He didn’t know how he knew that but somehow he knew. He wanted to help her. Slowly creeping out of bed so he wouldn’t wake up Aaron, he walked over to the door and slipped quietly out of the room. He tip-toed his way down to the end of the hall to Arlet’s room and noticed light shining from underneath the door. He knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” Came Arlet’s voice. Nick noticed it was weak, quiet and even scared.
“It’s me Nick. Can I come in?”
He didn’t get an answer but heard Arlet get up from her bed. He heard her unlocking her door and saw the doorknob slowly turn. When he looked up to look at Arlet, he was shocked at her appearance.
She had obviously been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy and there were tear stains down her cheeks. She was pale and looked like she had seen a ghost. Arlet tried to give him a smile but it came out to be a pitiful look that called out for help. Nick’s first reaction would of been to engulf her in his arms and hold her but held back to do so.
“Come in.” She told him very faintly. She opened the door to let him in and closed it when he came in. She felt him standing behind her staring into her back. She couldn’t look at him. She avoid his eyes as she walked around him to sit on her bed. Nick didn’t move. He just stood there and watched her.
“What’s wrong?” He asked. She didn’t respond. Instead, another batch of tears came flowing down her eyes. Nick rushed over, sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her. She cried shamelessly into his chest as Nick’s arms held her tightly. “Ssh, it’s going to OK. Ssh, let it out.” He told her reassuringly.
Arlet kept crying and crying. Both of them thought she wasn’t going to stop. The tears kept flowing out of her eyes like a never-ending waterfall. But after an hour flew by, Arlet settled down and stopped crying. She continued to sob but the tears stopped. Nick didn’t loosen his embrace around her. Instead, he tightened it and kept her close.
“Nick,” She started, slightly muffled from having her head buried into his chest. He slightly pulled away so he could look into her face. “Thank you.”
“Ssh, don’t thank me.” Replied Nick, giving her a small smile.
“No, I have to. Thank you for holding me. Sorry I got your shirt wet.”
“No, don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”
They smile at each other then became quiet. Nick continued to hold her in his arms and rocked her slightly. Arlet’s head was on his chest and held onto him tightly. She knew he was going to ask the question and she knew she couldn’t avoid it. He wasn’t going to leave until she told him the whole story. But as she sat in his arms, she knew she could trust him with her secret. She felt safe and protected in his arms. Even though they just met a few hours ago, she felt completely comfortable with him. As she pondered on how she was going to tell Nick, he asked her.
“Can I ask you something?” Nick asked, stroking her long, black hair.
“You want to know why I was crying, right?” She responded.
“Well, yeah.”
Arlet pulled away and looked at him. “Okay, but you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone. Only one person knows what I’m going to tell you and that would be my best friend Sarah. No one in my family knows it so you can’t tell them. No one. Not a soul.” She told him seriously.
“I promise. I won’t tell anyone.” Nick promised truthfully.
Arlet took in a deep breath and exhaled. She closed her eyes and swallowed. Nick thought she was going to start crying again but instead, she opened her eyes looked directly into his.
“I was raped.” She told him.
Nick couldn’t believe what he just heard. “What?” He asked unbelievingly.
“I was raped.”
“Oh God. C’mere.” He engulfed her into his arms once again and held her tightly. She wasn’t crying but he knew she need it. He pulled away again. “How could you get raped? I mean, looking at all these tae kwon do trophies I thought you could defend yourself from people like that.”
“Well, the person who did it was someone close to me.”
“Derek?”
She shook her head. “No, Derek wouldn’t have done that.”
“Then who was it?” He asked, getting angrier. He couldn’t believe anyone could hurt her like that.
“Keenan Quinn.” She answered, fearful.
“Who?”
“Keenan Quinn. We went to the same tae kwon do school.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. We did a lot of tae kwon do stuff together even if I didn’t really like him. We were friends when I first met him but then he started to get all jealous when I started seeing Derek. I got mad at him and confronted him when he kept bashing Derek and being a complete jerk around me. He started to become weirder every time I would see him.”
“How could he do that? I’m sure he would know that you could defend yourself and fight him off.”
Arlet shook her head again. “Keenan and I have known each other a long time and like I said, we did a lot do tae kwon do things together. So that means he knew my strength and weaknesses. He knew how to lure me into his evil plan and he knew how to make it so I couldn’t fight him off. He was also a marine so he was so much stronger than I.”
“That bastard!” He yelled angrily.
“Ssh! Keep it down! You’ll wake everyone up!”
“Sorry.” Nick said, still angry. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Did you go to the doctors or anything?”
“No, I couldn’t. You see, a few days before he raped me, Derek and I slept with each other for the first time. I lost my virginity that night so if I went to the doctors, they wouldn’t be able to tell that I have been raped. Cause you know, since it was our first time, Derek was pretty um...rough, I guess you could say.”
“Why didn’t you tell your family?”
“Cause I didn’t want them to worry. Besides, they wouldn’t believe me if I told them Keenan have done it. My parents loved him and thought he was a good guy cause he was in the marines. No one would have believed me. Sarah didn’t even believe me at first but then she believed afterwards when she remembered some of the little things Keenan did before the event happened.”
“What about Derek?”
“Cause I knew he would of gone out to kill him.”
“Well, that guy deserves it!”
“Yeah but Derek wouldn’t have found him anyways. Cause afterwards, Keenan left for the marines.”
“I thought he already was in the marines?”
“Well, he was in this program called the ‘Young Marines’ so when he got older, he got drafted, so to speak and left somewhere. He hasn’t been back...until now.” She told him quietly.
“He’s back?!”
“Yeah. That’s why I’ve been crying. I’m scared cause I know he’s come back for more. And I don’t know what to do.”
Nick didn’t know what to say. He was fuming mad at the thought someone could hurt someone like Arlet like that. He looked over to Arlet and saw she was pale again as she looked into his eyes. He stared into her eyes and saw the plea for help. His heart broke as he saw the fright in her face. He hugged her again.
“Don’t be scared. I’ll be here for you. I’ll make sure he won’t come near you. We’ll think of something.” He told her.
Arlet felt a little bit better. “Nick, will you stay with me tonight?”
He smiled at her. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
She smiled up at him as Nick pulled the sheets so she could get in. He followed and covered the both of them with the warm comforter. He held kept his arms around her as they fell into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Seven
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