CHAPTER 13

This is just horrible. I was so caught up in my own problems, I didn't even see that Lucky was eaten alive from the inside out. He was supposed to take some stuff from his father's club, while I went to see Gram at the hospital. We got into another argument, but we came to a understanding. I will call her everyday, so that she knows I am all right.

I was supposed to meet Lucky at the docks afterwards, and he was late, I was getting worried. I told him I saw his dad at the hospital, and that Luke asked me to tell him there was a family emergency, and he said "sorry dad, too late to put out that fire". Then he looked at me, and I could see the hurt in his eyes, when he said "my mom's back". I asked him if she was happy to see her son and he said yeah, and I asked him if he was happy to see her and he whispered "she's my mother", with so much pain in his eyes, tears about to fall, my heart just broke. He kept saying, for months, that he hated his mother, but I saw tonight how much it wasn't true. Lucky said she didn't know he knew, and I thought it was cold of Luke not to warn her, and he said she would have been ready for some excuse, but even if she wasn't, she just made excuses. I wanted so bad to make it right for him, he was hurting so much, that I told him that maybe, they didn't think they were lying, by saying it wasn't rape, and he said "Then how screwed up is that? In her version, nobody did anything. It was just all circumstances. Well, believe that then there's no right or wrong, there's no love or rape. It's just all bad timing." He just doesn't understand, and I was trying to make him, when, finally, I understood why he refused, why he fought so hard not to understand. He said it was sick, and I reminded him how much he was happy, and he answered me "Well, I like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy too, but there's inviting them back! they built a marriage and a home and a family on something that is just wrong. It's just too sick to live with, so they covered it up. But just because they hid it does not mean it went away."

I asked him if somebody who was raped as a kid, is that all I could ever be, and he tried to take it back, saying Elizabeth, no, and I answered;

"-What if your mother found a way out, a way not to be that anymore? Then I would want to know how.
-She married her rapist! How is that a wway out?
-Your not trying to see it the way they do!
-You're right I'm not!
-Then how can it ever be fixed?
-What if I did? What if I could get insiide their heads? What would that mean about me?
-That you love them, that you're trying to understand.
-No. No. I mean, what if I put myself inn my father's shoes and they fit?"

I finally understood what was going on in his head. That was why he was so anxious to prove everybody wrong, to do right and to stand by me, because he thought he could be like his dad. I remember exactly what he said, and I will remember it for the rest of my life;

"-You're afraid. I said
-Yes.
-Because you think that maybe you could do the same thing he did? Lucky, that's not true.
-They're my parents. They made me. I am them.
-No, rape is not inherited. It's not in your genes.
-Well, don't they say that abusers pass it on, generation to generation? Aren't there statistics? Elizabeth, I spent my whole life wanting to be like him, exactly like him. What if I am? What if I am? I think about it all the time!
-Then don't!
-What if I have too much to drink? What if I think I'm going to die and I see some girl I have a crush on, or God forbid an obsession with? What if there's music playing? Or I'm walking through the park and I see some girl sitting on a bench and I think to myself "why not, no one would know about it!"

How could I be so dense? I literally lived with him for months. MONTHS for God sake's and I never saw how terrified he was. I proclaimed myself his best friend, and I never even had a glimpse of what was going on inside his head, I never even guessed the turmoil, the battle he was fighting against himself. The agony he was probably living with every time he looked at me, wondering if he could hurt me, or anyone else the same way that creeps hurt me last Valentine's day.

Lucky could never hurt me, voluntarily or not. He could never touch me, or hit me, or anything. Every time he touch me and I freak, he back out immediately, looking all sorry, and feeling guilty about it. I now understand why, I think, he's afraid I'll think he is just like his father, not hear me if I say no, and it's killing me to know that he's been thinking that way ever since he found out about his father and I never knew. I tried to make him understand that he would never do that, by saying;

"-Lucky listen to me! You could never do that, and even if you don't know it, I do!
-Maybe you don't know me, maybe you justt think you do!
-Just stop. Stop this! Jeez, Lucky you sslept on my floor, by my bed and you watched over me while I was sleeping. It was like an Angel came to Earth to help me. I trust you with my life! Those voices in your head--I know what those are. Those are the voices that told me that it was my fault that I got raped. But you wouldn't let them. And now I'm going to do the same thing for you. Do you hear me? Do you?"

He didn't answer me, and we sat on the bench. I was thinking about how horrible of a friend I was, putting all my garbage on his shoulders, not for once thinking about the hell he must have been going through, when I looked at him to say I was sorry, and I saw his head doodling, falling on my shoulder. I slowly passed my hand on his forehead, taking a flock of hair out of his eyes. He is still sleeping. I guess facing his fears really wore him out. I swear, I'll put down some of my stuff to carry his. I'm gonna prove to him that he is the best thing that ever walked the face of this earth, I will even if it's the last thing I do.

My father didn't tell her, about me finding out, not that I'm surprise, like I told her, this is the secret of their success, they don't tell each other much of anything. I told her about Nikolas being shot, she was completely stunned, and I tried to leave, but she wouldn't let me, so I told "you married him" and she said, when she realized I was talking about dad "Oh come on Lucky. You know, wishing I had never married your father is like wishing you were never born." And I answered "No kidding". Finally someone understood. You know I think I would've been better off not being born, than being the son of a rapist.

I admit, I was quite cruel with her, and if I could take back some of what I said I would, but it's too late for that. Here's an example;

"-Ok. Tell me the truth about something. If I was anyone else, any other man, would you be afraid to be alone with me right now here in this room? Or would it be something else to you? I mean, would you find it exciting?
-My God Lucky! What are you--
-Or how about this. What did you think--- I mean, what flashed through your head when Dad told you he was going to open another club? Did you say 'Fine Luke darling, whatever you want', and think 'I'm never going to set foot in it, not after the Campus Disco'? No? Obviously not. I don't know, maybe you--I guess you found it romantic. Kind of like reliving you first date. Like your very own memorial of what he did to you."

She asked me what My father told me, and how the campus disco came up, and I told her, and I wish I could take that back;

"-Because that's where he raped you, Mom. Is that where you fell in love with him? Because you told me it was love at first sight. So what did you mean? Did you mean when the song was playing, the lights were going, he had you pinned down? I heard it too many times, you know? No, no, no, I know, I know, I know--I'm too young. Too simple-minded. You were a tease, Dad was a drunk, right? And he thought he was going to die."

Why did I call my mother a tease? Even if she would've walked in front of my father NAKED WITH A BLUE RIBBON AROUND HER NECK, THAT STILL DIDN'T GIVE HIM TO RIGHT TO RAPE HER!

What made me so mad, is when she stood there, look right at my face and basically told me I didn't understand rape. Not that she would say the word. But I told her;

"I understand it. Because I've seen it. I've seen rape close up, Mom, and what it did to Elizabeth Webber--how it changed her. It made her afraid to get out of bed in the morning. Changed the way she dressed. Made her forget how to smile. How she tenses up at every unexpected sound. And now? Now I see her getting angry. Anger--she wants to get back some of her own. But I guess that's the stuff you just kind of skipped over, isn't it? Maybe you need to be kidnapped and raped to feel important to somebody."

She tried to slap me, but I wouldn't let her. I'm not a punching bag. I admit I pushed it too far, and I wish I didn't say the last sentence, because abusing her verbally is not better than abusing her physically, and she told me it was her life, no one lived it but her, and I didn't have the right to tell her what to think, or feel. Fine, but don't try to tell ME what to think or feel about it. She said, like it was a big favor she was doing for me;

"-All right, I will volunteer this much--Your father loved me Always. And circumstances collided that night in a way that they never had before and they never have since. And your father and I rose above it and we created a life together, a good life, in spite of it all. And that's the conclusion that you should be drawing, Lucky. Instead, you know, you're taking one hour out of a lifetime and you're using it to create a monster that you say is me and another one that you say is your father. My God, it's as if you never even knew us at all!
-I knew what you wanted me to. I thoughtt what you wanted me to--about you, about dad. You know, there were a couple times when you had me in schools, and it gave me a chance to see what other kids--you know, normal kids--what they were like. You know the biggest thing they worry about? Whether their parents were lying and they were adopted. Never occurred to me. But that's how it feels right now, that you were lying to me my whole life about who my parents were."

And I just walked out. I told Elizabeth I saw her, and I didn't want to get into it, but she insisted, and I am sure she regrets doing it, cause she got more than she bargained for. Right now, she is sleeping sitting next to me on the park bench. I just woke up, my head was on her shoulder, and her head was leaning on mine. I don't understand why she is still there after everything I just told her, about me being like my father. Maybe she was too tired, but I bet she will be gone by the time I wake up tomorrow, and I think it will be better that way. Safer. For her.