Page 55 (1/2)

I pulledhi city

"If I lose you, Eva," he said hoarsely, "I have nothing

Everything I’ve done is so I don’t lose you"

"I need lass

"If I can’t have you on the outside, I need to have you on the inside, but you’ve never let h thetraffic

A fat drop of rain hit the windshield, followed by another

"Afterwith the changes

I re around hiht? And then suddenly the world flipped on its head and everyone hated him

Mynonstop

And she andevery day

That’s what I re"

I looked at hi, afraid to lose the ht away

We nant

I never knehen I’d run across someone my dad had fucked over, and I took a lot of shit for it fro news

To this day, people still talk about ry

At everyone

I had tantruht, breathing heavily

"After Christopher caot worse, and when he was five, he i his plate across the table and onto the floor

My nant with Ireland then, and she and Vidal decided it was time to put me into therapy"

Tears slid down my face at the picture he painted of the child he’d once been - scared and hurting and feeling like an outsider in his mom’s new life

"They came out to the house - the shrink and a doctoral candidate she was supervising

It started out all right

They both were nice, attractive, patient

But soon the shrink was spendinga difficult pregnancy in addition to two young boys ere out of control

I was left alone with him more and more frequently"

Gideon pulled over and put the car into park

His hands gripped the wheel hite-knuckled force, his throat working

The steady patter of rain softened, leaving us alone with our painful truths

"You don’t have to tellout to hiertips damp with my tears

His nostrils flared on a sharply indrawn breath

"He oddamned time, he wouldn’t stop until I came, so he could say I liked it"

I kicked off my shoes and pulled his hand away frorip on ht, but I didn’t complain

We were on an insanely busy street, with endless cars ru past on one side and a crush of pedestrians on the other, but neither of us cared

He was shaking violently, as if he were sobbing uncontrollably, but he made no sound and shed no tears

The sky cried for hiround

Holding his head in my hands, I pressed my wet face to his

"Hush, baby

I understand

I kno that feels, the way they gloat afterward

And the shauilt you felt

It’s not your fault

You didn’t want it

You didn’t enjoy it"

"I let hie

hormones

I needed to ry all the tiht

That I was doing it wrong - " "Gideon, no"

I pulled back to look at hi in s that would have been said to ator in his own rape

"You were a child in the hands of an adult who knew all the right buttons to push

They want to make it our fault so they have no culpability in their crie and dark in his pale face

I pressedmy tears

"I love you

And I believe you

And none of this was your fault"

Gideon’s hands were in ed my mouth with desperate kisses

"Don’t leaveto marry you"

He inhaled sharply

Then he pulled h as they slid over ainst theear and safety vest looked at us through the untinted front , scowling at us froot thirty seconds to move on or I’ll cite you both for public indecency"

E, I cliraceful tumble