She fought hard to keep her emotions in check but slipped at one point when she glanced over at him and saw the confusion and hurt in his eyes. Tears start to creep in, but so did all of the frustration and anger over what had happened.
“God… I thought I was doing him a favor! I didn’t think I was being bad! I didn’t think it was cheating, but I was a naive little idiot. That bastard lied to me, Keith,” she said, feeling herself getting more and more angry. “That piece of shit used a silver tongue to coerce me instead of forcing me to… to…” she couldn’t finish.
“He got me do things that I didn’t want to do!” she cried out in anguish for a moment, covering her face and shaking her head before dropping them again and shaking her head in determination. “He… got me to do things that I wasn’t ready to do! Before I was helping him with his “problems,” I was a good Christian girl dammit! I wasn’t ready to be sexual with you and you were my boyfriend! God, I barely even let you get to see my boobs, which, oh yeah was that asshole’s idea!”
She shook her head, wiping her tears again and falling silent for a few moments before speaking again. “He even got me to swallow his cum and then go and kiss you on the mouth one day, Keith. He got me to go down on his lying bitch of a wife and eat her out! He tied me to a chair and fucked my mouth like it was my pussy!” she covered her face, lowering her head and weeping unabashedly, her shoulders shaking. Through her sobs, she continued telling him everything. “He even… even made me put on a blindfold and then pretended to cum three times in a row, when in reality, that asshole was letting strangers come in and get free blowjobs from this dumb, little, blonde moron!”
She was crying and wiping her face, her emotions going from flat-out rage and fury to desperate soul-crushing sadness.
“God, I’m so tired of having to deal with this. I’m so fucking tired. I’m tired of having to carry this burden. I’m tired of worrying when you’ll put two and two together. I’m tired of wanting to forget all this. I’m tired of feeling like I betrayed you. If I betrayed you, then what the hell do you call what happened to me? I don’t want to be worrying about what you would think or if you would blame yourself. I’m so goddamn tired of everything. I just want it all to be over and to move past it. I just… I’m done… I can’t do it anymore. I’m tired of hurting and feeling ashamed.”
Her shoulders dropped and she covered her face, sobbing unabashedly again. She had the sense that she was excreting this black ooze from her eyes, as if all of the sadness, anguish, and rage at herself, at Dan and Amanda, and at Keith, were flowing out of her. After a good five minutes of unbound weeping, she finally slowed. Finally, looking up for him, she realized that he hadn’t come over to comfort her, and knew then that he was blaming himself.
Sighing, she wiped her face again, then stood up from where she was sitting, and turned, looking at him as he stood near to where he’d been sitting before.
“Keith… listen to me,” she said, going over and reaching for his hand.
Keith yanked his hand back. “Don’t talk to me,” he spat.
Shocked, she turned and looked at him. “What?” she asked.
“I can’t believe you’d make something like that up!” he said, his voice loud, unyielding.
“What?” she repeated. “Make what up?”
“ALL OF IT!” he yelled. “I don’t believe a single word you said,” he yelled. “LIAR!”
Sam was stunned. Never had she considered that he wouldn’t believe her. “I… I don’t… I didn’t lie to you, Keith.”
“You’re telling me… one of the nicest, kindest men I’ve ever known… what… mentally raped you? But oh wait… he didn’t actually rape you, he got you to suck his dick! You fucking liar!” he snarled.
“Keith… I’m not…”
“Shut up, you fucking liar!” he yelled again. “I know what you’re doing, Sam. I know!” He stomped across the room, then back again, turning to face her. “Well… it’s fucking working!”
“What…?” she stammered, unsure of how to respond or to even begin. “What am I doing?”
“You just want to fuck everyone else and don’t want to hurt my feelings so you made up this pathetic fucking story up to get me to break up with you,” he snapped. “Fucking sad. Fucking pathetic.”
She felt the tears coming again, shaking her head and trying to get them to stop. “Keith… I didn’t… it really happened…” she stammered.
“LIAR!” he yelled. “There’s no way that could have happened. No one is that stupid to think that blowjobs don’t count as cheating! WHAT, YOU COULDN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THREE DIFFERENT DICKS IN YOUR MOUTH?”
She stopped trying to get him to calm down and sat back on the bed, looking down and softly crying as he raged at her.
“Fuck him? He did nothing to you! I don’t buy it for a second!” he said, the tears in his eyes telling a different story.
She wiped her eyes again and tried to reach for him, but he slapped her hand away. Squeezing her eyes shut at the pain, both mental and physical, from the rejection he’d just given her, Sam’s shoulder quaked with renewed sobs.
He shook his head, briefly brushing a hand across his eyes and then leaned in close, yelling, “I’m so done with you and your bullshit lies! Fuck you Samantha, you lying whore!”
Suddenly, the door slammed open and her very pissed off looking brother stepped inside. Keith was still angry, though, and unwisely tried to shove past him. Pushing his chest with his hand, Keith tried to step past, but was shoved by Dane, who grabbed his collar, his free hand balled into a meaty fist.
Seeing what was coming, Sam leapt to her feet, still crying, and tried to get between the two. Keith’s arm came back as he got ready to punch at Dane, and inadvertently slammed into her nose with his elbow. Grunting in pain, she fell down to her butt and clutched at her nose as it started to bleed profusely. Grabbing a discarded bath towel, she clutched it to her face to stop the sudden flow.
The fury was obvious in her brother and she saw both sets of eyes wide as they looked down at her; Keith’s in shock, Dane’s in anger. Turning, he punched Keith hard in the face, three times in rapid succession. Yanking him forward, Dane pushed him out of her room, down the hall, and then walked him down the stairs. The front door opened, and she heard him yell something unintelligible, then it slammed closed.
“Mom!” she heard him yell a few seconds later. “DAD?” No reply from either was forthcoming, though, and she was relieved for that.
Dane’s steps came pounding quickly up the stairs and he came immediately to her room. She held up a hand and let him help her up. Taking her to the bathroom, they closed the door and worked to get her nose to stop bleeding.
“You’re lucky it didn’t hit that hard,” he said. “At least it’s not broken.” He sighed, wetting a washcloth and dabbing a spot on her face as he inspected her nose. “Sorry about all that.”
She shook her head. “I was wondering if you were listening to us. I kinda wondered what took you so long when he started screaming at me,” she said.
“I came as soon as I heard him yelling,” he said. “I had my earbuds in because it looked like you two were going to have a serious conversation.”
She nodded, holding tissue to her nose for a few minutes until the bleeding had stopped. Sighing, she pulled it away for the tenth time and waited, finally seeing that it had. Dane took her hand, holding her up as if she were injured in the leg or something as they started down the hall toward her room.
“I’m fine,” she said, shaking him loose. “I’m not crippled.”
He sighed, then stopped walking with her. “I’m sorry,” he offered, turning away and heading to his room. “I was trying to help.”
She immediately felt bad and stopped, tears returning. “Dane,” she said, defeated. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. I can’t handle any more.”
Her brother turned, shaking his head and moving quickly up to catch her as she started to slide to her knees in defeat. Half-carrying her, he managed to get her to her room and set her down on the bed.
Silence engulfed the two, and only her sniffles punctuated the stillness. Dane sat down beside her, patiently enduring the deafening quiet as she cried softly next to him. Reaching around her back with one arm, he gently stroked her neck and shoulders.
“Damn,” she thought.
Just when she thought the crying had stopped, he had to go and be sweet. Feeling the renewed crying, she leaned over and buried her face in his neck, sobs wracking her form. Turning toward him, she tried to hug him tighter, needing something substantial to comfort her, something strong and unyielding.
“Please don’t let me go,” she begged, the sobs making her difficult to understand. “I feel like I’ll fade away if you do.”
He wrapped both arms around her then, pausing to pull her leg over his other thigh and wrap her up in a full body hug. She had her face buried into his neck still, and the two sat there for nearly half an hour while she wept, Dane gently stroking her hair and back with his fingers the whole time.
Eventually, she was able to get control of herself and stop crying. It felt like she’d been drained and was exhausted. Climbing off of his lap, she kissed him on the cheek and went to wash her face. As she came back out of the bathroom, she saw that he was heading for his own room. Reaching for his hand, she shook her head and pulled him back to her room, not caring if he had stuff he had to do.
Pulling him into her room, she shut the door, then went and sat on her bed, looking down and picking at a fingernail.
“I… don’t understand what happened,” she said.
He didn’t know what to say, so he sat down next to her. After twenty or so seconds of silence, he finally spoke. “Just start from the beginning.”
She sighed, a long moment of sniffle filled silence passing between them.
“Keith was… pushing me,” she said. “He kept… fucking… yammering on about church and how much I would enjoy it.”
“That made you upset?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. He just kept babbling on about that stupid crap. It was maddening, but I was just annoyed. I guess he couldn’t pick up on that. He just wouldn’t shut up.”
Dane nodded. “So, what happened then?”
“He said that I should come back to church, and that even though Pastor Dickhead was gone, that didn’t mean I had to stop being Christian. He said that he knew that I was attached to him but that he wasn’t coming back. I accidentally let “Motherfucker” slip out.”