Disloyal

~11~

Chapter Eleven- Big, Bad Secrets

Chase P.O.V

"What?" My blood boils. "Has he laid his hands on you before?"

"No, I..." She takes a deep breath, subconsciously chewing on her lip.

"When I was eight..." My heart stops beating.

"When I was eight, my dad, he used to come into my room, and he, um..." Her eyes squeeze shut again and tears begin to steadily leak from them.

"He told me if I told anyone that I would be a bad girl, and no one would love me anymore. I didn't want to be a bad girl," she whimpers.

I can feel the color completely drain from my cheeks. No. It can't be true. Please tell me it's not true.

"It wasn't his fault, not really, it was the drugs. One day my mom came home early and she found him... He refused to let go of me even when she tried to pry him off. I..."

"No," I breath. I beg her telepathically to stop, to tell me this is all a joke.

"My mom grabbed the first thing she could find to hit him in the head with to get him to stop, but..." She stops and sobs for a moment. I pull her to me and rock her, and rock her, until she calms down.

"You don't owe me any more than you feel like sharing, okay? You don't have to tell me anything else if you don't want to."

Shaking her head softly, she continues. "It was the baseball bat he used on things when he was angry. He broke my mom's porcelain dove with it, the only thing she had left from her grandmother... He had filled it with cement to make it heavier. She was so scared she didn't notice the extra weight." She whimpers at the memory. "She really hurt him, but he could have pulled through if he..."

She takes a second to recompose herself before continuing.

"He was in really bad shape, but he would have lived. But he just couldn't live with the knowledge of how much he hurt me. He took off his oxygen mask when no one was there. When my mom and I went to visit him right after, we saw the note. He killed himself because he couldn't deal with the weight of what he had done. He wrote that this was his way of saying he loved his little daughter. By letting her go, finally leaving her alone."

I close my eyes and rest my forehead in her hair.

"I'm sorry for telling you. I just... You thought I was a virgin and I was just going to tell you that I wasn't but I needed someone to know, I needed to get it off my chest, and you're becoming sort of a good friend lately so-"

"Don't apologize. You have absolutely nothing to say sorry for. Don't ever feel like you need to apologize to me again for telling me things like this."

She says nothing, and I brush my fingers through her hair softly.

"You're so strong, Ann. You don't have to be so strong all the time. If you ever need to talk about something like this or anything at all, for that matter, please don't hesitate to come to me."