The Truth About Unspeakable Things by Emily Myers (people reading books txt) 📗

we all make choices we regret in response to fear, anger, abuse, loss. The list goes on and on,” he says.

“So, you admit you regret what you’ve done?” I ask in an effort to change the subject. It’s doesn’t work.

“Don’t you?”

“I am nothing like you,” I say. Though, despite the certainty I convey to him, I know it’s not true. I did something, something awful, something I do my best to blame on him, but I can’t, not entirely.

Beaux guzzles down his scotch and sets the glass to the side. I know because of the loud clank that echoes through the phone. It makes the hairs on my arms rise as if he is only inches away.

“You hurt me, Emma. I hurt you back. You aborted our baby and I killed Mr. Turnip,” Beaux admits. “A life for a life. Though one could argue, you took a life yet to be lived. While, Mr. Turnip, well . . . he only had a few years left.”

His voice is dark as he speaks. I imagine his eyes share the same darkness. I imagine his fists clenched as his blood pulses with the high of his crimes.

“You’re a monster!” I scream. I can’t hold it in any longer. I break.

“You . . . you did this to me!” I scream as I writhe against the blankets. “You broke me when you raped me, and then I found out I was pregnant and I couldn’t stomach the thought of raising your child—or worse, you demanding partial custody,” I yell. “I . . . I couldn’t do it! You left me with no choice.”

Tears flood my face and snot pours from my nose. Even as I say it, I know it’s not true. I had a choice. And as much as that baby was Beaux’s child, it was mine too. Beaux may have broken me when he raped me, but I am the source of my greatest pain. I am the reason Mr. Turnip is dead. And that . . . that is my unspeakable truth.

“We all have a choice, Emma,” Beaux says. “Your pain is of your own making.”

He is calm when he speaks. It sickens me. I want so badly to reach through the phone and claw his face off. He deserves to feel every ounce of pain I do ten times over, but he never will. He isn’t emotionally capable of love and so he isn’t emotionally capable of knowing what it feels like to lose love, the love of a child, the love of a partner.

I force myself to an upright position and wipe my face with the back of my shirt. Through choked gasps I say, “I tried to offer you a chance at redemption. I tried to find it in me to forgive you, even though you don’t deserve it. But you? You will never have my forgiveness and you will never find redemption, because you . . . you will never take responsibility for what you’ve done. You will never accept the fact that you’ve hurt people. You chose to hurt people, Beaux. Your parents may have been awful, but you didn’t have to be. Now, it’s too late.”

With that, I hang up and fall back into the fetal position. My cries are silent, but they tug on every part of me. Beaux may be a hypocrite, but he’s also right. We all have a choice. He chooses to be a monster. But in that moment of weakness, so did I. So did I, and I will regret my choice for the rest of my life.

Chapter 23

Kat takes the screaming kettle off the stovetop and brews us both a cup of hot tea. I sit at the dining room table, legs pulled into my chest. Turns out, my cries weren’t so silent. After my talk with Beaux, I couldn’t avoid talking to her anymore. She practically broke my bedroom door down to get inside.

My cheeks are red, as are my eyes. I intertwine my fingers just to keep my hands from trembling. I am raw, inside and out. Ever since Julian left me, something hasn’t felt right inside. It’s like a piece of me is just missing. And with the pieces Beaux stole and the pieces I gave away when I . . . I ended my pregnancy, I’m not sure how many more pieces I can lose until . . . there’s nothing left of me at all.

“I’ve been lying to you, Kat,” I say. My voice is scratchy.

“I know,” she says.

She grabs our mugs and brings them both to the table to steep. Honey Lavender. It smells good. She sits mine down in front of me and I reach for it instantly to allow its warmth to warm my frozen bones. I close my eyes and inhale as Kat sits across from me.

We don’t speak, though I can feel Kat’s eyes on me, just like the tragic night I ended my engagement.

That night, the police arrived shortly after Beaux left. Kat opened my bedroom door, and the police found me sitting silently in the corner of my room. They watched me. She watched me. And after they left, she sat across from me for hours, just waiting for me to utter a single word. She was scared. I remember seeing in her the same wide-eyed anxiety as a new mother who watches her first-born child sleep.

She has the same look in her eyes now. I imagine she’s asking herself, “What did he do now? When will she ever speak up?” Little does she know, Beaux isn’t the reason for my tears, not this time.

“For the past six weeks, I’ve been gathering evidence against Beaux,” I blurt. Her eyes grow in size, but she doesn’t interrupt me. “I . . . I’ve reviewed his social media, college transcripts, even the list of plus-ones he’s taken to work functions,” I say. “It wasn’t easy, but I found fifteen women who claim he assaulted them over the last ten years.”

“Wow,” she breathes. “Fifteen,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I say back. I pull my tea to my chest and sip. The hot herbal liquid runs