Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📗

“I don’t know what to say, Hannah. I don’t really know how to react to that. But it was nineteen years ago. I can’t think that what you did when you were seventeen has much to do with what’s happening between us now.”

Except she could see on his face that it did.

That it had reshaped the image he had of the girl he had once loved.

God knew it had reshaped her image of herself.

And she had spent years trying to twist it and tease it to make it into something else. To make herself feel different about it. And then she had just quit thinking about it altogether. And she had turned it into fuel. Because there was nothing she could do about it. There was no other choice she could go back and make. So it just had to be. She had to accept it. And she had to use it. And she would use it now.

It was the only way to survive this. She needed him to hate her.

“What happened? Who was it?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, wishing she hadn’t eaten. She was going to go ahead and say this, she should’ve known that she needed an empty stomach. Because she wanted to be sick.

“I mean, you’re the one that brought it up, so I’m not sure how it’s supposed to matter. You’re trying to make it so I don’t... What, want to get to know you better now? Because I’m not proposing. I’m telling you that I have feelings for you.”

“Based on someone you thought I was. But I was keeping secrets from you. That’s the point. It doesn’t really matter what happened.”

“Bullshit it doesn’t. It matters. It matters because you’re still hanging on to it, at the very least. If you thought it meant nothing, why would you tell me?”

“Because I know it means something to you. Sex doesn’t mean all that much to me. I hate to break it to you.”

“You’re a liar. You’re just a liar.”

“I’m not a liar. I don’t care about this kind of thing. I told you, relationships... I don’t believe in them. Not for me. Not for people like me.”

“What is people like you? Because before when you said things like that, I thought that you meant people who were really driven. People who had goals, and all of that. But that isn’t what you mean, is it?”

It tore at her, ripped at her stomach. Her skin was crawling, and she wished it would go ahead and just crawl off.

“I wasn’t going to get the scholarship,” she said. “I had to get an extra letter of recommendation. I had to have intervention. I wasn’t good enough. Marc said that... He said that it wasn’t that I wasn’t good enough. It’s just... Other people had connections. And I didn’t have any. And about how I was going to have to do a little bit more to prove how much I wanted it. I didn’t want to. Because of you. And he... He said that that was just me being like every other stupid teenage girl. Giving all this stuff up for a boy who didn’t even support her.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t get that out of my head. Because I knew you didn’t want me to leave. I knew you didn’t. I... I knew you didn’t want me to leave. But Marc did. He wanted to help me. And he kept telling me that I was meant for it. And that he...he said I was different. Special, and that my music made him feel things that...that were wrong but he felt them, and I owed him. For making him feel that. For what he was doing for me. And eventually I just... I couldn’t see why I wouldn’t? Because he was offering me something and somehow the way that he talked about it, it didn’t feel like it was cold or calculating to hold the letter back if I didn’t sleep with him.”

“I’m sorry,” Josh said, his voice shaking. “Is this your violin teacher Marc?”

“Yes,” she said, the word a whisper, and she hated her solar plexus for not backing her up on this. For being filled with shame when she was trying to be defiant.

“He was in his forties,” Josh said. “He was older than we are now.”

“It’s not... That’s not the point.”

“He coerced you into having sex with him. You were seventeen. Dammit, Hannah, he raped you.”

“He didn’t,” Hannah said, that word echoing in her head like a gunshot. She hated that word. “I said yes. I said yes every time I went for a lesson in the end because he was doing what he said he would for me. Going to get me the scholarship. And I... It felt good. When I said yes it was because he was touching me. And it didn’t feel bad, and he kept offering that letter. I said yes. I’m not a victim. If anything I’m a prostitute. I paid for my schooling, just not the way I planned on it. But he wrote me that letter, and I got that scholarship. And because of that I got my job in the orchestra. I was supposed to have everything. Everything. Not just first chair. Principal chair. I was supposed to get all of it. Because I proved it, didn’t I? How much I wanted it. I wanted this more than anything.”

“Hannah,” he said. “I wish you would’ve told me.”

“Are you joking? If anyone would’ve found out, that would’ve ruined everything. That would’ve compromised my scholarship and... It was already done. It was done. And I needed you to not mourn a girl who didn’t exist. A relationship that didn’t exist. Because that’s who I am, Josh. I took something that was really special to you, and that was a first for us, and I made it currency. And I... I was still with you while it was happening. And I felt so awful. I really did.