Page 90 of Because I Need You
Despite my rapidly beating heart, and the sudden urge to vomit, I clicked on the article. He was married, the rapist. Married and his wife was pregnant. My chest squeezed when I read that line, when I saw the look of devastation on her face at a recent vigil, where she’d pleaded for information on his whereabouts. I didn’t feel bad for the rapist, I felt bad for his family. I felt bad for his wife and unborn child. Granted, I didn’t know what kind of person he was at home, I didn’t know if he’d changed at all or turned his life around, or if he’d raped others, and yet, I felt bad for his wife and the kid who would never meet their father. I swallowed thickly as I text messaged Gio the article. Beneath the link, I wrote, “I thought you didn’t paint houses.”
He called me before I could even set the phone down on my lap. I answered, but didn’t say a word, just breathed into the line, waiting.
“I don’t,” was the first word he said.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t. I’ve never lied to you.” His voice sounded composed and left no room to argue with that. He sighed into the line and lowered it, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that you asked me to trust you, and I did, and now I’m second guessing that,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“No.” I heard something slam on a hard surface. His fist, probably. “Don’t say that, Isabel.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered, my eyes instantly watering. My own words were ripping me apart. “I don’t know if I can just…” I exhaled, wiping a tear with my other hand. “How would this work anyway? I’m a teacher. You own nightclubs and do whatever else it is you do when you’re gone, lying to me about–”
“When have I ever lied to you? Name one time.” His voice was hard.
I swallowed.
“Don’t do this.”
“You lied about this,” I said. “Did you not?”
He was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. “We should have this conversation in person.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yes.” He sighed.
My heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity. I knew he was involved in some things that I probably wouldn’t condone, but killing someone? There was no way I could justify anyone doing that, even if it was a man who took something from me, because that was what he did that night. He’d taken my dignity, my confidence, my safety. He’d reached into me and taken the light from inside me. Before then, I’d been in awful situations, sure. I’d been in a not-so-good situation at home. None of the horrendous things that happened before then could ever reach that level, because that night, I felt stripped of everything that made me, me. It took a while for me to find it in myself to even smile, let alone sleep with another man, and that didn’t happen until I rekindled my friendship with Will. I’d tried, of course. I’d tried to sleep with other people as a way to regain my strength, thinking that it would give me what I needed to move on, but each and every time they tried to climb on top of me, I stiffened and pushed them away. Until Gio. He was the second man I’d trusted with my life and the second man I’d found out was capable of taking a life.
“And you know what?” he continued, snapping me away from my thoughts. “I’d do it again. You weren’t the only victim, you know? He had a long trail of women accusing him of this shit.”
I swallowed hard as guilt gnawed at me. That had been my only fear when I didn’t go to the police when it happened. Days later, weeks later, I thought that maybe me going would make a difference to someone else, but I didn’t. I stayed quiet. I didn’t know how to process what had happened to me, let alone verbalize it. I didn’t know if I wanted to.
“I’m going to come get you,” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “I don’t like talking about this without being able to see you.”
“Don’t.”
“Isa—”
“I’ll see you later, okay?”
A pause. “Are you still going to come over here?”
“Yes.” I took one last shuddering breath. “I’m still going.”
“I love you, Isabel.” He breathed into the phone. “Please don’t leave me over this.”
I shut my eyes, my heart stumbling in my chest before dropping and cracking a little at the plea. I knew it would hurt him if I left him. I knew I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to be with a man like my father, though, who held secrets, who killed people, who kept wedding bands as reminders of it all. I felt sick when I thought about it all. Yet, I knew that Gio only wanted to be loved like the rest of us. He wanted a sure thing, someone who wouldn’t walk out of him when things got rough. I just needed to figure out whether or not I could be that person, knowing what I knew, and not asking questions about what I didn’t.
