Mars Hill Ch. 02

"Ok," I said.

Then the words tumbled out of her.

She told me about how her father had raped her in a drunken rage shortly before she was to head to University. She had tried to tell her mother, but her mother hadn't believed her. The summer went by with continual rape, and when she was finally set to be free from him at University, she noticed he was beginning to groom Abby. She set him up, getting him to rape her just before her mother came home so that he would be caught and Abby would be safe. Her mother walked in on them, and he was sent to prison. Becca was able to escape to University, while her mother had to deal with the guilt of not believing them. Becca and Gwen had only just begun to rebuild their relationship when Becca graduated and came to the USA.

The whole time she told me the story she kept her eyes on the ground.

When she was done she looked back up at me and saw the tears in my eyes.

"Oh god..." I leaned over the back of the bench and threw up.

"Oh god." She gasped for air. "How can you ever want to be with me again knowing who was in me before you. Knowing that I was pregnant with his parasite,"

I reached toward her and she took a step back involuntarily.

"Becca, I'm so..."

"Don't be sorry. It's not your fault. I should have told you sooner. But I didn't want you to be thinking about him when we were together. And I didn't want to think about him ever again, but how can I not now that he is free? I choose to be with you. You have never made me feel like I don't have a choice, but know that you know... are you still going to want me?"

I held out my hand to her. I wanted her to know that nothing had changed. That I still loved her. That I still wanted her. That I marvelled at how brave she had been to spare her sister, and trick her father into getting caught. How much I wish that it had never happened and how much it sickened me, and how much I wanted to just... hold her and save her from the demons of her past.

"I love you Becca. I do. I want to do everything I can to make this memory go away. I chose you on the first day back at the observatory and I still chose you." That was all I could distill the emotions that I felt into when I tried to express them.

Becca reached out and grabbed my hand. We both stood there arms outstretched holding hands. Both of us crying. And then she pulled me close and embraced me, crying into my chest. She looked up at me with red cheeks and I took off my glove and wiped a tear away from her. I don't know what she could see on my face, but I hoped it was clearer than my words had been.

We comforted each other in the snow, with the evergreen trees starting to strain under the weight of the snow they held. The wind swirled the falling snow around us, and the cold bit into our cheeks and ears. My nose was starting to freeze. I felt a drip of snot fall from my nose and caught it with a hand. It wasn't snot, it was blood. I watched with fascination as my blood poured onto the snow.

"Jeremy... You're bleeding"...