Free Pretty and Reckless by Charity Ferrell Page A

found another way.”
    “I don’t understand,” Wes muttered. He looked up at the ceiling and wiped his forehead. “I don’t understand any of it.”
    I knew my situation was a total mind-fuck that most people wouldn’t be able to comprehend. I didn’t understand it half of the time.   “You don’t understand it because you don’t believe me.”
    He paused, struggling for words, fighting with himself on what to say next. I knew he didn’t believe me, and that was okay.
    “Why weren’t the cops called? Why didn’t anybody believe you? Why weren’t charges files? Why did they say you lied about it?” He asked, rambling.
    “The cops were called about Peter Kline. That’s when I decided to gain the courage and tell them what had happened to me. But they were bribed and my story was completely thrown out.” My stomach loaded with nausea, afraid my bagel would be coming back up and I’d throw it up in front of me. “It was forgotten about so he’d be protected.”
    My father was a very intelligent man. If my files were to ever be leaked, it would exhibit a pattern, and people with patterns couldn’t be victims, right? It would show that I’d willingly had sex with Peter when I was fifteen, and he was thirty. It would show my word didn’t mean anything. “I was asking for it,” they’d say. “I was lying for attention,” they’d add.
    He blamed everything on Peter and when I finally found my voice to yell rape, I’d been pushed into the corner. The cops thought I was lying. People thought I was lying. Peter had tried to be on my side, but when the cops offered him a plea deal and my dad cut him a check, he shut his mouth and moved on.
    He shifted in his chair and rolled his head in a circle. “It just doesn’t make sense.”  
    “It does if you think about it. He wanted them all to believe that I was lying so he wouldn’t be exposed. I’ve had bad things happen to me, but it doesn’t matter because I’m a slut. People don’t care about bad things when it happens to whores.”
    “That’s not true. It’s just hard to plead the case when you cried rape after you got caught with Peter. Why didn’t you say anything before?”
    “I was scared. I was confused. I thought I’d get in trouble, but when Peter happened, I thought I finally had my chance. It only ended up backfiring in my face.” I took a deep breath. “Did you tell anyone?”
    “That’s irrelevant now,” he snapped, his voice turning furious and irritated. The mood in the room had quickly shifted. Weston’s face turned from curious and compassionate to irate. He couldn’t even look at me, instead focusing on the hands shaking on his lap.
    Irrelevant? The hell it was.  
    “You didn’t get fired, but I never saw you again. So what happened?” I pushed. I was being honest with him. He needed to be honest with me.
    His eyes tightened around the corners. “Elise, they told me that you were lying, and I wasn’t experienced to deal with you. They wouldn’t let me ask anything else about it, so let’s stay on the goddamned point, okay? It was out of my hands.” He looked pained, almost terrified, as he opened his mouth in hesitation. “Be honest with me. Were you really raped or were you lying to get back at your father?”
    “What?” I shrieked in horror. His accusation shot straight through my heart, slicing through it, and paining my chest.  
    “Did you make it up as a form of lashing out at your dad?” He fired back.
    My heart and throat began to burn with anger as I stumbled for the right words to scream out at him. I couldn’t believe it. I’d trusted him, but he didn’t trust me.
    “Please, just fucking tell me,” he said, his words strangling from his throat. “Tell me whether or not you recklessly lied about being raped.”
    I stayed in my seat, feeling almost paralyzed, staring at him vehemently. “I did get raped!” I shouted, my pulse spiking and my voice cracking with anger. “Why in the hell