Free Anabel Unraveled by Amanda Romine Lynch Page B

which I know she will never forgive me.
     
     

Chapter 8—Anabel
    Of course, the room exploded with Jared’s statement. Sam jumped out of his chair and began shouting at him, Charlie and Marilyn appeared out of nowhere and tried to put their arms around me, there were cops who had to keep people from rushing us, Ms. Fischer was banging her gavel . . . while I sat in my chair and mulled over Jared’s words.
    He was sorry he raped me, huh? I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t know he could feel sorrow, that he actually cared that he had hurt another person.
    The thing is . . . well, let me back up. In order to get to that part of the story, we need to go through what happened in the hallway after dinner and what happened the next day. See, this is what I hated about Jared. He always had to rush to the end and leave out the details. In this case, the details were important. Unlike Jared, I understand that you can’t give away too much information at once. Like my big secret. I also haven’t even alluded too much to the death of my father, which you know is coming up. So, here’s some foreshadowing for you: Jared is about to rape me, my father is about to die, and things are about to fall spectacularly to pieces.
    But anyway, back to dinner. I had tears in my eyes and was fuming at Mr. Sorensen. Jared. He hadn’t liked the way I had behaved and in spite of swearing up and down that he cared about me, he was going to punish me by telling Sam everything was fine and just leave me in this godforsaken hell-hole. Can you see why I was so upset? I don’t even remember what we ate that night; I just remember that I had it in my head that it was necessary to get to the phone before Jared. I had to call my brother and tell him that sending Jared Sorensen had been a huge mistake, that Sam had made a drastic lapse in judgment when hiring a rat bastard like the snake sitting across from me to work for him, and that he had to get me off this island. Or I was going to become crazy. I probably already was crazy.
    As soon as I could, I excused myself from the dinner table and made a dash for my room. I wanted to go in there, lock the door, and blast the most depressing music I could find. Maybe watch Bridget Jones’ Diary.
    I guess I should mention that the end really was in sight for me. Despite my mother’s poor choices at the end of her life, she had left me a significant amount of money in a trust fund, which was mine the moment I turned twenty-one. When I had that money I could pay for my own transportation off the island, which my father refused to do. Jonathan was, of course, opposed to me leaving, and I worried that even when I had the funds to leave, he would find a way to keep me there. As I stamped down the hall toward my shelter, all sorts of thoughts ran through my head. Even though I had initiated everything on the top of the piazza, Jared’s response to me—and mine to him—frightened me. A lot. It also hurt me the way he had acted at dinner, blowing me off. I shook my head. I couldn’t let him get to me; after all, I was the one who was supposed to be using him. But then I reconsidered. What on earth was I doing, making pretend advances at some guy who was more than ten years older than me? I was far too inexperienced with men to be indulging in this insanity. This was the sort of behavior that gave my father justification for preventing me from attending college! This was the sort of behavior that would leave me dead in a gutter!
    I then had another horrifying realization. “And now I’m justifying his lunacy?” I started to bang my head into the wall.
    “Stop that.”
    I didn’t even turn around. “Hi, Daddy.”
    “What are you playing at, Anabel?” My father came up next to me. “I saw your exchange with him. I even watched the security tape of you two going into Cottage 4.”
    “Yes, God forbid I follow your instructions and I do what you tell me to do. You told me to show him around. I did that!”