The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1) (20 page)

Will quickly took the towels and pushed a large bandage over the latest cuts
, then entwined the adhesive tape around her thighs, keeping it tight enough to maintain pressure on the wounds.

“You
almost need stitches this time.”

She shrugged. Her gaze still staring and vacant.

“Jessie… look at me.”

She finally raised her eyes to him. She wasn’t okay. He saw the pain, the tears, and the depression. She was so not okay, and his heart froze, cracked, and shattered for her.

“We’ll figure this out. I promise. I’m right here. You know that. You have me.”

“I don’t have you.”

He took her chin in his hand, lifting her eyes up again. He kissed her mouth. A chaste meeting of their lips, soft and quick. She stared at him, her eyebrows furrowed. She didn’t understand. “You have me. I’m going to make sure you get whatever you need to feel better.”

Jessie finally looked over his shoulder, towards her sister, still motionless in the doorway.

Will stood up. “Come on in
, Lindsey. Sit down. We’re going to talk. Because I need Lindsey’s help and so do you, Jessie.”

Jessie pulled the blanket over her, shrugging, as if “whatever.” Will knew she truly thought no one would really believe her. Jessie was always ready, prepared, and more than willing to accept the rejection that so frequently came her way.

Lindsey looked with strange eyes at Will, then Jessie.

“What did I just witness?”

“You witnessed your sister cutting herself.”

“You knew? I don’t understand. If you knew, how could you let her do it?”

“I don’t let her do anything. How can I stop it?”

“But if you knew, Will, why did you marry her? And why, Jessie? Why would you do such a terrible thing to yourself? I mean why would anyone hurt themselves?”

Jessie’s face filled with shame. She hunched up into a smaller ball. Will watched her freeze up, as Lindsey judged her. He tacitly watched their entire, sick, frustrating cycle of misunderstanding starting all over again.

It was time. Time for Jessie to hear what he knew, and time for Lindsey to know. Jessie was getting worse, and she needed serious help. And he needed Lindsey’s help. They needed all the aid they could find because he knew very soon, he’d be gone again.

Will rested his butt on the edge of the dresser, crossing his arms over his chest. “Jessie was raped in Mexico. Repeatedly. By different men. And before you start questioning the honesty of her story, there is no need. I saw it, Lindsey. I watched it from the duct work where I was doing reconnaissance to figure out where she was and how to get her out. That baby isn’t mine. It’s one of those men who raped her.”

Lindsey’s face fell. She shook her head no. She looked at her sister who was rocking back and forth, staring with vacant eyes at the bedspread, acting as if she didn’t hear anything.

“No. No. I would have known. Why didn’t I know? The general said she was fine.”

“I saw it,” Will repeated, hearing Lindsey’s lifelong denial of what was right in front of her.

“You saw her get raped?”

“Yes. I saw her get raped. I saw her tied up naked. I saw three men take turns with her. I saw her get hit and kicked. I saw... more, things that she doesn’t want repeated. But they were things that did happen. So if you want to know what’s wrong with your sister
, Lindsey, you can start there.”

Lindsey dropped her head, and her shoulders slumped. “Oh my God. This, then, is the connection between you two? And why you married her? And why you claimed the baby as yours. Because you knew this?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t even sleep with her, do you? You sleep on the couch.”

Will stiffened. “That’s irrelevant.”

Lindsey stood up and took a hesitant step forward, towards her sister, who still acted as if she heard nothing. Perhaps she didn’t. Jessie had the habit of losing large chunks of time.

“And the cutting?”

“The cutting started long before this.”

“But why? Why would she do this before now?”

“Ask her,” Will said gently.

Lindsey came over to the bed, and finally sat on it, near Jessie.

“How long have you done this to yourself?”

Jessie finally raised her eyes and looked at her sister. “Since I was sixteen.”

“Why? What was so bad that you felt you had to do that?”

“Everything.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“After you left home, it was just me and the general. And everything got so much worse.”

“What do you mean worse?”

“Your father, Lindsey,” Will finally spoke up. He was about to shake her for clinging to her denial. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised by all of this. Once I was in the same room with both of them, I knew the general abused Jessie. He belittled her and bullied her. You knew that. Somewhere in you, you knew. You just decided not to see or hear it, and cling to your illusions because Daddy was nice to you. You wanted to pretend Jessie must have done something wrong to warrant his hatred.”

“Okay
, he was harder on her. But she did everything to disrespect him, to make things harder on herself. I never understood why she couldn’t try to be better, to be more—”

“Like you? Because
—”

Jessie suddenly spoke sharply, “No, Will. No. Some of it doesn’t matter. I don’t want some things to be explained. I cut myself because Dad was so mean to me. That’s what you need to know.”

“That doesn’t make sense though. He was stern, but he wanted the best for us. He wanted us to achieve our personal bests.”

“He wanted us to be boys, his soldiers, and when we weren’t, he decided to make us the best girls we could be. You measured up, you were always fast enough, smart enough, quiet enough, obedient enough. I wasn’t. I was clumsy. I wasn’t particularly athletic or smart, nor was I able to perform his strain of obedience. I was always harder to deal with, so he dealt with me. You remember
, Lindsey. I know and you know you do.”

Lindsey paled. Will was pretty sure she remembered, but only just now, in this moment. Prior to that, it was buried.

“Come on, you know how deeply your father hates Jessie.”

“I know,” she finally whispered, looking at her hands. “You were really raped?”

“Yes,” Jessie said finally, staring at her own hands.

“I should have tried to protect you from Dad. I just, I didn’t know how. And it scared me, how easily he turned on you. I was afraid he’d do it to me. You were my baby sister, I should have protected you. Instead, I banished you, to him. I did whatever he said. I’m sorry, Jessie. I’m so sorry.”

Jessie shook her head. “I’d have done the same thing. You can’t fight him. If I’d had his approval, I would have been too scared of losing it to help anyone else.”

“Can you forgive me? I mean after twenty years, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

Jessie looked up, and her heart was there in her
brown eyes. Jessie would do just about anything for her sister to love her. After losing her mother, Jessie transferred her need for maternal love and acceptance to Lindsey. That’s why Will fought so hard to encourage them to talk to each other.

“I can. I’m not the general. I know how to forgive.”

Lindsey finally smiled. “No, you’re not like the general or me. Oh, Jessie, I’m so sorry for how I turned against you just to earn his love. I’m sorry for all of it. Mostly though, for what you suffered in Mexico and I didn’t even know.”

Lindsey leaned over, running a hand over Jessie’s leg, as if to heal her. She seemed almost reverent in her sympathy. “Oh Jessie, what does this do for you? How does it make you feel better?”

Jessie looked at Will. She didn’t really know why she did it, other than it allowed her to cope. It was an unhealthy way of surviving her father’s rage.

Lindsey eyed Will too. “And how come you know? How come you understand this?”

“She does it to cope. To release the pain inside her. She does it because she feels so unloved, and unworthy she thinks she deserves it. Sometimes, she just needs to make sure she’s still here. To literally feel the pain and know she is still alive. I don’t think she knows the answer you want. She just does it. And she needs help to stop.”

“Do you want to stop?”

Jessie shook her head no. Lindsey recoiled in surprise. Jessie thought she still needed it to function. It was an uphill battle that awaited her.

“But maybe it’s time to try,” Jessie finally said, looking up at him. Will nodded and smiled at her. She smiled wearily back.

“Maybe it is.”

Lindsey asked Will, “So what does your ex-wife have to do with all of this?”

“I’ll take that as my cue to explain exactly what I do,” Gretchen said, entering the bedroom.

Will had Gretchen in his view during the entire conversation. He knew she’d come in and waited in the living room. They made silent eye contact, she nodded and sat down on the couch.

Jessie gaped at the women in her bedroom, suddenly pushing herself off the bed. “For God’s sake! I’m not even dressed. She heard everything? How could you, Will? How could you let her sit out there and listen to my life, like some kind of voyeur? How could you tell everyone?”

“In order to get you help.”

“I don’t want your help. Not like this. You betrayed me. I trusted you. I trusted you like I never trusted anyone. You’re just like my father, controlling me to fit into your agenda.”

“You can trust me,” he said softly. His gentle tone was in stark contrast to her yelling. “But the fact is, Jessie, I’m being deployed. I won’t be here. And I can’t leave you like this alone. I just can’t do it. But I have to. I’m sorry I had to do this, and ambush you, to speed it all up. But I had no choice. And I hope someday you’ll see my reasoning. But I’m nothing like your father because my only goal is to get you healthy, however and whatever that takes.”

“You’re being deployed?
Now?”

He nodded, and waited for her to process it. As he had for days now. What spurred on his sudden need to address Jessie’s problems
. Before he got the news, he thought time, patience, and letting her work through her grief would gradually work. But now he had to leave her, at the mercy of her father and her demons. He couldn’t do it, so he called on Lindsey and Gretchen. He was just lucky Gretchen had come in time. Now he could use her to facilitate getting Jessie to the treatment center he had lined up for her. Little did Jessie know this was only the beginning of what he intended to do to help her.

“I invited Lindsey over, Jessie. Of course, I didn’t think she’d catch you like she did, but maybe it’s for the best. We need her. You need her.”

Jessie turned away from him, the blanket billowing around her, but finally walked towards him. “You’re really leaving me?”

Her words stabbed him in the gut. Her voice sounded so small, like a child’s, losing her only parent, her only support system. Jessie lost everything, and Will was her last anchor to reality. He knew that all along, which was why he so resisted her attempts to reach out to him. When he ultimately faced it, and now,
that he finally grew to want it, he was leaving her. No matter how much he wanted to stay, or how much his job and duty demanded, it was definitely not his choice to leave her. There was no chance of changing the results, despite his intentions.

“Lindsey? Gretchen? Why don’t you leave Jessie and me alone for awhile? I’ll call you both later.”

Lindsey and Gretchen both stood up, looking shaken, completely at a loss of what to do or where to go after what they’d just witnessed. Lindsey hugged her sister and left. Gretchen gently touched Will’s arm in silent support before following Lindsey.

Will turned back to Jessie. “Yes, I’m leaving you.”

Jessie got up from the bed finally and started pacing the bedroom. “I told you I hate the fucking military. I hate being married to you. I hate you for marrying me. I hate you, Will Hendricks. So go! Go to your precious military! Go kill people, and see if I care. See if I’m still here when you’re all done. Or when you feel like coming home again. And what then? Take a little break before you go back and do it all again! It’s a stupid way of life! I don’t know why anyone would sign up to spend a lifetime doing that.”

“You’re right
, no one should. No one deserves a lifetime of pain.”

She started pacing again. “Don’t use your soothing voice on me. I know exactly what you’re doing. You soothe and placate me as if I’m a frightened child. Trying to calm Crazy Jessie down from the ledge again. Isn’t that what you’re always doing?”

“Yes, it is.”

She stopped, but her look was so full of hatred, his heart twisted. Still, he kept his expression neutral. He leaned casually against the dresser, and let her do what she needed to do. She couldn’t control her feelings. He knew it. She didn’t. She couldn’t understand why she did what she did. She was always sorry later, but she couldn’t stop while she was doing it, and acting out.

“Why? Why do you do it? So you know I was raped. So you know my father’s a bastard, why do you stay with me? Why do you try to help me?”

Because I love you
. But he didn’t say it. If he did, he thought she’d probably say it back and pretend that solved everything for her. She’d be happy for awhile, and secure in that knowledge. But the problem was, she didn’t know what she felt. She didn’t know what it means to fall in love. Her feelings for him were all mixed up. She looked at him as her savior because he was the person who physically rescued her. Then he stood up for her, against her father, as well as her father’s friends. She saw him as someone she could count on, like no one else. She saw him as a father figure in a strange way. She was only twenty-years-old and had not yet begun to examine herself, her heart, or her life. She knew nothing: who she was, where she came from, what she wanted, or where she was going.

But Will knew, even if she didn’t. She had to fix herself before they even stood a chance of being friends. His love for her would end up breaking his heart, simply because she was so broken. He believed she could be fixed, but loving him wasn’t enough. It would only muddy the waters for her.

The most he could do for Jessie was keep her away from her father, and protect her. Finding her the help she needed was going to be a long process that would take time and money. He could give that to Jessie. If she believed he was doing it out of obligation, or a sense of duty, so much the better. She half hated needing him, and him knowing she needed him. So he’d let it be, and let her hate him. He’d leave her, and she’d just think he abandoned her, instead of tearing himself away from her in order for her to someday recover.

“I want to help you because you deserve it. You need the help.”

She started shaking, pacing, twisting her fingers into her arms. She shook her head and blinked her eyes as tears started to fall unheeded down her cheeks.
“What the fuck do you know about what I need? You won’t even touch me. You don’t know anything about what I need. Or about what I want. You don’t have to look down every day and see this thing growing inside you, taking over your life, ruining it. You don’t know. You don’t know anything. You watched the rapes. You feel guilty. Big fucking deal. Did you feel it? Did you smell them? Did you have to listen to them? Did you have to endure it? Do you have to scratch your skin off in order to forget what their hands felt like? What their breaths smelled like? Do you have to remember how much it hurt? Like a fire being set inside me. You don’t know, Will. You don’t know. You don’t know.
YOU DON’T KNOW!
You didn’t help me. You watched me. You watched it, and now? Now you want to help me? Well, you can’t
. You can’t.
No one can. Nothing can. I’ll never be better. I’ll never be okay.”

Will fisted his hands at his side to keep from grabbing her. She started pacing and talking, before stopping and dropping into a ball on the floor. She started rocking and holding herself. Her blanket fell off, unnoticed. She was falling to pieces. The anger, the hatred, the gut-wrenching pain that boiled inside her was slowly incinerating her. And what could he do, but watch? He never felt so helpless or useless in his life than
witnessing Jessie going to an emotional edge the likes of which he’d never imagined. He watched her rocking, crying, and screaming first at him, then at her life, and what happened to her. It was too much for any person to bear. It was so dark and sick, it twisted her up inside with anguish.

He finally approached her,
and sat down next to her with his back against the bed, and his legs stretched out before him. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away, and twitched at the contact. He let her. Then he let her cry, and cry, and cry. Sometimes she stopped and gasped for breath. Her anger built up again, and an uncontrollable rage that refueled her made her start yelling and screaming at him. He let her until finally, hours later, she fell exhausted against the bed. And was finally quiet. He put his arm around her, and she put her head on his shoulder and quit crying. He took her hand in his.

“I need help, don’t I?” she asked. Her tone was back to its normal cadence. Quiet. Solemn. Subdued.

“Yeah, you need help.”

“How can you stand me?”

“Because I know.”

“As simple as that?”

“As simple as that.”

“I’m afraid of myself. What I might do to myself.”

“I know.”

“I need psychiatric help, don’t I?”

“
I have a plan. Gretchen specializes in children, but I brought her here to help you get to where you need to be. I wasn’t sure if your sister would help us. But I had to have someone I trust watching out for you. I know for sure Gretchen would never betray me. It had nothing to do with our history, other than, I knew I could trust her, and that your father wouldn’t go near her, or try to control her.”

“For me then? You contacted her for me?”

“I did it because I can’t leave you like this. And I won’t without someone I trust to look after you.”

“You won’t be back for me, will you?”

“I don’t think I’m the best man for you. As you said, I know too much. I remind you of too much. I’m not what’s best for you, Jessie. You just don’t have anyone else right now.”

Silence. It sat between them like a concrete block had been thrown between them. She closed her eyes and said in a voice full of deep regret and heartache,
“I thought, maybe, I could love you.”

He brought his mouth to her hair where the back of her head rested on his shoulder. He brushed his lips across the top of her head gently. God, if she only knew how much he loved her. So much, he couldn’t tell her.

“I think that’s a pretty natural reaction, given our circumstances.”

“Circumstances being: I need you too much.”

“I’d say so.”

She was quiet for a full five minutes
, and finally asked softly, “Where do I go from here?”

“Away. Away from here. This town. Your father. I want you to move across the country and start your life over. You’ll never get better as long as you remain under your father’s rule, and the military in your constant line of vision. I want you to start over, get help, and deal with what happened to you. Then find yourself a normal man, get a normal job, live a normal life in a regular civilian town. I want you to live the life you deserve. And that won’t happen here, or with me. I’m the last thing you need in your life.”

She jerked back, startled. She didn’t expect any of what he had in mind. “Leave? My God, I don’t do anything. I have no money. I know no one. I can’t leave.”

“You have money. You have me. I’m not going to abandon you. You’ll use the money I send you to start over. You’ll use my insurance to get the help you need. We don’t divorce until you’re completely okay. Okay in all ways. Financially included.”

“But that puts your life on hold.”

He shrugged. “Consider it a minor sacrifice for me. I told you before, when I married you, it was the least I owed you. Helping you escape your father’s tyranny. That I can give you.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Funny you should mention that. I have this friend, who owes me a favor. I kind of saved his life. He and his wife have a small guest apartment over their
barn, and they are ready to take you in. The best thing is: it’s far away from here. They own acreage in Washington state where they breed, train, and board horses, as well as providing horseback riding lessons. You can help out if you want, or find something else. It doesn’t matter. It’s across the country and a new start. You’ll be safe there, and that I can promise you.”

“Who would do such a thing for a complete stranger?”

“Someone who lost his leg, but I made sure he didn’t lose his life.”

She looked up at him. “You mean that soldier you told me about? That night in the motel room? When you said I’d get through this?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“And this is you helping me get through this?”

He nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on hers. She finally nodded in response. “Okay. I’ll go. I’ll do whatever Gretchen and Lindsey say.”

“Thank you, Jessie,” he said, exhaling a long sigh.

“What should I do with this baby?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s what you’ll figure out.”

“What if I don’t figure it out in time?”

“You will. I believe in you.”

She looked down, then up. “No one else ever has.”

He took her hand. “Someone does now. Someone truly believes in you
, never forget that.”