Tomorrow's Lies (Promises #1) Read Online Free Page B

protection if someone accidentally bumps into me, or brushes by.
    I don’t want to live my life this way, and I don’t plan on staying screwed up forever. I want nothing more than to be normal, like I used to be. I was once a happy and fun girl. Touchy and feely, even. I hugged people all the time. But not anymore. The girl I used to be was ruined by one man.
    I clench my fists, hoping Saundra doesn’t notice.
    I refuse to give up on getting back to the real me, the one buried under the fear. I’ve been fighting every day to heal, and I’ve made some progress. Last week, my therapist was able to touch me. Just on the shoulder. And she’s a female. But still, it’s progress. I just need the right environment to take me all the way.
    A few other things need to change, too. Like the flashbacks. They need to go away.
    Lift up your nightgown, Jaynie.
    Touch me where I put your hand.
    Quit clenching your legs together, bitch.
    If you scream again, I’ll fucking punch those pretty white teeth out of your mouth.
    “Okay,” I whisper. “No more screaming, I promise.”
    I start to shake. Don’t lose it here . Frantically, I smooth and smooth and smooth the long, black skirt I’m wearing over my gray wool leggings. I still feel overexposed. I can almost feel his hands on me, wrenching my thighs apart with one hand, while reaching for a condom with the other.
    No, no, no .
    Tugging my sweatshirt over my head, I place it over my lap. Another line of defense to my most secret place . “Try to touch me now, motherfucker,” I mutter.
    See, I’m fighting to be strong.
    Saundra glances over, concern in her eyes. She’s trying to keep her focus on the road, but how can she when the crazy girl next to her is having a meltdown.
    “I’m fine,” I say, voice shaky. My eyes dart her way, then back to my lap. “I promise I’ll be all right. Just give me a second.”
    “Jaynie,” she sighs. “I am so sorry we missed what was happening to you in your last home. It’s just that it was so good there for so long.” Her lamenting tone makes it sound like what happened at my last home hurt her more than it hurt me. “Who would have known, right?”
    “Right.”
    She either doesn’t hear, or ignores, my sarcastic tone.
    “I should have been checking in on you more often,” she says, more to herself than to me. “I’m just so overworked, and I never thought something like that would ever happen in Mrs. Giessen’s house. She’s such a great lady. And her son wasn’t due out of prison for another year. Soon as I heard he was released early,”—she peers over at me meaningfully—“I started the paperwork to get you out.”
    “Yeah, you did.”
    I don’t add that it took her six weeks to get me out of that place. It wasn’t Saundra’s fault, though. The system is broken. And now, so am I.
    Unfortunately, while the paperwork was tied up in processing, I remained stuck in Mrs. Giessen’s house. There was no immediate rush to pull me out. After all, I was told, Mrs. Giessen’s son (I refuse to let his first name cross my thoughts or my lips, ever) may have been an ex-con, but he wasn’t a sex offender…until he was. And, lucky me, I got to be his first victim.
    Trust me when I tell you a lot of harm can be done in a month and a half, especially to a seventeen-year-old girl with no way to protect herself. I was at the mercy of a monster, a foul man who kept the things he did to me at night, when his mother was fast asleep, a horrid secret. A secret he told me over and over must be kept between us. God, the things he did to me as he told me that. And the worse things he promised if I did tell.
    I squeeze my legs together as tightly as I can. The physical pain he inflicted on me has long passed, but the wounds on my psyche are far worse than the ones he ever inflicted on my body.
    “He hurt me, he hurt me,” I chant.
    When I start rocking back and forth, Saundra slams on the brakes. “Jaynie, calm down.