A Matter of Betrayal Ch. 13

"After I had been living with them for a few months a girl named Melissa, who had been previously placed with them and had had the same thing happen to her there, came forward with charges.

"I was taken away from that family and placed with the Buckners. When they asked me if anything had happened to me, at first I didn't want to say anything but then Melissa, she came to see me and talked to me.

"She said she needed my help and then she told me what had happened to her. Hearing her say the things they did to her, knowing that they did the same things to me, and more than anything else knowing they would do it to someone again after I was gone, maybe next time it would be someone completely innocent, not having had any prior experience with the kind of evil these people do...that made me decide I wanted to tell the doctors and psychologists and lawyers - anyone looking to bring these fucking bastards down - the entire truth!

"Good for you!" Colin said

"They're all rotting in jail now, you know? And I'm glad of it! I hope my real dad and uncle are there too!" Sheryl couldn't hold back the tears any longer. Colin handed her a box of tissues, she accepted them and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

"After it was all over with I was just numb inside," she said, picking up the story again. "I was with Vinton and Agnes now, the Buckners have done lots of fostering over the years but were retired now both from work and raising kids, but they were asked specifically to take care of me because of their good record and they agreed. They're nice people too, probably the closest thing I'll ever have to grandparents in my life but back then, after all that had happened, none of that seemed to matter anymore I just didn't care what happened to me one way or another. I...I was thinking of killing myself."

Colin nodded, this much she had admitted to him before.

"So I got enrolled at Liberty High and that's when I met you," Sheryl said. "No one wanted to be my friend when I first came there which was what I thought I wanted. I didn't want any kind of relationship with anybody. I didn't care that all the guys thought I was a cold bitch and all the girls thought I was stuck up - I just wanted to be left alone.

"That's why I hated it so much whenever a teacher made us work in groups or worst of all with a single partner. That's why I was so mean to you when Mrs. Motsey first made you my partner in home ec."

Colin let out a gentle laugh, "I remember," he said.

"But no matter how cold I was to you or even downright mean, you always took it in stride," Sheryl said. "You never tried to get back at me for a nasty remark or mean gesture, it was like you sensed I needed to be treated with patience and that's all you ever did. You were my friend, my first real friend in I don't know how long. I think maybe unconsciously that's when I first started to fall in love with you." Sheryl smiled at Colin. "Not only that, but because of you I ended up with my first "A" in a class since starting at Liberty."

"Those gourmet pizzas sure came out great, didn't they?" Colin said.

"Yeah!" Sheryl laughed but then turned sober. "I don't know how I would have ever gotten through that time if it wasn't you! I wouldn't have, I'd be dead now...I know it!"

"No you wouldn't have!" Colin protested.

"Yes I would've, I know it!" Sheryl insisted. "I remember sitting all by myself at lunch in school. The first time you tried to sit with me and I told you I wanted to be alone - you let it go at that and left me to myself.

"But after a while when I really didn't want to be alone anymore but was too set in my routine and insecurities to do anything about it, you seemed to sense that too. You just came over and sat with me, you didn't try to make me talk or anything, you just kept me company. Then the next day you sat with me again and we talked a little and each day I opened up more to you." The tears had returned in force on Sheryl's face and she dabbed more at her eyes with tissues.

"Then you asked me to come sit with you and your cousin and friends," Sheryl said. "I was terrified but I trusted you and you did make sure most of them accepted me. I was able to make friends again because of you. Then when something happened like Dan asking me out and me telling him 'no', and then him getting pissed off - when he started telling everyone I was a 'lesbo' I know it was you who cornered him and told him to back off, to stop trying to shame me in public and that I was not a lesbian but even if I was there would be nothing wrong with it. You told him I was your friend and you wouldn't put up with anyone going around talking in a mean spirited way about any of your friends."

"Who told you I did that?" Colin had to ask.

"Moe," Sheryl answered.

"Oh," Colin said. He remembered now, he was walking to school and Moe kept questioning him because he heard someone had put Dan in his place, and since Dan was one of the guys that had duct taped him, he wanted to know all about it. "Little blabbermouth," Colin said.

"I'm glad he told me," Sheryl said. "First you made me feel secure in having a friend again and then when you defended me you returned to me a feeling of self-worth, a feeling that I was someone who was worth having friends and they were friends that would stick up for me.

"I was finally able to tell you some of the things that happened to me - the physical abuse, the emotional abuse. Back before I was abused by my foster father and brother but after it happened with my real father and uncle, I was still able to make friends, even though most of the time I thought I wanted to be alone. There had also been a few boys I felt close to but if I barely scratched the surface of telling them some of what happened to me it turned them away. I mean I know they were young, thirteen, fourteen, but so was I and it was such a blow to me at that young of an age to understand what it meant to be considered 'damaged goods' and knowing people would want nothing to do with someone who had my problems.

"I told you about wanting to kill myself. You never told anyone else did you?" Sheryl asked.

"I thought about it, I almost did more than once, but I could see what you really needed was just someone you could trust. I just tried to keep you as busy as I could and decided that only if it looked like you were going downhill fast would I tell someone," Colin said.

"Well you did keep my busy," Sheryl said and smiled. "You took me to places like the zoo, Hershey Park, the beach and I just felt so...so safe with you, and we just clicked in so many ways that were normal too! After the life I had lead up to that point knowing I could still experience "normal" was another gift you gave me. We talked about movies and TV shows, music and books and we liked so much of the same stuff.

"Then you told me about your father," she said quietly, "about the way he treated your mom, that he beat her, and then the time he put you in a hospital. You told me how your mom divorced your father right after that. Your mom became a hero to me for that. I started imagining if I'd known my mother I'd want her to be notlike her, but her!

"She was there for you when your dad abused you - she took you away from him. I wished she had been there for me! All of this just seemed to weave together into this giant tapestry that connected you to me and me to you and even to your mother. I felt so safe with you I couldn't believe it!"

"That's when you asked if I ever thought we could be more than friends," Colin said.

"Yes, I never thought I'd ever want to have anything to do with a man again for the rest of my life, a life I thought would also be very short and miserable. You kept changing my perspective on everything. By then I consciously knew I loved you."

Sheryl hesitated then said, "I told you I was a virgin back then and I didn't lie. It didn't matter what those monsters did to me, it doesn't count...it just doesn't count. But I would have told you everything though before we did it, all of this. I was sure that was the way it was going to be too. I knew you loved me and I felt safe with your love - so safe! I wasn't ready to push things - I just wanted to spend time like we were because I had never felt so good in my life!"

There were more tears streaming down Sheryl's face as she went on, "But then I started to feel guilty though because both of us weren't even sixteen yet when we started out as friends and you spent so much time with me right from the beginning. Then we became a couple but I asked you to be patient for anything beyond kissing and some touching..."

"I was fine with that! I told you..." Colin said.

"I know! But I still felt bad because we were going so slowly and I knew all our other friends were losing or had lost their virginity, or they were like Dan and Ricky who probably haven't but still brag that they have. I felt like you were being so good to me if you had another girlfriend you would already have..."

"That doesn't matter, I was fine with us because I loved you! I didn't plan to fall in love with you, but you were right, we did click and it happened. I loved you and I would have been willing to wait as long as you needed to!" Colin said and then realizing what he said was surprised at the emotion.Where did that come from? he thought.

"That's just the thing though," Sheryl said, "I was getting paranoid. How could you be this good? Were you playing me? Were you someone who just found some sick joy in tricking me? How long would it be until you had me cornered alone in a room or trapped in your mom's car?"

Colin opened his mouth to respond but Sheryl cut him off. "No, it's ok I don't believe any of that but that's just where my head was back then.

"Every day I fell more deeply in love with you and every day I became more scared of you betraying me. I never loved anyone as much as I love you and if you turned on me, if you turned out to be just someone wearing a mask of kindness and when you took it off you were just like my father or foster father, or...or...any of them...I would break inside. Do you understand me? I would have come apart and shattered into a million pieces of broken glass!"

Colin didn't know what to say.

"The idea of you being someone who might betray me, no different at heart than the others - that was an idea scarier to me than facing down a hundred monsters like my father. So I betrayed you first," Sheryl admitted.

"I let myself get fooled by Seth, because deep down I knew my emotions were safer with him because I really didn't love him. I let myself believe I loved him. That he was really the gallant white knight of my life and all you were, all you had ever been was his sidekick. In a twisted way it made me feel safe because I didn't rely on him like I relied on you. If Seth betrayed me it would not be as bad like it would of if it had been you.

"Then he did betray me and it was like ice water being dumped on me. All at once all these defensive walls I had built up were washed away and at first it confused me and scared me, it made me sick to my soul but then I made it through to the other side and I could see clearly for the first time in my life. I saw all the lies I had told myself, the false images I created of both you and Seth in my mind, the sheer stupidity of what I had done, all to run away from the possibility that you weren't really you.

"You would never betray me, I see that now and I'm so sorry sweetie, so sorry for everything I've done! I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you and I promise it won't ever happen again! I promise!"

"I, uh," Colin stammered, "I think..."What do I think?

"I think all this had to happen. Sweetie, I would do anything and I would give anything to go back and change it as long as I could still know what I know now. All the pain, the hurt, the suffering in my life was all backed up inside of me. It took the final traumatic events of losing you and knowing it was all my fault on top of everything else to finally get me to understand.

"That ice water washed away all the cloudy misconceptions and denials I was in. I see clearly now, like I never have before. Also, you have to realize something, before when I was all jumbled up inside emotionally - your love still got through to me. Now that I've had this breakthrough the love I feel for you is a power that dwarfs anything I've felt before, good or bad!

"Take me back sweetie, I promise what happened will never happen again. I promise with all my heart!"

"I believe you Sheryl, I do but..."

"But there's someone else?"

"Yes!"

"Bullshit!" Sheryl exclaimed. "Show her to me, prove to me she exists and prove to me you really love her as much as you say you do otherwise I'm not giving up!"

"I can't!" Colin said.

"You can't because she's not real! You're doing this just because you are holding a grudge!" Sheryl said with a sniff.

"If you say you are seeing clearly now, if you say you can see me for who I really am, tell me this -- would I keep up this pretense of another woman in my life just to hold a grudge?" Colin saw it, a flash of uncertainty in her raw eyes. Then it was gone and just as quick replaced with a look of determination. Before he knew what had happened Sheryl grabbed onto his robe and pulled herself up to him. Her mouth was against his in a kiss of passion, hope, and desperation.

Colin was surprised at first then gradually the taste of her flickered more memories of their past happiness together and all of it really started coming back to him.

Her tongue twirled over his and her mouth sucked in his air and saliva. Colin's arms were at his sides but then he slowly moved them up and placed his hands on Sheryl's waist. He began to pull her in closer but then he stopped and pushed her away. Their kiss broke.

"Sheryl...leave," Colin said as he took in air.

"Colin..." Sheryl tried to protest.

"LEAVE!" Colin repeated shouting this time.

Sheryl flinched at the loudness of his command. She then gathered her purse and keys, the wounded look in her eyes was heartbreaking but Colin stood his ground. She opened the front door and left.

Colin sat down on the couch and placed his head in his hands.

He knew his love for Aileen was all encompassing, that there was no room in his heart for him to love anyone else like that, he was positive no one else could ever find a place in there in the same way.

The thing is, Sheryl had already been there before he consummated his love with Aileen and while that love had overridden everything else, it had not been able to push her out. She was still in his heart.

Colin still loved Sheryl.

NEXT CHAPTER: YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT