Wealth (free and completed)

Chapter 11 - Past Lives

Valerie

After the kiss, it was awkward having Janus unfold my wheelchair from the trunk and deposit me there. He must have felt my attraction and did not welcome it as much as I would like him to, or else he would not be pushing me towards Andrew.

Trembling from the shame and inexplicable grief, I maneuvered my wheelchair out of the garage and into the crisp air of the garden. Roses. I breathed in the scent, feeling a little better. I noted how Janus took more time in the car. He usually fiddled around, checking if everything was in order – locked and secured. It was probably a habit. He used to live in the wrong part of town, and making sure his things were safe was part of his daily routine. I did not stay to remind him that he was living in one of the most secure places in the

Janus still had not felt fully acclimated to Briar Hill. The only place I saw him at ease was at Tristan James’. It was where he thrived, with his talent solidifying his hold on his position. I could imagine how eager he was to keep on proving that he was more than his bloodline and his new inheritance.

“Valerie!”

My breath caught. I did not want to talk to him so soon after what happened, but I stopped my wheelchair, anyway. His hands rested on the push handles, although he knew that my power chair could move forward without his help. I let him. It was better to deal with it early on instead of avoiding him at every turn.

“L-let’s forget about what happened, Janus,” I murmured. My hands on the armrests still trembled a little. I noticed that I was no longer maneuvering the wheelchair and was letting Janus push it. The only ones who had done it for me before were Rafael, and I only ever let him do it once, Hannah, and Randall.

“You know we can’t really do that, Val,” he said.

Honest, direct, but quiet. I had always pegged him as such, but I did not know he would carry the same persona even in something like, what was it exactly? Attraction? Lust?

“Why? I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Is that what you do when something unpleasant comes along? Ignore it?”

He got me there. He must have remembered that evening he went to my room and acted strangely. The phone calls. The memories that kept on plaguing me. I felt like he was not the sort who did not notice things.

“There are things that I still cannot tell you,” I admitted. “But it does not mean that I run away from all the things that trouble me.”

“Do I trouble you?” he asked in a steady voice, almost like a monotone. He was talking about me keeping my secrets while he guarded his emotions.

“No, Janus. I think I trouble myself with nonsensical things.”

“It wasn’t nonsensical, Val,” he groaned. “I’m just -.”

“Are you disgusted with what happened? I’m sorry. You must think all of us here at Briar Hill strange and corrupt.”

“No. Not true at all.”

“Is it the wheelchair?”

“No, Val. Even if I want to pursue anything with you, we are almost like siblings.”

“Are we?” I asked, regretting the edge of my voice as soon as I said those two words. “I’m not forcing myself on you. You may have reasons, Janus. I may have startled you with the kiss, but we are not siblings – biological or legal.”

There was a pregnant, awkward pause. He was not attracted to me, I decided. I was just a forward female who thought I would have a chance at someone like him, not arrogant like Joseph, not wishy-washy like Rafael, and not lost like Emilie. Perhaps he was a combination of all the things I did not like about my siblings, but I just did not know him well enough yet.

“No, Val,” he finally said. “It’s st-still awkward. People may not see it the way you see it.”

“The way I see it?” I echoed. “What about the way you see it?”

I should stop talking.

“You are better off with someone safe like Andrew,” he suggested. It was the worst thing he could have ever said. He must have pitied me, a cripple who wanted some of his attention. I sped my wheelchair up. He didn’t follow my pace.

***

1999

“Have you ever been touched by a boy?” Emilie asked dreamily. As I sat in my wheelchair, she lay on my bed. I was looking for something to read from my shelf. While I could not walk, I did not enjoy being in bed all the time. It made me feel a lot more useless than I already was. If I had a choice, I would have been baking with Hannah, pruning the roses, or watching the gate with Randall.

“Em, look at me. What do you think?” I asked. I was pleased that she decided to spend some afternoons with me on her summer break, but the direction the conversation was going made me feel uncomfortable. Oh, she still hated me. She still made it a point that I remembered that I was not yet adopted. She was right. Mr. Sangster did not seem like he had any plans to do so. He fed me, clothing me, sent me to school, and more. He even introduced me as his younger daughter to his friends. I was his daughter, just not biologically or legally. I should be fine. At least, that was what I said to myself.

“Well, you could have dated before the accident,” she murmured, her hand dangerously between her thighs, pushing her dress higher. She started humming. I sucked my breath. What was she doing here, really?

“No. I mostly studied and stayed at home,” I said honestly. “Besides, I was only fourteen when I arrived at Briar Hill. Remember? I would have been too young for what you’re talking about.”

“Are you serious?” she laughed. “I lost my virginity at about fourteen. Maybe thirteen.”

So, it was not college that was making her behave this way. She had always been hypersexual.

“No! No way!” I was scandalized. I felt my cheeks flush. At the same time, pleasure coursed through me. Emilie was confiding in me, telling me things she should not be telling anyone at all. Then again, she was a college girl, while I was mostly homeschooled. She probably thought I was a baby for thinking that everything was still supposed to be pure.

“I can see you want to know more,” she teased.

“That’s not true. Shut your mouth, Em!”

She was nineteen – a year older and voluptuous. My frame was frailer. Though my breasts had finally started growing two or three years back, they were nothing to the buxom blonde on my bed. I was nothing like my mother, the former actress Laura Foyle. Emilie would have been everyone’s better guess as the actress’s child. Only my ash-blonde hair revealed who I was, even though my mother used to dye her hair all kinds of colors anyway. I tried not to hold on too much to her image. It made my chest hurt every time I thought of her. Even when he was at his busiest, my father had been the more protective, attentive parent. On the other hand, my mother still seemed to hold on to her actress persona. Most of the time, she was not Rowena Matthews but Laura Foyle.

“I know you want to know. Well, I lost it to a handsome boy. Of course. He was a little older. He did not ask if I wanted it. He just kissed me – and then things progressed after that.”

“Does anyone know? Rafael? Joseph?”

“They may have,” she tilted her head to look at me and winked. Her hair spilled down the edge of the bed. The hand between her legs had started moving.

“Emilie. I don’t think this is appropriate,” I said, my voice shaking.

“What isn’t? This? Have you ever tried it with yourself? Can you even feel it?” she asked, slipping her hand under her dress. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the temptation to look was stronger. Her hand started moving.

“Stop it!” I had never heard my voice that loud until that afternoon.

I suddenly felt frozen. I fumbled for the controls of my wheelchair but somehow could not find them.

“You just rub. Then, use a finger to do this,” Emilie moaned, moving her fingers between her legs into a frenzy. “He taught me how to do it. Then, when he saw that I was wet, he put his c**k right into me. It was hard and long, and he knew how to use it as he pounded into me over and over.”

“Get out of my room!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face.

“I’m going. Oh, no! I’m coming first,” she breathed out. She started shaking wildly on my bed, making blatant s****l noises.

When she stilled, she got up and fixed her dress.

“I bet you could not feel that, freak. I bet you cannot feel anything from the waist down.”

When she went out, it did not take long for Rafael to check on me.

“What was that?”

“It was Emilie,” I cried.

He leaned and wrapped his arms around me, and I gratefully rested my head on his chest. One of the best things about summer break was that Rafael went home from college. I was the only one going to the nearby college, although Mr. Sangster said I was the most serious student among his wards, apart from Joseph.

“Yeah, I heard her. I almost thought she had brought a guy over to your room.”

“I thought she wanted to be friends finally. To be sisters,” I mumbled onto Rafael’s shirt.

Rafael sighed audibly.

“You can’t trust her. She has her own way of looking at the world.”

“Is she – is she right in the head?” I asked, thinking about my psychology courses. I was taking literature and mathematics, but the former also had some great psych classes. To write stories, you needed to understand how people thought and why they behaved a certain way.

Rafael scoffed at that.

“Her? No. She’s just evil, that girl.”

“How are you?” I asked, ready to change the topic.

“Me? I’m fine. I’m practicing for a new ballet showing in a few months. Right here,” he said proudly, but his eyes were still anxious.

Rafael took one of my chairs and sat next to me. He always did that when he was ready to chat for a long time.

“Here? Raven Ville?” I asked, delighted. I always loved watching him dance. He was pure talent on the stage.

“Yes!”

I giggled. Soon, as we talked some more, the last vestiges of Emilie’s assault on my senses faded.

That night, though, alone in my room, Emilie’s words came back to haunt me. She said that I could not feel anything from the waist down. I knew she was wrong, then, but I did not realize that I would soon feel the extent of how wrong she was not too long after that afternoon.

She was wrong. A few weeks after she touched herself in my room, I was raped, and I felt everything. The pain. The humiliation. Everything.