Page 73 of Getting It Twisted
Don’t investigate. Don’t look into it.
Believe me. Please believe me.
Chapter 14
Daniel
I’m just going tocheck. It’s probably stupid. This creepy-ass house is playing tricks on me.
All night long, Joshua’s words circled back into my head.
Do you know about the skeletons he’s hiding in the closet?
With the risk of being too literal, there is only one closet in Nathan’s house: the old cabinet in his mom’s room.
Nathan is still sleeping soundly in bed. He doesn’t even have to know.
The hinges creak when I pull the doors open by their intricate, carved metal handles.
Inside, there are shelf upon shelf of old clothes and linen, and drawers full of sex toys and lingerie. On the highest shelf lies an assortment of paperwork and a small woven box. For some reason, my eyes are drawn to it, and I pull it out.
Beneath a layer of soft, crumpled paper is a photograph. A photograph of a young boy, naked on a bed. His face, scrunched up in pain, is half-hidden from the camera. He’s younger than I’ve ever seen him, but those vivid green eyes, the straight slope of his nose, the narrow jaw . . .
There’s no doubt. It’s him.
There are dozens of them. Dozens of photos. In most, he can’t be older than eight or nine. On some, there’s a hand—an adult’s hand, large and hairy. Oh god. He . . .
The floor melts under my feet, and my stomach plunges with it.
“Daniel?” The bedsheets rustle as Nathan sits up. “What are you doing?”
“Nathan,” I say, hands shaking, pulse drumming in my ears. “What the hell is this?”
His gaze lands on the box in my hands, and his eyes widen and fill with dread. For once at a loss for words, he just stares at me.
I shove the pictures back into the box. Once the initial shock has settled, my chest fills with a wild-eyed rage the likes of which I haven’t felt since I barged into Eric and Tyler undressing Nathan at the grad party.
I clench my fists by my sides, and my voice comes out snarled and gritted, as if I’m trying to pass a poison. “Who did this to you?”
Nathan pulls his knees into his chest and wraps his arms around his legs, face ghostly pale.
I sit down next to him. “This is . . .” I don’t know what to say. Horrible? Disgusting? No word can properly describe it. “This was all before we met?” I won’t be able to live with myself if this was going on while we knew each other. My guilt over not saving him from his mother is painful enough. “I thought it was Theresa who . . .”
“Was a whore?” Nathan snaps. “She was. She sold herself to the local men in town, to truckers and to random passersby. To your uncle too.”
“I know that. But what does it have to do with this?”
He shrugs, refusing to meet my eyes. “Let’s just say some of her clients caught an interest in me too.”
A cold chill runs down my spine. “You were just a little kid.”
“Yes, Daniel, and that was kind of the point for them, wasn’t it?”
“How often did this happen?”
“I dunno. My memory’s a little hazy from that time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”