Abby and I

"That sounds interesting. Are you sure you want me to read it?"

"I think so. You have to promise to still love me, no matter what you think about it. Do you promise?" she asked, staring straight into my eyes.

I was certainly curious. I wondered what on earth she could have written down that would cause me not to love her. It was a little scary, really.

"I promise, Abby. I take it that this is really important to you?"

"It is. It's basically my whole life. Mom and Dad were the only people that knew. You need to know," she said, rising from the table without finishing her food. She went down the hall and into her room.

I was swallowing the last of my breakfast when Abby came in with a thick stack of paper. I eyed the manuscript with apprehension. I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it or not, even if she wanted me to. She handed it over and I went into the living room to begin reading.

*****

It took me a good couple of hours to get through Abby's document. I'm not going to repeat what I read word for word. That would be a whole other story on its own. It was basically an autobiography recapping all of the events and feelings that Abby had ever experienced in her life. It was interesting, to say the least.

The root of all of the social problems that Abby had was something that happened to her early in her first year of high school. I had always thought that something must have happened around that time, since she finished her schooling at home, I just never had an idea as to what it was.

It was on a fall weekend when the incident occurred. She was friends with a boy that was a grade ahead of her, wanted to be his boyfriend. He had invited her over to his house that Saturday and she was more than eager to go. One of the guy's friends was there, too, someone that she also knew and liked from school. They had been hanging out, not doing much of anything when Abby began to feel odd. It turned out that the boys had slipped her something, a combination of GHB and some sort of tranquilizer. Before she knew exactly what was happening, her clothes were gone and the two boys spent the rest of the day taking advantage of her. She had woken up the next day with only a foggy memory of what had happened.

When she eventually made it back home, she told her mother and father what had happened. They contacted the police, she had to go to the hospital to have a rape kit taken. They boys of course denied that they had made her do anything that she didn't want to. The resulting trial was devastating to Abby's mental state. She could no longer stand going to school, everyone there knew what was going on. Some people believed her, some people didn't. The eyes of people staring at her were enough to drive her crazy. When the trial was over, the boys were found guilty and sent off to some juvenile facility, but Abby was ruined. It seemed like everywhere that she went that she could sense people staring at her, judging. It may or may not have been true, that was just how she felt.

I had always had my suspicions that something like that must have happened. That was only half of the story, however. What she had written about next was something that I would have never dreamed of, even though I was guilty of something similar, myself.

Even a couple of years after the incident, Abby rarely left the house. The only people that she could stand to have contact with were my sister and her husband. She was plagued by nightmares and terrified of anyone outside of her mother and father. She had been enrolled in therapy and went on a regular basis, making a very slow but steady progress.

When Abby had graduated from her home schooling shortly after turning eighteen, my sister had planned a rather small party for her. It was a combination graduation/birthday party. I remembered going to it, actually. It was myself, Abby, her parents, and her grandmother from her father's side. I remembered that Abby seemed happy enough, just extremely quiet and shy. I have to admit that at that time I had absolutely no idea as to what was going on in her life.

It was sometime after this that Abby had woken up in the middle of the night after suffering from a particularly nasty nightmare. She walked down the hall to her parents' room, which she often did after a nightmare, to seek out her mother's comfort. When she entered the room that time, however, she was greeted to a sight that she was not used to. Her parents were having sex. She had known that they must have had sex sometimes, but had never really thought about it all that much. As a matter of fact, she had wanted nothing to do with sex at all since she was raped. She didn't read about it, didn't watch it on TV, never looked it up on the internet. It was something that she thought that she could do without.

There was something about seeing her parents do it, however, that was captivating. Her mother seemed to be so happy, her father was so gentle and loving. She stood and watched the entire scene unfold from the darkness of the doorway thinking about how wonderful it would be to make love like that. Her parents didn't notice her until they were done, and they were understandably embarrassed.

Abby had told them, quite frankly, that what they had just done was the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. After what was a rather lengthy discussion they had come to an agreement to where they would allow Abby to watch them in bed together. At first, they had all felt awkward about the situation, but after they had done it a few times, they were feeling more comfortable. Abby had graduated from watching from the doorway to sitting on the edge of the bed while they did it. She had even started to touch herself while her parents made love beside her.

Abby had thought that her parents were beginning to enjoy her being with them as much as she liked watching them. They were having sex more often and with more energy than they had ever done before. She was openly masturbating one night while her father was taking her mother from behind when she tried something different, breaking one of the rules that they had set. She kissed her mother, on the lips with passion, while her father was thrusting into her.

She had thought that doing that might possibly make her mother angry, or that maybe her father would stop and make her go away. It seemed to have the opposite effect, however. Her mother had kissed her back and pulled her closer. Her father smiled at her and continued to make love.

After that, Abby had been getting more and more involved each night. She felt safe and wonderful making love with her parents, the ultimate pleasure coming when her father penetrated her for the first time. The love that the three shared was unconditional and stronger that they had ever thought possible. They, of course, had kept it to themselves. Abby didn't think that the world needed to know about, anyway. She didn't like the world.

The three of them had continued making their love for years. Right up until the accident that took her parents away from her and Abby's entire world came crashing down. With her parents gone, she fell into a dark depression, far worse than how she was after being taken advantage of by the two boys. She had thought of taking her own life many times, but had never acted on it. She didn't think that she would ever be able to get over the loss of her mother and father.

Abby had agreed to come live with me even though she could have probably have made it on her own. At the time, though, she couldn't stand the thought of being totally alone. She thought that I would be able to understand at some level what it was that she was going through, I had just lost my sister, after all. It was an extremely hard decision to sell the only home that she had ever known and move out of state to live with me, an uncle that she barely knew. What had finally made up her mind was the fact that she couldn't stand being in the house anymore without her parents around. It just wasn't the same and she was constantly reminded of their loss by being in the empty house.

She didn't really know what to expect when she first came into my home. It appears as though she was surprised at how comfortable that she felt right away. She could tell that her and I were going to be fine together after the first couple of nights that she stayed.

Now she had found a new love with me, something that she wasn't sure that she would ever have again. From what she had written, it appeared as though she loved me dearly. I couldn't help but love her back even more. It wasn't just her parents that she had lost, she had lost her lovers, and had somehow put that behind her. I put the last page down and went off to find Abby. She was pacing around the kitchen, nervously trying to find things to clean while I had been reading.

"Do you still love me?" she asked.

"I love you more than I did before I read it, Abby. I'm going to love you for the rest of my life," I replied.

"Did it help you understand where I'm coming from?" she asked.

"It did. You ought to write stories for a living, or something," I said, putting my arms around her.

"Do you think so?" she asked with a smile.

"I'd go with fiction, though. Real life is a little too crazy to believe."

*****

I suppose that I should have been sickened and horrified at the tale that I had read of young Abby's life. I was, to some extent. The part where the boys had taken advantage of her enraged me, they had destroyed her mind and life as she knew it. They had instilled fears in her that she may never overcome. I could only hope that they had gotten shanked in juvie and were now burning in Hell.

It was extremely touching how she had written about the love affair that she had with her parents. They had clearly loved each other, probably with a stronger love that she and I share today. It's not something that most people understand, but Abby and I do. People could say that my sister, my brother-in-law, and myself have been guilty of taking advantage of a poor young girl in a fragile mental state, but Abby and I don't feel that way. Love is love, and we love each other, whether other people would like it or not.