Page 44 of Honest Neglect

With him behind bars, I had decided it was time I finally laid a few things to rest. I wanted to look Tony in the eye and tell him everything he had done to me, the way he had harmed me, and I would take it from there. I knew it wasn’t going to change anything about what I had been through, but at least it would lift some of that weight from my shoulders, and I could focus on healing once more.

Warren gripped my hand tightly as we headed into the prison to meet with Tony; we had been given special dispensation to see him, and I couldn’t believe I was actually going through with this. I had gone back and forth a hundred times about whether or not this was really a good idea, if I was just walking into a part of my life I should have left behind. But it was all about closing the door on the past, and I wasn’t going to be able to do that until I had made sure Tony understood the harm he had caused.

Inside, we were guided to a small, blank room made of concrete. A glass window cut us off from Tony on the other side, and I tensed as soon as I saw him. He glowered at me, but he knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do right now. He was going away for a long time, and the power he’d once held over me and the other women he had abused was well and truly gone.

Warren was right behind me, a hand on my shoulder as I picked up the handset that would allow me to talk to Tony. My hand was trembling, but I pushed forward. He didn’t have any power over me anymore, he couldn’t—he had done so much, hurt me so badly, but now he was nothing more than a pathetic loser who had signed his own warrant by spilling as much as he had to us.

“Tony,” I greeted him, doing my best to keep my voice steady.

“What the fuck do you want?” he spat back at me.

“I want to tell you all the ways you hurt me,” I told him, feeling a wash of calm suddenly run through me.

I found myself spilling it all to him. Telling him everything he had done to me, making sure he understood all the ways he had harmed me. I could tell he hadn’t been ready for this, judging by the way he slid his gaze away from mine, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to hear it all. He obviously didn’t even remember half of it, which made my head spin slightly—how was it that he could just have forgotten about everything that had happened? Had it all meant so little to him, the abuse he had enacted on me, that it had blurred with what he had done to all those other women? I spat out the words to him, making sure he heard each and every one—not just for myself but for all his other victims, too. I doubted any of the rest of them would come down here and speak to him, but I could fill in the gaps for all of us. I could make sure he had to listen to the extent of what he had done and feel the guilt for the nightmare he had put us all through.

By the time I was done, I felt vindicated in a way I hadn’t before. I rose to my feet as I hung up the handset, staring at Tony on the other side of the glass. He looked stunned, as though he had just been hit by a car, and I stared down at him with triumph in my eyes.

“Goodbye, Tony,” I told him, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, and I turned my back on him. Warren raised his eyebrows at me.

“You ready to go?” he asked, and I nodded.

“I’m ready,” I replied, and he took my hand and led me away from Tony for good.

“You really let him have it,” Warren remarked as soon as we had made it out of the cold concrete block of the prison.

“I’ve been holding on to a lot of that stuff for a while now,” I explained. “I guess it just all came flooding out of me.”

“It’s good for him to hear all of that,” he replied. “He needs to know why what he did was wrong. Maybe some of that will actually start sinking in, and he’ll accept the harm he’s caused.”

“Oh, I think we’re a long way from that yet,” I replied, shaking my head. I could see from the defiant look on his face that he still thought he was going to get away with this, no matter how obvious it might have been to everyone else that it was over.

“It doesn’t matter,” Warren remarked as we reached the car. “He’s locked up now. And it’s just a couple of months till the trial...”

“Damn, is it that soon?” I asked, pulling a face. I still had so much work to do in getting all the women together and ready to testify—several more had come forward, and I was trying to gather them all into one place so we would be able to support each other through the journey ahead. We alone understood what we had been through, and we were the best support system we could have asked for.

And so many of them, I had found, were so much stronger than I could have imagined. I had always seen myself as weak for falling for Tony’s games, but seeing that they had been drawn into it too reminded me just how far he had gone and just how hard he had worked to make me doubt everything I knew about myself, and seeing the way he had done it to other women, I had started to blame myself less.

We climbed back into the car, and Warren smiled over at me.

“I’m really proud of you, Lily,” he told me as he took the wheel. “I can’t imagine how much strength it took to go in there and tell him just what you thought of him, after everything he’s done to you.”

“Easier now he’s behind bars,” I replied, managing a smile. I was still a little shaky from seeing him again, but it felt like a weight had lifted off my shoulders. Even if he would never take responsibility for everything he had done, he would, at least, have heard how badly he had hurt me. He would have to live with that knowledge, and that was something.

We headed back to my mom’s place, and Barry was already there when I arrived—had he stayed the night? Warren and I had been out for dinner the night before, and when I had come home, she’d already been in her bedroom. Had he been there with her? I smirked at the thought. It was kind of cute, seeing my mom fall for someone like this. I had never seen her look so young or vibrant, as though all this attention was filling her up with a new life force.

“How did it go?” she asked me as soon as I entered the kitchen for a coffee. I nodded.

“I think about as well as it could,” I admitted. “I didn’t get an apology or anything like that, but I didn’t expect one. Just telling him all of that, it felt like enough.”

“You should have heard her in there,” Warren added. “She went in on him so hard...”

“That’s my girl,” Mom laughed, and I couldn’t help but laugh too. A great big bubble of joy rose up inside of me as it hit me—we were one more step toward having this over and done with for good. One more step to leaving this all behind.

And in a matter of weeks, Mark and Tony would be behind bars for good, and I could move on with my life.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lily