Chapter 7

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New Year's morning was unusually warm, and Alex was surprised to see Bernie pull up in front of the Phi Delta Epsilon house. He walked briskly and called her name when she got out. She turned and flashed him a beautiful smile. He noticed she was holding a food container and wondered what wonderful flavors she brought him for din-fast, what she called his end of shift morning meals. His stomach rumbled.

"Hey, you, how was the twenty-four-hour shift?" She asked as they hugged, but this time, instead of a quick embrace, he held her. She smelled like coffee, almond soap, and spices.

"I didn't have anyone to kiss at midnight," he complained.

She tipped her head, and giggled, assuring him. "Neither did I, but I never have, so it's no..."

His lips were on hers and she was too surprised to resist. She felt herself melting as she tentatively kissed him back. Her heart felt like it was trying to beat out of her chest. When he lifted his lips from hers, he whispered, "Happy New Year's, thanks for the good luck kiss."

"Wha-what?" she stammered breathlessly.

He glanced at his watch, "It's just after midnight in Hawaii. So, we're only a few minutes late."

Bernie nodded, barely breathing. "Hawaii?"

"My family lives there. Next year, I am going to take you there, Bernadette. I am going to kiss you on the beach at midnight while fireworks go off over the ocean," he promised.

"Oh..." she breathed out staring up at him with wide eyes. "Okay..."

"Hey, you done groping my sister, Doc?" Trixie demanded from the other side of Bernie's car. "I'm Trixie, you must be Alex."

Alex eyed her over Bernie's head, "Yeah, nice to meet you." He noticed several of his frat brothers were watching Mike and Trixie, but he turned his attention back to Bernie. "Thanks for breakfast."

"It's your favorite," she promised.

"Anything you make me is my favorite. I'll see you at six." Alex bent to give her a peck, but she clung to him and kissed him back clumsily. It made him happy to realize he must be the first beau she kissed.

Smirking, Trixie glanced back at the house then basically molested Mike as she passionately kissed him goodbye. She purred to him, "Next time, I come to visit my sister, I'll visit you to cum, if you don't mind?" She gave him a slow knowing wink.

"No, I don't mind at all." Mike grinned down at her, admiring how the morning light made her hair look like it was on fire. She looked like beautiful wearing one of his shirts tied over her tiered silk skirt and carrying her bustier.

"Let me know and I'll even take a few days off to show you more art galleries." He stepped back and opened the passenger door for Trixie as Alex did the same for Bernie.

They watched Bernie's car drive away.

"What have you got there?" Mike asked as they walked back toward the house.

"Bernie made me breakfast." Alex inhaled the smell of his frittata with grilled chilis and tomatillos. "So, how'd you meet Trixie?"

"Bernie introduced us at the party last night." Mike yawned and stretched.

"Uh dude, you got a bite mark on your neck."

"That's not the only place." Mike reached up and rubbed the red mark on his neck. "Seriously, I think Bernie's sister has ruined me for normal girls."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Really? How was it?"

"Which time? Because all three were amazing." Mike admitted with a tired laugh, "Man, I gotta get some sleep, I'm on duty at the hospital in six hours."

"Maybe you should eat this, instead of me," Alex offered, holding the food container out to Mike as they walked inside.

Mike opened it and took a deep sniff, groaning with pleasure, "You are a saint and a humanitarian, Dr. Marvillis."

Suddenly, they were surrounded by their frat brothers. Luke who was working on his master's in business pharmaceutical advertising demanded, "Okay, spill it, Mike. Where did you find that goddess and how is she connected to Alex's coffee girl?"

"A gentleman doesn't sex and tell." Mike waved them off. "I am eating and going to bed, ask Alex."

Alex laughed as Mike slunk upstairs, seeming to shrink tiredly with each step like a toy running out of battery life. "That, my brothers, is Bernie's sister, Trixie, visiting for the weekend. She is a barista too and is out of all you bums' league. Mike just got lucky to be in the right place, at the right time, and Bernie introduced them. As for the rest, I was at work. I don't know nuthin'!"

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"Sis, it's time. Is there something wrong with him? Is he a freak or too demanding?" Trixie demanded quietly.

"No... he's really nice. And so cute. He comes by every night to see me, even when he's off-duty and should be getting sleep. His favorite memory is of his grandfather, isn't that sweet?" Bernie stopped babbling suddenly, chewing her lip as she always did when she got nervous. "I think I'm falling in love with him but I... I don't want to rush into anything. I don't want to be like Jane," she finished in a low voice.

"Trust me as Jane 2.0, you're nothing like Mom," Trixie said swiftly. She held out her empty bowl to her sister. "Have you told him... about IT?"

Bernie shook her head rapidly. "What if he doesn't want to date me afterward?" Her fearful question was a whispered plea for hope.

"You need to tell him before it goes any further," Trixie said wisely. "He's going to know something's off the first time the two of you have sex."

Bernie nodded, then wiped a tear away. "Trixie, what if I can't..."

Trixie walked over and hugged Bernie, "If he's a good guy, he'll understand. He'll wait until you're ready and he'll go at your pace. When the time is right, you'll want to. And it's going to be weird and awkward, but most off all, you can't let yourself compare him to Winston."

"I know, it was a long time ago," Bernie whispered into her sister's shoulder in a defeated tone.

"I didn't say that. I meant because this time will be because he loves you and you love him and it won't be based on a lie so he can abuse you," Trixie assured her.

"Do you really think someone who is going to be a doctor could love someone like me?" Bernie asked in her insecurity.

Trixie squeezed her and pressed a kiss into her cheek. "Sis, he'd be a fool if he didn't."

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Warning: the next part of the chapter has triggers for people who are child abuse survivors.

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When Alex arrived, he did his best not to drool. He was addicted to Bernie's cooking. He bought several pairs of new jeans while Bernie was gone. It made him feel very satisfied to be able to just buy them, and not have to have them tailored because he was too thin and too tall to buy off the shelf. His brother always teased him about being the Thin Man, but now he was gaining weight and bulking up too. Trixie was sitting on a barstool with her legs crossed, watching Bernie cook. She was wearing sweats with her hair piled on top of her head like an upside-down mop.

"Hey, Felix right?" Trixie taunted him.

He just smiled, "Close enough, Pixie." She laughed.

Bernie set several plates of breaded onion rings and deep-fried veggies in front of them. "Try these. But keep the plates in order, I am working on breading recipes for the cookbook."

"What cookbook?" Trixie asked nibbling.

Bernie gave Alex a nod, so he explained as she turned back to the stove. "I suffered a lot with my food allergies growing up. There were just so many things I couldn't eat, but your sister is working on recipes to get me around that, and now, I am at a normal weight for a guy my size. She is helping me compile a recipe book so when I finish school and start working as a pediatric allergy specialist, I... well... We can help other kids enjoy the food everyone else eats without risking being made ill."

"Wow, sis, you didn't tell me that. You just said you cooked for him because he was starving from lack of allergen-free food. Number three has a weird texture, rubbery. But I like one and four, nice and spicy." Trixie said critically, pushing the offending plate back toward Bernie.

Alex thought they all tasted great. "I like them all."

"That's because you've never had the real thing. Trust me, three is off. The flavor is good, but it has the texture of a cheap sponge." Trixie took a drink from a glass of red wine.

"You'd know all about the texture of spongy things," Bernie teased as she scooped out more dipped vegetables from two pots of boiling oil then turned and put the two new plates on the counter and their notecards on the counter.

Trixie smirked as she gave Alex the side-eye. "Not my fault... I only like certain spongy things, and only when they are... firmly in hand." She wiggled her eyebrows at her sister, who laughed.

Alex choked on a piece of battered zucchini. Both sisters looked at him with identical raised eyebrows. "It's h-hot," he choked out, and Bernie handed him a glass of water with an amused blush.

Trixie just rolled her eyes, and sampled the new plates, "Neither. But six might be good over fruit." Then she stood up and smiled at them both.

"Gotta get back tonight, I'm working the open at the coffee shop tomorrow. Nice to see you again, Alan." Trixie smirked.

Bernie rolled her eyes, "Really?"

Trixie shrugged, "What? I'm a barista, I'm supposed to get everyone's name wrong. Part of the job."

Minutes later, Bernie was standing at the door waving at her sister, with Alex over her shoulder.

As he followed her back to the kitchen, he declared, "I don't think your sister likes me."

"She likes you fine, she's just worried about me. I've... I've just n-never..." She stuttered to a stop, she wasn't sure what she and Alex were.

Alex followed her into the kitchen, he made himself leave space between them. He had dreamed about the kiss they shared earlier that morning. "Had a boyfriend?"

Bernie looked at him with a mixture of hope, terror, and doubt. "No... Alex... there... there's somethings... you need to know about me and if... if you want to leave after, I'll understand."

Alex cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her as gently as he could, fighting down the raging passion he felt. When they paused to breathe, he whispered, against her forehead, "Bernie, I won't leave you."

He led her to the living room and sat her on the old, overstuffed sectional, looking out at the rain. "I'll make us some tea. Then I want you to tell me anything and everything, no matter how scary it is, so I can make sure I never hurt you or make you feel afraid." He went back to the kitchen, and, in just two minutes, he was back with two steaming mugs, her tea box, and the honey.

Bernie sighed and inhaled her favorite chamomile-rose blend. The scent reminded her of her grandmother, and she reminded herself that she was an Austen woman, and they were strong.

She had told a few people she trusted about IT. She knew she should tell him and if he changed his mind about her, she would just love him from afar and spend her life alone because she couldn't imagine feeling for anyone like she felt for him ever again.

"When I was eleven, Jane, our mother, started dating a new guy, Winston. He seemed really nice, always buying us gifts and telling us he was like Winnie the Pooh, just a big teddy bear. When we watched movies, he always wanted us to sit on either side of him. He said it was, so he could hold us, if we got scared. Sometimes we would watch adult movies and cartoons when Jane wasn't home. He said not to tell her because she didn't like us to watch too much TV and it was true, so Trixie and I thought we were getting a treat. They were rated R and rated X, but we didn't know that. We didn't know anything about sex or child molesters." She shuddered.

"He began touching us. He called it our special sharing time, and that we shouldn't tell Jane because she would get jealous that he loved us more. He would have these poker parties and get drunk. On those nights, he and Jane fought, then would have wild, loud sex."

She choked a little on the bile rising in her throat. "Sometimes, he would take me out for strawberry sundaes on the way home from dance class. She caught him touching me on the outside of my clothes, but he said he was just trying to get spilled sundae off the outside of my leotard, so I wouldn't get in trouble for asking for ice cream. I thought he was trying to protect me from her, so I lied and said it was my fault." She wrung her hands together as she continued.

"He... he told me I was going to be a beautiful woman, and that I already was prettier than Jane. My breasts were starting to grow, and they hurt so much, he would rub them and other places. Everything he did to me; he did to Trixie too. Then about a month before my twelfth birthday, he showed me a video with oral sex in it and asked me to give him a blow job."

Her face heated with humiliation at what she let Winston do to her. "He said Jane never did anything special for him. He said he didn't love her like he loved us, but he didn't want to leave her because she didn't love us, and he didn't want us to get dumped off on our grandmum again... he... he said he wanted us to be a family. Daddy and daddy's l-little g-girls h-had been his dr-dream. Then he... he..."

Alex held her gently as she sobbed, rubbing her back, murmuring repeatedly, "You're safe, it's over now. I'll never let anyone hurt you."

When she calmed enough to stop, he got up and got her another cup of hot water for tea, and chilled water for both of them. Bernie looked at him gratefully. "Thank you."

"Sweetie, you don't have to tell me all at once. If you need a break..." Alex had never had anyone talk to him about this as a personal experience. He knew the patient protocols for dealing with rape victims, he knew the statistics, and he knew from Mike it was devastating, but this was Bernie, his Bernie, and her words infuriated and infused him with a sense of helplessness he hadn't expected. His training wasn't preparation enough to hear it in a first-person account.

She bowed her head, then looked away. The rain was falling onto the glass out of the darkness and leaving trails of reflected light and shadow. "I understand..." She desperately tried to put her pain back in the soul box her therapist told her to keep it in, but she had never been able to throw that particular pain away the way she had her mother's rejection.

Her sudden change confused him. Alex hesitated then asked, "Understand what?"

"You don't want to know the rest, it's too terrible," Bernie responded vacantly.

"No... Bernadette, if you want to tell me, then tell me, if you want to stop, then stop. It isn't about me. Please, I'm here for you," he begged.

Bernie looked at him. "But it bothers you."

"Yes, it does. It makes me angry this happened to you, and I am honored you are willing to share it with me," Alex revealed. "Please. Keep going."

Bernie nodded, pressing the mug to her lips and gulping the hot tea. She just needed a moment.

"Winston sent Jane to a spa for the weekend a month after my birthday. He told me he planned a special night for us. That it was time, I became his real princess. He made Trixie go to bed early and we had a candlelight dinner, just like a real date from the movies. He even made me a strawberry sundae for dessert and let me have a glass of wine, like Jane. I fell asleep while he was t-touching me and p-putting his f-fingers..." She stammered to a stop again.

"It's okay, just talk through it."

"I... I woke up laying under h-him, it hurt so bad I started screaming... H-he told me to shut up and take it if I wanted to be his special princess... But I couldn't stop crying... Every time he moved... it hurt, then he began to choke me until I p-passed out." Bernie's nails were digging into her palms to the point Alex feared they would bleed.

"How did you escape?" he whispered in dread.

"The phone rang, and Trixie answered it. Grandmum heard me screaming in the background, Trixie was crying, so Grandmum came with the police. I woke up in the hospital. Jane wasn't there. Winston got out on bail and killed himself before she even got back from the spa. She blamed me." Bernie shook with the memory of how angry her mother became.

"Jane yelled at me for being too stupid to tell her before I was raped, like it was all my fault. But I didn't know. I never knew my father; I didn't know how to be a proper daughter. Grandmum Emma took us from Jane rather than let us go to foster care and Jane blamed me for that too."

She looked back out the window. "A year later, Jane showed up and took me out to dinner for a belated birthday. She was drinking, and she forced me to eat a strawberry sundae. She told me it was an accident, a misunderstanding I need to get over. She drove drunk and had an accident on the way home. I slammed into the door and broke my arm." Bernie rubbed her arm unawares as she continued.

"She left the hospital to make the police report but instead of going to the police station, she went to a martini bar, then wrecked Grandmum's car and died. The last thing I heard her say about me to my grandmum was I was overdramatic and selfish, and she couldn't deal with me anymore. That she was going to take Trixie to live with her new fiancé and leave me behind." Bernie's hands clenched into fists again. "She moved us in with a convicted pedophile because she needed a man to pet her ego, then blamed us for what happened. Blamed me enough she was going to take Trixie away from me and leave me alone like she was while she was growing up."

Alex took her hands and massaged the palms with his thumbs. "I understand why you call her Jane instead of mom now. I can't imagine how horrible it was to live through that. Thank you for telling me."

"I had to... because Trixie said, I needed to make you understand why... why I... I can't... you know... sex and stuff... I'm afraid..." Stammering, Bernie waited for him to leave.

Instead, he tipped her chin, so she looked at him, and she was mesmerized again by his ice blue eyes. His voice and words were a balm to her tortured soul. "We'll take as long as you need, to feel comfortable. But I think you need to talk to someone, Bernie. A professional. There's a really nice lady at the hospital, I'll see if I can get you an appointment."

"Alex, my student insurance doesn't cover things like that," She protested. "I can't afford it."

"I'll do the referral paperwork to get it covered, it won't cost a thing." He pressed a kiss into her forehead and pulled her against his chest as he reclined back. "We'll make it work. Baby steps to better. I love you, Bernadette. You're the most kind, gentle-hearted, and amazing woman I've ever known. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me."

Bernie breathed in the scent of his soap and skin, "Are you sure?" her fears asked.

"I have never been more sure of anything in my life. Be my girlfriend, marry me someday." He whispered into her hair.

Bernie giggled, thinking he was joking. "Ask me again next year."

"I promise."

They lay there in the dim light of the table lamp, watching the rain on the big window into the backyard until they both fell asleep.