Chapter 15
Tony found Peter in his room curled up on the floor in a corner.
“He was wrong. I didn’t hurt Sky. I would never hurt her.” Peter said without looking up from where he had buried his head in between his crossed arms.
Tony slowly sat on the floor next to him, leaving about 3 feet of space between them. “I know buddy. You don’t need to convince me. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Lawrence was lying.”
“But I couldn’t keep her safe, not from her dad or the monster who got her pregnant in the first place.” Peter’s voice cracked as he glance up at Tony, eyes brimming with eyes and nose red. Tony could no longer fight of the need to comfort his son. He slid closer to him and wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders. Instantly, Peter burrowed his face into Tony’s chest. Sobs shook his entire body and soon Tony’s shirt was soaked with tears. He had never seen such raw emotion from Peter and it broke his heart that he could do nothing to help other than to hold him.
“It’s ok, let it out Pete, I’m here. I’m going anywhere.” He wasn’t sure how reassuring his words were, but it was the best he had at the moments. Chang had given Tony a quick run down of the situation. Skyler got pregnant around the time Peter was released from juvie and three months later, Skyler miscarried the baby after being attacked in her house. Her dad tried to put the whole thing on Peter, who had been working a double shift at the diner when everything went down, and the man’s insistence that Peter was to blame made Chang all the more suspicious that Skyler’s dad had something to do with it. Simon wasn’t sure if the baby was Peter’s or not, but he was convinced that Skyler would never cheat on Peter. Between that, and what Peter had just said, Tony was starting to get a clearer picture of what had actually happened, and it made him sick. He knew that logically, there was nothing he could do to fix this, but Tony had failed Peter at every turn and he didn’t want this to be just another time he let his son down.
“I should have been there for her! None of it would have happened if I hadn’t hurt Skip.”
“Hey, buddy, look at me.” Tony pulled back slightly so he could cup Peter’s wet face in his hands. “What happened to Skyler, has nothing to do with you. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sure you did everything you could to help her.”
“She deserves so much better than what life has given her. Than what I can give her.”
“Peter, all she wants is for you to be yourself. She loves you, and that’s enough. Do you want to tell me about what really happened to her?”
Taking a deep breath Peter started, “She was attacked by one of her dad’s friends. It was days before I was released. The first thing I did when I was out was to go to Skyler. I hid outside of her house until her dad left, then I snuck in. I found Skyler in her bed, a mountain of blankets piled on top of her even though it was the middle of May. I thought she had a fever or something. I called her name but she didn’t move so I tried to wake her up.” Peter sighed heavily, “The second I touched her, her eyes flew open and she just lost it. Screaming and crying, trying to hit me and scratch at my face. I kept trying to tell her it was just me, but it was like she couldn’t hear me. It was kinda like what happened with Steve the other day you know, the PTSD thing. Eventually I got her to calm down enough to tell me what had happened. And you wanna know something that’s messed up? She was worried I was going to be mad at her. Like I’d think it was her fault or something. That she had cheated on me.” Another sob broke through and cut off his words. “Why would she think that? Did she really think that I was that much of a prick to blame her for what happened? What kind of jerk would do that?”
“Sometimes sexual assault victims can feel guilty over what happened. There are a lot of factors that might make them feel that way. I’m sure Skyler knew that you didn’t think it was her fault, she was just scared and overwhelmed and didn’t want to lose you.” Tony said gently. Inside he was a mess, angry and heartbroken at what the young girl had gone through, and terrified of the world he was raising a daughter in.
“I didn’t blame her. But I have never been as furious as I was in that moment. I was going to kill that man Tony.” Peter shot a quick glance at Tony. “I’m not exaggerating. The second she told me, I started planning it all out. She told me who it was but begged me not to do anything. She said that me being sent back to jail would be worse than what happened. I told her that was stupid, that this was so much worse.” Peter shook his head. “I couldn’t comprehend someone loving me that much. To miss me so badly that losing me was the worst thing they could imagine. She made me promise to stay away from him. After she fell asleep, I called a buddy whose brother was notorious for…” He search for the right word. “Justice. I had looked out for my friend while we were in juvie together. He owned me, and his brother was grateful to me for keeping his little brother out of trouble. They made sure that that monster paid for what he did. And they kept me out of it, so I was able to keep my promise to Skyler.”
“Is the man who hurt Skyler still around?” Tony asked, hoping the question came across casual, but based on the look Peter gave him, he knew that his intentions were transparent.
“With what the police found on that man’s computer, he won’t ever walk free again.” Peter smirked. “After a brutal, random, mugging, the man apparently had a sudden change of character, and turned himself, and his hard drives, in to the police.”
“Good. That is… good. But if his status ever changes, you come to me. And I will make sure to find something else to land him right back behind bars.”
Peter looked at Tony questioningly for a moment then nodded. “Will do.”
“Do you want to tell me the rest of the story?”
Sighing Peter shrugged, but he knew that he had to keep going. He had kept everything locked up deep within himself for so long, and now that he had started talking, the words just poured out. “When Skyler told me she was pregnant, I thought she was messing with me. We hadn’t, you know, done it, and I didn’t even think about him. Once I saw how serious she was, I put two and two together. We talked about our options all night, and once the sun came up, I asked her what she wanted to do. She said that she wanted to give this baby the life we never had. I told her that no matter what, I would love the baby like it was my own. Because she was my family, which meant the baby was part of my family too. I had no idea what it meant to be a dad, but I knew that I couldn’t do it broke, so I buckled down and finished school early. I got two jobs, working at the diner in the morning and late at night, and stocking a bodega in between. I saved every penny I had, hiding it all at Skyler’s place because I knew if I brought it into the foster home I was staying in someone would steal it, no matter how well I tried to hide it. It would be tight, but I really thought we’d make it work.” Peter huffed out a harsh laugh. “I look back now and can’t believe how naive we were. Nothing in our lives had ever gone our way, why would we think we would get our happily ever after?”
“I had just gotten out of work when I got a call from Sky. She just said that she was in the hospital, I need to stay away for a little bit, and that she had lost the baby.” Peter’s words were shaky and Tony squeeze his hand tightly. “The cops came a by that night and picked me up. Lawrence and his partner were convinced I had attacked Sky. They tried to pin the whole thing on me, coming up with all sorts of awful reasons that I would hurt her and the baby. They couldn’t prove anything, obviously, and I had been at work all day. It wasn’t until a week after that I was able to see Skyler. That was the worst week of my life. I hated that she was hurt and I couldn’t do anything about it. When she told me what really happened, that her dad had beat her until she lost the baby, I nearly ran down the hall and killed him myself. I begged Skyler to report him, but she was terrified of going into the foster system. She said that she could live through the fear of being beat again, but she couldn’t live through being raped again, and she was convinced that if she went into the system, she would be. I wanted to tell her otherwise, but I couldn’t. Because with a girl like her, there was a pretty high chance that her deepest fear would come true. We named the baby Mercy because after everything we had gone through, all we needed was a little mercy from the world. We never got that mercy.”