I took a breath and exhaled slowly. I tried to ignore the way my body shook. The last time I'd said these words, I was sixteen years old, sitting at the large round kitchen table in my childhood home. My parents had sat opposite, and the distance between us had felt unsurmountable.

"He was my biology teacher. Mr R... Mr Rettie..." My breath flew out of me, like his name was a noxious gas I had to expel.

Call him by his fucking name instead of hiding behind some nickname.

"Christopher Rettie."

My diligent and dutiful biology teacher. He used to walk through the common room in his crisp white shirt, tight black trousers, and day-old stubble. He was a god to every girl in there.

Me and my—is friends the right word?—'friends' used to call him Willoughby, like that guy from Sense and Sensibility. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. With thick wavy hair and brown brooding, seductive eyes.

"When I was fourteen, he put me in detention, and he..." I steeled myself as the memory stepped forth from the darkness. I slipped my hands from Atticus', picking at my fingernails. "Let's just say he had a thing for short skirts and knee-high socks."

I ground my teeth as I felt my heart hammer in my chest. I could remember it like it was yesterday. The way my blood had rushed when he told me how special I was. How he said he wanted me so badly he could hardly make it through a lesson without thinking about kissing me. As a teen so heavily devoted to rom-coms and epic love stories, it was like fantasy had been brought to life. Regardless of how twisted it really was.

Within moments of starting detention, I was under his desk unzipping those tight trousers. My innocent mind being led blindly by his coaxing words.

Olivia had been right: good girls fall the hardest. I was, back then, and I did. It wasn't just that he'd showered me with compliments and attention, it was that he made me think he saw the girl I wanted to be. The fun, bubbly, beautiful creature that walked into a room and was noticed for more than her grades and academic accolades. After what had felt like a lifetime of being loved for my achievements, and the bright future I could have, I'd fallen hard for the idea that I could be loved for nothing more than being 'me'.

"For two years I thought he loved me. It took two years for me to realise he didn't. Not even close."

Each week my skirts got shorter, and the number of detentions rose. It was months of screwing around before anyone found out. I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person, my supposed best friend of the time. She betrayed that trust the second she thought she could barter my secret for a boost in social status. My 'friends' soon turned on me. It wasn't long after that when the rumours seeped beyond the school. They crept like ivy over stone, crumbling the foundations of the life I'd known.

I could have stopped it all. I could have said no to Teacher, but he was so persuasive, so nice.

As nice as he was at times, there were times when he wasn't so nice. Times when I would want a little more than he was willing to give. Or he took more than I was willing to part with. Foolishly, I didn't realise it was only sex to him. Like all young girls I thought he actually liked me because he liked my kisses and gave me touches. Even when he called me a dumb bitch and shoved me away, I thought it was my fault, that somehow, I'd angered him. It only got worse when everything was revealed when I was sixteen. I was imagining freedom, a new life with him. Instead, I got bruises and scars I thought would never heal.

"The school board found out, eventually. And when they did, there was an investigation."

My mouth twitched into a bitter smirk. "But he was smart. He never left a paper trail. No text messages, no emails, no letters. No trace he ever did anything except teach me biology. It was like it never happened." I didn't miss how ironic that fact was.

I used to try and blame him for the way my life had turned out. The fact I gave up on my dream of becoming a Vet and settled for the life I led now. But as time wore on, I convinced myself that he was just the catalyst. The reason I failed was because I had been weak. I had let myself get led astray, distracted from something I knew I loved by someone I thought I loved. I'd trusted someone so explicitly that I had blinded myself to the world around me and the path they were leading me down. That was day I told myself I would never truly trust anyone again. Soon that armour encompassed me and, without me realising, it became my tomb.

"It was my word against his. And at the time his was worth more."

A beat of silence passed between us, punctuated by the pained creak of leather groaning under strain. I glanced up to see Atticus' hand gripped around the steering wheel while the other flexed in a fist against his thigh, like he was anchoring himself in the car. His cool hard glare was fixed on the doors to the Centre, but it softened as his gaze dropped to mine.

"You knew who he was, didn't you?" I murmured as I took in the rage painted across his chiselled face.

His jaw clenched as his dipped his head in a curt nod. "I sensed that something had happened in your past, but I didn't know what. Then I saw your face that day he came to the bar with that girl... The way he looked at you..." Rage rumbled in his voice and the steering wheel screeched as his fist tightened around it. "You hid it well, but it was written all over his face. He was lucky to leave alive."

"You never said anything."

"There was nothing to say. Either you would tell me one day or you wouldn't." The hand balled against his thigh reached for mine. "It didn't change anything. Not for me."

His hand closed around mine, heat seeping down, warming my bones.

"I hate that he hurt you," he said, and his sincerity shone in his eyes.

"Me too."

"I feel..." he paused, his face twisting into a mask of cool venomous rage. "It would be worth the pages to bring him back, just to feel his bones break in my hand."

A low gravelly growl of rage laced his voice. It sent a tingle down my spine. A rocket of adrenaline, fizzing in the pit of my stomach.

I should have wanted him to think rationally. I should have taken the moral high ground and said he shouldn't want to hurt Christopher, Chris. He had been human after all, but for a moment I imagined watching Atticus hold him in his hands. Doing what I couldn't. He was taller than Chris, and stronger too. In my mind I could see him raise Chris above his head, a strong powerful hand clasped around his neck as his legs flailed and kicked, fighting fruitlessly for his life.

I couldn't lie and say the image didn't bring a degree of gratification. Even if I had walked away from my own chance for revenge.

"If you had told me, I would have done it," Atticus murmured, his eyes watching me with a seductive sincerity. "I would have made him pay for what he did to you." His tone was lethal. "He would have disappeared, and no one would have ever known."

"I know." My voice was just a whisper as his fervour knocked the wind from my lungs.

The image of Chris struggling flashed in my mind, but this time it wasn't his pained face I focussed on. It was the look of enjoyment on Atticus'. It was just a daydream, but in that moment, I saw the darkness of Chris' eyes reflected in his own and I knew it was something I never wanted to see, not if we could avoid it.

"Is he the reason why you don't see your parents?"

I bit my lip as I thought of my parents and the impact of tonight's revelations.

"They didn't believe you?" Atticus probed.

"They believed me, which was the problem."

Atticus' brow creased with confusion.

"They didn't want to when I told them, but eventually it sank in." I could still remember the way my mum's tears had soaked through my school shirt as she held me. Like if she could just hold me tight enough, she could somehow protect me from myself. "That was the first night I went to bed and felt like everything was going to be OK. They'd fix it, somehow. Then the next day they acted like the whole thing had never happened."

I fought back the tears threatening to fall.

"They spoke to the schoolboard and said I was infatuated. That it had all just been a schoolgirl crush that got out of hand. That I was delusional, and I'd lied about the whole thing. Like I was back to being five and imagining things that couldn't happen."

I could remember it like yesterday. The suffocating feeling of betrayal, of knowing that the last slither of hope had been snuffed out.

"The night after they returned from speaking to the board, I left. And I haven't seen them since."

I swiped at a tear as it rolled down my cheek.

"For years I've thought that my own parents knew what he had done, but they valued their reputation more than their own daughter. Except, that was all a lie, because they didn't know. They didn't remember because she hid it from them."

The tears fell freely as the reality of what I'd lost, and the asinine nature of it, settled over me.

Atticus brushed the tears from my cheeks with soft tender strokes. Gently, he tucked his finger under my chin and lifted it until my gaze met his.

"It's never too late to fix it, Anna. Whenever you're ready."

And despite the impossibility of it, I believed him.

I took a shaky breath and nodded with a watery smile. He pulled me against his chest and placed a kiss into my hair.

"Come on. Nightmare will have missed you," he murmured. I smiled against his damp t-shirt, basking in the sense of safety and warmth he exuded.

I curled up on the car seat and tucked my knees under my chin. As the warmth of the car lulled me to sleep, I waited for the bitter voices and spiteful memories to rear their head, but they never came. Instead, I felt lighter than I had in years.