Emmett squeezed my hand as we approached the house, the sensations from our kiss still ebbing and flowing through my body like the waves on an ocean shore.

There was a crowd of people waiting on the steps of the home and I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

"What's going on," I wondered aloud, the people coming more and more into focus.

"That's Christian's father. What the hell is he doing here?"

Emmett couldn't answer my question, however, but I was going to get the answers myself as I tore open the door to the Uber faster than I had ever left a car in my entire life.

Of course, my mother was still there, hanging onto his every word as if he were the messiah or something. Typical.

"Ah, Mr. Westmore, do what do I owe this displeasure?"

Harvey Westmore, father of my abuser, stared me up and down as if I were nothing to him. Even lesser than a fly or the dirt under his shoes.

The grey hair on his head grew more unruly by the day and I would have piped up and given him the advice to just bite the bullet and go bald if it weren't so damn ugly. Let him humiliate himself day in and day out in the courtroom. Maybe it'd give him less credibility if he looked like a mad man.

"Mrs. Montgomery. I have simply come under the pretense of hearing out your mother but I am really here to ask you to stop spreading those tasteless lies on the internet about my entire family! We all know the truth here so we can skip the baseless falsities and your lies."

I wanted to laugh in his face. I felt the anger boil up and bubble over, but I refused to stoop past his level. If I fed into the rage, then he would win.

"I'm not quite sure I know what you're talking about. I haven't lied to you a day in my life, I hardly even know you, we've only spoken a handful of times. I'm sure you remember, when you tried to discredit me in front of our entire town and my whole family, even though it was yours that was in the wrong? You'd do anything to protect your own, though, right? So much for truth and justice. Oh I forgot, you lawyers don't care if the client is even guilty though, especially if it's your son?"

That got the man even angrier, as he adjusted the tight suit jacket atop his plump figure.

"Young lady, you know exactly what I am talking about. I am a respected lawyer in this town and I can do lots of things, I am very powerful. I can make sure your father never sees a political office in his life!"

"Ooh, I'm so scared."

My mother paled at my mocking words but Lucas and Reed who were quietly watching the scene from afar snickered into their hands. I really had no idea what lies he thought I was spreading on the internet, but I couldn't care less about him in my daily life.

All I really tried to do was get over what happened to me at the hands of his son and try to move on with my life.

"I haven't posted anything online about you or your family in my entire life, so whatever it is that you're referring to is either an enemy of yours, or someone who is just really bored with their lives. Either way, you can kindly leave me, and my family alone."

My mother's eyes perked up when I mentioned the threats towards my family but I wasn't talking about her. If anything, I said it for my father's sake but I wasn't going to explain that to her. After what she did to me, making me out to be a liar about my abuse, she was dead to me. And she needed to know that.

"Harvey, I called you here to tell you that Lydia was telling the truth all those years ago. I lied because...because you were so powerful and I wanted my husband to have favor with you when it came time for him to run for police Commissioner. But I see now that all I was doing was hurting my daughter."

There was a silence that dragged out for a few moments while the man in front of us processed this new information.

Emmett came up behind me and placed a hand on the small of my back in a show of solidarity, a comfort that I didn't take for granted. I leaned into him slightly as we all waited with bated breath on what he had to say next.

"Everything that comes out of your mouths is a lie. My son is innocent."

"Oh yeah? How many other friends of Samantha's did Christian 'hook up' with? Sense a pattern? He's an abuser, and you're going to have to face the truth about it sooner rather than later, and I hope its the former. Think of all the innocent girls you'd be saving if you just let him take responsibility for what he's done."

"Slander. I could sue you for-"

"For what? Telling the truth, telling my truth? No, it's not slander, but I'm also not the one on the internet spreading the truth about you and your sadistic and guilt ridden family, that's someone else. So since you've heard my mother out, you can leave. Otherwise I'll be forced to call the police. Maybe I could even get a restraining order, too. On you and your entire family. I never want to see you ever again."

And with that, the aging man huffed and buttoned the top button on his black suit jacket, no matter how many tries it took his sausage fingers to get the button through the loop.

He escaped into his black Mercedes and reversed out of our driveway, and hopefully our lives, for good.

Lydia was one hell of a woman.

She faced her ex, got her songbook back, faced a man who had seriously traumatized her in her past and told off her mother all in the space of one day and I had yet to see her breakdown.

...Until we were alone in her room, away from her brother's prying eyes and Reed's sarcastic remarks.

"Are you okay?"

I knew those weren't the right words as soon as they fell out of my dumb mouth but I couldn't help it. I really did need to know if she was alright.

She fell onto her bed with a thud and plopped her back down, her hands resting clasped together on her stomach.

She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath of air, and that was when the tears began to fall.

"I'm fine. I think I just need to let it all out for a second. You can go, this can get kind of ugly."

"I'm not going anywhere."

And so I sat myself down beside her, holding her while her body spasmed with sobs that broke my heart into a million pieces.

I wanted to go out there and destroy the people that had done this to her, the people that were responsible for causing her so much pain.

She deserved happiness, to be crying tears of joy. Not these awful, heart wrenching tears that were streaked with the pain of trauma and abuse.

It was all becoming clearer and clearer as the days drug on about what had happened to her. I didn't want to make assumptions about the actual abuse, though, because if I did I knew I'd start saying the wrong thing, so I kept my mouth shut and my theories locked away in the back of my head until she was ready to tell me the whole truth.

Her tears dissipated after a few more minutes, but my shirt was soaked with the salty liquid.

Her eyes were red rimmed and filled with a sadness that I could comprehend deep down into my core. I hadn't cried like that since my mother...

But that was my story, and one that I didn't want to focus on when I was with Lydia. She was my main concern, my full focus.

"I think I'm okay now," she said, pulling herself off of me and into a sitting position on the bed.

"You know that I'm always here to talk, whatever you need, whenever you need it."

"I know," she said, but suddenly sat up a little straighter, a confused but determined look in her eyes.

"What is it?"

"Hand me my phone on the desk, please?"

I obliged her and she began furiously typing away on the screen, and I peeked over her shoulder to see what she had searched.

There were multiple articles popped up after she searched 'Harvey Westmore' and they were not pretty.

"Woah, this is pretty inflammatory," I said to her, but she couldn't stop reading, not even for a second.

"'An unknown minor was wrongfully railroaded in a sexual assault case headed by small town Texas lawyer Harvey Westmore. This big fish in small pond counselor spearheaded the case despite the personal implications. The defendant was none other than Christian Westmore- his son. Since this publication two days ago, thirteen young girls have come forward to identify the young Westmore as their abuser as well, and are calling the first victim who came forward to put him on trial a 'hero without a name'. This Jane Doe will live on in infamy as charges are being brought forth as we speak, and this time, we believe the charges will stick.'"

"Holy shit."

"Holy. Shit."

And this time, the tears that fell from her eyes...were from joy.