Chapter 11 Aria
ARIA
“Stop fighting, goddamn it.”
The putrid scent of vodka lingers on his breath as he shoves me back into the couch, his sweaty hand sliding up my shirt. I try to kick, to yell, but his other hand clamps over my mouth.
“Lower your voice,” he hisses, but I don’t.
I keep thrashing, trying to push him off, but his heavy, overweight frame is too much for an elementary school girl.
Desperation takes over. I do the only thing I can think of: I bite down on the hand across my mouth, hard.
“AHH, you fucking bitch!”
His hand jerks away, but before I can react, it swings back down on my cheek, hard enough to make my head swing back and my vision blur. Tears stream hot and fast down my face, but the sharp sting of his slap is nothing compared to the shame I’m drowning in.
“Steven?” My mom’s breathy voice drifts in from around the corner. “What…What’s going on?” she asks nervously.
“Nothing, babe,” he says, his voice dripping with mock sweetness. “Just teaching our little girl a valuable lesson. You act like a whore; you get treated like one.” He hacks a thick glob onto the floor, then inspects the hand I’d bitten.
“Stevie, honey, let's leave her alone,” she says with a slight tremor.
She’s scared of him. Of course, she always is. It’s unusual for her to intervene in a moment like this, probably from being too high to grasp the gravity of what’s happening. That’s all they ever do together, strung up on drugs or too drunk to function.
Reluctantly, he saunters over to her, mumbling slurs along the way. Hand in hand, they retreat up the stairs together, and not once does she glance back at me as they both disappear over the rail.
Tears stream down my agitated cheeks. It stings like the time I tripped playing tag and scraped my face against the carpet.
Only back then, Mom was there to soothe the burn with a cool cloth and a generous dollop of petroleum jelly, singing me a soft lullaby.
Seething hurt cinched tight around my wallowing heart.
I sit with it alone. Not the rug burn, or even the hardest slap, could sting more than her abandonment in this moment.
Usually, I wake with a violent jolt and a choked sob caught in my throat. But this time, my whimpers fade at the feel of something warm and solid wrapped around me. Gentle whispers of reassurances lull me back toward sleep.
“Everything will be okay,” the voice murmurs. My guardian angel fighting off the bad dreams and pulling me back into quiet.
My head instinctively jerks away from the window, shielding myself from the blinding sunrays spilling in, but I freeze when a sudden pressure tightens around my waist as I shift.
My breath hitches, an eerie chill coasting along my skin.
Carefully, I part my lashes, their wispy ends veiling my sight but leaving just enough to catch the blurred edge of his shadow before I dare open them wider.
He’s here.
In my bed.
Next to me.
My heart stutters. The air thickens—too hot, too scarce. How did this happen?
I count backward from ten, desperate to piece it together, but I can hardly remember a thing, until—oh, God.
Another nightmare.
They’ve only grown worse since Mom left, triggering a domino effect that finally toppled after I was taken.
Still, that doesn’t explain why he’s in bed with me. His arms burn a hole through the thick layer of clothes I have on, but I stay perfectly still, afraid to even breathe the wrong way.
Those same hands have ended a person's life, maybe countless lives, and now they’re on me.
Touching me. I’m horrified when a confusing, mortifying thrill sparks through my body at the feel of them, my core tightening as I tilt my head just enough to take him in.
Eyes closed. Hair tousled. The harsh lines that usually frame his face are softened in sleep.
He’s so…beautiful. It guts me.
I want to forget it all. To go back to when we were strangers on a snowy morning, pretending nothing ever came after. Keep my stupid infatuation buried deep where it belongs, and carry on with the life that was ripped from me.
His hand stirs, the faintest movement against my taut stomach, and fear springs back to my chest. There’s a jolt of something else there, too.
Something dark and disturbingly addictive.
Driven by instinct alone, my muscles clench. My breath falters, but I don’t wrench myself away like I should. Instead, my eyes stay glued to his as they snap open. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to, his gaze pinning me down in a daunting stare. My breath deepens. Neither of us utter a word.
Hidden beneath his hard features is a sickening sense of amusement that always seems to twist the corners of his lips. He’s taking joy in my discomfort.
Suddenly, his hand glides lower across my abdomen, fingers skating my waistband. My stomach hollows out. But more embarrassingly, a rush of heat shoots down into my core.
His eyes glaze over. Predatory.
Then he gives my drawstrings a sturdy tug. Taunting me. Baiting me for my reaction.
My tongue grows too heavy to form anything coherent, so I keep my lips tightly pressed together and plead with my eyes instead.
I’m not sure what he sees in them, but it emboldens him. He tugs the strings harder as pressure builds at my center, and I tense.
My heart is caught in conflict. Is he going to go deeper? Do I want him to?
“Aren’t you going to tell me to stop?” His words are rough from sleep.
My tongue darts out to wet my lips as I gather my words, my heart racing as I attempt to pull back the leash before it strays too far.
Would he even stop if I asked him to?
In a desperate attempt to regain control, I snap my eyes shut to avoid his stare, too heated, too consuming. Everything’s starting to feel too hot.
“Please,” I whisper, swallowing against my raw throat. “Stop.”
To my surprise, he does. He pulls his arm back.
The air feels lighter as I draw more of it into my lungs, relieved but dangerously aware of the loss of his touch and the mixed effect it has on me. It confuses me. I don’t understand it.
But it doesn’t matter how much I try to rationalize; the truth is obvious. I enjoyed his brief touch more than I want to admit. Heat still engulfs me as I flutter my eyes open again.
He’s still studying me. “Am I already starting to haunt your dreams?”
The question gives me a small pause.
“You’re a bit of a loud sleeper.” He looks at me thoughtfully.
My insides flop. I hate it. “There are worse things.”
And it’s true, there are. What torments me in my sleep is far worse than this. There’s a cruel irony in it. He doesn’t owe me anything. He’s just trying to survive. My family, on the other hand, had a duty to love and protect me. And they didn’t.
“What could possibly be worse than this?” he asks, close enough to feel the warmth of his question against my cheek.
It might sound absurd, but I can’t shake off the fact that someone like him was able to pull back when asked to stop—despite everything horrible he’s done. Why was that too much to ask from the people who were supposed to love me? To protect me?
“Tell me,” he orders.
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
His bluntness clamps down on my chest.
“But,” he goes on, “you might find a lot of solace by talking things out.”
I consider his words.
The last time I shared a piece of myself with anyone, I was scorned, then shunned. That was back in middle school. Maybe that’s just how girls were at that age, but it left a bruise that never fully faded away, one I never spoke about again, not even to Clara.
If there was ever a time I could bare my soul to someone, I suppose now would be it. What do I have to lose with him, anyway?
“I was molested by my mother’s ex.” Stark silence. “I was eleven.”
His nostrils flare slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt me. He just listens.
“You’d think that was bad enough, but…” A pathetic laugh escapes me. “But my mom would always back him up, and I guess that hurt more somehow. I doubt she even knows I’m missing right now after taking off with my car and all my things. So, yeah.”
There. I said it.
Do I feel liberated now that it’s out? I’m not sure I do.
Emotion crawls up my throat, but I don’t let it show. I never let it show.
“Is that why you were walking to school?” Realization flickers across his face.
I nod.
“Do you have nightmares about what happened often?”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “Sometimes I forget it ever happened. He’s out of my life now, but—” I purse my lips.
“But what?” he asks softly.
My chest tightens at the way he’s looking at me, like I’m made of glass and he’s afraid of chipping away at me as if I might shatter. He could have fooled me into thinking he really cares.
“But I can’t erase that it happened. It’s just a part of me now, and I hate that.”
The word gross still clings to me from those middle school years. That’s when I stopped having so many friends and started keeping to myself.
“None of that was your fault.”
“I know.” My voice is strained, the lump returning to my throat.
“You were just a kid.”
God, how are his words the ones soothing me right now? It’s insane. I don’t get it. Why’s it easier for him to say it than it was for my mom?
Vibrations come from somewhere in his pocket, severing the moment. He huffs as he pulls out his phone, still close enough to catch a flash of the caller ID. Frankie.
My stomach deflates. That’s a girl’s name.
“Stay put, I’m going to take this outside,” he says, eyes darkening as the last trace of softness drains from them. “Don’t stir up any trouble. Just keep doing as you’re told, and things will start to turn around. Got it?”
He gets up to leave before waiting for my response as he answers the phone on his way out.
Who the hell is Frankie? The name lights a fire inside me, but I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because he has a whole life beyond this rusty-ass cabin while I’m doomed to rot here. How well does his girlfriend even know him? Does she know about me?