Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
It hurts. Oh, god, it hurts.
My wings ached. Every feather, starting from the quill, burned to stretch and fly. Fly above everything and everyone I knew. Fly until I dropped, deep into murky waters glistening with moonlight. Only the wind and the water could snuff the fire out. I knew this, yet I could do nothing about it.
And that right there fucking broke me. An angel stuck without flight, a bird too injured to flap its wings. A blue jay so beautiful, so broken, its wings shredded into nothing but pieces of mutilated, blank canvas.
Pine-Sol and suds kissed my bare knees, soaking me from the outside in.
My nose was pressed into the mixture, my mouth only inches away from drowning in it.
Everything hurt so bad, I wondered if I was actually dead.
Maybe I was in purgatory—doomed to a life of fucking Pine-Sol and scrubbing.
I was stuck, a worthless, lifeless robot working on autopilot.
A list of tasks, written by evil, had run through my programming until I malfunctioned.
Until I broke.
I couldn’t stand sitting around doing nothing when all I’d ever known was serving.
Cleaning, cooking, listening, and obeying.
Fucking obeying no matter the cost. No matter how much I suffered at the hand that fed me.
I was a sheep, none the wiser to the claws that wanted to scratch me.
Jude had conditioned me, mind, body, and soul.
Waiting for Crescent to get home, staring at the unfamiliar walls surrounding me, was driving me fucking crazy.
I started organizing. Just a little bit.
An out-of-place piece here, a swipe of dust there, and suddenly a pit had opened deep in my gut, and if I didn’t get everything perfectly arranged, I’d be in trouble.
It was the same every time. A tingling, swirling feeling started in my lower intestines, turning into a numb haze that spread over my skin, coating my entire body.
My fingers went cold, along with my toes. My arms felt heavy, as if they weren’t a part of me. I’d slowly inch away from my body and watch from above. Despite the pain in my knees or the stabbing in my lower back, I’d scrub and scrub until every speck was gone.
Jude always kept the house warm. Swelteringly so. I’d complained once, and he simply turned it up higher. When I mentioned it again, he told me it’d always been that way. That I was just imagining shit. Maybe I had been. I didn’t know. I didn’t trust myself, but I didn’t trust him either.
Sweat gathered at the bridge of my nose, falling to the tip. I panted into the cleaning liquid below me, watching waves catch and swirl from my breath. A tiny drop of sweat fell into it, splashing enough to make it shimmer and gleam.
Gripping the washcloth, I swiped it across the floor, scrubbing with intent. Jude could smell my fear—there was no doubt in my mind he could smell my sweat too.
Leave no trace. Leave no evidence that our house used to be a home or that I existed in its confines. Keep it a prison, or I’d start to get ideas.
Scrub.
Scrub.
Scrub.
Keep it clean, or the dirt would infect me. Make it presentable, or people could tell. No one ever crossed the threshold of my despair, but just in case. Just in case. Just in case.
Scrub.
Scrub.
Scrub.
My skin had cracks in it, permanently etched like scars of my purpose. Obsessively cleaning with bleach day in and day out had torn the outer layer of skin away, leaving nothing but my soul. My dirty, tainted fucking soul that oozed and leaked with disobedience.
“You look so much better like this, my little Elio.”
I just needed to finish cleaning the kitchen floor, and then I could see what I could make us for dinner.
Jude wouldn’t be home until the evening, but he’d been working so hard lately that I was sure he’d want something extravagant.
I hadn’t thought to marinate any meat, but I knew I could come up with something.
Scooting across the floor on my knees, I waded through the mess beneath me. I’d have to grab the mop later. I hadn’t meant to use so much bleach, but there I was. Surrounded by the nose-burning scent of…
Bleach? No, no, it wasn’t bleach. Was it?
I frowned, looking down at where my knees were coated in it.
I looked to the left, then the right, staring at the color of the kitchen floor.
It wasn’t right. Had I accidentally used the wrong thing?
But how? All we ever had was bleach. Or so I thought.
Maybe I was imagining things again. That silly little thing I seemed to do far too often.
The washcloth dripped with whatever it was I was cleaning with, the liquid running down my wrist, dripping until it met with the ditch of my elbow. I watched the flow, sickeningly attuned to it.
And then the doorknob started to jiggle. I had a trained ear, always ready for Jude to burst through the door or to walk into frame when I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to.
A slam reverberated through my bones, vibrating along with it. It sounded like Jude had hit the door. He wasn’t supposed to be home yet. It was too early. Way too early, and I didn’t have dinner ready yet. I wasn’t done cleaning. Oh, god, I wasn’t done yet.
I gasped as the doorknob jiggled again. The water and bleach mixture ran down my arm slower than before, just as my breathing picked up pace.
Footsteps. He was walking in, and he was already angry. Something must’ve happened for him to be home so early. I wasn’t prepared. Not when I was hurting so bad already. He’d really done me in last time.
Last time.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He was closer. I could hear his shoes against the floor, stomping the entire way, and I wasn’t ready.
“Elio?”
I slumped on the floor, resting my elbows in the liquid below me. Closer, closer, closer, pause. I tried to keep my gasps to a minimum, but my body kept shaking and my shoulders fucking ached, and nothing made sense, but it did. It made perfect sense. I had disobeyed, so I was going to be punished.
The least I could do was curl up on the floor so that maybe he wouldn’t get me too bad. If he kicked me in the back, I could handle it.
I inhaled the bleach again, contorting my body until my nose almost touched the floor. My back was screaming, but I was ready. Sort of. I could at least handle it better than a few minutes ago. I could hear my own breathing—big, deep sniffs that echoed back at me.
He walked further in, until I could feel his presence standing off to the side, ominous and heavy as he stared at me.
Just stood there, probably mocking the sight of me.
The swirls in the hardwood beneath me came to life, laughing and crying right in my face.
They were old friends. Ones I’ve had my face pressed into a million times over.
I could’ve sworn I knew every detail in them, but they looked different for some reason.
One swirled to the left when I thought it usually swirled to the right. One made a circle when I remembered it being more like a weird, cut-off triangle.
A palm against my back had me tightening every muscle in my body, forcing a pained whimper from my lips. I tried to stay quiet. I really did. I waited for his hand to grip my arm, or my shoulder, or to punch me right where it was, but… it didn’t.
“Elio,” he whispered. Soft and gentle. His hand jerked back the moment I flinched, confusing me further. “Elio, it’s me.”
Did he think I didn’t know who he was? How could I ever forget? When my body was branded with memories of him, some I’d carried since our teenage years.
“It’s Crescent. Come on, look at me, El.”
I blinked just as the sound came back to my ears. I hadn’t realized how echoey and distant everything had been until my sobs drowned out everything else.
“Can you turn your head for me?”
Slowly, I followed his voice with my head. I only turned a little bit, just enough to see his pants drenched in the bleach. His pants will be ruined if he stays there.
“That’s it. Come on, El, look at me. There you go.”
When I looked up, I saw it. Pain I could recognize because I’d worn the same features many times in my life. Crescent’s beautiful, courageous brown eyes were dull, yet terrified. I saw my reflection in them. A reflection of cowardice, mixed with horror.
“You’re okay, El. It’s just me. Me and you.”
I sat up, wincing at the twinge of pain in my back. We stared at each other in silence. I opened my mouth, silently begging for words to come out. My vocal cords hurt, vibrating against each other as if they’d never done so before. “I-It isn’t b-bleach, is it?”
Crescent’s lips parted, two of his top teeth peeking between them. They shone under the kitchen light, becoming my focal point. “What do you mean?”
“You only had Pine-Sol.” Any tears I’d successfully held back rushed out, flowing down my cheeks, forming their own lake. Crescent, my gorgeous moon, gleamed onto them, lighting up the perfect place for my wings to settle in. He’d put the fire out. I knew that, more than I knew anything else.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Can I hold you?”
Without any hesitation, I nodded. Before my head had even tilted down, I was wrapped up in Crescent’s arms. He’d pulled me into his lap, no care in the world about the Pine-Sol seeping through his jeans. “I’m so sorry, El. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you here so soon.”
I breathed him in, my nose right in the crook of his neck. His hair tickled my forehead, but I didn’t want to move. Bread, cupcakes… was that lemons? My brain and voice didn’t want to work, so I stayed silent.
I stayed silent as he rocked me back and forth with his body, whispering the kindest things into my ear. He had one hand rubbing up and down my back, sometimes reaching between my shoulder blades, softening the ever-growing ache there. Could he feel them? The scars where my wings used to be.
“You’re okay.”
“You’re safe.”
“I’m here, El.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“I’ll never let you go.”