Chapter 16
What in the fuck has my life become?
The next morning, all I could do was lie in bed with Xanthy. I barely registered anything the woman was talking about until she whacked me in the arm.
“Babe? Okay, seriously, what gives lately?
Xanthy’s hair fanned across the pillow, golden as the sun.
Like fucking Sunshine.Ugh. Carrington, what are you doing to my brain? Why are you fucking taking root like an incessant weed despite everything I try to do just to get rid of you?
He let me take control last night. He actually gave in, just a little.
It was like he knew I needed it. I needed him to feel how alien yet amazing that was.
I still couldn’t comprehend the fact that it fucking happened.
My ass was sore, and when I was in the shower this morning, the water and the familiar sensations made me impossibly hard.
I couldn’t leave the bathroom until my stupid boner finally let up.
I refused to keep falling prey to Carrington’s mind games. My head was already fucked up. Today of all days. My birthday. The very day, my dear old dad ruined my life and got me sent to foster care. You know who wants a fifteen-year-old orphan whose dad is a convicted murderer?
No one.
No one wanted me.
They were all afraid of the darkness he instilled in me, little by little, my entire life.
When I was eighteen, I got kicked out of the only home I really knew.
I kept my head down and managed to get financial aid through my job as a butcher.
I was good at slicing meat. It was quiet and controlled.
I enjoyed the room’s coolness and was able to focus on what I needed for school.
I never dreamed I would get into medical school. I wasn’t brave enough to hope I could actually be a doctor. It made sense that if I were meant to save people and put them back together, I would stop dreaming of spilling their blood and watching their eyes go grey.
Right?
“Shiloh Edmund Anderson.”
My full fucking legal name jolted me from my thoughts, and I looked at Xanthy. She propped herself up on her elbow, watching me like she was trying to read a map, but kept getting lost. Her eyes were a combination of worried and fucking angry.
“I…What?” I said, trying to remember anything about what she was saying. Anytime I opened the well of my mind, it was just those desert colored eyes staring at me in the damn pool.
Fuck me.
“Baby. You’re miles away when you’re right beside me,” she whispered.
Her voice had that flat edge she reserved when she thought I was breakable, and it pissed me off. She only used it when my father was the topic of the conversation.
Xanthy knew about him. She knew my history, and that made her the one person besides Carrington who knew that my fate was to become a monster.
Xanthy studied psychology, and on top of fitting her perfect mold for her life, I knew she enjoyed poking around my damn head.
Apparently, that was an exclusive for the Harding siblings. She was tired and simply looking for answers. “What’s going on, Shiloh?”
I wanted to tell her, if for nothing else but to get this shit off my chest. I tried to tell her about the flashbacks of that night.
The recurring hell I endured, reliving the worst birthday of my lifetime nine years ago. My piece of shit father had nearly been locked up for ten years now, but I still had to remind myself every day, for better or for worse, he wasn’t coming back.
Instead of saying any of that, I propped my head on my arm and let my jaw work around nothing. “School’s got me fucked in the head, Baby Girl. Finals. Professor’s a dick. Sorry, I’ve been quiet…I just. I have a lot on my mind.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You always say that when something else is actually being a pain in the ass.”
Oh, darling, if you only knew…
“Look, you can lie, Shy, but don’t make me pretend I don’t notice, because I’m not stupid, and I love you. I know you. I also know what’s wrong, even if you choose not to talk about it. Whatever you need, I am here, okay?”
She reached out, thumb rubbing the inside of my wrist like she was checking for a pulse. Her hand was warm, and I noticed the emptiness of her ring finger.
I needed to get my fucking life in order.
Starting by reminding myself I was a straight man, and to nut up and marry this woman. If I had any chance to be better and hold onto the light I had inside me, I needed Xanthy.
But could I really have Carrington as my brother-in-law?
I let out a breath that tasted like iron and so many fucking mistakes. “I’m tired,” I said. “That’s it. I don’t know what you’re on about, Xanthy. I’m sorry.”
She laughed without humor.
“Always tired. Do you know how tired I am? Tired of ghost conversations, robotic sex, and fucking tired of being second to whatever is up your ass. I need something real, Shy. Will you—”
She stopped, then started again, softer. “Will you be my plus-one for my friend’s wedding coming up? She’s pissed I don’t have a date, and she’d make it the exact kind of perfect day you’d hate. We can get a nice hotel and fuck in the jacuzzi after. I will even bring my toy.”
“A wedding? You want me there, why?”
Why was the thought of going through the motions of sex with Xanthy not more enticing than water running over my dick alone in the shower?
A fucking wedding.
The words landed like a pebble in my chest and rolled, making a small, albeit clean, little ripple.
Weddings were tidy bullshit mediocrity. Shelves stacked in neat rows, everything labeled, guests smiling like paid ornaments, and two people at the front who probably didn’t give a flying fuck about the other.
Weddings reminded me of prison. I had never been to visit my father, but I had enough pals from the orphanage who were dumb and got themselves caught with drugs or girls. I visited my buddy Dale a few times, and yeah.
The inmates weren’t in expensive dresses. They starved themselves to fit in, but it was all the same. People sitting around waiting for the big finale so they could fucking leave. For some inmates, that was death. For others, it was appeals and release.
Release…
My stomach churned at the thought of my father ever being released.
He couldn’t be, could he?
“Look, can we just talk about it?” Xanthy said suddenly. “Your dad. It’s your birthday, Baby, and the day he tried to…”
Erase me.
She stalled, looking for the right answer, and I sighed. “Carve me into ribbons? Dump enough battery acid on my body that my skin started to erode? Or how about how he waited for a disease to take over like the bitch he wanted me to—”
I stopped myself, feeling my breath saw in and out of my mouth.
Xanthy had tears in her blue eyes, and she tried to smile, and for a second, the wall between us softened.
“He can’t hurt you now. I am here. I will claw his eyes out.
Don’t test my manicure, okay. I love you, Shiloh.
You aren’t your stupid father. You are good, and the brightest light I have ever seen.
And yes, my stupid, gorgeous man. You. If you want to.
I want you there. Pretty please with butt plugs on top? ”
It should have been simple. I could have said yes and meant it, and filed the memory in an easy, safe place.
But nothing felt fucking safe, not right now.
I needed to see him. I needed to go to that fucking prison and see for myself that he was rotting away and could never leave.
I needed to know that my life was capable of being the robotic bullshit cushion I wanted to believe in.
“I’ll try, Baby,” I sighed. “I’ll be there if…you really want me. If I’m not occupied.” My voice felt small at the end, hoping she wouldn’t press.
“Occupied?” She set her jaw. “Or avoiding me.”
“It’s not that.”
I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling, fixated on a spiderweb in the corner. It had been there since I came up here to her room.
I’d learned to read these tiny things, found peace in obsessing over the minute details others missed. Like how a hairline fracture widened after a hard winter, or how coffee rings multiplied if you didn’t clean them right away.
It was all small pieces of evidence that time was passing.
Xanthy sighed dramatically, flopping down on my chest.
“If it’s him—” Her fingertips brushed the scar from my father’s knife, from my knife. I shuddered, always feeling ripped open whenever anyone touched there.
Except him.
Weirdly, Carrington had pawed all over me, but my idiot body only felt intense heat shooting everywhere, not the ice I felt from others.
Her fingers were lacing around mine like she was tying a knot, desperate to hold us together. “We’ll get through it, Baby. Together.”
Her words landed like a promise and a warning. Translation for Xanthy: ‘We will get through this, or I will find someone less broken.’
I squeezed her fingers once, then let go.
“Together,” I repeated, though it sounded hollow even to me.
I wanted to be honest with her. I wanted to tell her that I was seeing him, but this felt less like closure and more like stepping into a pattern I’d spent years desperate to forget.
I hated the feelings he brought up inside me.
I wasn’t going to be that fifteen-year-old kid too stupid to see a snake right in front of him.
Snake. Oh, fucking hell, Carrington. Even during this, you’re on my mind.
Instead of allowing my thoughts to pull me into a void I couldn’t escape, I kissed the back of her hand. “I’ll try, Baby Girl. I’ll try.”
She made a face. “You always try, Shiloh.”
“I need to go somewhere today. I’ll be fine after.”
“Okay, I love you. I’ll be here when you are ready, Shiloh.”
She said it without heat, and somehow that was worse than an accusation in itself. It meant she knew my half-measures too well.
Maybe this was the bad thing about staying with someone beyond the expiration date. A year with her, and despite the long distance, she was starting to understand who I was.