Chapter 43
DELILAH
Kane comes for longer than I thought would be possible, so long I think he should be studied.
When he has nothing else to give, he collapses on the bed with his dick still twitching.
His breathing is harsh, almost pained as I quietly go back to the bathroom to clean the cum off my skin before I collect the first aid kit that’s becoming a token of whatever relationship we have.
When I go back into the room, he’s already tucked himself away, so I sit beside him to clean his arm.
“Pretty girl?” he whispers, reaching for my hand. “Will you prom—give me your word you won’t do that to the walls again? Please?”
I nod so I don’t have to voice my lie. I don’t remember painting the wall. I remember my palm hurting when I woke up on the floor next to it, seeing the blood on my hands, but the process isn’t something I can recall.
“When are you leaving?” I roll his sleeve up to make sure none of the fibers of his shirt get stuck in the cuts on his forearm.
“Soon.”
Another nod. I can’t beg him to take me away from here or to stay with me when this was my plan. I felt strongly about it, confident it would be easy like an idiot.
Kane gently holds my wrist to tug me to lay beside him.
His palm is warmer than it was during the night as he cups my cheek and softly says, “I’m not leaving you.
I’ll prove it. I’m going to leave a piece of myself here for you to see even when there aren’t any stars.
But you have the biggest part of me in here.
” He taps my chest. “Just because it can’t be seen doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Look after it for me, koukla mou.”
This is my Kane—the sweet, kind version. He would always touch me gently outside of fucking me. My Kane, who would never hurt me or lie to me.
“I really loved you,” I admit. “Even though I made mistakes, put my pride ahead of everything else I felt for you, I did love you. I was young, stupid, but I liked being a secret. It meant no one could take you away from me. You were mine, all those moments belonged to us. I really loved you and the only times in my life I was able to be myself were with you.”
“I really love you too.” He softly smiles, massaging my jaw. “Whenever we’d watch movies together, I’d be shitting myself because you were so close to me. I don’t think you even noticed touching my hand, but I didn’t move it the rest of the night.”
I shuffle closer to him as I block out everything else in the world to live in the comfort of our memories.
“You hugged me for the first time on my eighth birthday,” he whispers. “I don’t know if it was the moment I realized I needed to be more than your friend, but I know I never wanted to have anyone else’s arms around me.”
I remember bear-hugging him before I gave him his birthday present. He looked like he needed it and no one had hugged me since Ruby left, so I needed it too. Then my mother nipped me for making her look bad.
“The first time I came…” he whispers against my lips. “It was because of you, in a dream. Every memory is wrapped up in you, my pretty girl. First person to hold my hand, hug me, kiss me, get my dick hard, fuck. Everything. It’s all you, Delilah. You are everything.”
After all the drugs, I don’t know who stole my firsts from me. I can’t lie to him though, not when it involves lying to myself. I’ve done that too much. I gently trace his features as I say, “You’re the first person I chose.”
His hand flexes against my cheek as his voice deepens. “I’m the last.”
I thought I’d always love Kane. No one ever matched up to him. I spent years being lonely partly due to fear of my parents infiltrating my life, but a larger part out of guilt he wasn’t living his life. His life was paused, so mine was too.
I still want to have love. It’s not something that will ever go away.
I was born to a barren home, cold walls, and even colder hearts.
All of the constant refusals for care made me want it more while teaching me I’m not worthy of it as I am.
I became the whore, trading my body for a little warmth he could offer where we were protected.
I put him on a pedestal, never noticing he would’ve given me care without me using sex as currency.
Now it’s too late. We have to do it because if he doesn’t use me, I’m useless.
I press against his chest until he lays on his back.
A deep crease forms between his brows as I straddle him, getting even deeper when I reach for his zipper.
“There’s no one watching now,” he whispers, grabbing my wrists.
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” My skin heats as I look away.
Fucking idiot, obviously he doesn’t want to fuck me.
All the things Helene has said are true—I’m a whore. Dirty, filthy.
He gently holds my chin between his finger and thumb, slowly turning my head to face him as he says, “Don’t disappear on me. I never stopped you when you did it before, but that changes now.”
Externally, I’m a bitch, the cold one who hurt his feelings by being dismissive or disinterested. My lies, my secrets, all of it was only ever a tool to stop the one person I cared about from being hurt.
Strength doesn’t have to be physical. It can be something deeper, stopping me from firing my pain at other people like my parents did to me.
They’re weaker due to their need to do so.
They can’t cope with it or hold it back.
I can. I held my pain, my anger, my frustration, and my violations to stop them from hurting Kane.
“I’m in awe of you, koukla mou,” he whispers against my temple. “Fucking strong and tenacious.”
I continue swallowing all the pain, anger, resentment—the urge to scream how unfair it all is—because deep down I don’t want to hurt him.
He’s always been the person who was there for me.
I’m stuck now that he’s wrapped up in the only good parts of myself.
Without Kane, I’m a shitty person. A cheater who cheated for the thrill, a dumb bitch who was too weak to leave her shitty boyfriend, so she stayed.
I stayed with Asher after he hit me, mocked me, belittled me.
I don’t want to be that person anymore, so I keep the caring version of Kane alive by telling myself the man sitting me outside is doing it because he cares. He closes the window, draws the drapes across, then walks away.
I grip the edge of the window ledge as I watch the waves slowly lap against the rocks. The isolated gate is in my periphery, but I avoid it because if this is real then what Helene said is too.
Tears cling to my lower lashes as I slowly sit back, staring at those gates leading nowhere. I was born a daughter without parents, became a sister without siblings, a mother without a child. Now I’m a wife without a husband.
Titles.
Roles.
Responsibilities.
They’re all supposed to be words to indicate my place in life, descriptors to show I have a community and support. Yet every single one is pain. A game. A tool to be used against me.
I slouch, resting my back against the glass as I cross my legs under me, blankly watching the sky.
The faint smell of paint wakes me as I open my eyes to the darkening sky. I blink up at Kane as he slides me onto his thigh with little flecks of paint on his face and lashes. “I didn’t realize the time,” he whispers, kissing the top of my head. “You need to eat something.”
I climb over him to go inside, where the smell of paint is even stronger. When I move the drape aside, I see why. The wall behind the bed is painted in different colors. All of them are varying shades of grey, black, and white—a faint pink vein through the drying marble pattern.
He gently pushes me forward, making space for himself to stand behind me before he climbs through the window. Wrapping his paint-splattered arm around my waist, he says, “Whenever you feel alone, remember I’m here with you, even if you can’t see me.”
“Because you put your blood, sweat, and tears into it?” I laugh weakly, attempting to find some normalcy in this evil world we’ve found ourselves in.
“Something like that,” he mutters into my crown. “I love you. You’re strong. Don’t forget who you are.”
He’s leaving. Again.
It’s always worse when he’s not here, but he doesn’t allow me to beg him to take me with him as he turns me to face him. “Find our baby,” he says with watery eyes. “I’ll make sure we’re safe, okay?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from telling him the truth. If he knows the baby isn’t here, he won’t have an excuse to take me with him. There’s still a foolish part of my useless heart telling me he won’t. “What if I don’t find them?”
“You will. No one will take anything away from you again. There’s something I have to do.
I need you to keep remembering, keep fucking fighting, because we can’t leave until that’s done.
I made someone a prom—” He drags in a pained breath.
“I gave my word to—” He turns rigid and looks at the wall before he wraps his hand around my neck, whispering, “It’s time to play again. Trust me?”
I nod like an idiot who doesn’t know how to learn from the events of their life.
The door slams open as he loosely holds my neck with both hands. They tighten as he grits, “Have some respect for what we’ve allowed you to have. If you dirty the walls again, I’ll make you sleep outside with the other bitches who aren’t housetrained.”
Helene coos, “Sweet boy?”
“She’s too thin,” Kane snaps, pushing me onto the bed. “Make sure she eats. I’ll have Rowan send you my requirements.” He turns to face his cunt grandmother, blocking her from seeing me. “She’s not going to fuck my life up by refusing to eat so her body can’t do the only thing it’s useful for.”
I knew he was intelligent. He proved he’s a manipulative planner by fabricating an entire life.
Watching him use those things to keep me safe makes me love him, even as he walks out without looking at me.
I am very clearly a fucking idiot who was starved of care, so I accept his shit, desperate for one morsel of attention he might give me.
For once, Helene doesn’t attack me. She simply closes the door, content on ignoring me now that Kane has satisfied her need for my misery.