Chapter 16 Braids, Popcorn, & Boys
Braids, Popcorn, & Boys
In David and Jean’s house, I have more freedom than ever before. Not to mention money to buy brand new clothes and school supplies. But I never make friends.
While David stays silent on the matter, Jean often tries to prod as to why I don’t want to go to football games, join the drama club, or invite a single solitary friend over.
I tell her that I’m focused on my studies and stick to my line.
While I’m not getting bullied anymore, I sure as fuck don’t intend to let anyone close enough to find out what a freak I am.
I dress normal, I stay quiet, and no one even knows I’m in a foster home. I’m just a background prop in everyone else’s high school drama, and that’s how I intend to keep it.
When I go to grab a soda, Jean starts in on me again.
David’s focus remains on his laptop at the breakfast table, decorated with fresh-cut flowers Jean arranged herself.
"It’s Friday night. Don’t you want to invite one of the girls over for a sleepover, maybe? We can get a bunch of junk food and you can do a marathon of rom-coms or... " She stalls because she doesn’t know what I watch.
I hardly watch movies. I read a lot. Mainly horror novels. I find them comforting—a genre where being haunted is the norm.
"I’m good," I say, trying to edge my way back out of the kitchen.
"Then how about you and me," Jean chirps. "We can make it a no boys allowed space." She sends a teasing glare in David’s direction. "Just you and me and bowls of popcorn and rotting our brains out. I can paint your nails and we can do facials."
My stomach flips and heats with shame. Popping the soda can open, I’m not stupid enough to say out loud that I’ve gotten plenty of facials from David, but I can’t help but think it.
Instead, I take a long slug to settle my guts. "No, thank you," I say, as gently and nicely as possible.
It’s not Jean’s fault she has no idea she’s married to a monster. But it’s hard not to get impatient with her need to connect or get involved in my life.
This is just a roof, a nicer roof than most, but I don’t have time or the inclination to play perfect daughter in her fantasy life. This is a trade situation, and my deal is already made with the devil—or as I call him, David.
Jean wants to bond over braids and popcorn, while her husband uses that hour between the end of school and her return to the house to do any number of depraved sexual things to me.
The first time he took my virginity—rough, rushed, still fully clothed while I lay naked—I wondered through the pain if I should tell Jean.
Would she even believe me? I doubted it. To her, David was a perfectly devoted and loving husband who insisted they foster an unfortunate, troubled soul.
Even as I later cleaned the blood from the bedspread in my bathroom sink so she wouldn’t know, I played out all the scenarios. Best case, he would get arrested and put away, but Jean wouldn’t keep me in the house. It would be too painful to live with the girl your husband sexually abused.
No, it was best to let her continue to live in her own little fantasy world, but that didn’t mean I had to play into it.
"We could talk about boys," Jean offers. "Or… girls. Whatever you like." She stumbles to correct herself, trying to be open.
Again, I feel a wave of sickness pulse inside me.
The boys at my school are grotesque. I don’t care for the sea of hormones I swim through in the halls every day.
I ignore the flirting couples, those who make out with thick, sloppy tongues until the teachers tell them to cut it out.
It’s always followed by histrionics and resentments as teenagers cheat on each other, turn cruel, or simply lose interest.
It’s then I notice David has looked up from his laptop.
His eyes press into me. I’m not sure if he is the jealous type.
Not that I think he sees me as his girlfriend.
But maybe he doesn’t want anyone else playing with his toys.
Or maybe he wants to watch. Wants me to record it.
Maybe he’d jerk off to my play-by-play like it’s his favorite show.
Still trying to find a way to escape this conversation, my nails tap nervously on the can. "I’m not into any of them," I say truthfully.
Jean finally nods with a weak smile, dismissing me. David turns back to his laptop, giving me no further hints on his opinion on the matter.
Grateful, I slink to my bedroom, where I pick up one of my horror books about a girl who gets possessed. I find it terribly romantic, and read until night falls.
Then he comes.
With scratching claws, Shadow emerges from under my bed.
Instead of using my bedside lamp, I use a flashlight. I like it dark in my room. The only other light is the silver threads of moonlight filtering through the window, catching on the smoke that starts to fill the space.
It’s one a.m. David already took Jean out to dinner downtown and returned. They went to bed an hour ago.
When Shadow finishes materializing, it’s like I can finally breathe. Like my heart knows how to beat again.
"Walk?" he asks.
"Walk," I confirm, throwing back my blankets and jumping out of bed.
It takes no time to pull on heavy boots and a thick jacket. I grab a pair of gloves, though I hate the feel of them covering my hands. Fall nights have gotten bitterly cold, but I find them irresistible.
Instead of using the front door, I open my window and Shadow helps me out so I don’t trip on the sharp rose bushes. My foot slips on the ledge, but he catches me, holding me tightly to him.
I swallow hard. Enveloped in his hold, feelings rise in me—ones that have been slowly building. He’s still my protector, but my mouth goes dry while other parts of me make up for the moisture. An achy heat spreads through my body that isn’t wholly unpleasant.
Jean’s question returns to me about whether I’m into boys or girls.
Neither.
I want Shadow to do the things to me that David does.
I wonder if he even has those kinds of parts.
But why wouldn’t he? He has two eyes, a mouth, strong arms, and a torso.
Despite his monstrous form, he’s humanoid.
Though whenever I try to steal a glance at where his junk should be, it’s like staring into the blackest of nights.
The corner of my bedroom that I could stare into endlessly and still never find a wall.
I slide down his hard muscles until my feet touch the ground.
"Did you get pricked?"
I jerk, wondering if he can read my mind.
"From the rose bushes?"
I shake my head, my throat suddenly dry.
Shadow lets me go. We take our usual route, out to the city streets and then a path that leads to a playground. The cold night air stings my lungs and I break down, pulling on the gloves before settling into a swing.
Sometimes I tell him about school. A lot of the time we don’t talk at all. But today, I don’t feel like either.
"Where are you from?"
"Under your bed," he says without pause.
"How old are you?"
"Older than you."
"Like twenty years older, or a hundred?"
Would that creep or freak me out? I doubt it.
Smoke begins to expand from his body, and I know he’s uncomfortable, trying to cover himself up. I wonder if he knows he’s even doing it.
"Why do you want to know?"
My legs start to pump, forcing the swing forward. "You know everything about me." Or almost everything. I add the addendum in case any psychic lawyers are aware of my arrangement with David. It always happens during the day, when Shadow can’t come.
"It’s my job."
"What do you mean, it’s your job?" I ask, ceasing the pumping and just letting myself swing back and forth. My stomach flips, but it’s not from the air I’m catching.
"Nothing," he murmurs.
"You don’t tell me anything," I complain.
"You know enough," he says.
My heels dig into the ground, sending gravel flying as I bring myself to a stop. "No. I don’t. Do you blip out of existence when you aren’t here? Do you have a house somewhere else? Do you have a girlfriend?"
I can hear the childlike petulance in my voice. I sound like the whiny girls from my class, but I can’t help it. Tingles of energy rush through my forehead and body as my insides twist up tighter with each question he won’t answer.
"Do I have a girlfriend?" He repeats the question, and I detect dark amusement.
I instantly hate how he’s keyed into the one question that matters most to me. It makes me feel like an absolute idiot.
He comes to stand in front of me, grasping the chains on either side of my head.
He walks forward, pushing me back into the air.
"There is another place I go. I do not have a house, as I rather feel my home is with you.
" He pauses, as if contemplating whether he should go on.
"I do not have a girlfriend," he confesses, and his mouth splits into a fanged smile.
"Aren’t there girls where you go? Or boys?" I rush to add, feeling as foolish as Jean probably does, asking me.
Shadow’s smile disappears into a dark, blurry mask. He’s still holding me in the air where I sit on the swing. If he moves away and lets go, I’d rocket forward. "I am not suited for such things."
My nose wrinkles. "What does that mean?"
He sighs. "It means I have no inclination for such things."
"Oh," I say, my heart spiraling down an endless elevator shaft.
With that, he disappears and I’m launched into the air. It’s not until then I realize I hadn’t been gripping the chains well enough, and I lose my place on the seat as I fly away from the swing.
Quick as a blink, I’m caught in Shadow’s arms. Holding onto his shoulders tighter than is necessary, I find it difficult to catch my breath.
Those white misty eyes remind me of a portal to another world. I wish I could step through them and into his mind.
"I know why you are asking," he murmurs.
My chest wrenches in panic, and I can’t breathe.
The pounding of my heart against my ribs at his touch and intimate words is so intense I fear he’ll hear it and know everything.
"You are afraid I might leave you," he says finally.
I relax an inch but still feel too transparent in this position, even if I don’t ever want to leave his arms.
"I can tell you with certainty, my little monster, I will never leave you. I am to be with you for all eternity."
Though my heart strains for so much more, it’s enough. Enough to get me to stop pestering him with childish questions so I can focus on enjoying our time together.
For now, anyway.
I can’t help that my feelings for him are deepening and growing more complicated with each passing day. And I’m not sure where this is heading.
But a part of me suspects that I’m on a train bound to crash and burn.