Chapter 8 #3
“An apology.” I shouldn’t have asked for one. I shouldn’t have mentioned anything that could bring me pain, just in case, my savior—the demon from Hell—overrode all the damn pills I’d taken and came to block it all out.
“For what? Biting you?”
“For your words and your actions. I don’t know which is hurting more. But they’re both still fucking crippling me, in some way.”
“I shouldn’t have to apologize. You brought everything on yourself.” Meekness took over her voice the longer she spoke, but she still found the power to voice her thoughts.
My strong girl.
“You should apologize, because you hurt me, Jolie, and that’s not right.”
“You’ve hurt me so much over the years, and we both know my suffering only ends when you stop breathing.”
“I’d like to think, that would also bring you suffering.”
“Well, I wouldn’t hold your breath for that wish. You might die sooner than you think. And I’m still livid right now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“If I apologize, even if I don’t mean it, can I eat?”
I had to fucking laugh. “Don’t bother,” I told her with a side smile.
“I'm starving. Stop being so cruel.”
That was kind of rich after all the anger she’d spat at me. Though, I shared a body with someone who deserved such hatred.
“If you’re starving, eat. I haven’t stopped you.”
“I'm locked in a cage.” She assessed the lock, wondering if she could guess the correct digits and order.
“You're in a cage.” A very light bobbing of my head confirmed.
“Let me out; I'll be good, I promise. I won’t say anything else to piss you off. Piss him off.” Her statement was a lie, her tone full of regret, but none for hurting me with vicious words.
It was all for her and her situation. She hated the fact, that after finally finding her voice, she had to mute it.
But I couldn’t be mad at her for that.
And even when I had reasons to be mad at her, I could never fucking stay that way.
My eyebrow cocked as her pretty eyes sided to me. I hoped mine no longer looked cold. She had to believe something other than hatred tied us together. She had to believe her fantasy existed outside her head. That, right now, I was still here.
Big brown eyes pleaded to me, tears falling as she blinked a few times.
“Let yourself out. The door is open. It has been all day.”
More regret washed over her as she suddenly grew colder. Self-irritation painted an expression on her face. She silently fumed as she opened the small door, having not thought to try it earlier. She crawled a few feet to the bed, climbing atop to sit opposite me.
She pulled at a pillow, placing it in front of her, white cotton shielding away the naked body that my eyes had seen so many times before. And yet, I had no memory of any of them.
I tried to pull my eyes away. . . but it was just as hard to do as it was earlier when I wanted so much to pull her out from the cage and tell her she was wrong, that she didn’t feel all the hatred she screamed at me, because she had already told me she’d love me forever.
I’d wanted to hold her.
Remind her.
Force her to believe in us.
But, I didn’t.
And I didn’t do it now as she silently looked around, finding a fork in the cutlery almost instantly.
Her fast fork stabbed into the Disanxian and hurried the food to her hungry mouth.
She hugged the pillow tighter as she continued to eat, feeling my eyes on her as more tears fell.
“Why are you watching me?” she asked with a full mouth as she reached for the bao—the biggest bao.
“I always liked seeing you eat,” I said, taking another spoonful of my soup.
“Can I have this?” she asked, lifting the dumpling into my view.
I encouraged her with two blinks of my eyes, having no idea why she’d even ask.
I watched as her teeth sank through the bao, cutting veggies under their sharpness. And I almost fucking dribbled at what shouldn’t have been such an erotic sight, causing myself to unattractively slurp.
I clutched one of many napkins, wiping the drool from my mouth, and I was about to jump to my feet when I realized, we hadn’t had a sit-down meal together in years.
So, I glued my ass to the bedsheets and stayed put.
My faux leather jacket rustled as I tried to make myself more comfortable in the otherwise quiet room.
Silent treatment. . . I wonder who came up with that term. Silence was no treatment; all therapies required talking. Silence just made all your problems worse, and as if she heard my thoughts, she spoke.
“You'd think I'd be used to the hunger, having lived off scraps for so long. . . but I’m not.” She looked down at her meal, her hungry stomach still rumbling as her fingers dissected the chubby dumpling.
“I’m used to measly meals, but it’s still something. Today was hard. Yesterday was hard. Nothing, not even the smallest crumb crossed my lips for two days. That’s cruelty.”
“I have no intention of starving you. Regardless of what you think, I’m not all bad, Jolie.”
“No. . .?” She stopped talking to crunch another vegetable between her teeth, loaded some rice into bok choi, and then crunched that, too. “Your inner child is fairly sweet,” she worded, her mouth still full. “Do the pills you were taking earlier suppress him, too?”
Ah, fuck. What a question.
“No. Not necessarily.”
“Is that a lie?”
“I don’t like lies.” I followed her lead, also making a move for the rice.
I had a question for her, too; one, I’d already brought up, but needed to ask again, as I didn’t get the answer I wanted.
“Did you mean what you said earlier? Has life made you that cold that you’d wish for someone’s painful death? ”
“I’m not saying anything that will put me back in the cage. You know how I feel. About captivity. And about you.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.” Her eyes stayed low.
“You hate me? You really hate me?”
She shook her head, flared nostrils sucking in more of the scent of the food than the oxygen she needed. “I hate that I love you.”
“I don’t understand why you feel that way. You never did before. You told me you could handle it.”
“And it broke me. There isn’t enough sanity in either of us to try to make things right.”
“It’s worth trying.”
“I disagree.”
“I’m sorry, for whatever it is he’s done.
I am sorry, but I know you know, me apologizing, it’s meaningless.
” I let my eyes search for hers. Her gaze wasn’t hard to find.
I figured she’d be looking away, but her stare was attached to me.
“If I apologize for things I don’t remember doing, it won’t mean anything to you, will it?
I can’t apologize for someone else’s actions, and to me, that’s what he is. Someone else.”
A pregnant pause passed, only the rustling of my jacket sounding through the room.
“Would it bring you peace to know that your heart isn’t the only one breaking every time you find a new bruise? The fingerprints on your body, match my hands, but I’ve got no memory of putting them there.” I stopped, taking a breath. “It’s not easy for me. It’s hell. And I fucking hate it.”
I fed myself a single grain of rice, worrying the weight of any more would have granted her wish and killed me, painfully.
But I needed a distraction, a pull from the pain.
. . because I could already feel it, hands clutching at my soul, pulling me away from all that hurt me. And I couldn’t let that happen.
“You don’t cover anymore?” She watched as I swallowed.
“I never had to with you, if you remember. And I never wanted to in the first place. That was my parents’ doing, poisoning me into believing I was disgusting to look at.”
It was harder now. Hell was pulling harder.
She dipped her head, feeling my words, because my lovely mother had made her feel the exact same way.
Jolie’s arms, both of them, tightened around the pillow. “Who are you right now, now that you’re telling me things that are close to your heart?”
“You know who I am.” I swallowed again, and it fucking hurt. My fingers rushed to massage my throat, the pain amplifying under the touch that I couldn’t bring myself to pull away. I stood up, striding to the bathroom to splash my face with freezing water.
I stared at my reflection, wondering if I’d see the change—the shift—because I felt like it was going to happen any fucking minute.
“Woodrow. The person who always told you things close to his heart.” I glanced at Jolie in the mirror, watching my every move.
My eyes moved to my image. A pink flush covered my cheeks and nose, staining my ivory skin.
“I’m Woodrow,” I said to myself more than her, trying to force myself to stay Woodrow.
“Can I talk to Woody?”
My back straightened, so upright that I thought my head would hit the ceiling. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t work like that,” I said, stepping back into the bedroom.
“It does. I’ve seen movies.”
“It’s not a one size fits all. And movies aren’t the most reliable source of information.”
“Are you diagnosed now?”
“I am.” I moved back to the bed, moving slower than I did to get away from it. “I got my diagnosis, along with my education in prison.”
“How many of you are there?” She looked confused by her own words.
“The same as before, that hasn’t changed.”
“And one is still horrible. Still your father’s masterpiece.” Her grip tightened again as she rushed out her claims, tripping over the words.
“No. Woody is the only one who pines for my father, my mother, my old life. Even though he knows it was all bad. The doctors said, he’s a part of me that’s clutching onto the childhood and love that I never had.
He seeks approval, acceptance. I don’t need any of that.
Well, I never thought I did. Clearly, it’s bullshit.
But when I’m medicated, I don’t feel anything but disdain for my father.
I miss Nessie. I missed you. That’s why I came for you. ”
“But you didn’t. You sent him. . . yet you say you can’t control how it works.”
“I stopped my pills, and my anxiety him more freedom.”
“How did he know to come for me?” I was just about to answer when she did it for me. . . “A note?”
“A note. I asked Hell to hunt you down, to find you. To bring you here. I knew you were scared of him, but I thought, if you were still alive, you’d be scared wherever you were. As I said, it’s better the devil you know.”
“How did he find me?”
“Connections through acquaintances of my father.”
“Why did he agree?”
“He cares for me. He comes out during periods of intense stress. He protects me. He’s stronger than I am. When I stopped my medication, I threw myself into looking for you, but the worry of where you were, what was happening to you, if you were alive. . . it was too much. For me. But not him.”
“No, because he doesn’t care. . .”
“No, that’s not true. He loves you, too. And he would have burned the world to ash to get you back.”
“Evil doesn’t love.”
“He can’t control his anger. He writes about that, too. He isn’t all bad, either.”
“He thrives on it!”
I blinked twice.
“Why didn’t he take the pills when he got me back? Like straight away!”
“He won’t take them. He likes to be on top.
” I twisted the top from a bottle of water and took the smallest sip, followed by another dozen all the same.
“Halfway through the day, I woke up. A cold shower was raining down on me. A bruise on my dick almost sent me back under, but I forced myself to stay present because I knew you were here.”
“How did I get in the cage?”
“I have no idea, or where it came from. He hurt you, put you in there, and went back to shower, from what I gather. But it was me that came out. I came to see you and you were out of it. There were drugs on the bed, and I worried he’d given you too much.
I could see what he’d done to your hair.
It stressed me. So, I dressed quickly, took too many pills, and called my friend. ”
“Friend?”
“I met him in prison. He was recruited as a guard a few months before I got out.”
“A prison guard who agrees with kidnapping?”
“He was a cop before.” I lifted one eyebrow and stared at Jolie as I awaited her shocked reaction. I continued when her blank expression didn’t give anything back to me. “He’s not always by the book but his heart is in the right place. He’s seen trafficking; he agreed, better the devil you know.”
I handed a bottle of water to Jolie—a peace offering, and she accepted with minor trust, that some twisted part of me, would no doubt destroy in the next day or so, when Hell wrangled his way back to the top.
“That’s proof that I’m not bad.” I stopped talking, knowing I’d spoken inaccurately. “I’m not all bad. If I was, he wouldn’t have allowed me near you. If he had no trust in me, I’d be back in the institute.”
I knew that was true.
And I knew I was both a sinner and a gentleman. A devil and a saint, and a child trapped between them both.
“Institute?”
“After my parents’ death, I went to prison. I was released early on the agreement I’d spend a year in a psychiatric hospital. I did, and it worked wonders for me. It took them a while to get the medication right, but once they did, I was good. I felt good.”
“And then you got out and stopped your pills.”
“I discussed my reasons with Ollie—my friend—first. He works closely with the institute. He thought I could handle it, and I had to get you back. I didn’t have a choice.”
Jolie didn’t respond, still not happy to be here. Still not believing my the devil you know philosophy.
“Anyway, that’s enough talking about me for today. My mood is a little low, and that’s never good.”
I shifted up the bed, to Jolie’s side, and I was glad to see she didn’t move. I put the TV on with a flick of the remote and allowed it to play happy pop music on a low volume setting, silencing the background noise in my head.
Feeling drained and exhausted, I slipped out of my jacket. Nightfall was nearing, and I knew how uncomfortable it would be to sleep with it on.
I reached under my pillow, feeling something digging into my head through the puffy filling. Her Kindle. I pulled it from where she’d wedged it this morning.
“I have more t-shirts in my bag if you’d feel more comfortable sleeping with clothes on. It’s in the closet. Maybe after food, you can give your book another go? I know how you like to escape.”
I smiled, letting her know I accepted her issues.
And accepted her for what she was.