Chapter 10 #6
Red stained my legs, trails of blood slacking off around my knees. Affirmation of my agony and Hell’s abuse. My face scrunched, hate bringing an ugly scowl to distort my features.
Scooching back only millimeters, I tried to get farther away from him. I prayed I’d fall through the wall and into another realm where good still existed.
The inches between us became less and less, millimeters evaporating. He didn’t stop until his breath kissed the bruises on my cheeks. His heat somehow soothing my pain. I hated that. He had no right to bring me comfort, intentional, or otherwise.
His touch on my face became a tender caress, and instinct had my fingers coating his as he pulled our faces together.
My wet cheeks became wetter as his tears hit.
“I’m sorry, Jolie, I’m so sorry for whatever it is he did.” He held me for a moment, and I allowed only that. “I’m so sorry.”
My face pulled back, turning from him and creating a distance that he allowed. “You should have controlled him.”
“We don’t know how. I’m sorry.” He looked sorry. . . but words were just words.
Actions always spoke louder.
“Stop saying that!” I was loud, erupting in anger. “You’re twisted. Your whole family is twisted.”
I stared into his eyes, struggling to be mad at a boy who seemed so lost. Thinking of the boy who gave me a reason to live only yesterday.
I blinked, trying to force the look on his face from my mind, but it lingered, his face presenting itself in the center of my mind, a million and one thoughts swirling around him.
“Me and Woodrow would never want to hurt you. Please, forgive us for Hell’s actions.” He still only mouthed the name.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Please, try. Please. For us.” His pretty gray eyes blinked twice, slowly. Silver shadows glowed in the dark. His breathing changed, from panicked to something that eradicated it even more.
“Can I take a shower?”
He didn’t answer my question, but he stood, rising before me. His fingers wrapped around my hand, and he pulled me from the ground, moving the door away from us.
“Did he. . . I. . . did he hurt you like my father did the other—”
Woody couldn’t finish his sentence because he knew the answer. He looked down at his crotch—sticky with everything he’d stolen from me—trying to keep his eyes averted from me, bleeding and battered.
He didn’t fully understand what happened, having not been present.
And I didn’t understand any of this. What others was he talking about?
I guided his dipped eyes back up with the tips of my fingers to his chin, not wanting his eyes to wander anywhere near my intimate areas when they were done examining his own.
The skin-to-skin contact drew out more of my tears, as I noticed the bruises on his body—they weren’t there yesterday.
He’d been provoked. Abused, in a way different to me, but equally as traumatizing.
When I crept up here. . . he was already here, locked in his room, trying to control things out of his range.
But then his father came home, smelling of more drink than I was. I could smell the vodka from his filthy saliva in my hair.
Woody blinked twice, as if he knew what I was thinking.
I felt him twitch beneath my fingers before I had a chance to move them, and then he shot away from me and from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
I didn’t have the courage to follow him out.
I didn’t even dare open the door, not after hearing Ville’s bedroom door creak open and his giant feet traipsing across the hall.
I pushed the toy chest back against the door. The dresser at the side, too. I pushed all of Nessie’s toys to the same place, my chest rising and falling with enervation as I blocked the entrance, praying it would be enough to keep me safe, all the while, knowing it wasn’t.
I stepped back until I hit the bed, guided by the fear of me wondering if I’d even hear the door open, because my senses had already failed me once.
I wanted to shower, but I didn’t feel safe enough to do that.
Ville said Wynter would be home soon. I could wait, if it meant safety.
I didn’t believe she was in on their sordid plan. Woodrow had already given me inklings that Ville kept stuff from his wife. I had to believe that.
I had to believe she didn’t know.
The thought of her knowing turned me sick. The smell on my skin turned me sick, too, and I had to swallow down my emotions with the regurgitated wine climbing my throat.
I bent over, as if I was ready to let it all out—all my sick. . . all my pain. But nothing came. . . nothing but tears.
I sobbed silently on the carpet, my fingers whirling through the carpet for comfort. No daydreams came to bring me peace. Nothing took me from the pain I felt.
Time ticked away. I had no idea how much, losing all sense of that and everything else. A fuchsia horse’s tail moved around the numbers as I stared at the clock for hours.
I heard Nessie hiccup in her sleep, still surrounded by her army of stuffed animals. But she roused me. I didn’t want her to find me like this if she woke up—especially after hearing. . . “She could join in.”
Those words replayed in my head, torturing me as much as the pain between my legs.
I didn’t believe Woodrow would ever hurt his sister, Woody, either. But I had no idea how far Hell would go.
So, I shifted. I used my satin shorts to wipe the blood between my legs, cringing every time I hit a sore spot, which was continuously.
I gazed over the bloodstains on the carpet, knowing I’d have to clean them tomorrow. Knowing I’d have to clean the stain that lingered at its side—someone else’s DNA crusting into the carpet.
I moved to collect a new pair of shorts from the dresser, hiding the old pair at the back of my drawer, and I dressed in the dark after turning out the nightlight that Ville had put on.
I didn’t want to see anymore. I wanted to forget this room and all that happened in it.
I made it three steps to the bed before turning to put the light back on. It felt safer. I didn’t like the dark, because every time I closed my eyes to blink and darkness surrounded me, I saw what happened in this room tonight.
I shuffled painfully into bed. I didn’t pull my diary from under my pillow like every other night. I, instead, pulled the blankets over my head, blocking out reality, praying to any god who would listen, to let me slip into another world.