Chapter 20 #2
It overtakes everything. The cold, Jason’s voice, his presence around me, inside of me, all I feel is pain. And more pain. I can’t even pinpoint what hurts. I can’t focus on anything. “Please,” I say one last time, and It comes out as nothing. A broken, useless breath.
I don’t decide to stop fighting.
My body runs out of things to fight with. The pain in my hand is consuming. Every breath feels like glass is spreading into my body. Jason fucks me without mercy, and my face hurts and my hand.
I let my mind drift somewhere else.
I can still feel everything, and I think I might be dying, but I imagine I’m at home with Nate, eating the snacks we got, watching the movie.
I’m home, and I’m safe, and I’m loved.
I hear him, above me, grunting, saying something in my ear that I try to unhear, but I can’t. “You did this. You made me do this.”
My hand is still under his, and I can feel it throbbing with every movement. When he shifts, there’s a fresh wave of pain that makes my vision go.
“If you tell anyone—” He thrusts inside me one more time before I feel him take a deep breath against my back, and when he speaks again, his voice is clear. “You know what happens if you tell anyone.”
I know.
I hear his zipper and his feet walking away. His truck door opening, and the engine starting. The headlights sweep across the wall in front of me as he pulls out of the lot.
I stand against the wall for a long time. The wind is cold, biting my bare skin. At some point, I realize I’m shaking, and I don’t know how long I’ve been shaking.
Eventually, I get myself off the wall with my good hand, but my good fortune lasts about ten seconds, because when I have to bend over to get my pants, I scream in pain.
But my legs keep me upright.
Barely.
The pain in my hand is radiating up my arm into my shoulder, and I have to stop every few steps to breathe through it. My entire body hurts in a way that I can’t even describe. I’ve never felt pain like this.
The streetlights blur at the edges, and I realize that I’m crying, have been crying for a while. I wipe my face with my good hand, and it comes back bloody.
I think the same thing I’ve been repeating in my head for the last hour. I have to get home. It’s not far now. I know this neighborhood. I’ve walked it a hundred times. Nate will make it better.
My legs stop working on Cypress Street.
I don’t remember falling. All I know is, I’m hobbling down the sidewalk, and then cold concrete is pressed against the side of my face. I try to get up, I really do. But my hand won’t let me push up on it, and for some reason, I’ve never been more tired in my entire life.
I just need a minute.
I close my eyes against the street light.
Nate, I think, with everything I have left, I’m sorry.
Now
Mike doesn’t say anything while he waits for my answer, but I can see him holding his breath. This means as much to him as it does to me.
All I know is that I love him.
I love him so much that I didn’t even know feeling this way was possible, and he’s standing in front of me asking for the one thing I don’t know if I can give him.
The look on his face tells me this is it. This is the thing that decides what we are.
I think about the cold brick. Jason. My hand. The hospital. Nate’s face when I woke up.
The year it took to stop flinching anytime someone would touch me.
Mike doesn’t know any of that. He thinks this is a pride thing. A being in the closet thing. Some sort of hang-up I have because I’m from Rosehill, and wanting to get fucked is wrong.
He has no idea.
And I can’t tell him, because if I do, he’ll look at me the way everyone looks at me these days. That careful look that makes me want to pull my hair out. He’ll never see me as me again.
Either way it goes, saying no, telling him why I can’t, I’m going to lose him. So I really only have one option.
I nod. “Okay.”
Mike blinks, almost like he didn’t expect me to say yes. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He hesitates, scanning my face before pushing off the counter. “Come on then.”
I don’t move while he starts out of the kitchen. “What? Now?”
“Yes, now,” he says, looking over his shoulder with narrowed eyes.
“Shouldn’t we maybe talk about it first?” I ask, my heart already starting to pick up, sweat prickling my face. “Like, make a plan?”
“A plan.” He repeats, flat the way his voice has been since I got back from Christmas. One foot already out the door.
“I just—”
“Alex.” He sighs, his eyes meeting mine, the warmth draining out of them at my protest. “This is a one-time offer.”
It doesn’t feel the same this time, I can’t help but think as I cross the threshold into my room behind Mike. We’ve done this countless times. Slept together in this bed every night for months.
But it doesn’t feel the same.
“Close the door,” he says, already moving toward the bed.
I follow his command silently while he sits on the edge of the mattress, elbows on his knees, watching me with an expression that makes me want to hide.
This isn’t the soft Mike who goes on and on about my body and hugs me for no good reason and steals my clothes. Who always has a smile.
This Mike is closed off.
Expects the worst from me.
Was hurt by me.
“Take your clothes off,” he says. “And get on the bed.”
I grip the hem of my shirt, my hands shaking, but I pull my shirt over my head anyway, dropping it on the floor. My jeans next, fumbling with the button until it comes free. I can feel his eyes on me the whole time, and the room feels too small.
When I’m down to nothing, my clothes a pile on the floor, I stand in front of him, shivering even though it’s warm in here.
Mike’s gaze travels down and back up, taking in my body. This is familiar. Normal. What’s not normal is the pause in the middle where his eyes linger, and he raises a brow in question.
I don’t have to look down at myself to know I’m not hard. Not even close. My body has decided that whatever is happening right now isn’t safe, and no amount of wanting to fix things with Mike is enough to override that.
“Relax,” he says, like the thought of getting fucked is enough to elicit this reaction.
“Sorry. I’m good. Relaxing.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he gestures toward the bed anyway. “Lie down.” I crawl onto the bed and settle into my usual spot, but he shakes his head. “Flip over.”
I hesitate long enough for him to cross his arms, but I do it, moving onto my hands and knees, staring down at the mattress, trying not to shift too much.
I focus on the sound of Mike standing up behind me, the familiar sound of him undressing.
The clink of his rings coming off one by one and being set on the nightstand.
Something about that makes my eyes sting.
He cares about me.
It might not be love to him, and he’s angry with me right now, but he wouldn’t hurt me.
The bed dips when he gets on behind me.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut, a few tears slipping free while I take deep breaths, trying to stay calm. I’m safe. Everything is okay. It’s Mike.
His hands land on me at the same time, warm and steady and his, and I tell myself over and over, this is Mike.
Mike.
Not Jason.
For a moment, I think I might actually be okay. He’s gentle in a way that doesn’t match the exterior coldness. I focus on that. On the warmth of his palms. On the fact that this is Mike, and I love him, and two years ago, I would have been exactly where I wanted to be.
Maybe I could want this again.
I think that until he spreads me open.
The rush of cool air and the sudden exposure has me tensing up all over, my fingers curling into the sheets, while I hear him exhale behind me.
“Fuck, baby. Look at you.”
I don’t know why those words hit the way they do.
I’ve heard him say things like that before, and it’s always done something good to me. I can separate Jason’s cruel words from Mike’s gentle dominance. It’s not the same. But something about right now, about being on my hands and knees with my body shaking, exposed and cold and scared.
They hit something inside me that hasn’t begun to heal, and all I can think is—
Please don’t.
But it’s Mike. I can feel his weight on the bed, can smell his cologne. He knows what he’s doing. He won’t hurt me. I’m completely safe.
His thumb presses against my hole.
And I’m not in the bedroom anymore.
There’s brick against my cheek, and Jason is fucking me. I can’t breathe right because something is wrong with my ribs, and my hand hurts and— “No.” The word tears from my throat. “Stop.”
“Hey,” I can hear Mike’s voice, muffled from far away. “You’re okay, breathe.”
“Stop,” I say, but it doesn’t sound like my voice. I’m not in the room. I’m on the wall. Jason. “Stop, please!”
“Alex, I’m not doing anything, you’re okay.”
His hand is still on me. Moved up to my back, moving in circles, but I can’t get past it. He’s touching me, and I know, underneath the fog in my head threatening to pull me under, that Mike would never.
But my body doesn’t know that.
My body is eighteen, beaten and broken in the dark high school parking lot.
Everything happens so fast. I’m freaking out, and then I’m shoving him off of me with the full force of my strength.
Mike hits the floor with a thud, hitting the side table on the way down.
I scramble backward on the bed until my back hits the headboard, trying to go even further, anything to get away from him. I yank my comforter up, pulling it over me, wrapping it around myself up to my chin.
The gasps coming out of me are too fast, and the room won’t stay still. The lamp is too bright, and I can feel the cold of that night. I can feel the brick even though there’s no brick.
I can feel everything.
“What the fuck?!” Some part of me knows it’s Mike’s voice, that I hurt him, and I should check on him, but I can’t get that part to respond right now.
“Get out,” I tell him over and over, squeezing my eyes shut, wrapping my arms around my legs to stop the shaking. “Get out. Get out. Get out.”
“Alex?” He questions, the anger draining from his voice. I hear him getting up, moving, and I press back further into the headboard.
“Don’t touch me.” I flinch away from the sound of him coming closer. “Don’t! I said stop!”
“Baby, I’m not touching you,” Mike says, but when I open my eyes, he’s in front of me, his hand reaching out, and he’s going to, I know it.
“Get out!” I shout, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I’m not letting you rape me, I’ll kill you!”
“Rape you?” Mike whispers. His eyebrows furrow, and he looks down, his lips pulling down into a frown. “Alex, I would never—”
I know that.
He doesn’t get it.
He’s not him right now.
“Just go.” I press my face into my knees, clinging to the blanket so tight my hand hurts. “Please. I need you to go, I need you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong,” I look up at this beautiful man that I love, naked, his arms crossed over his chest.
And right now, I never want to see him again.
“Please.” My voice cracks as a fresh wave of tears falls from my eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll be good, I promise, please don’t hurt me.”
The silence between us stretches while he looks at me with the most devastated expression I’ve ever seen on another person. He doesn’t know what’s wrong. He thinks he did something. And I can’t tell him that’s not true.
“Okay,” he says with a nod, sounding as hollowed out as I feel. He picks up his stuff and leaves the room quietly, while I hide my face in my knees until he’s gone.
I don’t know how long I stay curled against the headboard.
But eventually, the memories start to fade, and the room becomes my room again. The lamp starts to look normal, and the phantom pain from that night fades, replaced by the real pain of my hand that I’ve had squeezed tight for way too long. The only thing I have left from that night.
Other than the ticking time bomb that is my brain. That decided to go off today, during the most important moment of my life.
I slide down until I’m lying on my side, and stare at the empty space where Mike should be. Where he could be right now if I had held it together.
I wonder if he’ll come back after this.
I know what he heard. I know what it sounded like from where he was standing. He had no context, no way of knowing that I wasn’t talking about him. That the person I was begging to stop was almost two years ago, and he didn’t.
Mike doesn’t know.
He thinks he hurt me.
I let myself cry in a way I haven’t since the hospital. The kind that comes from my soul, stripped raw and bleeding for everyone to see. I let it happen because there’s nothing else to do.
I love Mike, and I think I lost him.