41-Zach #2
“Chip?”
“My friend’s dad taught me not to take the Lord’s name in vain. I’m not religious, but—” I shrug, forcing the sorrow back as I think of Nicole and Steve. “Chip stuck.”
His genuine laughter is rich, like being bathed in warm rain.
Steam brushes over my skin as I step out of the tub.
Kit spreads a giant towel, and I lean into him as he wraps the cotton around me.
It’s thick and fluffy, a bit stiff from too many starch washes.
He tucks the tail between my breasts, heat blooming from his starved gaze.
“Zachary,” he rumbles, and the way he says my name nearly undoes me. Heat and fear twist together until I can’t tell them apart.
I want to.
“I should get to my own room.” My nerves alight, I lean back.
“Please don’t go.” Kit bites his lip, a few loose strands of hair falling as he dips his head. “We don’t have to do anything; I’ll sleep on the floor. I just need to know you’re safe. I won’t sleep a wink if you’re not here.”
One peek at his open boyish face, and my resolve crumbles. I nod.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, his stiff shoulders sagging.
Kit disappears into the bedroom, returning a moment later with an oversized sweater.
“Let’s get you warm,” he says, offering it to me.
Kit steps away, and the space is too big in his absence. I pull on the sweater, the sleeves hanging a good half-foot from my wrists. The fabric is luxuriously soft and thin. Black; always black. Detergent sits faintly in its threads, but mostly just Kit.
Home.
The thought hits me like an irrational sucker punch. My breaths shorten, oxygen thinning.
“Shh,” Kit murmurs, crossing to me in two strides. “I’ve got ya, love.”
He unwraps the towel from around my knees, tossing it aside. Gathering me into his arms, he carries me out of the bathroom, gently putting me onto his lap as he sits on the edge of the bed. I don’t want to leave his comfort, but it terrifies me. Panic claws through my veins like a living thing.
“I—”
My thoughts tangle, but I swallow hard. Trauma isn’t the initial crack of the whip; it’s leaving the untreated wound to fester without resolve. He needs to know why I reacted the way I did.
“Carter, my ex.” The words claw their way up before I can stop them. “He used to beat me.”
Kit’s arms, warm and secure, go rigid, bracing himself for inevitable impact. I sink into his heartbeat, trying to steady my voice.
“He’d trap me so I couldn’t get away. One night, the last night, he put me in a chokehold and pulled out a gun.
Tonight, it just felt like being back there again.
” My throat burns, but the words keep coming.
“I don’t trust men. They’ve never treated me well.
I used to take my dad’s drunken beatings—”
The words catch, and I can’t push past them. Kit settles back just enough to see me, his glower dark; furious with the ghosts I drag behind me.
“I got away whenever I could; thankfully I had Nicole and her dad. And as soon as I graduated, I left. That’s when I met Carter. He was perfect; everything my dad wasn’t. He didn’t even drink, which was a big one for me. But he controlled everything.”
Kit’s hands tuck into fists around my waist as if he’ll stand as a last defense between me and the world’s end. I selfishly feed on the temporary sense of assurance, knowing I’ll never let myself keep it.
“He’d check my phone and stalk my friends.
Anytime he thought I was cheating or thinking of leaving, he’d get aggressive, and when I finally grew the courage to leave, he wouldn’t let me.
And because I fought back, the cops always called it a domestic dispute, saying that Carter could easily press the same charges. What a joke.”
He palms my back and guides me into him. Taking a page from Judas’s onstage book, I scream. The darkness of every unsaid confession, all the letdowns of men who stated their sole job was to protect, and the things the little girl inside of me should never have had to endure, pours out.
He takes it, inhales my poison as though it’s his antidote.
“Where’s the wanker now?” Kit’s tone is a low, dangerous monotone. The sudden steel in his voice startles me. “I’ll have a chat with Greg. We can get you a lawyer—”
“Nicole and I tried all of that.” I shake my head in exasperation.
“There wasn’t enough evidence. Deleted every account and changed my number.
I left Milwaukee and moved to California.
I made myself faceless. This is the only account I’ve had since, and I keep it locked down.
But he’d use anonymous accounts. Fake numbers.
I don’t follow strangers. It’s been a good year since he tried to contact me, though. I think he finally moved on.”
Nausea dries my mouth. “Which probably means he’s doing the same thing to someone else. Someone who doesn’t know she deserves better.” The thought twists my stomach into a bowtie. “But still, I’m always looking behind me.”
I bury my face into Kit’s shoulder. His heart thuds against my cheek, prevailing each second it fights for the next beat. Kit doesn’t move or try to fix me. The silence stretches, but it’s not empty. It’s full of everything neither of us has said yet.
Kit exhales shakily. I lift my head to catch his gaze, but his stare is distant. Haunted.
“My dad was a bastard, too,” he finally says, nimble fingers skirting up and down my spine.
“He was strict in the ‘don’t bloody breathe wrong around him’ way.
Everything was either a test or a punishment.
Sometimes both. He’d lose his temper over nothing.
” The memory flickers across his face like an old scar “Didn’t matter.
He used to say he was making me a strong performer, but I was fucking petrified to miss a single note in my practice or recitals. ”
There’s a long pause. Kit shakes his head, swallowing hard.
“He got arrested, and I remember thanking God. I was relieved, knowing he’d never lay a bloody hand on me or my mum again.
Free.” When he finally looks at me, he’s hollow.
“I hate that the happiest day of my life was the day they took my father away in handcuffs, and I thanked the very thing that’d turn its back on us shortly after.
” He exhales shakily. “Sometimes I think I’m still waiting for him to come back.
Like he’s going to walk through that door and everything I built will fall apart. ”
“He can’t touch you anymore.”
“I know.” Kit considers me, like he wants to believe that, but doesn’t know how. “When Endymion first appeared, I thought I’d gone mad. I didn’t know what was real; if I was real. And Melody—”
His voice breaks. I reach for his hand, and he squeezes back.
“We were awful together; the entire rocky relationship had gone pear-shaped toward the end. But losing her in that accident shattered me. I still don’t know how to carry it. Some days I feel like I’m made of glass. Other days I feel like I’m made of nothing at all.”
He shakes his head, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. Kit reaches beneath the collar of my sweater, lifting my necklace from behind the material.
“I’m not telling you this to compare pain or anything. Just that I understand. The fear and grief. The way it lingers and shapes you.”
My lungs cave in, because I know he does. We’re two broken souls with paralleling wounds, carrying the same hollow ache.
I lean into him, and he wraps his arms around me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip even a little. We stay like that for a long time, the room still except for the quiet rattle of the AC.
Eventually, he shifts, guiding me gently down onto the bed. He lies beside me, and I curl into his chest, my temple pressed to his throat. Sliding one arm around my waist, he folds the blanket half over us.
My lids flutter shut. The continual rise and fall under my cheek is the sweetest lullaby as I drift into sleep. It’s one of finding comfort in quiet and closeness; the shared understanding of what it means to be hurt.
Then choose to keep going.