21
EMERSYN
Gabe was quiet on the ride home. He didn’t say anything as we peeled off our outer layers of clothes and climbed into bed. I flicked off the lights, and we plunged into darkness. My head started to spin; the little red dot from my laptop darted so violently that I had to close my eyes to block it out. But closing my eyes brought a swell of nausea, and I forced them back open. There was a gap in the curtain, allowing some streetlight into the room, and gradually my eyes adjusted, enabling me to distinguish Gabe’s features in the dim light. He stared up at the ceiling, hands tucked behind his head. My eyes drooped with fatigue as I watched him. We lay in silence for a long time, and I was near sleep when Gabe spoke.
“Did he hurt you, Syn? Is that why you left?”
The tears came instantly. I let them fall silently, and he pulled me close, resting his chin on my head and speaking quietly. “I won’t let him hurt you, okay? I won’t ever let him touch you again.”
I started to sob then, just like I did in the car. And just like in the car after the horrible dinner at my parents', Gabe held me without saying a word and let me cry. I felt so hopeless and somewhat dishonest for letting him assume situations I couldn’t fully explain.
Stupid alcohol.
When my sobs subsided enough for me to talk, I was grateful he couldn’t see the minutiae of my expressions, that he couldn’t tell when I was speaking the truth and when I was holding back. I let it spill out, starting from the beginning and barely drawing breath until the end. But there were things I couldn’t tell him—things that were better off kept secret.
“I was so young when we met, and I was so caught up in escaping my parents that I didn’t see who he really was.” My words came out stilted and punctuated with hiccups. “Our relationship didn’t really start until I began working for him. Before that, he sneaked me into the odd nightclub, bought me gifts, stuff like that, but nothing—well, nothing sexual. It was more like he was the fun uncle, as sick as that sounds. Once things heated up between us, we kept it a secret because he was engaged. God, I hate admitting it now, but I stupidly took pride in the fact that he wanted me, even though he was already engaged to a woman more mature and more beautiful than I was. We spent long nights researching articles together at work, that sort of thing. No one knew at the time, not even my parents. I knew it was wrong, but it didn’t feel that way then. It was exhilarating.” I yawned, a contradiction to the words I’d just said. “We’d sneak around the office making out and having sex behind locked doors. Everything was exciting. Sort of. Looking back on it now, I feel so foolish. I was completely taken by him, even though there was nothing to truly hold onto. It was the excitement of it all. Not him. And then things just changed.” Gabe let me talk, never interrupting. “I thought the reason he was cheating on his fiancée with me was that our bond was that strong. That he loved me that much.” I snorted. “That’s how naive and gullible I was. At some point, I started complaining about how we were never allowed to be together in public, so he organized a weekend away for the two of us. I felt special. I felt…” I tried to think of a better word than what was on my mind, but nothing else fit. “I felt grown up. We stayed at a fancy hotel, dressed in matching bathrobes, and ordered room service. And late at night, we walked hand in hand by the water. I don’t know how I justified it all, knowing that his fiancée was waiting for him back home, but somehow I was able to simply not care.”
I kept my gaze averted from Gabe, who I knew was lying there, staring at me and listening to every word I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the judgment in his eyes.
“On the last day, he took me shopping and bought me this gorgeous dress. He told me he’d made special dinner reservations and arranged for my hair and makeup to be done. I got lost in a daydream, imagining that this weekend would reflect the life we could have together. So when he arranged for me to meet him and I discovered a minister, flowers, and Conrad waiting there on bended knee, I simply said ‘yes.’”
I swallowed the nervousness at the back of my throat, waiting for some sort of reaction from Gabe, but he merely squeezed my hand and waited for me to continue, knowing I wasn’t yet done with my story.
“I thought it was so spontaneous and romantic.” I sighed, thinking back to the na?ve girl I used to be. “Of course, it takes days to arrange a wedding certificate, not hours, so he’d planned it all. It wasn’t spontaneous. It was arranged. And he hadn’t even bothered to break it off with his fiancée first. It should have been a huge red flag for me, but again, I was stupid. We got home, and my parents were thrilled. Turns out he’d talked to them before we even left. His fiancée wasn’t so thrilled. She moved out, and I moved in.” Thinking back on that time of my life was painful, and I felt myself talking faster, skipping details and wanting to just finish so Gabe could know the real me and leave.
I took a deep breath. “Next thing I knew, he was dictating who I could see, what jobs I could work on, and even what clothes I wore. I started drinking. A lot. It was the only way I could bear it. I kept convincing myself that he’d get better; he just loved me so much that he wanted everything to be perfect.”
I took another deep breath, and it caught in my chest, coming out as a stutter. “We’d get drunk. Often. And then we’d argue. I started drinking every night just to try to forget the misery I was in. He hated it. He’d yell at me and tell me I was useless. And then he’d…” I stopped, not sure if I could voice the rest. Not sure if I wanted to. The alcohol had freed my lips, resulting in me sharing more with Gabe than I ever had with anyone else. I skipped over the details. “He never hurt me, not physically, at least. I mean, he never hit me or anything, but he controlled every aspect of my life, and I was too weak to resist him.”
“You weren’t too weak; you were—”
I shook my head, cutting him off. I didn’t want to hear his reasons for excusing my behavior. I played a part in it too.
“I got a promotion at work writing reviews of local shows and things like that. I got assigned to this male strip show, and he just blew up and said I couldn’t cover it, even though, technically, he wasn’t my boss anymore. I went anyway. He stormed in and dragged me out. I was so angry, but he convinced me that it was because he loved me and just couldn’t stand the thought of all those men leering at me. Stupid, really, when the whole point of the show was women leering at the men. But I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see any of the warning signs, even though they were screaming at me.”
“You were a fucking teenager, Syn.” Gabe’s voice rumbled through his chest.
“He just got worse after that. I was constantly walking on eggshells, torn between my desire to please him and the nagging knowledge he shouldn’t be treating me like that. It wasn’t until he published a story under his name that I’d written and didn’t give me any credit that I began to truly see him. It seems like a silly thing now, looking back, but I guess it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
I risked a look at Gabe. He reached down and cupped my cheek, brushing away a tear that I didn’t realize had fallen. I darted my gaze away again so I didn’t have to look at him when I told him the next part. Sitting up, I pulled the sleeve of my top up and held out my arm. Gabe didn’t say anything, but his eyes followed the patches of red splattered across my skin.
“He’d just come home after I discovered he’d stolen my story. I was drunk. I don’t deny it. I’d also started taking these pills to help me sleep, and then some others when I needed to stay awake, all provided to me by Conrad, mind you. I was heating some oil on the stove, ready to fry something—I don’t even remember what—when he came into the kitchen. We started arguing. The next thing I knew, he spilled some of his drink into the oil, causing it to boil and spit and splatter on my arm. It hurt so badly. So fucking badly. Conrad didn’t even want to take me to the hospital because he said I was overreacting. I got there in the end, though.” I lowered my eyes. Everything I’d said was the truth. It wasn’t the whole truth. But I couldn’t tell him the whole truth.
Gabe shuffled to sit and reached out to place a single finger on the scar of one of my burns. My throat constricted at his gentle touch. There were still parts of my scars that felt numb—numb and sensitive at the same time. A wave of nausea welled within me whenever they were touched, but for some reason, Gabe’s touch was comforting. He traced each of my scars, moving up my arm until he reached the very last one, which spread across my shoulder.
“Are they only on your arm?”
Shaking my head, I lifted the hem of my shirt, exposing the left side of my torso. There was just a single scar where the oil had seared into my skin—an ugly, uneven blotch.
Gabe bent his head and placed his lips against it, peppering it with the lightest of kisses. I closed my eyes and let out a gentle, sighed sob as the sensation ignited feelings I didn’t want to confront.
I tugged my shirt back down, turning away from him. “The really crazy part is I still didn’t leave him. It was only the beginning of the end. He convinced me it was my fault. He convinced me he couldn’t live without me. I lied and told him I loved him.” I rushed over the next part quickly. “He told me this sob story about a supposed life-changing moment and promised me he’d change. I fell for every word. Months passed before I finally left him. I went to stay with my uncle, too scared to admit to my parents what had happened, and when I finally showed up to explain things to them, Conrad was there. He’d told them I had a drinking problem. He threw in a drug addiction too, just for fun. He said he’d been trying to convince me to get help when I spilled oil on myself.”
“And that’s when they put you into rehab,” Gabe finished for me.
“It took a couple more months for them to admit me into rehab, a couple more months where I admittedly lived up to everything Conrad had told them about me. But they always believed him over me no matter what I said. They thought my accusations were just a way to lay the blame at his feet instead of taking responsibility myself.”
“I’m so sorry, Syn. I’m so sorry you had to go through all that alone.”
“It’s such a hard thing to explain because I did have a problem. I was drinking too much. I was self-medicating. I don’t want to sound like I’m shirking responsibility, but there was a reason for it all.”
“Conrad,” Gabe said quietly.
“Conrad,” I repeated.
I hazarded a glance at Gabe, expecting to find pity, but also hesitation, maybe even a little repulsion. Instead, Gabe reached out and pulled me against him, laying us back down and resting my head against his chest. The warmth of our bodies pressed together was comforting and safe. I wanted to crawl inside him, to hide beneath his skin. The sound of his heartbeat thudded in my ear. I moved my hand across his smooth chest, running it up his neck, over his jaw, and cupping his cheek. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this, but I had enough of a buzz from the alcohol to push that thought to the back of my mind and bury it deep. He nuzzled into me, gently pressing his lips against my hand, kissing my flesh tenderly. I tilted my chin upward and trailed my lips over his skin. He tasted of heat and salt. He smelled divine.
Maybe it was the alcohol that made me do it, maybe it was because I’d never felt this way with a man before, or maybe it was because I didn’t want to deny my attraction to him any longer.
I kissed his skin some more.
He groaned, a sound that only intensified the heat between my legs. Climbing on top of him, I kept my lips pressed to his flesh, making my way up his neck and trailing kisses over his jawline.
Gabe sucked in a sharp breath. “Should we be doing this, Syn?”
I looked up and saw myself reflected in his pupils. I had no words to explain how I felt—no words to articulate the clashing emotions inside me. So, in reply, my lips found his. The kiss was hesitant and unsure until Gabe’s hands wound into my hair, pulling me tighter to him. Our mouths collided. I’d never been kissed like that before. Arousal exploded within me, making me desperate. I forgot every reason I shouldn’t be doing it and surrendered to the feeling of his lips on mine.
His hands didn’t wander. They didn’t venture over my body. They stayed wrapped in my hair, pulling me closer as though he too wanted to crawl inside and hide beneath my skin.
My breath quickened. My body quivered with need. Breaking the connection of our lips, I kissed my way back down his neck, relishing his taste. I kissed the hollow between his collarbones and the indentations of his muscles. I scooted down, kissing each ripple of his stomach. Gabe moaned, his head arching back against the pillow. Then his hands reached down and clutched my arms, stopping me.
“Are you sure?” he whispered. “I don’t have the strength to say no to you twice.”
In reply, I wrapped my hand around his steel-hard cock. He moaned again, and a hiss of air whistled through his teeth. I pumped him, wanting to lose myself in him as quickly as possible before my thoughts caught up with me.
Wrapping his arm around my waist, Gabe tossed me onto the mattress, looming over me. His mouth dove to mine as his hand gripped the flesh of my breast over my shirt. I let out a shuddered breath, and he swallowed the sound. Then his mouth fell to my neck, and his fingers fumbled with my buttons. He opened my shirt, staring openly at my lace-covered breasts. I arched toward him, wanting more than anything to feel the pressure of his mouth on my nipples. But Gabe didn’t move to my breasts. Instead, his mouth traveled to my shoulder, kissing my scars and following the pattern down my arms.
Tears threatened again. The memory of Conrad’s fingers gripping my arm flashed through my mind. My eyes sprang open.
I needed to stop.
I couldn’t do this.
I was ruining everything.
“Stop,” I said, jerking away from Gabe and sitting up. I grabbed my shirt and wrapped it back over my shoulders, clutching the material together between my breasts.
“Okay, okay.” Gabe held up his hands and moved away from me. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
The alcohol blurred my thoughts. Panic mixed with arousal and shame, compounded by the knowledge that I shouldn’t be doing this.
“I can’t do this,” I sobbed, getting up from the bed and moving away from him. “I can’t do this.”
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said, shaking his head. The confusion was clear in his eyes. “I thought you wanted—”
“I can’t!” I yelled. I squeezed my eyes shut, hating the words spilling from me but unable to stop.
“Syn, I never meant to put any pressure on you. I thought this was what you wanted. I asked if you were sure.” There was desperation in his voice.
“You need to leave,” I heard myself say. I didn’t mean it. Not really. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything would be okay. But how could I ask that of him? How could I do that to him, knowing everything I’d written, everything I intended to write? Everything I knew and hadn’t told him.
I was using him, and he didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve him. “Please just—” I took a shaky breath. “Just leave, okay? Just leave.”
“Syn, we need to talk about this. We’ve obviously crossed wires here somewhere. I thought—”
“Leave!” I screamed, unable to contain the whirlwind of emotions inside me. I knew I was being cruel and unreasonable, but I couldn’t see another way forward.
Gabe’s eyes were clouded with confusion as he gathered his clothing. “You know what?” he said, his voice turning cold. “You need help, Syn.” He tugged on his jeans. “This is the first time I’ve ever been with someone more fucked up than me.”
“We’re not together,” I spat back, even as the tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Sure, keep telling yourself that. But one thing’s for sure: we’re certainly not anymore.” He stormed out the door, and I jumped as it slammed shut behind him.