29. Daniela
TWENTY-NINE
Daniela
P ost sex dressing is always weird. Before the act everyone rips at each other’s clothes wanting them off as quickly as possible. The norm is you get yourself dressed after, but Valentin is a strange fuck and kisses my temple.
“Stay here, I’ll get something to clean you up.”
Where the fuck has the Val gone who fucked me in broad daylight then disappeared without saying a word?
I’m bent over a table with a belt wrapped around my neck and my arms bound behind my back. But he’s acting like it’s some romantic date. I wince as he pulls out and kisses my cheek as he carefully frees me from the leather. His thumbs massage my tender skin and I’m a dumb fuck laying still as he does the same to my neck.
His lips follow the leather burn under my ear as I close my eyes, so I don’t have to look at him. It’s childish and I don’t care. He could have passed out or ran away again. That’s easier to handle. Post fuck clarity is a real problem, and my mental anguish starts already knowing this was a mistake.
He moves taking his comforting heat away and finds the bathroom easily. Coming back with warm paper towels, my face heats as he rests them over my stinging ass. When his hand moves between my thigh I weakly say, “I can do it. You don’t have to.”
If he literally wipes my ass I’ll never be able to look at him. Maybe he should, it would be a barrier to stop me making a fool out of myself all the time.
There’s no pause and he cleans me up. He makes it all worse, mentally, as he kisses my shoulder and softly says, “You’re wrong, I look after what’s mine.”
I’m not his. I want it more than anything, for the world to be different and this to be real. But it can’t be because he has a kid who is my nephew. There’s dysfunction that’s funny to look back on and then there’s dysfunction you sit down with a therapist to discuss.
The uncharacteristic gentleness continues as he returns my clothes back to my body before dressing himself. His lips press against every piece of skin before he covers me and then lifts me up, keeping any pressure off of my ass. Dropping my legs to the ground, I look around seeing the mess we made and clear my throat to strengthen my voice.
“I’ve got some things to do here.”
The obtuse asshole doesn’t take the dismissal and leans against the workbench opposite me with his hands gripping the edge. His shirt isn’t buttoned and the stark white highlights his tattoos perfectly, especially the cat on his chest. It’s the first one he got, I remember the day and how proud he was of it.
His chin drops to his chest, and he looks up with disappointment. The emotion carrying into a threat as he stares at me.
“Don’t do it Dani.”
Straightening my shoulders, I lie. “I’m not doing anything.”
It seems to be how we communicate best, bullshit our way through a conversation and then forget it happened.
I busy myself with sorting through the paintbrushes that are all over the floor. He doesn’t let me have any peace and pushes away from the bench. Val lowers at my side and collects them all in his obnoxiously big hand. Holding my chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilts my face up and there’s nothing but honesty staring back at me .
“Don’t run away from me again.” His voice lowers with vulnerability as he continues, “I’m not 18 anymore, I’ll follow you around the world this time.” I’m weak as fuck already feeling my resolve turn into his cheerleaders as he rests his forehead on mine begging, “Stay with me.”
My stomach growls and he laughs lightly pressing a chaste kiss to my lips and softening further. “Do you still only eat pizza when you’re working?”
I’m officially on team Val again as I nod. The soft smile is my undoing. He’s so pretty in every instance but it’s the same smiles he’d give me when we were younger, and I’d collect them like a hoarder.All the feelings I had as a na?ve girl are amplified, and the nostalgia makes it worse.
“I’ve got another spot, it’s better than the old place.”
My eyes close as he kisses my forehead. His lips linger until he steps back and orders me around.
“Don’t touch the glass, I’ll pick it up.”
I’ve seen his bedroom, it’s untidy. The image of him picking up after himself is too good to miss out on so I don’t touch the patch as he walks out. Once everything is put back in order, I stand in front of my heart projects. None of these pieces are made for other people’s consumption and they’re hidden at the back of the studio behind a curtain. Each one represents thoughts I can’t give a voice to. From clay work to sketches, they’re my diary, hidden away from the world because it holds my pain.
I trace the edges of one I’ve recreated for years in countless mediums, and emotion clogs my throat. Every time I see it I’m a kid again, dismissed and forgotten. It’s not as refined as the other pieces; each line is erratic and it’s old as fuck showing the mistakes I hadn’t overcome yet. But I carry it with me, a physical representation of the feeling that will never leave.
Three disassembled portraits, a child’s eye full of joy and their lips mid speech. Vines wrap around the words disguising them.
My mother always looks at me when I speak .
The joy morphs into hesitance on the next block and the lips aren’t lifted in a smile but slowly dropping. The vines turn into thorns and the text alternates to the other side of the page.
Not to hear what I say .
Moving to the final block, I stroke the tears on the page like I can physically remove them when it was made by my hand and other peoples actions.The edge of thorns morph into chains and the text is bolder but still difficult to distinguish at first glance.
Waiting for me to .
I can feel the lump in my throat that I drew on the page, that same tightness in my chest and my eyes move to the side becoming the art as I follow the flow down to the lips.
Just .
Hard lines and a tear drop stuck to the cupids bow suspended in time.
Stop .
Like it could alter the world if it fell.
My attention is pulled back to reality when the door bangs. I expect it to be Val, but the clumsy footsteps wouldn’t belong to him drunk, and I poke my head out with a polite smile to tell whoever’s intruding to kindly fuck off. There’s a woman stood up with her back to me and I clear my throat forcing any memories away.
“Excuse me, the studio isn’t open.”
She turns at my voice, and I freeze.
I haven’t seen Carly in ten years. No communication or anything to even say she’s alive. Part of me made peace with her death, but she’s in front of me and I can’t say anything. Everything she’s done wrong, how she’s fucked me over and lied continuously doesn’t leave my mouth. All the nights I sat there planning what I would say if I ever saw her and I’ve become mute.
She’s meaner, cruelty written on every inch of her face. I don’t remember her features being that sharp and her tongue is worse.
“Leno told me about you and Valentin being together, I thought he was lying.”
My voice comes back at the reminder of what she did, and I can’t hide my disgust. “You’re a fucking rapist.”
She has never blacked out when she was high or drunk. She knew what she was doing whether Val admits it or not, the cunt took advantage of him.
Taking a step forward with righteous conviction, I look her up and down tallying her sins .
“Worse, a pedophile. He was a kid, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
I’m not much older than she was, the thought of touching a seventeen year old, never mind fucking them, turns my stomach. She shrugs like she’s not a sick fuck and closes the space between us opening her rotten mouth.
“He looked like a man, fucks like one too. But you’d know now.”
She has no sense of shame, and it clings to me. I’m disgusted at the fact I’m related to the bitch. My hand moves whipping through the air and the crack against her face echoes against the bare walls.
I always had an image of a drug addict in my mind. The same one that’s portrayed in movies, someone who the world has torn apart and they destroy themselves to find a new one. Carly doesn’t fit that description, she had everything she could have wanted, and it appears she still likes her designer clothes. There’s not a hair out of place on her head, she doesn’t even have grown out roots. All that fucking care she possesses goes into her image.
She slowly turns her head back to me. Her cheek is red and her face twists becoming as ugly as her true character as she grabs a handful of my hair. Her fist lands in my stomach, knocking the air out of me and I don’t know this person spitting at me.
“Do you like being second best to me? Mom and Dad fucking hated you, now you’re playing happy families pretending that brat is yours?” My scalp burns as she pulls my head further back and I can’t control my tears with every cruel word leaving her mouth. “You’ll never be able to replace me, not then and not now.”
I’m not trying to take a place that’s not even hers. Even as children it wasn’t a competition. I just wanted a fraction of my parents time, not to take it from her.
I’m not a fighter, I tried once and got the shit kicked out of me. I’m weak and my excuse for her to leave is weak to my own ears.
“Val’s going to come back, you’re not supposed to be here.”
I’m clutching at straws hoping to fuck she’s afraid of them after the bruises that were on her face the last time I had seen her. My body sways as she drops her hold on me and laughs slapping her thigh like I’ve told a joke. Shaking her head, she sighs and continues being a cunt,
“He’s already fucked you. Do you actually think he’ll come back? ”
My tongue doesn’t move.
Why can’t I argue with her? Shout my own foul shit when I can do it with other people easily, as though I’m still seeking some familial tie when it died long before my parents did. Carly doesn’t deem me worthy of her attention as she looks around the space and I can see her calculating my net worth before she even makes her demand.
“I need money.”
“I’ll pay for you to get clean,” I say, projecting false authority, “but I’m not giving you cash.”
All the money I have has been worked for. As soon as I restarted my commissions I never took a cent from tio and paid my way while living with him. He doesn’t need the money and he’s kept it in an account if I ever need it. But I’ll swallow my pride and ask him for the money if it means getting her the help she needs. More than just drugs, she needs therapy to work through whatever has made her such a horrible person. If having our parents affection is what caused her bitterness, I’m glad they neglected me. It was a better parenting plan than the one she got.
She tilts her chin in the air and gestures to her immaculate appearance. “Clean? Do I look dirty to you?”
No. She’s as put together as ever but she’s also high and keeps twitching her nose. Answering her question with one of my own, I stay out of touching distance.
“How could you sell your own child?”
Bile burns the back of my throat when she sighs and gives the wrong answer to a question that would never have a right one.
“I know, I should have said more than fifty grand. I was young and naive thinking it was a lot of money. But he paid more for you than he did the brat. It was fun watching him get angry and he’d just scream the same question.” She moves her hands mimicking a mouth and her voices comes out whiny, “Where’s Dani? Dani this. Dani that.”
Every syllable leaving her mouth is worse than the last.
“He actually thought I was you, he kept saying how much he loved you when he was fucking your sister.”
She laughs and I’m dying. She’s so fucked up it isn’t comprehendible, and anger burns through me at her next question.
“Does it ask about me? ”
It. Not he or what’s his name. She called Viktor, the sweetest little boy, an it . I grab the closest thing to me, and the turntable flies through the air. My tone hardens becoming deadly and not matching one I’ve used before.
“Do not fucking speak about him.” My fight appears, promising violence if she tries to call my bluff as I take a step closer with my fists balled. “If you even try to get close to him, I’ll kill you myself.”
She’s toxic, infecting everything around her. Viktor doesn’t deserve to be dragged into her bullshit.
Carly doesn’t even flinch and laughs thinking I’m not serious. Choosing to speak her language, I offer, “I’ll give you all the money I have as long as you stay away.”
She can snort it or shoot it into her veins for all I care, because there’s only one person who deserves protection. Viktor’s innocent and good, too young to have his world ripped apart by her lies.