Chapter 19
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Life’s a trauma rainbow. Might as well dance beneath the colors.
Lukas
“Hi, Mom,” Clara says, and I hate the wobble in her voice, but the determination in her eyes as she sits on my lap, thighs splayed seductively around me, keeps me from grabbing the phone, providing the woman on the other end with a cuss, and chucking it off my balcony.
I mean, come on. If I do that, it might hit my harp or my piano.
I grip my Clara’s flesh instead, offering as much support as I can through the addictive action of caressing her thighs.
“Lukas is here,” she adds, wetting her lips before sinking against my chest and resting her head on my shoulder.
I move my hands to her back, soothing, firm.
Frick, she’s so soft and perfect and against me in marvelous ways, trusting me, so fully.
“Hello?” Clara whispers.
“What?” her mother clips. “So I’m not allowed to talk to you without a chaperone anymore?”
That’s right, you cesspool. No more making Clara feel like garbage because you want to weasel stuff out of me through her. I’d send you a hundred autographs at her request, so it’s very, very telling that she hasn’t even asked for one.
She doesn’t want to use me like that.
And so you suck for trying to make her.
Her body caves on itself, tensing against mine. “Yes?”
Stupid question marks on her perfectly adequate answers. C’mon, my girl, you’ve outgrown that.
Putrid ire saturates her mother’s voice, dripping like sludge through the line. “That’s not healthy, honey. You need your space.”
Clara lifts her free hand and combs her fingers through my hair.
I try not to let my eyes roll back in my head.
“But…this is what Lukas wants. Am I not supposed to do what Lukas wants? I thought you wan—”
“Ah, ah!” her mother silences her. “Hush. It’s not healthy to have him control everything you do.”
“But he says I’m his toy. He likes when I listen. And when I don’t…”
I tip my face to kiss her cheek.
“You’re worrying me, Clara. This man shouldn’t be allowed to tell you what you can and can’t do. You should be able to talk to your mother in private. This isn’t right.”
Clara buries herself against me, gripping my hair for support. “It’s not right for someone else to tell me what to do all the time and get mad at me if I don’t perform perfectly for them?”
“No, honey!”
She sounds so aghast. Oblivious entirely to what Clara is doing, to what Clara is getting out of her abuser: the harsh truth, the knowledge that even in their eyes, what they are doing is wrong.
Clara swallows, and dampness rests against my skin when she turns her face. “Oh.”
I nibble her jaw, massage her neck like I did yesterday, try not to replay the sighs and sounds she made in my head while I worked the pain out of her muscles.
“Clara, you come home right now. I don’t want you out there anymore.”
“But…I thought—”
“No,” her mother hisses. “You’re not thinking.”
“You wante—”
“No.” Her mother laughs this time and grits, “Honey, you’re not thinking. Come home immediately.”
“But Lukas wants to marry me,” Clara says.
Silence.
Dead, encompassing, powerful silence.
Clara’s breaths quiver. I squeeze her and adjust my own breaths for her to mimic. In. One, two, three, four. Out. Come on, cutie pie.
She latches on, breathes.
“Without meeting your mother first? Without asking your father for your hand?” Her mother tuts, huffs, changes her tune to a new devious plot. “No. I won’t hear of that.”
“He really wants to, though.” Clara sniffles. “I’ve already said yes.”
That is news to me.
Great news.
Unless it’s just to press more confessions out of her mother. I understand this feeling. After my parents died and I realized how horrible a number on me they did, I would have given anything to find some kind of closure, to press on their nonsense, to make it break apart into the truth.
I wanted to know that they knew when they hit all of us—just beat us to the bone—they were wrong.
Clara’s parents being wrong and knowing on some level that they’re wrong makes it so much easier to justify being right, and—in the case of abusers who are still alive—makes it so much easier to cut them off.
Oblivious bad actions receive grace.
Intentional abuse…is easier to separate from. Even if it is still so hard.
“You said yes to getting married even though your husband-to-be hasn’t met your mother yet?” the woman exclaims.
“I thought that—”
“Shut up, Clara. How could you?”
Her mother being very strict about guarding the information of her little schemes must be ringing loud in my poor Clara’s ears. Because, wildly enough, Clara is not stupid. I wish I could comfort her verbally through this without making her anxiety worse.
I’m here, sweetness. Right here. You’re so perfect. You’re doing so well. This is hard. You’re so strong.
“I’m sorry,” Clara whispers. “I…didn’t know.”
“Your father has a project at work this week, but then we’re coming to see you.”
Her breaths stop. “What?”
“And if I don’t approve of this relationship, you’re coming home with us.”
Clara’s grip in my hair tugs. “Mom—”
“I’ll not hear another word about it. That man has practically kidnapped you, and I will not stand for it. See you Saturday.”
The line dying hits me almost as hard as it seems to hit Clara. The phone slips from her fingers, landing beside us. “She…can’t do that, right? There’s…security here, isn’t there?”
“Sunset is practically a gated community, yes. Anyone entering must pass checkpoints and state their business, unless they have a pass that automatically scans in and out. You saw on Monday.”
“So she can’t just come here.”
“Correct.”
That information doesn’t settle her one bit. Tension continues to flow through every shattering inch of her. Which does not help her grip on my hair, or what that grip is doing to me when it is not the time at all for anything other than sincere support.
This is her mother. There are layers of feelings I will never get to unravel fully.
“Help,” she whispers, so broken, as her body destroys itself…
Something visceral ignites inside me, and it results in me plunging my fingers into her hair, pulling her head away from my shoulder, and laying an open-mouth kiss hard against her throat. “Say my name.”
“K—”
“Name.”
“Lukas,” she exhales.
“You are not alone.” I kiss, lick, nip. “You are mine. Big breath, sweetness.”
Her chest fills, tension racing away as a shudder rocks her.
“Am I gonna let anyone hurt you? Ever?” I growl.
“No,” she whispers. “But…inside hurts worse.”
I skim my nose up the column of her throat, tilt my mouth to kiss the underside of her jaw.
“I’ll make that feel good, too. I’ll plant flowers in your soul and kisses on your heart.
I will love you into ages unknown. You are so precious.
So strong. So…kind.” I wet my lips, parched for her.
“It’s gonna hurt. Dealing with people we love who suck hurts. ”
“Please don’t say that about my mother.”
I wince. “I’m sorry. I forgot myself.”
Tears skate down her round cheeks. “Why couldn’t she just be good?”
I fear that woman gave every drop of goodness to you, my love.
My heart aches, and I shake my head. “I don’t know.
You are so easy to be good to. People are messy fools.
Complicated packages. Results of environments and choices.
It’s hard to be good. It’s hard not to give in to every selfish urge.
But when people don’t resist for us, it doesn’t mean we’re not worth the effort.
If you want me to be kind,” I grit, “maybe everyone’s just struggling in ways that don’t make sense to us, and sometimes it affects us. ”
She manages to swallow. “But that’s no excuse to treat people like less than people.”
“Exactly.”
“Our situations shape us, but they don’t define us.”
I press a hard kiss to her forehead. “I’m so proud of you.”
“My journal is a trauma rainbow. It helps. A lot. Whenever I doubt myself, I skim through my trauma rainbow, and then I picture you looking at it and confirming that I’m not insane, that so much of what I’ve dealt with is wrong.”
I nuzzle. “You make even the darkest things beautiful. I’m sorry survival meant you had to see the best in everything, but I’m grateful, for my sake, that you do.”
Her grip in my hair eases, combs. “You are so much better than you give yourself credit for.”
I don’t know about that. I’m pretty proud.
Of her right now mostly…but still.
Instead of anything else, I softly say, “I love you,” as though her rejection of this one thing wouldn’t be enough to kill me.
“I have for a little while now. But I’ve been afraid to tell you.
I love you very…very much.” Pulling back, I dare to find her gaze.
It’s as it always should be—fixed on me.
She’s flushed, tear-streaked, so beautiful I can hardly find air.
Her strong, yet delicate, fingers meet my cheeks, then I watch—in slow motion—as she leans in. Her eyelids flutter closed, releasing two crystal tears that splash against my chest an instant before her lips are on mine.
A firework goes off in my brain.
Insufficient time passes, and she’s done.
One chaste kiss.
Her first.
Bestowed upon me.
Mine.
Forever and ever mine.
A tsunami of follow-up actions I could perform hits me, removing logic from my brain. All I can manage to utter is: “Are…we getting married?”
She drops her head, tangles her fingers against her soft stomach, nods.
So.
She didn’t lie to her mother.
She just didn’t yet tell me her yes.
She’s going to be my wife.
Clara Field is going to be my wife.
Sweeping her face into my hands, I claim her lips as my own, torturing her mouth in every way I know how. My heart pounds in my ears, creating a melody with her tiny, grateful whimpers. I catch every noise she makes, scoring them onto sheet music and composing the soundtrack of my soul.
She’s sugar and cinnamon. Butter and sweet wine. Honey. Overflowing, endless streams of honey. Vanilla and almond fill my nose, my lungs, my cells.
Her fingers spread against my chest, rise over my shoulders, sink into my hair.
She tugs; I growl, latching my grip around her throat to stop her frantic motions.
Panting and breathless, she asks, “Bad?”
“So, so good. Let me look at you.” I stroke her pulse with my thumb, mutter a swear.
Swollen, parted lips. Desperation. Heavy breaths. Trembling.
No one hurts her—ever again. This woman will never feel alone again. She will never struggle or face any fears alone again.
I add pressure around her throat; her eyes daze, lids fluttering.
“This okay?” I murmur.
“So good,” she whispers, and a thrill shoots down my spine.
I nip at her plump, pretty lips. “You’ll tell me to stop, won’t you? If I get too aggressive?”
Her mouth opens, but no words come.
“You don’t know if you’ll be able to?” I murmur, forcing my hold to lessen.
Her eyes close. “I don’t. But…for all the right reasons.”
Ah…frick.
“You want that?” I ask, voice pained.
Equally agonized, she whispers, “Too fast.”
Too fast. Yes. So fast. We’re going to get married.
We are going to get married. Maybe we should wait, until then, just to make sure it feels permanent.
Forever. I need having her to feel like forever.
I don’t think I’ll survive anything less.
I’m still so scared that I won’t be worthy of drowning.
After all, she hasn’t said that she loves me yet.
I need to be patient. I need to slow down.
I release her throat, kiss her chin. “What can I do for you right now?”
Biting a weak smile, she watches me as more tears brim, then she shakes her head.
“Keep loving me. Just like this. You’re teaching me what love is.
” She sniffles, and oceans fall from her sky blue eyes.
“My opinion matters to you. Respecting me matters to you. I don’t have to fight with you to be heard.
I don’t have to fear being seen and judged. Thank you.”
Thank you. For being bare minimum.
I need to spoil her better, so she’ll know when it’s really appropriate to thank me for anything.
Wiping her tears, I kiss the corners of her eyes. “Can you do something for me?”
“Anything, King.”
That makes me shudder with ecstasy. “Later, when you’re journaling, can you write that I love you in your rainbow? If anything is ever hard, can you think but Lukas loves me and make that mean everything to you?”
Her arms close around my neck, and she whispers in my ear, “Don’t be silly, Lukas…it already means everything to me.”
My heart skips, and I wrap her up, holding her until we’ve lost all track of time.