Chapter 14 #2
“No. Leo, we can’t go back to this.” He hangs his head in defeat, knowing that he will always respect my boundary no matter how hard he doesn’t want to. “Fuck!” he shouts as he turns from me and runs his hands through his hair. I’ve never heard him yell.
“Just tell me one thing. Tell me you weren’t running from us. From me?”
How he could ever think that breaks my heart. Probably because you literally just ran from him, Leo. I shush the pesky little voice in my head.
“No. I would never run from you. I promise. I just…I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
He comes back to stand between my legs. His hands land on my wide hips, and his gaze runs over me, trying to find the damage, but it’s dark out and most of my damage is on the inside anyway.
“Like what?”
Ignoring his question, I ask, “Can you take me to Mill’s?
“Why? It’s ten at night.”
“Ski, he…lets me stay there when…when I need to.” I can see that he wants to ask more. To know more. But he doesn’t.
“Okay, but I’m going with you.”
I just nod because I know after being with him, even just for a short time, there are some battles I can’t win—don’t want to win.
He opens my door for me, and I climb in. When he goes around to his side and opens the door, the overhead light comes on. He uses this as a chance to look at me.
His pupils dilate. His fist tightens on the steering wheel. I can see the muscles twitch in his jaw, and his nostrils flare. “What the fuck happened to your neck, Leo?” My Ev’s sweet voice is gone, replaced by a growl deep in his chest.
My body breaks out in chills. He clicks the overhead light on and runs his fingers gently over my burn, my bruises. I close my eyes and force myself not to react to the pain his touch causes.
I can’t lie to him. It's time I stop trying to hide.
“My mom. She found my college applications. I said some things she didn’t like, and she wanted to give me a… reminder that she could take my life as easily as she gave it.”
I don’t need to put into words what her hands did to me.
He gets out of the truck suddenly, and I think he is coming over to my side, but he doesn’t. He just paces in front of the truck. The headlights illuminate him as he walks back and forth. His hands run through his locks and down his face, over and over as if he could wipe all this from his memory.
After what feels like a lifetime, he comes back.
“How long has she been hurting you, Leo?”
“For as long as I can remember.” I hold his gaze. If I’m giving my truth, I need to see his eyes. They are incredibly expressive. I need to see him through them.
“Your legs?” He nods to my thighs. I know what he is asking. He has seen all my scars at this point, but I couldn’t tell him what they were from. Not then. Not in our most intimate moments.
“Her lighters.”
“Your belly?”
“Her cigarettes.”
“Your back?”
“Her belt.”
Silence fills the cab of the truck like a suffocating gas.
I feel my lungs begin to burn as I hold my breath, as if that will make the wait for him to accept me or leave me easier.
Why would anyone want to be with someone so unloved and scarred?
My own mother couldn’t love me, and even though he has told me countless times that he does, does he mean it?
Will he mean it after he has seen how truly damaged I am?
Not only my body but my mind. I don't trust easily, I scare at the first sign of betrayal and judgement, I have deep insecurities.
I am not blind to my own trauma's and how I have learned to cope with them. I know I cannot be easy to love.
He looks back at me now.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The sorrow that coats his words hits me in the chest like a bullet.
“Could you not trust me?” Second bullet.
I reach and cup his porcelain face with my caramel hand. My favorite contradiction.
“I’ve never told anyone,” I try to reassure him, but I fail.
“I’m not just anyone, Leo. I’m yours.” His eyes are hurting. Like he is trying to take my pain and erase it.
I don’t know what to say, so I just lean forward and rest our foreheads together. Our moment. It’s the only way I know how to show him how much I love him. How sorry I am that I’m the way I am. How untrusting and scared I am.
“You can’t go back there. Ever.”
“I was going to ask Ski if I could stay at the shop. He has an air mattress there for me for times like this—”
His eyes fill with anger. “He knows?”
“Yes. But only because he found out. He caught me breaking into his shop years ago. I was looking for a safe place, and I had to tell him why I was breaking in. He gave me a key and told me anytime I needed, I could stay there.”
“But he didn’t do shit. He didn’t call the cops on your mom or report her?”
“I begged him not to. By the time I met anyone who cared enough to do that, I was too scared to leave her.
I know what she does, I know what my body looks like, but…
She is all I have ever had. And as much as I hate her, she is still my mother.
Plus, I didn't want them to take me away.
I don't want to go into the system. Please.
Don't be upset with him. This was my choice and he was just respecting it.”
He is shaking his head, clearly frustrated with my answer. “I don’t understand. You're choice, his choice could lead to you dying. She could kill you, Leo!”
“You can’t understand something you have never had to experience, Ev. Your life is…good. Sheltered. Protected. Worth something…”
His furious green eyes pin me to my seat. “Your life is worth something, Leo.”
“I’m beginning to realize that, now that I have you.”
The softness in his eyes at my confession tells me that I have my Ev back.
“You’ll stay with me this weekend. My parents are out of town for some gala in the city. Then we can talk to Ski tomorrow and work something out. All I know is you are not going back to that house.”
His tone is firm. Final.
I kiss his cheek, hoping and praying that he feels how deeply I love him in this moment. “Okay.”