Chapter 12 #3
“How could you have ever missed it?” The anger’s there now, not directed at me necessarily, but at wasted time, at regrets of a former self.
“You know that’s not fair—to either of us.
We were kids, Hawthorne. I wasn’t used to being wanted, wasn’t used to being the object of someone’s affection.
And he was older, mysterious, he made me feel like something special, something to be desired.
Awkward, weird, chubby teen me was starved for that kind of attention. ”
“You weren’t—”
“Don’t even say it. I’ve always been fat, Hawthorne.
It’s not something to be ashamed of. Just a simple truth, like the fact that my eyes are brown.
I wasn’t even ugly, but you and I both know that most teenage boys care more about the judgment of other teenage boys more than anything else.
Nobody had ever openly admired me like this.
” An exasperated sigh escapes me. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a young girl, especially one who’s undiagnosed, always wondering why she doesn’t quite fit in.
He saw that in me. I let him, like the goddamned fool that I am, I showed exactly what he needed to make me trust him.
And he played me like a fucking fiddle.”
“That’s not fair. Like you said, you were just a kid.”
“You’re right, I was. And yet, here we are because of a choice I made. Because I didn’t tell him to leave, because I didn’t reject his infatuation with me, here we are, both the worse for it. I allowed him to ruin our lives. Hell, I invited him to.”
In three long strides on those strong legs, he tears through the distance between us, cradling my face like I’m the most delicate creature who could collapse into dust in front of him if he makes one wrong move.
“Sol, look at me.” He holds me gently, even though I fight him. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t forgive that girl you used to be. Because I could, but I don’t blame her in the first place.”
Disbelief forces my gaze to his.
“I don’t blame you. He took advantage of you. He took a vulnerable young girl and exploited her. He is a fucking predator.”
My mouth goes dry. The immediate condemnation is a shock to my system that was prepared for dismissal, the swift tear of everything that we are.
But when I look up into Hawthorne’s russet brown eyes, I find more understanding there than I could have ever anticipated.
It’s given freely, pooling there for me to swim through leisurely, to finally put my shame to rest and float atop the surface.
Without words, he communicates clearly; I have you.
“I won’t rest until you’re free of him.”
“I’ve tried everything,” I whisper into the collar of his shirt while breathing in the warm, earthy scent, the notes of clove beneath awakening my senses and grounding me in this reality.
“Not everything. I’m going to wipe that motherfucker from the face of this earth, I don’t care what it takes.” His vow should wrap a blanket of comfort around me, but instead, it summons the worst of my nightmares from the clinging shadows in the corner of the room.
My head begins to throb as I stare into them, my chest tightening, my warning smothered.
Out steps the man in question, his anger slithering toward me like a venomous snake.
His influence is a heavy, drugging thing, amplified by the hold he has within this house.
The depths of his jealousy pull me under with barely so much as a fight, waves of it pounding down on me as I’m dragged away from the familiar shores of myself.
“I’ll take that as an invitation to join you,” Ivan announces himself, although his steps are silent.
“You’re not welcome here,” Thorne asserts. His muscles taut, voice controlled, but his anger is a palpable thing that seeps into my skin and licks at the invisible wounds this man has left on my soul.
“That’s cute.”
“This is my house.”
“I’ve lived here longer than you. This is as much my house, if not more. You have no dominion over me.”
“Deed’s in my name.”
“Perhaps, but your lease on your body is only temporary.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A reminder.” The entity crosses his arms over his chest. “Besides, what’s a deed when I’ve secured the deal of a lifetime?
” I can’t help but tense up as he turns his leering smile on me.
“Although you do diminish your worth, Little Dove, allowing yet another man to make use of you.” He lets out a long sigh.
“I have my work cut out for me, but one day, you’ll learn how to be the kind of woman I need. ”
“She is mine. And you would do well to watch the threats you make unless you want me to take joy in tearing you apart until you are nothing but a madman trapped in a cell of bones.” Ivan’s very presence darkens, his form blurring with a pitch black energy and his features contorting with rage, but it dissipates just as quickly as it arrived.
“You expect me to fear a man who preys on little girls?”
“Seventeen is hardly a girl.” He aims for casual dismissal, but his features twitch with restraint as his leash of control pulls taut.
“I was a child. Nothing you say will change that.” His heightening anger feeds my own seething.
“Tell me, Little Dove. Do the fragile technicalities make you feel better? Does the flimsy shelter they provide help you sleep at night?” His disgust transforms into a sickly smug smile.
“I would think not. You’re no innocent who was forced into this arrangement.
We both know it, but does he?” Ivan paces the room with ease, the upper hand reestablished.
“Don’t,” I spat as the clammy hands of panic ring my neck. Hawthorne steps closer to me reflexively, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“You spin your little stories in that pretty head of yours, speak them as truth with those seductress lips, always weaving them around yourself as the victim, but we both know the threads you conveniently leave out. What are you so afraid of?” Stopping his pacing, he turns to face me, and our eyes meet, his knowing gaze spearing like a blade to the chest.
“I know what it is, what you spend all of your time agonizing over. Will he still love you the same? Will he still risk his life if he knew what you’ve promised me?
And I agree, your concerns are founded. You’re hard to love as it is.
He wouldn’t want you if he knew that you’ll never be able to give yourself to him completely.
” Each blade-tipped word pierces me further, tearing through skin and fat and muscle to my core where we both know what lies beneath.
My greatest shame, those darkest pieces of my soul.
His eagerness to bleed out all the goodness in me is sickening, sweat pouring over me as my stomach sours.
“Fuck. You.”
“So brave with him here to stand between us, but you and I both know he’ll never be able to keep us apart.” With that ominous threat, he disappears through the wall.
Even though Thorne remains silent, the weight of his questions piles up on my shoulders.
They yell their demand for answers against my temples.
They tear pieces away like I’m nothing more than crepe paper.
Or maybe that’s just my projection because when I finally muster the courage to look at him, there’s no righteous fury painted in harsh strokes across that beautiful face, only concern, only the desire to understand.
“Do you see now? I told you I wasn’t the person you remembered.
” My breathing is shallow and ragged as I try to speak past the broken shards of myself that want to come spewing out of me along with the truth.
“I let him have me. He didn’t take anything.
He didn’t steal me away. The blame, this burden is mine. Do you understand?”
Ivan is intent on unravelling me until there is nothing to keep me here, but I’m determined to be the ruin of myself.
We’re charting the course for my destruction. There’s no question of whether this will all fall apart and he’ll finally be able to take me; it’s about when and on whose terms. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll keep the tattered remnants of my autonomy till the bitter end.