CHAPTER 7
GRAYCIE
He’s so close. I can feel the way his breath, stinking of scotch and cigarettes, fans over my neck. Everything in me wants to shrink away from him, but I know what will happen if I do.
As much as he loves it when I’m afraid, he doesn’t like to see my fear. I think it makes him believe he hasn’t broken me already or it gives him something to reprogram about me. But it doesn’t work. Whenever I try to straighten my spine and stand up for myself, he’ll laugh in my face.
“You’re nothing, Graycie,” his voice is a dark, sinister whisper. I’m unable to stop my body from shivering at the way his lips graze my earlobe. “You’re just a little girl pretending to be a woman. Why would you ever think you’re enough for me? Or anyone?”
A whimper escapes my lips even though I try to hold it in. I can almost taste his glee at the cracks his words create in the foundation of who I am. Or maybe I never knew who I was to begin with. Maybe I was always an easy target; maybe it’s simply my lot in life.
“No one is capable of loving you, Graycie because you are unlovable.”
That’s when I feel his hands sliding up and down my arms. If it were anyone else touching me the way he is, I might find it reassuring. Not with him. Never with him.
It’s just the prelude.
His touch is a warning. Ominous like storm clouds on the horizon. Nothing good comes with his touch.
Not pleasure.
Only pain.
Always pain.
If only he would leave me alone.
I try not to flinch away from his touch, but it doesn’t work.
His fingers dig into the soft flesh of my arms and he holds on tight.
The bite of his nails in my skin has me swallowing hard.
They feel like talons which are about to rip into my body.
He wouldn’t even hesitate to inflict that kind of pain.
When he lets go of my arms, I brace for impact. And I don’t have to wait long. He backhands me hard enough for my head to snap to the side.
And then the hits keep coming, but he doesn’t slap my face again. The rest of the hurt he inflicts are all to my body. He knows how to hide my bruises, and I’ve had to learn the same thing.
No one questions when I wear long sleeves.
No one looks twice when my lip is split.
No one notices how I find making eye contact harder and harder.
Because I’m always wondering if they’re a person who likes to inflict pain just like him. Just like him.
“Please,” the word slips out, and I bite my lip, split again, just to stop myself from saying more.
Begging is a weakness and even though he likes to beat me down until I believe all the things he says about me, the last thing he wants is for me to be weak.
When a tear streaks over my cheek, his thumb is there. But he doesn’t brush the tear away, like crying and feeling are simply part of life.
No, he presses down on my skin as if he’s trying to erase the tear from ever existing by making my body reabsorb it. When he clicks his tongue, it reminds me of those things people use to train their dogs.
Is it working? I can never be sure.
Does he want me bruised, broken, and barely hanging on?
Does he want me to stand up for myself and refuse to take anymore because then breaking me would be more satisfying?
Does he not care either way and simply wants to see me in pain?
My gut is telling me it’s all three.
Which is why I hate him and why I’ve been planning.
“Graycie, Graycie, Graycie,” he says my name like a taunt. “I can feel your hatred for me.” His voice is a low murmur; one I found sexy when I first met him.
Now it makes me want to run in the other direction as fast as I can. But, as he says, he’s the only person who loves me. The only person who can love me.
“I don’t hate you,” I whisper the words, not wanting to speak too loudly.
If I do, I’ll pay for it.
I’m so tired of paying for it.
He curls his lips into a devilish smile. “I think it’s time to play, little Graycie.”
My body goes cold and fear chokes me. I whimper and shake my head, but the way he looks at me tells me that he doesn’t care what I want.
The whip unfurls at his side, and I realize it was already in his hand. He was already planning on how this was going to end. He already knew about the pain he wanted to inflict.
It was always going to end this way. Why does it matter if I try? Why do I have to pretend to be the prefect girlfriend, perfect fiancé? It always ends with my body enduring the pain and the hateful words which lick along my skin with a different kind of fire than his whip inflicts on me.
My mind is screaming at me to run. But my feet won’t move.
I’m paralyzed by fear, and the one true thing he always comes back too—I’m hard to love.
My parents didn’t love me. They didn’t want anything to do with me.
I was an inconvenience; one they wanted taken off their hands.
Never mind that I was an adult with a career of my own that I was building; it wasn’t secure enough for them.
Not if they wanted to be able to walk away without looking back.
Which is how he came into my life.
He has never loved me beyond loving to hear me cry and begging for him to stop.
His favorite pastime is finding all the soft parts of me, the places where I tried to still be me, and twisting the knife to destroy them.
If it weren’t my heart and soul that he’s been shattering, I would almost admire his focus and single-mindedness when it comes to me.
But, since it is, I’ll just call him a cruel bastard in my head.
Only ever in my head.
He flicks his wrist and the sound of the whip against the floor is loud in the space. Everything is loud in the basement room where he likes to inflict the kind of pain that makes me scream. He loves it and soaks up every single one of my pain-filled moans and whimpers.
My eyes slide closed as I search myself for some kind of strength.
Out of nowhere, gray eyes filled with an intensity which has nothing to do with pain are staring back at me.
I open my eyes and it’s only him. He’s looking at me with his lip curled in a snarl. If only I could shrink back, but it would only make this worse.
My throat is already dry, and I know by the end of this, it’ll feel like I’ve swallowed glass. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to drag my battered body to get some water when he’s done with me.
“Tonight I have two special guests with us.”
The door swings open and my parents walk in. I pause because their presence makes me wonder whether this is real or not. It feels so real, but they wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere I am. Not anymore. Not when they don’t have to, for the sake of appearances, of course.
“We always knew she was weak,” my father says to my mother.
Disappointment is written all over their faces and it makes my heart pound in my chest.
I hear the impact before I feel the sting of his whip against my skin. As the burning starts, I bite my lip so hard it breaks the skin. The coppery taste of blood fills my mouth. The next whip impact has me crying out.
The third has me screaming his name. All he does is laugh, a cackling sound that is soon joined by my parents. As if they are just as much the architect of my pain as he is, as if they take pleasure in it. I would never have looked twice at him if my parents hadn’t encouraged it.
If only I knew then what I know now.
By the time his whip sings through the air for the tenth time, it feels like my skin has been flayed open. I’m a mess of tears, blood, pain, and fear.
“That’s better,” my mother’s voice is lazy, “now she’s sniveling on the floor while looking like a mess. It’s how she should be.”
I look up at her, hoping she reaches out to me, hoping for a little love shining in her eyes. Something. Anything.
“No more,” I whisper.
His laughter, which sounds like smoke, surrounds me. It stings against the lashes on my skin.
“One more.”
I can tell by the way he moves his body that this one is going to hurt the most. He’s putting as much power and force behind it as he can.
No amount of bracing mentally or physically is going to make a difference here. The whistle of the whip is a warning. Of pain. Always of pain.
Before the whip makes contact with my skin in my dream, I jolt awake and fall out of bed with my legs twisted up in the sheet while my heart pounds in my chest. I touch my back and my hips and then pull my hand back to see if my skin is covered in blood.
It was every other time Sylvester brought out his whip. He loved to inflict pain on me using it because he could make me scream without actually touching me.
He learned early on that I loved touch, that I craved it. Using it against me made him giddy.
I stand up slowly, my body protesting every movement.
Because even though it was only a dream, it felt really fucking real.
My muscles are aching and I’m tempted to look at my scars to make sure they are healed over.
With every breath I take, they throb, a reminder of the pain I’ve already endured and the pain I would face if he were to find me.
The thought makes me want to pack everything up and run even farther away from him. But it’s no way to live.
And I’m so tired of running and not living.
So, I take a step. Toward the kitchen instead of toward the bathroom where I want to curl up into a ball in the bathtub like I’m about to weather a tornado. I think I’d feel safe in the tornado.
Wading through the emotional turmoil and having my own mind try to help by making me dream about him, a mix of memories and fears, realities, and almosts.
Every time I dream of him it leaves me feeling on edge and then I’m left wondering if it’s an omen.
I can’t help but wonder if a dream means he’s right around the corner.
At this point, I don’t know what I would do if he showed up.
No, that’s not true. There’s only one real option—I get the fuck out of here and don’t look back.