45. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Fuck, my boyfriend’s hot. Like, why the hell don’t you have a modeling contract , hot. And don’t get me started on the 90s Parisian chic outfit he’s wearing tonight.
Unsurprisingly, the main street is packed with people. Combining that with the snow and lights, it almost feels like we could be in New York or London as we weave through the bodies.
And that makes me anxious.
It fills my head with fantasies of future days that may never be.
My tongue waves in my mouth a few times before I can no longer resist the urge to suck on it. But that only ever quells the top ten percent of the anxiety inside me, and I have to pinch my thigh inside my pocket so I don’t grab Jesse’s hand and bring his fingers to my mouth. It’s one of the downsides of being in public. Actual public. Not the, my weird shit is cool around my friends, kind of public.
Jesse’s outside hand moves between us to rub the inside of my elbow. “You gonna make it through the night?”
Man, I’d love to wipe that smug grin off his face if he wasn’t playing the role I gave him so damned well. So I only have myself to blame. I learned a long time ago how to bluff my way through life with an arrogant chip on my shoulder and way too much sexual energy. Then Jesse came along on his white horse, scaled my walls, and stole my heart for the effort.
But I know we’re a terrible match. And the reality of that is only hammered in deeper every time I think about the life he has waiting for him and how I have nothing. Not a damn thing.
Sometimes I wish he wasn’t so perfect. That there was even the smallest thing wrong with his life so I could be the savior. The shield. And not the other way around. Then reality dawns on me and I crawl back under his protective veil because I’d never be strong enough to take care of him like he does me…
There’s a line out the front of Fernandas’ which is expected for a Friday night—even if Jesse did make a reservation—and we join the back of it to wait for those in front to either add their name to their waiting list or be shown inside.
“I still can’t believe Alma let you take the van. We could have just got an Uber.”
“I know.” Shifting to lean against the front window of the jewelry store beside Fernandas’, I tug Jesse to stand in front of me so I can take his hands. “I guess I just wanted to see how pissed she really is with me… Not too much, it seems.”
“That doesn’t mean you should go abusing the privilege.”
“I know,” I say again with the same tone, because it was never about that.
With Alma, I knew I’d fucked up from the start. If I could have my time over I’d never have let my dick win that battle. But that’s the beauty of hindsight.
But would I do everything differently?
Three months ago I’d have answered before the sentence was even through.
Fuck, yes!
I could have run away.
I could have reported my parents to Child Welfare.
I could have made sure I never went to the park that night. Or, better yet, took a knife or Dad’s hunting rifle and knocked them all down before they ever had a chance to touch me.
But now I don’t know what my answer would be.
If certain events changed, where would I be now?
Now here with Jesse, that’s for sure.
Hell, if everything in my life didn’t play out the way it did, I’d likely never have even found my way to Vistas in the first place.
God, that makes me feel sick.
Jesse is my… reason for being alive. But for the last twenty-five years to be exactly as fucked up as they were just to find him…
“Are you alright, Babe?” The warmth of his palm rests against my cheek and his thumb pushes just firmly enough on my bottom lip for me to focus. “You’re not about to self-combust, I hope.”
This man is my everything.
I kiss his thumb and I can feel the lines of his fingerprint against my lips.
He understands me like no one else. He knows what I need without ever asking. Or without ever needing to be told.
His eyes ask me again if I’m alright.
I take his wrist, turn my head, and kiss his palm.
The hint of a smile floats across his lips, and he busies his hands fixing my scarf. His scarf. The Burberry one.
Like a collar, it ties me to him, and with his name permanently inked into my skin, I’ll be his loyal companion for as far as he lets this journey take us. Because this is it for me. He is my soulmate. My one and only. My fairytale prince. My protector.
“Do you believe in fate?”
“Fate?” Jesse takes a step forward in the line. “Not really… To think everything was pre-planned for us before we were even born… Who the fuck has time for that?”
Pushing off the window, I move behind him, wrap my arms around his waist, and lean my chin forward on his shoulder. “Me either,” I tell him, even though I’m not sure what I believe. Because—truth be told—my parents always being destined to be cunts is a far easier pill to swallow than admitting I was what made them so brutally miserable.
Jesse brings his hand to rest on top of mine. “Good. Cause there’s no way anyone could convince me a little baby would ever deserve what you’ve been through… And… how? How could they pick? How could they ever have a rational argument for which soul gets born into which baby? Why does one deserve to be born with the world at their fingertips and the next to a mother who has to die to give them life? And even after that, there’s no hospital. No healthcare. No food for the poor thing to eat. And their father doesn’t want them anymore because his new wife wants her own kids and they end up dying alone in the dust.”
I can feel the tension in his muscles as clearly as I can hear the subtle tremor of his voice. And I know, more than he’s angry for all the injustice and cruelty in the world, he’s angry for me.
I love you, Jesse. Heart and soul.
I don’t deserve you…
“Next, please.”
“Kendrick. For two.”
The tip of a pen runs down the list. A line is drawn, and the comfort of having Jesse so close is ripped away from me as we’re ushered into Fernandas’.
It’s warm, classy, expensive, and way out of my comfort zone.
Everything in the restaurant looks like an old sepia photograph, including the staff’s uniforms. There’s a narrow bar that cuts the room in half, with chairs the entire way around it. And our seats are on its front side, right at the end of a long communal table.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse whispers in my ear—letting me move in front of him to take the chair against the wall so my back isn’t to the open room and the door. “I asked for a private table, but I guess I left it too late to book.”
Successfully taking my seat without making eye contact with the people beside us, I pick up the menu. Scanning the page, it only takes me a few seconds to realize I don’t understand anything that’s written. And my eyes widen with a sharp inhale through my nose when I notice the prices.
I close the menu and put it back down. “When did you organize this?”
Jesse leans forward on the table. “Yesterday after work.” The smile that follows tells me to not ask any more questions about it because he doesn’t care how much it costs as long as I have a good time.
“Do you need help with that?” He looks down at the menu in front of me but ends up opening it before I have a chance to respond. Then, in—what I can only assume is—perfect Spanish, he reads the dish’s names and explains the ones he knows. Which is most of them. And when he’s finished, I have nothing to offer but a blank face.
“Do you just want me to pick?” His smile is tight-lipped and I can see in his eyes he’s having a grand ole time watching me squirm. It’s not malicious, it’s because he thinks I’m cute when I’m this kind of uncomfortable. Just like he was adorable when I took him to Tanaka-San’s and he had no clue what was going on.
Trying to push my compulsions to the back of my mind, I nod yes to his offer, and as I do so, I feel his feet slide between mine beneath the table.
Jesse’s smile widens enough to push up his freckled cheeks, and the light from the candle just off to his right side dances across them. “How about a drink? You can’t have tapas with water.” He slides the drinks menu in front of me.
“Why don’t you just tell me what to get?” I push it back towards him.
“Well.” He opens it but doesn’t look at anything. “In London, I usually get whiskey or beer. But when we go to Spain with Romeo, we always get Sangria.”
“Sangria?” Seriously?
“Yeah,” he nods. “Sangria… Cava’s the best.”
“Cava?” This time I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“It’s Spanish sparkling wine. And there’s brandy and pineapple juice and strawberries. It’s really good.”
It’s my turn to lean forward on the table. “Sounds a bit gay.” I’m only teasing, but I can’t resist.
“Maybe it is.” He smirks. “But that doesn’t make it bad.”
“What are you trying to say, Jesse?”
He doesn’t answer, he just stares. And I stare back.
His ears don’t turn red from being nervous anymore. I can’t decide if I like that or not, but I do miss seeing him flustered just from the weight of my gaze. I miss the way he’d fall over his words and try to figure out my next step before I attempted to claim the higher ground. Now he just lives there permanently as my king. My Ruler. And I’m totally fine with that. Handing myself over and completely submitting to him is the most freeing thing I’ve ever done.
Extending his forearms across the graphic placemat in front of him, Jesse wiggles his fingers in my direction. Behind closed lips, I bite down hard on the tip of my tongue and put my hands in his.
The restaurant is noisy, but even the conversations of the people beside us are unintelligible because nothing in the universe exists to me when he looks at me like this.
His neck is bare. He wore his hair up like I told him to. And because he knows I’m looking, he turns his head twenty degrees and the vein that runs from his jaw to the junction of his neck and shoulder pulses out.
My fingers curl and squeeze at his hands until I’m sure the scraping of my nails against his skin must be hurting him because I want to lick, then suck on it so fucking badly. I can feel it against my tongue. It’s warmth. The speed of Jesse’s heartbeat as his blood pumps through it.
Would he let me do it here?
Maybe later at the bar.
Would it be inappropriate to leave a trail of hickeys on his neck in the shape of a K so he’s marked as mine too?
Goddamn, he sure can read me like a Rhodes Scholar reciting Dr Seuss.
My body is coal smoldering in the heart of an inferno, and at this rate, no amount of sangria will cool me down. Nothing but Jesse and the weight of him in my mouth and the feeling of releasing all this pent up pressure inside of him will be able to satiate me.
Or is it focus I need?
Are they different?
My organs are jittering and forcing all their energy towards my chest.
I’m barely hanging on. I’m barely remembering to inhale again after each time I breathe out.
Sliding my hands from within Jesse’s, I scuff back my chair. “I’ll be back in a minute. If the waiter comes, just go ahead and order. I trust you’ll pick the best stuff.”
My body and expression are stiff as I stand, but I fake my way through it well enough that Jesse doesn’t follow me to the bathroom. And, truth be told, I don’t even know how I made it here myself. It was like one of those times you drive somewhere you know so well that you zone out and suddenly you’re there. Except I’ve never been here before and still managed to get exactly where I needed to go. I even think I hear someone calling my name as I push through the door, but it wasn’t Jesse’s voice, so I must be hearing things.
The bathroom isn’t empty, but that I don’t care about. Strangely, it’s actually better for me that there are so many guys in here because if it were just me and one other, my anxiety would spark black in a flash.
Finding a free sink, I lean in towards the mirror. My eyes are so dilated there’s hardly any hazel surrounding the blown-out black of my pupils. And my ears are red. I reach up to touch one and it’s just as hot against my fingertips as I expected it to be.
Cold tap on, I let it run for a few seconds before dousing my face with handful after handful of water until the icy shock slows down the beating of my heart.
Hunched over the sink, my palms braced against the fancy countertop, I watch as each drop of water from my chin traverses the porcelain on its journey to the drain.
I’d say it’s five minutes—maybe ten before I move. Before I’ve gathered up enough confidence to step back out.
The full volume of Fernandas’ assaults me as I swing open the door and quickly plot out my route back to Jesse.
“Kai?”
Is that a question?
Three steps in and I’m stopping already.
“Oh my god, it is you.”
Turning to my left, our eyes meet and Fernandas’ comes crumbling down around us. Every other body is crushed beneath the rubble but mine and hers. There’s stillness. Silence… Except for—
“I almost didn’t recognize you with that hair. And those tattoos!”
Her arms spread, and she steps towards me.
I slide back, my eyes still wide from the confrontation.
She retracts her hands quickly. “Don’t you remember me?”
“Of course I remember you, Millie.”
Her face lights up again, but I don’t repay her the favor. “What are you doing here?” I ask bluntly.
“No need to be rude,” she giggles, slapping me on the arm like she used to.
“I’m not… Why are you here?” I don’t have time for small talk. I need to get to Jesse and go straight back to Vistas.
She crosses her arms with a sassy huff. “And why exactly are you here?”
“I live here.”
“You do? That’s awesome. Why didn’t you ever tell me? I could have come to visit—”
“What the fuck are you doing here, Millie!?”
“Alright!” she snaps back, and year’s worth of memories come flying at me like rubber bullets. Painful, but not enough to kill. “It was a surprise trip. We got in last night and we’re leaving on Monday.”
“Aren’t you lucky?”
“What’s with the tone, Kai? We used to be best friends before you fell off the face of the earth. I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
I didn’t fall. I ran.
“You know what my life was like, Mill. You saw where I lived the last two years of high school. Why the fuck would I wanna remember any of that?”
“Come on now, you know I hate your parents as much as you do. And it was cowardly how the guys beat you up.” She reaches out and rests her hand on my forearm. “But that was a long time ago. Josh has changed.”
I tear my arm away from her. “How do you know he’s changed?”
“We were all just kids. Aren’t you overreacting a little bit?”
“The fuck did you say? You’re the one who found me in my backyard, Millie.”
“Your dad was the one who knocked you out and threw you down the stairs, not Josh.”
“Have you forgotten what happened in the park when you and Amy, Candace, and Laura all got driven away?”
“Of course I haven’t. That’s why I broke up with him, and the girls all did the same.”
“So, why are you defending him?”
Millie covers her left hand with her right. “Doesn’t time heal all wounds?”
“Show me your hand?” I’m trying my hardest to keep my composure, but my voice still comes out like a growl.
“No.” She moves it further away from me.
“Show me your hand, Millie!”
“Look, why don’t I just give you my number and if you’d like to catch up over the next few days, you can give me a call?”
“I don’t wanna catch up.” I grab her by the wrist and shake her right hand off. “What the fuck is this?”
Millie stares at the diamond ring on her finger. She tries to tug out of my grip, but I only hold her tighter.
“What did you expect?” she scoffs, trying to sound tough even though she’s shaking.
“What did I expect?”
“I was in love with you, Kai. Even through all the fucking around you did, I’d have done anything you asked. And you just left me. You can’t expect me to not move on.”
I throw her hand away. “It’s not about moving on, Millie. Who gave you that fucking ring?”
She cradles her left hand to her chest. “I don’t wanna tell you.”
My head is pounding, my heart is racing faster than it was before, and I swear I’ll rip someone’s limbs off with my bare hands if she says that cunt’s name.
“Is that because I already know?”
“I told you he’s changed.”
“Changed? Tigers can’t change their stripes.”
“Well, he has.”
Of all the righteous bullshit I’ve ever heard touted, this takes the cake.
“Once a rape—”
My words are stolen from me by the look of utter horror on Millie’s face.
Of course, she doesn’t remember because I never told her.
I never told anyone.
Alma knows about my nightmares, but Jesse is the first person to know the truth.
The girls knew their boyfriends beat me up, but I told them my pants were ripped during the fight with Dad. And at the hospital, they weren’t allowed in the ER with me.
I cradle my face in my hands.
“What are you trying to say, Kai?” Millie’s tone is desperate. I didn’t let everything slip out, but I said enough she should be able to figure out the intention. “Please, Kai. What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.”
She pulls my hands away from my face. “I didn’t hear you. Please.” Her voice trembles as she fights to hold back tears. “Please. You have to tell me what you—”
“I can’t.” I pull away and head for the exit.
“Please don’t walk away.”
The noise of the restaurant builds around me, louder and louder, until I’m pressing my hands against my ears and pushing past people to get to the front door. My only objective is to escape. To where? I don’t know. I just can’t be in here anymore.
Outside, the stream of people on the sidewalk is thick, but one person slows time to a crawl.
Hands still covering my ears, I spot him from the corner of my eye as I pass the front of Fernanda’s. I’d recognize him anywhere. His image is burned into my brain and not even nine years have dulled its intensity because time means nothing when monsters like him exist. And nothing can ever make them change.
“Hey!”
I keep trudging forward, convincing myself it wasn’t directed at me.
“Don’t ignore me!”
At the first break in the buildings, I duck into the alley. It was a stupid move. I knew it the second I wasn’t surrounded by protective bodies, but I can’t turn around.
I sprint to the back laneway between the streets, and, like a fucking coward, dive beside a dumpster and hold my breath.
There’s nothing but ambient noise for long enough that I think I’m in the clear.
I dare to reach for my phone to call Jesse, and when I do, the sound of snow crunching beneath heavy feet joins me.
“If you’re who I think you are, I know you’ve gotta be back here hiding somewhere.”
I cover my ears again, but every move he makes sounds like lightning striking until the thunder comes in and crashes against me with its roaring crescendo.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my faggy little friend.”
He’s here.
He found me.
I don’t want to look at him. But I can’t close my eyes, and I can’t look away.
“Figures you’d be cowering in a corner.” Looking from his left to his right, he scratches his nails across his short beard, then squats in front of me. “Though I’m quite offended you haven’t offered me a warmer welcome.”
My lunch gurgles in my guts, but I keep my mouth shut tight.
“Come now, Kai. Aren’t you gonna say hello?”
Against my better judgment, I close my eyes in the hopes this is just another one of my nightmares. But when I open them, not only do I still see Josh in front of me, but I can feel him too.
I want to rip the skin from my body and tear out my nerves so I don’t have to recount each agonizing moment in real time.
My face, my ribs, my hands, my everything. It all aches just as much as it had back then. But what hurts most of all is how pathetic I am. I lost track a long time ago of all the different things I planned to do to Josh if I ever saw him again, and when the opportunity presents itself, I revert back to the five-year-old little boy who ran and hid in his closet the first time his dad hit him. Because I’m a pussy.
Plain and simple.
If I can’t even stand up for myself now, I don’t deserve to live. And I definitely don’t deserve Jesse. I may as well be left here to die, just like I should have in that fucking park.
“You know.” Josh stands and puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Age usually goes hand in hand with knowing what proper manners are.”
Words weigh heavy on my tongue until they become too much to hold. “Fuck you.”
After nine years, that’s the best I can do.
“Ooo. Such big words for a big man. Do you think those tattoos make you tough?”
“Just fuck off.” Even with all my energy, I can’t manage more than a whisper.
“Oh, yeah? You want me to fuck off?” With a ridiculing sneer, Josh kicks my legs and I have to uncover my ears to stop from falling on my side. “Why should I?” He steps closer and leans against the wall above me with one hand. “I thought we could have some fun together. For old time’s sake.”
“Millie knows I’m here,” I blurt out.
Even in the dark, I can see the devil enter Josh’s expression. “You keep her name out of your fucking mouth.”
“Why should I?”
The muddy, wet sole of Josh’s boot is forced against my shoulder. “Because I’ll break your fucking neck if you don’t.”
I grit through the pain of his heel grinding at the socket. “You scared she’ll leave you for me again?”
His leg swings back and aims at my chest. Bracing my arms for the impact, he stomps down on my right hand as it sits over my heart. Then he retracts and hits the same spot again, leaving me gasping for air with nowhere to go.
“I bet she still thinks about me when you fuck her.”
For that, I get another blow to my left shoulder.
I try to protect myself as best I can, but I’ll happily take everything he has to give me because I know my words are hurting him more than the bruises I’ll be left with.
“She always said you were a dud lay.”
“Fuck you!” Josh hollers down at me. “You don’t know shit!”
“I know she just tried to give me her number.”
“Fucking whore,” he mutters, easing up to run his hands through his hair. “You know we’re engaged?”
With my will to fight fleeting, I lean my head against the side of the dumpster and watch him pace back and forth. “You’re still as insecure as ever.”
“Real smart words from a man in your position.”
With a grunt, I maneuver to my knees. “I’m not worried about my position.”
With his perceived manhood on the line, Josh marches back to me and pins me against the wall with his knee in my chest before reaching for my neck.
“How many dicks did you have to suck to afford this?” He tugs at Jesse’s scarf, pulling it away. I try to grab it, but it’s tossed beyond my reach right before his hand wraps around my throat.
His fingers feel like scorching irons melting my skin. How dare he try to take our thing—mine and Jesse’s—and ruin it like this?
“You can’t turn a whore into a housewife.” I manage to pluck the words from somewhere and hope Millie will forgive me for them. “We both know she would jump to the better cock in a heartbeat… And you’re forgetting, I know from experience that you can’t fuck for shit!”