28. Blesk
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
blesk
Day Eight:
I stir in bed on the eighth day of my Konnor-fast. Rolling over, the sheets pulling with me, I blink at Elise who is still snoring softly.
She is really pretty. I don’t think she knows that, but her nose is just right and her freckles shuffle like they have a life of their own every time she twitches or moves her face.
My phone is under my pillow.
Don’t check it…
I stuff my hand under the pillow and bring it out, unlock it, and find only a notification that my Dad has messaged me.
There is still time.
Konnor will change his mind. He’ll tell me about the remaining supplies, surely. I’m invested now… Did he find a culinary way to use toilet paper?
I collapse deeper into the mattress. My throat tightens, which isn’t fair at all. I chose this separation to let the riot in my mind calm down because looking at my situation with clear eyes is impossible when they’re hazy and loved-up by Konnor’s stunning, intoxicating presence.
I check my phone again, holding it in the air above me, but nothing has changed in the last five seconds, so I study the message thread in case notifications aren’t working…
Nope.
Ugh.
This is like checking a wound to see if it's still bleeding, then you scratch at it for no good reason at all so that it does. With a sigh, I swipe to the message from Dad, and my breath catches, and my mind stills.
Dad: They're titrating Erik’s drugs down.
That means— Erik will wake up soon, and that feels like running out of time. When he wakes up, I have to decide what this feeling is, whether I want it, whether I can live without it, whether I can be accountable and own the events.
Is he a villain?
I stare at the ceiling again, a plain white surface I have become quite familiar with. My heart races—and is going literally nowhere. So, I stand up and walk to the corner of the room, lying down on the carpet with my feet on the wall.
“What are you—” Elise yawns. “Doing?”
“Stretching.”
“Right…” She slides from her mattress and wanders barefoot over to me, rubbing her eyes and smacking her lips. “We do this now. Cool.”
Elise joins me on the floor, our feet up on the wall, heels pressed against the brick. The dormitory is quiet at this time of morning, not filled with its usual muffled chatter and giggles. We haven't spoken about Erik. I think she's been waiting for me to bring him up.
"My dad messaged.” I turn my face to look at her profile. "They are titrating Erik’s drugs down which means he'll wake up soon, which means he’ll… want to talk.”
She blinks ahead then returns my gaze. Pushing a stray blonde hair away from my face and tucking it behind my ear, she suddenly sets her 'serious Elise' face. "And what will you do when he wakes up and wants to talk?”
The answer to that question comes with so many strings, most knotted around others.
“He's my father's only biological child.
They both love me—Erik in a way he… He shouldn't.
That doesn't change the truth that he does, in fact, love me.” I feel her disapproval harder than I see it flick across her expression. “He never meant to hurt me, Elise.”
"What did he mean to do then?"
"He lost control."
“So…” Her eyes bounce around nervously as she finds the right words. “You weren’t surprised.”
“I was.” I close my eyes and say, “I always am. Every time it happens.”
She tries to stifle her little gasp. “You’re lovers.” It wasn’t a question.
Shaking my head, I open my eyes to her face. A face I trust. Maybe… the first safe relationship I have ever had. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then…”
The truth churns in my stomach. “You have to understand, we were both kids when it started, and I didn’t say no.” Tears bite at my eyes. “My body liked it.”
Four words that feel like ice in my veins.
My body liked it.
My lower lip starts to tremble. “I let him.” I angrily wipe at my eyes.
“He protected me. He just couldn’t protect me from himself, and I never learnt how to say no to him.
” Defiant tears escape. “I love Erik. Deeply. Truly. As a brother.” I start to hiccup sobs, and she reaches for me, wrapping her arms around me.
“I miss him!” I wail the words as they find freedom for the first time.
“Who he was before this. Who he was to me before he changed everything between us.
I don't remember the first time! I don't remember. I don’t think I said yes but I don't think I ever said no either.
I just let him do things to me until he was done, and he kept thanking me, over and over and over again while he moved inside me. "
"Oh, my God. That's heavy."
I nod into her hair and pull away. I rub fiercely at my wet cheeks, huffing at my incessant sobs.
"It’s okay,” Elise says. “Crying is good. Healthy.”
“Annoying.”
She blinks at me after I have mildly gathered myself. “Talking is good, too. Why didn't you push him away?"
I deflate. "He told me to listen to my body.”
Her eyes widen. "Come on, Blesk. He is… He’s really manipulative. Like, clinically, so.”
"He was right. My body…” I exhale a shaky breath.
“I did enjoy it, and he was even more devoted to me after.
It seemed like a small thing to give him for loving me," I admit, and then all the words come at once as if they were simmering and now, they are bubbling over.
"To be honest, I thought that when he left for college this whole other side of our relationship would change and end. It didn’t.
I don't want that kind of relationship with him.
I don't love him like that, I don’t think.
I thought he was finished with me, and that we could go back to being siblings, and I guess I was wrong. I'm an idiot."
"No, you're not," she says. "You're amazing, but I have to be honest with you 'cause, like, that's my jam. You came from a broken home. He used your vulnerabilities against you. He is a bad guy, Blesk. You don't owe anyone for loving you. There is no price on love."
Studying her serious blue eyes, I take in her words. All of them. Like swallowing medicine. "Erik thinks he owns me because he healed me.”
Elise looks at me strangely. "He doesn’t own you, Blesk, and no offense, you don’t look fucking healed to me.”
Wow. And… “Ouch.” I laugh through a splutter of tears.
Elise half-smiles. "I think my work here is done for the day. Actually, no, no, it isn't." She lifts her fist, then her knuckles hit the side of my breast with a thump.
I gape at her. “What the?”
"That was a tit punch. Now, let's talk about Konnor.” She arches a single dark brow at me. “You’ve had some mighty strong boundaries with him this week. That shows something.”
“What? That I’m a bitch.”
“That you knew he’d respect them.”
Changing the subject, I say, "I think that's enough for one session. That first confession felt like a lobotomy. I don't need another this soon.”
She doesn’t listen. Of course. "You know Konnor's love doesn't come with a price, right? He just loves you, and he will accept this side of your past. He will. I have no doubt.”
I sigh. “That little girl is perfect to him. I don’t want to ruin her for him. If he knew—”
“He loves you.”
"He doesn't love me," I say. "He doesn’t know me."
"Yes.” Her voice is curt and adamant. “He does love you. And true love can get to know someone, all of them, and want to be with them anyway."
"Thank you for that analysis, Freud."
She wrinkles her nose. "Eww, not Freud. No, Blesk. Take it back. And also, you're welcome."
I lower my feet from the wall and roll to sit up. “Konnor has a perfect life. He has all these awesome friends. Every girl wants to be with him...” Ugh. “He’s a star rugby player, and I’m going to destroy his pretty memory of Liz. His dream girl.”
She pops her lips. “Pity party.”
“Come on, Elise,” I groan.
“Can we get real?” she asks. “Like, real real?"
"As if this isn’t real eno—”
"So you know what?” She barely stopped long enough for me to answer her. “I’m not an airy-fairy girlie girl, but I think Konnor’s one of those guys who falls in love once and forever. Like a psycho. You’ve had his heart since he was, like, five.”
"He might not feel that way when he knows everything about Erik and me. He might find me disgusting.”
“Yeah, nah.” She snorts, dubiously. “Delusional you are. He dated Pemberton, a blonde-haired, brown-eyed girl just to be closer to you. He’s been trying to fill your void since he was nine.
Don’t you get it? He’s never getting over you.
Damaged. Tainted. Weird. With boundaries or without. You’re it.”
I frown at her, absorbing her words. Maybe… What if she’s right? “You should be studying psych.”
She scoffs from the back of her throat. “And deal with head cases like you all day. No, thank you.”
We both laugh.
Then, I blink at her and ask the same question that sits on my tongue every moment of every day for the past week. “How is he? I know you’ve seen him.”
“I saw him yesterday with Jaxon. He’s...” She hesitates. “Not great. He still texts me daily, asking for updates, but he barely leaves his flat. He’s drunk all the time."
He went to the shops…
For bourbon at least.
I try to stop the guilt and shame spiral from creeping in. I look across at the unicorn on my bed side table, his hoof proud and pointy.
Elise follows my gaze to the small trinket. "What is that then, Blesk? Is it from your past?”
Sighing, I remember the last story I told Elise. I'd seen Konnor on the television when I was eight. His mum crying. The cluster of confusion and guilt I experienced for helping my father hold him in that cell. "That’s another story."
"Tell me."
I smile tightly. "The night we escaped, I called the police, but when they asked me for the address, I couldn't remember it. I hung up on them. So, I went to the basement and used the key I always had on me and let him go. We were so scared. More scared than ever before. One minute we were climbing from underground, the next we were running from my father and his dogs through the forest. It was life or death this time. I remember the moon was huge that night, drilling beams of light across the terrain. We had no one to trust but each other —both helpless children with no understanding of why these things happen. Lights and voices surrounded us. I turned to Kon so terrified for his life. Not mine. I kinda accepted I might die anyway. I’d get to see my mum, I thought. That’s not so bad. I knew my dad would do it.
“Kon had that" —I motion towards the unicorn—"with him.
He was clutching it the day he was kidnapped and kept it all those years under his mattress.
It was the last remnant of his past life.
And he gave it to me." I swallow that feeling down.
"As I held it, I knew what I needed to do.
I pressed my lips to his and kissed him.
Then I ran towards the lights, hoping I could divert my dad's search party away from Kon.
" I find her eyes, glossy. "And that's the last time I saw him. "
"No, Blesk,” she says, eyes watery and full of meaning, “it's not.”
I breathe out fast.
It’s not… It’s not the last time I saw him! Realisation spins through me. I'd been so wrapped up in not being Liz, in hiding who she became, to really acknowledge Konnor.
Who he was—is.
To me.
I'd lost him, too.
He's my Hero Boy.