The Hitman #2
“Mmm? Like a fear of public speaking?”
“Worse.” He chuckled under his breath and leaned in, casting a curl of his cedar scent straight to my nose. “In my nightmares, it’s everyone else that’s naked.”
“Oh, well… I guess that’s better?”
He threw me an incredulous look, one dark eyebrow lifted and those honey-brown eyes warmed my skin. He tossed a glance over my shoulder and my gaze followed, my body creeping toward the warmth of him as I shifted subtly in my chair.
Beside me slept an old man, his pale skin sagging from his cheeks and jowls, blue veins popping out of his liver-spotted hands.
Wrinkles cut like canyons through his skin, and tufts of fuzzy white hair puffed like cotton from his ears and nose.
Thick bottle-cap glasses rested on an overgrown nose, and drool pooled on the lapel of the knitted brown sweater at his chest.
“You say that,” Yanny whispered close, “but did you see all your fellow passengers?”
An involuntary shudder overtook me as tendrils of my hair floated on minty breath across my cheek. I turned back, bracing myself for any manner of pain, only to be greeted once again with compassionate eyes and a kind smile.
“You don’t want to see that naked, no?” He chuckled at my grimace and threw a thumb over his shoulder. “There are others worse than that.”
My chest grew tight at the thought of naked bodies close to mine, old and wrinkled or otherwise. My fingers clutched the hem of my thin sweater under the blanket and my eyes clenched shut.
“Hey, hey, sweetheart.” His whispered endearment fell upon me as his finger chased a tear from my cheek. “What is it? Did someone hurt you?”
Did someone hurt you?
Those words breathed life into the scorched embers of my heart. Memories of my mother hit me. Her unwavering love and support. Her gentle, kind soul.
The quiet sob that wracked my body was muffled against Yanny’s chest as he pulled me to him. I found myself in the same position I was in when I woke up: tears flowing down my cheeks, fists clenched in his shirt, head against his strong chest as he held me in his arms and tried to soothe me.
I didn’t know this man, and he didn’t know me. And yet the comfort he offered was everything I needed.
“You’ve really never had one before?”
Yanny gave me an incredulous stare as I hovered over my latte, the first I’d ever had. His long legs were extended under the table, nudging against my own. It’s how he’d been since the moment the flight attendant came to request I sit up and buckle in for landing.
Hovering.
Protecting.
He’d guided me from the plane, rolling my carry-on along with his free hand at the small of my back. Gentle fingers grazed against me as he led me to a small coffee shop in the concourse.
I shook my head and gave a weak smile before raising my cup to my lips to take a sip.
Bittersweet. Like the ancient memories that came with it. Memories of my mother, her hand wrapped around a mug of black coffee as she watched me and my sister play. Memories of the strength she tried to instill in me as I grew up in a harsh, unforgiving world.
“Will you tell me now?” His voice broke me from my dive into the past, his hand on my arm anchoring me in the present. I looked up from my latte and found him leaning closer.
I shrugged to cover my flinch, and his hand fell away, my eyes following to hide my shame.
“It was my... ex.” A sip of my hot coffee was my attempt to cover the emotions boiling inside of me.
Again, Yanny didn’t miss a thing. Concern and understanding filled his voice. “He was bad for you.”
“He was a fucking cocksucker.” The words spit from my mouth like venom, poisoning the air around me. I flinched, expecting judgment. Ridicule. The sharp slap of a hand across my face.
But this was Yanny. Gentle, kind, caring Yanny.
The honeycomb tones of his eyes darkened as they swept across my face. Tension rolled through him, a visible wave washing across that gorgeous face and down his chest. An ebb and flow of anger that had me back on guard.
As fast as his anger hit, it disbursed into thin air. His hand crept toward mine but stopped the second I raised both my hands from the table with my coffee in tow.
An apology flashed in his eyes as he raised his own cup, tipping it toward me, encouraging me to go on.
“He wouldn’t allow me things,” I told him when I could. My throat tightened as repressed memories of Emile assaulted me. I swallowed hard and motioned with my cup. “Coffee, chocolate, makeup. I had nothing of my own.”
I shuddered at the thought. At the full truth behind that simple fact. The extent to which I went without, the severity of the punishment for simply wanting. The loss of basic needs - food, water, air to breathe.
“How long?” The slight nudge of his leg against mine brought awareness to his question. I took a long swallow and set my cup back on the table.
“I was consumed by him for years. But the last two were the worst.”
I don’t know what compelled me to open up to this stranger.
To talk when I’d not spoken to anyone in so long.
To choose coffee in an airport café over the bare, empty apartment awaiting me.
Perhaps it was desperation. The need to feel like I wasn’t alone.
A need to connect in some small way with another human being.
Perhaps it was just Yanny, his visible concern.
The way his attention never wavered. I soaked it in like a dying plant desperate for water.
“You’re home now.” His tone was meant to reassure, but I couldn’t help the huff of breath that escaped me.
“I’m not sure I have a home anymore,” I whispered, the words bathed in the uncertainty that filled me.
“Why?”
I couldn’t have hidden it from him if I wanted to. I unburdened my soul upon him as I fought the flow of tears that prickled my eyes.
“My family… my mom and sister were killed in a car accident years ago. And my father and brother…”
I hesitated, because that truth wasn’t as easy.
“I think they’re gone, too.”
Yanny sipped his coffee, watching me. Compelling me to continue. And like a fool, I gave in to the urge.
“There was an… accident.” I sipped my drink, wishing the words I wanted to say could fall from my lips. Wishing they’d never meet the light of day. “I haven’t seen them since. I don’t know what happened to them.”
“He wouldn’t tell you?”
Pain hit me full in the chest.
You don’t get to ask questions. You are nothing.
“No.” It wheezed out of me, the memories threatening to consume me.
You do what I say when I say, and you fucking like it.
A gentle hand brushed my cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I looked up and was met with warm honey. “He can’t hurt you now.”
My head nodded as my throat bobbed on a swallow. “He can’t hurt me now.” That whispered truth was my new reality. The one thing keeping me going. Keeping me strong.
I would find that strength my mother taught me, and give up these feelings of helplessness.
I would find my way out of the darkness that had become my life and step back into the light. He’d never, ever hurt me again.
I made sure of that.