“Well lie with me and know that if she somehow escaped she’d have to get through Beau, your parents, and me to get to you. I’m the boss level. This time, I’d cut a bitch.”
I’m smiling, but I believe her. That makes me love her so much more.
“My hero.”
Three Months Later
Axel
“Come on, baby. Come to me,”I encourage Heaven. She doesn't look like she’s panicking, but she doesn’t look happy either.
I sit back and park my elbows on the concrete. “I’m ready when you are. Texas is hot enough for me to wait all day, even in fucking September.”
I’m still bitter about how fucking hot it is down here. My balls are sweating when they shouldn’t be.
Heaven gives me puppy eyes, but it’s not gonna work. I tilt my head to silently tell her she’s not getting out of it. Nodding, she takes a deep breath and surges forward, splashing water with terrible technique, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is my baby is swimming. Horribly, but she’s getting from one side of the pool to the other. I catch her when she makes it to the deep end. Her head pops up, and she wipes the water from her eyes as her smile beams as bright as the sun.
“I did it!” She jumps me while splashing more water. Her arms and legs wrap around me, and my mind goes in the gutter.
Mmm...water sex.
It took us a while to get back to sex. I wasn’t processing like I should. I just didn’t want to think of Allie and her brand of crazy. However, avoiding the issue wasn’t allowing the healing process to begin. I’d developed particulars like refusing to eat alone. Never allowing anyone but Heaven to serve me food and drinks, and I was done with chocolate. I’d found out about the chocolate the hard way.
I was about a month past the incident when Heaven and I tried to have a movie night. We were settled in the theater room ready for the films when she waved a box in my face to offer me chocolate. Immediately, the sick feeling returned. My entire body heated in low-level panic, and I knocked it out of her hand. She gave me a bewildered look, but I was already on my feet pacing with my hands in my hair. All my emotions activated at once causing me to misfire.
Heaven called my name, but my adrenaline had me sprinting outside until my legs got heavy and my muscles burned from the additional resistance of the sand underneath my toes. My chest was on fire, but I screamed in the night air then collapsed into the sand. Heaven caught up moments later, kneeling next to me and pulling my head into her lap.
“It’s okay,” she whispered as she stroked my hair. She didn’t ask me any questions as I stared out at the black water allowing the emotions to filter into the places I could name. Anger, sadness, and frustration played the biggest roles.
“Chocolate truffles,” I finally admitted. “That’s what I’d eaten. I don’t doubt she’d laced everything else but the fucking chocolate took me out—left me too weak to defend myself. Someone I’d trusted fucked me up with chocolate.”
I didn’t realize I was shedding tears until Heaven wiped my face. They made my vision blur. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t looking at anything, anyway. The pain of what she did made it impossible to focus.
“You still displayed strength, Axel. That amount of drugs would have killed someone else. You stayed true to your convictions even when you were out of it. You made it clear you didn’t want her.”
“And it wasn’t enough! I told her no so many times, and she just kept trying, knowing I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I wouldn’t have been able to stop her. How did I let it happen?”
“You cannot blame yourself for her wrong. She violated you, and I stopped her. I will always be there for you.”
“Thank you. If you weren’t there, she would have taken full advantage, and it still makes me sick to my stomach. She probably would have left me to die.”
Her fingers still glide through my hair as she listens. “But she didn’t get that far, and you’re alive. Continue to live your life and don’t allow her to win this way. Take back your power.”
We didn’t speak. We just listened to the waves as I tried to remind myself what I love about the ocean. It’s a big, unstoppable force capable of equally beautiful and destructive things. Finally, I spoke.
“Okay. Let’s work on our issues together.”
Now, here we are months later with Heaven swimming. We worked on my stuff while conquering her phobia. We’d started in Lake Tahoe with a guy with strange, yet effective, methods. He didn’t sit there with a notepad and ask me open-ended questions. In fact, the first meeting consisted of us staring at each other because I didn’t know where to start. Dr. Tennessee Church is about my size with hair just as long as mine. He has tattoos and always looks pissed off if his wife isn’t around. He not so subtly reminded me that he gets paid whether I speak or not.
Once I told him what happened, he told me to first own that I was a victim, then decide what I wanted to do about it. Like I said, strange but effective. I love that he offers digital meetings because my ‘doing something about it’ was buying Heaven and me a big ass house in Texas—which wasn’t hard with the differences in cost of living—and renting my house to Sione and his daughter after burning my bed. Heaven and I made a lot of memories in it, but Allie tainted it. It was therapeutic and cleansing to watch the bitch go up in flames.
Now, there is a mental health jail and a bunch of states between Allie and me. I’d also made it clear they’d have to work on her therapy with no involvement from me. I don’t want any apologies and anything else they feel will makeherbetter.
Fuck that. I’m only concerned aboutourwell-being.
The swim therapy program Heaven inspired me to start, began with her as the test subject. Overall, we’ve made each other stronger and the bond we already had is now amazing. Since I’m retired, I thought it’d be best to spend most of our time in Texas while Heaven works on the rebranding and leadership changes at the magazine. Once we have that settled, we will go on a long trip together—just the two of us—no crazy people and no haters. Just good times and love.
“You’re poking me,” she teases me between the pecks she’s giving me.
