He holds me like I’m something precious.
When he pulls back, he smooths my hair back before the strands can adhere to the slick sweat dotting my face. The heat comes out of nowhere and departs the same way, leaving me shivering.
I try to tuck him away and he takes over from me, expertly restoring his jeans to how they were before my fingers began fumbling.
He lifts me onto his lap and cradles me close, his chest still working a little from the exertion. His hands run down me, rubbing my arms, sliding around my waist, skimming down my legs, then retracing their steps to start over from the beginning.
“I’m sorry that happened to your friend,” I say, when his hands finally still, finding their favourite spots and resting. “It must have been awful.”
“It’s still awful.” His eyes are haunted as they meet mine, as his hand cups my cheek, as his gaze bores deep into me. “I did an awful thing and I’m still breathing. What did you do?”
And we’ve circled back, the old detour that I knew was coming.
“Whatever you’ve done, it can’t be worse than murder,” he says with that inane confidence of his. The self-assurance of someone who doesn’t understand how low, how pathetic, how nasty people can be.
I stiffen, pushing against him. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“You can go later.” Caylon nuzzles against my neck, making my nipples perk up, my thighs squeezing together without me even giving them the order. “Tell me now and I promise to make you feel as good as you just made me.”
The shame rises, hot tears welling, some escaping before I can get control of them. My throat swells, all the suppressed pain returning with daggers in their grip and vengeance in their hearts.
I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anybody.
My face burns, cheeks aglow with the expectation of derision. I’ve tried to escape it but here I am, still facing the same consequences.
Without my phone, I can’t see what’s happening online. I don’t know that my image is currently being broadcast, downloaded, stored, retrieved, ogled worldwide. Except I do. Wilbur always follows through on his threats. Even if he tells me that fond old tale of how it hurts him more than it hurts me.
Like that’s ever been the case.
“I don’t want to guess,” Caylon says in a low, even voice. Melodic. Soothing. Supportive. The qualities that tie my heart in knots because I’m not used to hearing words delivered that way. Like he cares how they land.
Everything seems too much trouble. Moving. Talking. Confessing. Everything except sitting right where I am, curled in Caylon’s lap.
They’re just words. I use them all the time, without thinking. I hum, making sure my vocal cords still work.
Then I open my mouth and they catch in my throat, constricting my lungs, making me gasp. Caylon rubs his hand up and down my back, like he’s soothing a sick child. Maybe be is. A sick depraved child who knew better but still went ahead and did exactly what she shouldn’t, time and time again.
“Please, Em. Just tell me and if it’s really as bad as you think, I’ll spare you the effort and kill you myself.”
He says the words with a chuckle, but my imagination instantly latches onto them. At how much easier that would be.
“I wore the wrong dress,” I finally say, when it grows more unbearable to continue to sit in silence than to say the worst thing in the world. My voice is halting, long spaces drawing out between the words and they’re probably not the right ones but perfect is the enemy of done and I so badly want to be done.
I remember the look the girl in the café gave me. Years later and it’s set clear in my mind. Clearer than half the things that happened just last week.
The curl of her lip. The dismissive shake of her head. The casual derision of a stranger and it still hurts. I open my eyes and stare at my hand on Caylon’s chest, so I don’t see it again now, in my head.
“I wanted to look like a grown up, but I dressed like a little whore… so that’s the job I got.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
CAYLON
It’s not until hours later, when Em’s breathing slows into a steady rhythm, that I can relax. The recitation of the horrors Braxen subjected her to would take a long time to recount, anyway. Punctuated as it was with faltering words, sometimes breaking off when she moved her mouth but still couldn’t get them to come out, she doesn’t finish until after midday.
Before she began, I thought she’d end feeling better, a weight shared even if it wasn’t close to halving.
The platitude doesn’t get anywhere near to the truth. She told me her story and grew smaller, diminished as much by the telling as she must have been by the original experience.
