Washing between her legs, ridding her skin of the blood that stained her, made me feel ill. And I could feel the anger taking over me. . . and something. . . someone else.
Her fingers dug into my shoulders, careful to avoid my scar, supporting herself, as she struggled with the excess standing time.
I finished cleaning her and placed a kiss on the inside of her thigh before standing.
Her arms wrapped around me when we were both clean. . . and I held tight, but I still slipped away.
Hell
My arms were bound around her, my fingers roaming over her back. I kept them there, exploring her, and I enjoyed the feel. Enjoyed that she was mine.Mine. And only my hands should fucking touch her. I couldn’t remember causing any of these new bruises, and something niggling in the back of my mind—Woodrow—told me, I hadn't.
“Hell?” The question of who I was came through the sound of the raining shower. . . just barely.
How did she know?I quizzed myself. It must have been something more than my stiffening body.
“Woodrow!” His name shot through the house. Jolie's eyes widened at the sound of impatience in my father's tone.
She reeled back in my arms, the only part of her touching me now was her protruding stomach.
I wanted to touch, but something told me the baby was gone. And I already knew how emptyfelt. . . and I didn't fucking like it.
She stared up at me, the name ringing out again. A tear fell from her sad eyes. She didn’t anticipate my help.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t give it.
I tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing her hidden eye and the tears traveling through the crevices on her face.
“I'm not supposed to be up here. Woodrow brought me. We were supposed to leave together.”
I heard her real message, of how scared she was of my father, and how he wasn't meant to know of her plan.
And I was about to tell her he wouldn’t find anything out from me, when he called again.
Chapter 30
Jolie–present day
The house felt different. It was no longer the beautiful, pristine home built for a blissful future. The downstairs felt as empty as the promise of my future. We lived in the bedroom now, where the smell of vomit lived on the walls, thicker than the satin paint.
It had been four weeks since my dance with Hell.
And three of them had been awful, where his body had been practically glued to this bed.
I sat with my back against the headboard, the padded velvet comforting my spine. My satin pajamas stuck to my legs below the many sheets I sat beneath.
Cartoons played on the big screen. His favorite.
I stared at the TV, watching the visual story of a cowboy and an astronaut setting out on an adventure, not taking any of it in.
The boy at my side—the child in a man's body—stared with an animated look on his face. He was propped up on pillows, a few unhealthy snacks lay spread out at his side, lining the edge of the bed. But no chocolate had crossed his lips. None of the soft candies had been swallowed.
Woody snuggled into me, looking up at my face to see how I was enjoying his movie choice.
I tried to keep my tears from falling. To force the false look of wonder on my face to stay put.
Woody's hand landed on mine, his fingers skinny. As Hell, he'd lost his wedding ring. It had fallen down the toilet as he hugged the rim, vomiting something black and tar-like down into the bowl, and it bothered him to the point he went digging through upchuck to find it. But it no longer fit.
My head orbited to the left, where the ring now sat, shining under the artificial light of a bright nightlight, side by side, with an untouched glass of water with a biodegradable straw.
