“Let’s play a game,” she interjected.
Confusion, curiosity and intrigue warred within him as he pulled his mind from the crickets and asked, “Does this game involve you telling me your name?”
“Names aren’t important,” she scoffed. “And this isn’t some stupid truth or dare bullshit.”
“Okay, you got me, cold queen. What are you proposing if it’s not the traditional looney bin icebreaker?”
She graced him with a small smile before falling serious once more.
“It’s called a nightmare for a nightmare.”
Brooks’ brow furrowed and the atmosphere strained between them.
“That sounds pretty serious.”
“If you play,” she looked at him again, “I’ll tell you my name.”
He pretended to ponder, but his mind was made up before the stakes were laid bare.
“Deal. I’ll play your game, and you’ll tell me what I can call you. Other than cold queen, of course,” he said with a smirk and a wink. “But you’ll have to go first. Show me how it’s done.”
She touched the cuff of her sleeves hesitantly and, with a sigh of resignation, pulled them up past her elbow. A series of small scars made a ladder all the way up to her bicep and disappeared under the worn cotton.
“This,” she pointed, “isn’t exactly what it looks like.”
Brooks looked her in the eyes but said nothing.
“I never knew my mom. I always just assumed she was dead. For as long as I can remember I’ve lived on my own. I never lived in one place for long, but it was always alone.”
“That must have been lonely,” he said quietly.
A small, sad smile pulled at her lips. “It could be. But it was better than the alternative.”
Brooks watched as darkness crept into her eyes like a hurricane making landfall.
“What was the alternative?”
“My dad,” she bit out. “Once a year, every year, he would find me. No matter how far I ran or how little I left behind, he always found me.”
Brooks became weary. He did not have to know this girl or her past to guess that she had been through a lot. It was written in her posture and every fine worry line on her forehead. What was worse was that it was embedded in her eyes.
“Why was that so bad?”
She huffed a small laugh. “My dad is not a nice guy.”
Her expression deepened, anger changing to anxiety, anxiety to fear and panic.
“Every year. Every visit. Every… touch. I marked it. So I would never forget. So that when I had the strength, I could hurt him for every time he hurt me.” Tears streamed down her cheeks leaving small, gleaming tracks in their wake.
She forced her sleeves back down and rubbed her arms like she had done it a million times. There had to be hundreds of scars on her arms. She was painted with the ghosts of her past, an artist with no control of her situation other than the brush.
“You…” he said tentatively. “You said he came once a year, but there have to be hundreds of scars on your arm.” A gentle question to pull her from her mind.
She looked his way, wiped at her cheeks, and nodded.
“That’s a nightmare for another time. Now, I think you owe me a nightmare.”
The weight in Brooks’ stomach was hard to bear. What she revealed made him sick. The thought of one girl having to go through even a fraction of that pain, and caused by someone she was supposed to be able to trust… It was daunting. But the anger? No, the sickness had nothing on the anger bubbling in his chest.
