“I’m sorry,” I beg. “I promise I tried but I get it if you don’t want me anymore.”
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I want you?” He tries to make me look up. “Delilah, you have never done anything wrong. You don’t give someone a spoon, expect them to dig foundations, then get pissed when they beat their circumstances to create a well.” My tears continue falling as he kisses my crown. “That’s what you did. Used the only tools you had for survival. Nothing and no one can make me see you as less again.”
I shuffle up his chest and kiss his cheek, needing to feel closer to him than I already am. I can’t ignore the way he stretches his left arm away from me anymore. The craving for an escape is still there, shouting at me to take something—anything—but we’ve both been hurt. Scarlet threatened to lock me in the bathroom if I asked her. More than that, I don’t want to be the previous version of myself who constantly ran away from myown thoughts in fear of ever perceiving myself or my life for what it really is. It’s fucking hard though when all I’ve ever known is the need to escape—my thoughts, my family, the memories.
My lips barely move as I ask, “What happened to your arm?”
“I did.” He turns his head to look at the black sky. “I—” Clearing his throat, he restarts, “I’ve lost so much over the years that I can’t talk about it.”
“Why?”
“Because if I lay here thinking about it, if I give those memories a name, they become real, and I won’t move again. I have to keep moving. Move or die.” His eyes are red-rimmed as he whispers, “Those are my options.”
He doesn’t say anything more as the low light from the lamp in the corner of the room casts reflections on his tear-filled eyes. I press my lips to his cheek. “I love you. I don’t know who we are, but I know I love you. I’ve loved you through every stage of my life, every emotion. I’ll keep moving with you.” He audibly gulps as I hold my breath. “Kane, please don’t shut me out. I’m so scared of everything around me and in my head. Please don’t leave me alone while you’re in front of me.”
“I’m disgusting,” he whispers so low I wouldn’t be able to hear him if I wasn’t laid on top of him. “I hate myself so fucking much. You’re the only thing keeping me here, but now you’re safe, I don’t have a goal. I’m fucked, pretty girl. Mentally, spiritually, everything I am is fucked to such an extent I’ll always be reminded of what I’ve done.”
“No, you’re not. You’re human and you’re mine. I know you. I knew you when you’d hide because you didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with your presence. I knew you when you were angry, filled with hate. I know you now while you think you don’t. All those parts are still right here.” I gently tap his chest.
“Do you still want to get high?” He looks at me without judgement, so I nod. “Do something for me? Every time you do, lay down and I’ll distract you. But don’t ask me for more.”
“That’s not how it works.”
Ruby has made up an entire program for me to follow. I can’t exactly walk into a therapist’s office, when I’d be locked up after recounting everything that’s happened. I can’t trust they won’t be linked to my family in some way either, so the mere thought of having to sit opposite someone, navigating the paranoia of someone linked to my parents coming after us to protect their secrets won’t allow me to get peace. The very profession I’d need to help me are colleagues of the people who fucked me up in the first place. But Ruby has spent every waking moment studying different therapy techniques with her husband by her side, reading over her shoulder.
“We don’t do things the conventional way, koukla mou.” Kane kisses my temple. “Addiction is about the chemicals, so we’ll switch them. What’s more natural than making my wife come?”
“What doyouneed?”
“Control,” he says, meeting my eyes as the playfulness drops away.
“I’ll give you power over me if you can do the same,” I offer.
“Done. You’ve always had me.” Curling his fingers around my nape, he pulls me closer so we’re eye to eye as his voice drops. “Trust me, I want to fuck you, make you scream, feel how hard you come, watch your tears drip down your face…but I can’t.”
“Why?”
“If you give me control of you, pretty girl, it’s mine. Not your body when I want to fuck you or choke you with my dick, but every part of you will belong to me. If I tell you to eat, you do it. If I tell you to sit, you fucking sit. And if you don’t, I’m going tohurt you for disobeying me. Do you understand why I can’t have control of you?”
“Not really,” I whisper, attempting to be better rather than lie like I usually would.
“I’m exactly fucking like them for wanting to do those things.”
Kane has always come across as intelligent. When we were younger, he’d get the best grades. His time examining everyone from outside made him understand social dynamics through a different lens. Now, he’s an idiot. Sitting up with my hands on his chest, I ask, “Do you want me to be in pain?”
“No.”
“Do you want to hurt me only if I want that too?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me an example of how you’d do it.”
He slowly rakes his pale green eyes down my body then back up to meet my eyes. His voice is deeper, sending shivers up my spine as he says, “I want to push my dick in your tight ass while you squat, holding my knees so I can stretch your cunt. You’ll scream because you like the pain when I don’t prep you. I’ll feel those screams vibrate through your body.”
“If I told you right now I don’t like that anymore?”
“Then I wouldn’t do it.”
