Saliva slams to the back of my throat. I choke and cough, swinging my hand up in between us to muffle the sound of me being too anxious for someone like him. “What?”
“Come on,” he laughs, snatching my hand from my face and pulling me to the back door.
I hate being out of control. It suffocates me, makes my skin too tight and sharpens every inhale.
The visceral reaction to getting dragged outside, into the brightness that weighs the air heavy with torridity, cracks my chest with the feeling of being silenced.
You didn’t say no.
He listens when I say no. Yet Istillhaven’t said it.
He quickly stops and reaches around me, closing the door with a vivid smile that lifts my skin and allows me to breathe.
“Where are we going?” I adjust my hand in his, following the finger he’s directing to the old, blue truck I only see when he brings groceries home.
The flit of my heart snaps my eyes to his, mechanically taking the steps he’s guiding. “I’m leaving? Why? How? Where?”
His Adam’s apple bobs with a rusty laugh. “You’re so fucking precious.”
Butterflies tilt my stomach, introducing me to a foreign feeling of living inside a pleasant dream.
My reverie.
I marvel at him, unable to speak through the giddy drum numbing my throat.
All good things come to an end.
The voice that antagonizes me kills the butterflies, leaving their lifeless flight to settle in my stomach and rot my happiness.
My hand must turn limp with my heavy walk. He squeezes it and stops next to the passenger door, bending down to observe the dullness of my face.
“Sorry, I’m fine,” I smile, trying to slip my hand away from his lethal grip.
He briefly looks at the attempt, then snaps his eyes back to mine with hitched brows and shoves our joined hands into the front pocket of his cargo pants. “Quit it.”
“What?”
I try tugging my arm some more, but his hand is a trap. He’s not willing to release what he’s caught.
His dark hair is messily framing his annoyed eyes and he’s staring at me, patiently waiting for me to stop ruining everything.
I give up, puffing so exasperatedly it blows strings of my hair into his face.
“Good girl,” he nods.
It’s not uncommon for him to acknowledge me or tell me I did a good job. But “good girl” is different. It’s validating, brewing up some suppressed urge to continue pleasing him.
He smiles, pulling our locked hands from his pocket and opening the door for me. “I know I said sometimes things are better left unsaid, but-” bracing an arm on the door, he tips his head and lures me closer to his salacious grin “-I really wanna see how bad you can get.”
I’m passing away. My blood is coagulating, and my lungs are bricked up.
No. That doesn’t sound right.
Is that right? Bricked up?
Surely not.
Jesus, I’m sweating and it’s impossible to breathe.
