It’s disappointing that Theo has left me alone, although I’m also not surprised. He’s a night creature, that’s for damn sure.
It’s a weekday. And going by the brightness of the sun in the window, I should be getting ready for work right now. The idea is absolutely too much.
So I grab my phone to fire off a message to my boss, telling him that I came down with a cold and will need the day off. There are a few messages from Penelope in the group chat, too, asking about our next Zoom movie night. No word yet from Abi, but I respond with anI’m inand a string of emojis. I should probably tell Penelope what happened. Or both of them. Abi really ought to know about Callie, too, although I can understand why Penelope doesn’t want to tell her. Abi’s the county coroner down in a little beach town in Texas. She has a professional obligation to report crimes.
I leave the phone on the desk and shuffle into the bathroom, the space between my legs aching. Memories of last night flash through my head, but most of all, I think of that moment right before I came.
I really thought, just for a second, that Theo was going to kill me. And that’s what tipped me over the edge. The orgasm that followed almost destroyed me, especially with how it kept going, longer than I’d ever had an orgasm last. I’d read about what a lack of oxygen can do, how it heightens pleasure, but I’d never tried it. I always wanted to, of course. Like I told him, I would think about it incessantly, trying to make sex with my college hook-ups more tolerable.
But the real thing was like nothing I ever imagined. I’m swoony just thinking about it.
At least until I stumble into the bathroom. When I flip on the light, I cry out in shock.
My neck is almost black with bruises.
“Fuck me,” I whisper, staring at my reflection. My eyes are pink at the edges, too, and there’s the cut on my lip from where Theo bit me. But my neck is a nightmare. The imprints of his fingerprints are undeniable, long black bars caging my throat.
I tug my hair forward. It doesn’t do much to hide it.
A scarf? It’ll look stupid in the summer, but I don’t think makeup’s going to do much, either.
I wobble back into my bedroom and over to my closet, sliding through my clothes until I find a blousy bow collar shirt I haven’t worn in years. Better than nothing.
The doorbell rings.
The sound startles me, and I nearly jump out of my skin.Just leave it, I think, pulling on the shirt. It sits high enough up on my neck that it covers most of the bruising, especially with my hair down.
The doorbell rings again, three more times in quick succession. I frown. Penelope? Did she decide to come down here after all, completely unannounced? Her texts didn’t sound like she had left her sister’s place, but she would ring the doorbell like that, if for no other reason than to annoy me.
Could be Oliver, too, even though he’s never bothered to ring the doorbell before. Usually just taps on my back door, although I haven’t seen him since the weekend he spent at my house while his parents were away. Our last conversation was him thanking me for letting him spend the night, right before he made me swear not to come and talk to his parents. I agreed. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
I bustle downstairs and into the foyer. There’s no sign of anyone through the little stained glass window set in the door, and so maybe it’s not much of a surprise when I pull the door open, and it is, in fact, Oliver standing on the stoop.
“Hey, bud—” The words lodge in my throat.
He has a black eye.
“Can I come in?” he signs. “Please?”
“What happened?”
He’s zeroed in on the living room, though, brushing past me so quickly that the hairs on my arm stand on end. “Oliver? Are you okay?”
He sits on the edge of the couch, his knees pulled up to his chest. My heart thunders. “Oliver, you know you can talk to me, right?” I kneel on the floor to look up at him, and he flicks his gaze over to me. The bruising is around his left eye, making it look sunken. The sight of that, a black eye on a child, makes my stomach twist around in angry knots. “Whoever did that to you, you can tell me. Even if it was—” I swallow, knowing what I have to say it even though I don’t want to. “Even if it was Theo.”
Oliver gives me a disgusted look. “Theo wouldn’t hurt me.”
I breathe out. “Then who?” I feel like I know the answer already, though.
Oliver looks away from me, down at the floor. His brow is knitted up tight, and he hugs his legs in so close that it’s like he’s trying to make himself disappear. I honestly don’t know what to do. I have no experience with children. Certainly not with a child who is clearly being abused.
How thefuckdid I not see it before?
“Oliver,” I say softly, brushing his hair back. “You came here for a reason.”
“They don’t care,” he signs around his legs.
“Who doesn’t?”
