“Yes, you can. It’s my money and I choose how I spend it.”He takes my hand again, his eyes dropping to my lips andsending my pulse soaring.“And I want to spend it on you, sweetheart.”
My skin tingles at the endearment. It tingles back then and breaks me out in hives right now.
Heavy footsteps thump nearby, and Alex quickly retreats, nudging his chin at the card in an unspoken order to hide it.
I do just as Dad enters the kitchen.
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. The picture sways, distorts and I’m thrown into another place.
Alex stands before me in my room, slowly opening a white box tied with a black ribbon.
“Happy Birthday, Hailey,”he says, scrutinizing my face while I scrutinize the gift.
A pang of disappointment twists my gut.
It’s the silver heart pendant I’ve been toying with for weeks, thinking it came from Mom.
Alex grabs the delicate chain between his thumb and forefinger, pulling it out of the box and dangling it between us.
“Do you like it? I saw it at the jewelers and thought it’d suit you.”
Annoyance flushes my system. He saw a broken heart and thought of me?
In the memory, I reach out, examining the pendant from both sides, the floral design and the ridge zigzagging in the middle. I do exactly what I did at the hospital when the nurse gave it back to me—try to pry it open.
Alex smirks, letting go of the chain so it pools in my palm.“That won’t work.”
I meet his gaze, wondering both back then and right now why he chose that design.“It’s a broken heart. Why—”
“That’s what made me think of you.”He lifts his hand, tracing his knuckles down my cheek.“A broken heart for a girl with a broken heart.”
Tears spring to my eyes back then and the memory switches off as if someone clicked the red button on a TV remote. I’m back in my dorm room, hovering over my diary, a big, purple stain growing where the fineliner’s been pressed since the flashback hit.
A small smile curves my lips despite what I’ve seen. I much prefer calm memories to those that throw me into an anxious frenzy. I’m in the same position, my heartrate steady, no tears.
I grab the heart pendant, tearing the necklace off my neck in one hard tug, and rush to the window, flinging it wide open. But before I toss the necklace out, I pause...
What if he didn’t mean my heart was broken because he broke it? What if he meant it was broken because my mom died? Maybe that’s why the heart doesn’t open... because even though it’s broken, it’s still whole.
Exhaling a calming breath, I pull my suitcase out of the wardrobe, and hide the necklace in a small inside pocket. My neck feels bare without it, but I won’t touch it again until I know exactly why he bought it for me.
I spend the next hour detailing everything I saw, posing endless questions in the margins. I write, read, then write again.
Omitting the sexual abuse, I also write down the incidents I’ve kept in my head until now, focusing on the surroundings, Alex’s mood, and anything he said that wasn’t related to sucking his dick.
A pattern emerges.
Not just in those memories where he used me, but the previous ones too. At first I only saw his anger and impatience. He rushed through our time together like he couldn’t wait to leave, but the more I read and think, the more details I notice. Something much darker was buried behind the anger.
Deep-rooted, hair-raising fear and...guilt.
I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t seen this calm, happy Alex. Maybe he wasn’t such a monster... maybe somewhere along the way, things changed, and I became an outlet for that darker something.
Maybe we started off well.
It’d mean I didn’t lose myself completely while I was grieving my mother.
???
