EVERYTHING!
Suddenly, hands grasp my arms. Her hands. She stops me and stands in front of me.
“Amy,” she says. “Look at me.”
I can’t. I need to run. I am not Amelie right now. I am back in my past life, where I had to protect Sophie?—
“Look at me,” she says forcefully. And I do.
My eyes meet hers.
“I am not going to tell anyone,” she says. “I will be your secret keeper, just as you are mine. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“Whatever you did, you had your reasons.”
Yes, I had all the reasons.
“Tell me what he did,” I breathe out. “I need to know.”
Her eyes widen as she opens her mouth. Her voice shaking, detached, horrified. She draws back her shoulders and then physically detaches.
“He ordered me to join him and his friends if I want to keep my trust and everything. I told him to fuck off and that I don’t want it. But he doesn’t take no for an answer. He ordered Alex to bring me to him, and he locked me in and he and his friends?—“
She bursts into tears and screams at me. Words just vomit from her soul. Words that needed to be said. And every word she said makes me sick to my stomach.
“He just takes whatever he wants. He always has. Why do you think I don’t do feelings or relationships? Because I have a father who fucks me any other day, because that’s why he has a daughter. To have young flesh to fuck. Wanna know what he said? I’m getting too old and used now. I should get a baby, and he had one of his friends?—“
She shakes uncontrollably, while murderous rage consumes me.
The last sentence was the one thing pushing me over the edge.
I snap into a self I have buried, a self my father trained me to become in case something threatened Sophie. I run to the door,in dire need to hit the life out of Alex’s face and then go kill her father.
“Amy!” she screams after me as I am already barefoot on the staircase. I stop in my tracks. “Amy, you promised!”
You promised.
Amy promised.
I am not Amy right now.
El runs after me down the stairs to where I stand in the dark staircase.
“It will land with him,” she says. “He will know I talked.”
“Not if he can’t speak anymore,” I say, dangerously cold.
“Amy,” she says and grasps my face. “I love you. I love you for wanting to protect me, but I won’t let you risk anything for me.”
I love you.
She said I love you.
“You love me,” I repeat, and the tension in my body vanishes, replaced by warmth spreading through me.
“Yes, for fucks sake,” she screams at me. “I love you. I loved you from the moment I met you, I loved you in every moment we had together, and I love you even more now.”
