She hums, brushing my hair, and pulls back to look at me. “Oh, sweet child, what happened?”
Looking past me, I hear Isadora drive off as my mother guides me inside the house.
“Is he here?” She shakes her head in answer. “I need to shower.”
“Of course. All your things are still in your room.” I always leave a spare change of clothes here, plus there’s my old things I no longer wear. “Everly. What happened?”
I don’t know how to tell her. I simply don’t know where to start.
“Later. I need a shower right now.”
She nods but her lips thin as she watches me start to take the stairs. My feet are heavy, and I find the stairs a challenge, but I continue anyway, wanting to get clean and wash this whole episode off me.
“I’ll bring you food and some bandages.” She hasn’t seen my stomach yet, which I plan not to show her as I make my way up.
Heading straight for my room, I grab some clothes and step to the shower, turning the water on high. I strip my clothes, or what’s left of them, that need to be burned, dropping them to the floor and step in.
The water cascades over my skin and I watch as the blood floats down the drain and washes away.
If only the marks on my body, and the pain in my heart, could do the same.
“You taste so sweet, so good.” He licked my stomach and lifted my shirt, then he took a knife, dragging it over my stomach and cutting my shirt, so it hung loosely over my shoulders.
“I bet he won’t want you once I tear you to pieces and you taste sour afterward.” His eyes locked on mine. “I can make you taste sour, so fucking sour.” He licked me again on my stomach and dragged his tongue up and down until he got to the edge. I tried to kick him, but it was no use. He was stronger than me, and when his cold hands touched my body, he would dig his fingers in to the point of pain, and tears would leak from my eyes.
“I like tears, it means you like it.”
Sick, sadistic prick.
His tongue licked my tears away before he went back to my stomach and resumed his torture.
“Please. Let me go.”
He laughed at my words. As if they mean nothing. I guess to him they do.
“Gunner doesn’t love me. He doesn’t.”
“He does, but he won’t be able to look at you the same after I’ve had my play. He’ll think of you as used trash, because that’s what you will be, and he will take out the garbage, never to be seen again.” His hand touched my thigh and I felt him cutting it again, my eyes are squeezed shut now in fear of opening them.
He tied me to the ceiling, and I struggled to get free, to no avail. This was the exact same way Gunner had me, and it breaks my heart that I even thought of putting these two in the same box in my head, but that’s what was happening.
“Time to play.” He looked up at me, his hand removed from my thigh at my words. Then he grabbed a scarf, walked up behind me, and covered my eyes with it.
“It heightens your experience. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he asked.
A sob escaped me and I felt another rise in my chest. It wanted to come up in a loud and anguished cry, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to show him any more weakness than I already had. He doesn’t deserve it.
His body moved away, and I heard the click of his shoes before I felt him again, this time at my side. I yelped and kicked when he bit me on my inner thigh. He swore, then held me still, his nails puncturing my skin.
“Be a good girl, your husband’s here.”
My breathing stopped.
And then I heard his voice and I knew, just knew, I would be okay.
A knock on the door startles me from my thoughts. Those hands moving on my body, his mouth touching my skin. A shiver takes hold of me.
“Sweetheart, your father is home. He’s asked to see you.”
“No,” I cry out. I straighten my spine, even though she can’t see me through the door. “Not yet, I need to sleep.”
“All right. But when you wake, he will want to talk.”
I nod to myself, then quietly say to the door, “Okay.”
Reaching for the soap, I wash my body and feel the burn when it runs over my open wounds, the bite marks that mar my skin, a reminder of what Roberto did.
And I try my best not to cry.
I try my best not to let it get to me.
I’m free now. Free of Roberto.
That has to count for something. Right?