I bite into my cheek, trying to stifle the pain radiating out of my face. But before I have even caught my breath, Clarke invades my space again and pulls me tight against him. His touches are soft and frantic as he pushes hair away from my face and lightly caresses the cut on my cheek.
“It’s not my fault, Rosie. I didn’t want to, I didn’t. You make me crazy. I need you so much. You need me too; you know you do. But you just make me so angry, you have no idea what you’ve done. It was wrong of me. I took it too far.”
Excuse after excuse fall out of his mouth like he can possibly absolve himself of the guilt eating him. I hear the moment he shifts the blame to me, laying fault at my feet, like my defiance is reason enough for him to assault me. If I had just done as I was told, he never would have struck me.
When I don’t relax into his soft touches, he lowers himself and starts peppering kisses on my cheeks, tightening his grip when I weakly try pull out of his hold.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” I repeat the words I don’t believe over and over until he stops fussing over my swelling cheek. The sick feeling in my stomach churns harder with every caress he places on my skin, with every kiss he forced on my forehead and face.
I just want him to stop goddamn touching me. I want to scream at him, scream at myself. How naïve I once was, and now I’m paying the price. For every brush of his fingertips against the loose strands in my hair, I want to yell wildly. For every tender touch he gives me after years of these games, I want to rack my fingernails down his face, scarring him so that he can no longer lure anyone in with his beauty. Every embrace leaves me thrashing on my insides, a part of me wanting to be unleashed and become the monster he wants me to be. Something he should fear.
But I do none of those things. I continue repeating my pathetic words like a mantra, urging him to leave so I too can retreat. Eventually, he does. Brushing the loose strands that fell from my ponytail off my face, stands, mumbling something pathetic about me needing time alone and walks out the door without a backwards glance.
The soft click of the door may as well be a gun shot with how it resonates around the room, and with it I shatter. Sobs rack my already tired body. Tears leaving deep tracks in the dirt coating my face, and I place a hand over my mouth to muffle the scream that threatens to rip from my throat.
Clarke will want to wallow in his guilt, and I know that he will be silent for a following few weeks, if only so that he doesn’t see the mess of my face until I heal. The reprieve of him should offer me some comfort, but it does nothing to cover the fractures in my chest every time he strikes me.
I once thought I loved Clarke. I could explain away the way he would be too rough with me when he was angry, the bruises around my wrists and arms, or the way he would push me around, or scream in my face. He was just passionate, he loves me, if I angered him less…
It was humiliating. Only the way he would attend to me afterwards felt like true remorse. Even still, he only did that was in the beginning, cleaning my cuts and putting ointment on my bruises. Now he avoids me like seeing the marks on my skin offends him.
The first time Clarke struck me, it cracked the pedestal I held him on, and with every blow delivered since, it tumbled further down until we met at eye level. I see him for who he is now, and even though he says otherwise, he does not love me.
People who love you don’t fill you with venom and lies that seep like blackness in your mouth and consume your self-worth. I swallowed so many excuses and made just as many, I believed him when he told me this was for my own good. He told me he would make me stronger, and in a way he did.
I built the walls around myself so high that no one had any hope of climbing them and reinforced my heart with iron. Who would protect me if not I? My body is weak, malleable to the physical strength of others, but my resolve is bulletproof, and I will lay waste to this life.
Memories of the sweet boy with the cheeky grin and hair that was forever in his face, my protector, my savior, my best friend, unbiddenly wash over me as I continue to repeat my mantra. But it’s a lie. It isn’t okay, and I’m not okay. Clarke will regret the day he ever touched me.
The rocking of my cot jolts me from sleep. I don’t move, I scarcely breathe as focus on what has awoken me. The tell-tale sign of grunting hits my ears and without needing to peak, I know which of the group home worker’s standing at the end of my bed, peering down at me, dick in hand as he fists himself.
My breath holts in my chest entirely as the fear becomes all-consuming that he would realise I’ve woken up. I never learned his name; I’ve never wanted to know it. I know I’m not the first girl he’s fucked himself over, and I won’t be the last.
I silently beg that he won’t realise I’ve woken, knowing what will happen if he does, I’ve borne witness to the girls dragged from their beds or from chores, coming back a while later with the light dulled from their eyes and tear streaks marking their face. I’m desperate to survive that fate.
The first time I understood what was happening, I tried to report him for sexual abuse. He was our carer, and we are all underaged. The reality that no one cares for penniless orphans destroyed a part of me. We have been left in the palm of a predator without escape and no one to champion for us.
The feel of his hands moving my blanket down to uncover my body has me shrinking in on myself, curling into a tight ball. I immediately regret the move and pray that he thinks I’m trying to shield my small frame from the cold air, and not his perverted eyes.
I’m dressed in my comfiest pajamas, which is a plain cotton tank top and matching loose shorts, but in this moment, I want to burn them for how exposed I feel.
Bile rises to my throat when I feel his fingers first start to roam over me, touching my sides, my face, my stomach, and the fine tremble that racks through me when I hear his breathing become more erratic.
The rocking of my bed speeds up as his grunts and moans of pleasure get louder. I swear he’s trying to wake me up with the racket he’s making, hoping to make good on those disgusting promises he’s made me over the last fortnight.
I hear it the moment he finds his release and I can’t stop the vomit that springs back up my throat, gagging me as I stop it from exploding out of my mouth. Barely managing to swallow it down, I wait for him to leave before I feel like I can finally suck in my first lungful of air.
I don’t know how long I lay there, shaking and crying silently, praying to a god that had never answered my pleas to help me escape this hellhole.
Before I can think better of it, I crawl from my bed and pad down the hall where Clarke sleeps. I know he’ll be awake, in the time that I’ve known him it’s become clear that he doesn’t sleep well. I sneak into the room where Clarke sleeps, unsurprised to see him sitting up and watching the sky outside the window.
I don’t know what he has been doing lately, but I know he’s been trying to find a place with the gangs around here. It seems that gang life is the only way out of poverty for most of us.
None of us have families willing to take us in, and it’s safe to assume that alone with that is no chance of an inheritance or even a safe place to fucking sleep.
When he gets back from whatever he’s running with, he’s usually cold and distant for the rest of the night. Tonight, was no different, he didn’t even come to see me after dinner. The only exception is the blood dripping down a cut on his eyebrow, the busted lip and finger bruises trailing over his biceps.
“Clarke?” I whisper hesitantly. He looks like he’s in pain, and I suddenly feel selfish for interrupting him. I know he wouldn’t want me here right now, but I couldn’t stop myself from coming.