Page 95 of From West, With Regret

“Yes,” I try to say but the word crumbles when it spills from my mouth. “But…” The memories are still fragmented, coming to my mind in pieces. A large chunk of the puzzle is coming together. The happier parts. The ones where I knew I fell in love with West. It was the innocent kind. The kind where we never did anything but spend every possible minute together, holding each other’s hand. We’d never kissed or done anything other than be each other’s best friend. Even at twelve, I knew he was my soulmate.

“But what?” he asks, reaching out.

I take a step back, my body growing cold.

An older kid runs by as West presses his finger to my cheek. He tugs on my hair, laughing and taunting when he passes us. His cackling laughter sours my stomach.

I look up at the house again, then my attention moves to the dilapidated, detached garage beside it and the trees behind it.

I start walking. My feet carry me through the front yard, then to the side, where I find myself heading straight for the woods.

With every step I take, the less I smell the crisp, warm scent of West’s cologne, and the more I smell blood.

Blood and tears and dirt.

“London, wait!” West calls. “Don’t go back there.”

I’m breathing heavy. Every breath that passes through my lungs is painful. My feet are unsteady as I tread over the tree roots and dead leaves. Twigs snap under my weight. My ankle rolls, and I hiss, shoving aside the pain. I stop momentarily, willing the memory to keep playing out.

It’s dark and ugly and full of pain.

This isn’t like the memory I had out front. It’s taken a turn, and darkness edges my vision as I walk farther back until I spot the broken-down tree house. It’s nothing but a floor of planks, twenty feet above the ground, but it’s the backside of the tree that tugs on my chest.

“London,” West says, running up behind me. “Please, stop.”

I’m struggling to breathe as I round the large trunk. Myfingers grip into the peeling, aging bark, and it crumbles under my touch.

So do I.

I fall to my knees and lean forward.

My hands press into the wet dirt, clutching onto the dead leaves as the memory slams into me at full force.

I feel his body on mine. The sickening sound of his zipper opening. The cold metal pressing against my throat. His dirty fingers pressed to my mouth.

“Make one peep out of that pretty little mouth, and I swear to God, I’ll slit your fucking throat right here.”

“No, stop,” I sob, crying out. Tears stream down my face, and everything hurts.

But it’s what I said back then, too, when he attacked me. When he woke me from a deep sleep, held a knife to my throat and forced me outside and into the woods.

“No, stop!” I cried out, but it was no use with his hand clamped tightly over my mouth.

“You think I’d let you leave with that new beautiful family you’re getting without taking what’s mine first?”

I wanted to vomit.

I felt his knee between my legs, forcing them open, and it was then I looked up at the night sky. Tree branches swayed in the breeze against a backdrop of twinkling stars. It was a warm, autumn night. I closed my eyes and imagined myself somewhere else. Anywhere else that wasn’t with him on top of me, touching me in places I’d never been touched. I pounded my fists against the hard ground. I kicked and flailed, but it was no use. He was too heavy. Too big. Too overpowering. He tore at my shirt, exposing my chest. I tasted my own blood as it dripped from my nose.

“Please, stop…. ” I cried again, uselessly.

“London. Baby.” West’s hands are suddenly pressed againstmy face, urging me to look at him. “I’m here.” But the memory pulls at me again.

“Get the fuck off her.”

Panic had overtaken my body. I was frozen, afraid that if I moved even a single inch, he’d kill me. Surely, he was going to kill me. Use me, then kill me. I was ready to surrender. To let the star-studded sky swallow me up, wrapping its warm arms around me.

But even then, surrounded by the shadows, I recognized his voice. The one who always swore to protect me, and did.