Page 12 of Like An Animal

THE GHOST

J eremy holds my hand hostage as Ghost Ship plays on the projector. I don’t think he would let go of my fingers even if I asked. His grip is firm as he holds my hand to his chest, his other arm wrapped around my shoulder.

I know I should sleep because school will be absolute torture if I don’t get some shut eye, but I’m not tired at all.

“Are we ever going to just… talk?” I ask, breaking the dead silence of the room. It’s only the two of us, but it’s quiet enough to think I’m alone. I might’ve tricked myself into thinking that, if it wasn’t for his grip on my hand.

He slowly turns his head and narrows his eyes on mine. “Talk?”

I roll my eyes. “I know. It’s such a foreign concept to you, but…” I lean my chin against my knuckles as I look down at him. “If you expect me to be yours, you have to give me a reason to be… and I mean for more than just sex. That’s not enough.”

His eyebrows knit with confusion, as if that was something he has never entertained. “But, we are talking.”

I almost laugh at his response. Why is this so difficult for him to understand?

“We do talk sometimes, but you never give much away. You give answers. You do realize that if I don’t discover something about you on my own, you don’t tell me. I just want you to open up and talk to me. I’ve done that with you for years and I’ve gotten scraps in comparison.”

He slowly nods. “So, you want the deep shit?”

“That would be nice.” I snort my answer. Compared to what I have received from him since Kathy married my father, anything he could say would be considered “deep”. “I know the superficial shit anyone would learn on a first date. Give me something else.”

He lets out a soft hum before he thins his lips. I can tell he is genuinely searching for something to satisfy my curiosity. And he’s struggling.

Then, he suddenly turns on his side and releases my hand, propping his head up with his other one. “Here’s something,” he mutters before he picks up some of my hair, running his thumb over the ends. “Kathy isn’t my mom. She’s my aunt.”

That’s surprising. They have a lot of similar features.

“Where’s your parents?” I ask, unsure of how to approach this.

“Dead. They died when I was four.”

That rules out any natural causes. Clearly his mother didn’t die in childbirth and his father from a heart attack. Sure, it’s possible, but unlikely since it happened in the same year.

“What happened?”

His fingers freeze and a dark look takes over his face, one full of grief and sadness. I want to take it all back, rewind and not make him delve into his history. If only it won’t make him look so tortured.

“The house blew up with us inside it. I was hiding under the kitchen table while my parents argued. My mom was crying and screaming because she found out what Kathy was doing to me. She caught Kathy molesting me and was threatening to tell my grandfather what happened. I let them know I was there right before everything blew up and…I was the last thing my mother saw before the explosion. I don’t remember anything after the room started to shake, but the doctors said that the only reason I didn’t die was because the table shielded me from falling debris. I was lucky. I lived and they died.”

I reach up and touch his jaw as he talks. My heart aches for him, for what he experienced at such a young age. My heart also hurts because he gave me a general timestamp for when Kathy’s abuse started.

He was four fucking years old.

He was just a baby.

“That’s horrible, Jer.”

He shrugs. “It was worse for them than it was for me. I made it out. I was in a coma for a bit, but I survived. My grandfather told Kathy to take me far away and she brought me here.”

I have a bone to pick with his grandfather for that stupid move if I ever meet him. He sent his grandson off with his abuser. Who does that shit? But, it’s possible that his parents didn’t get the chance to tell his grandfather what Kathy did to him.

“Do they know what caused the explosion?” Maybe it was a gas leak, but considering the mafia ties, I doubt it was something so innocent.

“My grandfather thought it was a hit, but he was wrong. Kathy practically confessed to being behind it, but only to me. I was only a kid so all I really understood was that it was my fault they were dead, because my mother found out Kathy’s secret.

She covered her tracks and disappeared with the only person alive who knew the truth.

She knows her days are numbered though. When I go back to Jersey, she’s dead and she knows it. ”

That definitely explains why neither my father or Kathy has had anything to say about Jeremy still living here even though he’s no longer in school. Hell, he isn’t even in college.

“Why are you still here then?” I ask the pressing question, even though a part of me wants to scream how what she did to his parents was never his fault and she’s an evil bitch for ever making him think it was.

He mimics my touch on his face on my own, running his thumb along my cheek. His callouses scratch along my flesh and I catch myself wondering if they’re rough enough to cut through the skin, if my blood would coat his digits.

Then he speaks. “Do you really think I would leave you with David and Kathy? Silly girl. I’m not leaving until you’re ready to go.”

I want desperately to tell him we can leave now and disappear into the night with just the clothes on our backs, but how far would we really get? Jer just has a shitty part time job that pays scraps and most of that goes into his band.

I need to get an after-school job so we can get some money together to make our escape. As long as we get out together, everything will be okay.

My heart grows ten sizes as I look into eyes belonging to the tortured man who has coped with living with his abuser, the woman who murdered his parents in cold blood, just to keep me safe and by his side.

Everything he has done has been for me and… I’ve never experienced that level of devotion before. Just from Jeremy.

I lean in and press a soft kiss to his lips, one of many that I’ve initiated. I may have asked him to kiss me that first time as an experiment, but he was the one who kissed me.

His fingers run from my cheek into my hair. I may have started it, but Jeremy brings the intensity, like with every other circumstance.

I slowly pull out of the kiss before whispering, “That’s enough deep shit for now.”

He smirks at me, the light returning to his eyes. “I don’t know.” Then, his gaze drops down toward his dick that seems to have come back to life after that short intermission. “I think we could definitely go deeper.”

I roll my eyes. Of course he would come back with something that suggestive. He’s such a guy.

“You have to bring sex into everything, don’t you?”

His eyes narrow. “No, but it’s more fun that way.”

“So says you.”

“If you don’t agree, it means there’s something I’m not doing right. So tell me. Am I lacking in some way?” He grabs the back of my neck and drags me against his body, his hard cock slipping between my thighs. He rubs against my cunt and a moan falls from my lips.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I mutter.

He smirks down at me. “That’s what I thought, little ghost. Now, get on your hands and knees, so I can remind you of that multiple times.”