Page 37

LIA

I sat there on Rhaim’s lap, contemplating.

I’d already had such an awful day—I didn’t want my brain to get pushed back into the hole if I could help it.

But then again, I’d have to see my Uncle at my father’s birthday party, in what, three days?

“Okay,” I whispered. Maybe I could rewrite just one file inside my head in the meantime. And not piss myself out of fear at the sight of him, like some pathetic chihuahua.

“Okay,” Rhaim said back, shifting himself, so that I was forced to stand before he did. Then he took my hand and went over to the lightswitch for his secretary’s office. “Ready?”

“No,” I said, holding myself with my other arm. “But do it,” I said, and he did.

There were no windows in Mrs. Armstrong’s office—so it was pitch black at once.

Rhaim pulled me close and danced us back to the couch, while I was hit with wave after wave of adrenaline, every fiber in my being screaming that it was not safe!

and why did you hide here? and How could you let him catch you?

I could tell myself that those feelings weren’t fair, but it didn’t make them go away, as I fell into my panic like a familiar record’s song, pulled along by a horrible certainty that something about me was bad.

Or unworthy.

I had to be.

It was the only reason that made sense, why my mother loved drinking more than me, why I couldn’t earn my father’s trust, and why my uncle’s torment had somehow made me silent.

And just the thought of him in the dark, tipped my fragile sanity, batting it down to shatter like a cat toying with a glass.

Because you couldn’t hide in the dark, you thought you could, but there was no place that was safe when you were little and he was big and the entire house was empty and you tried behind sinks and inside closets and you crawled up into the attic once and were sure you were safe but that only made him laugh more when he found you, like he believed you really were playing again, rather than trying to escape, again, and again, and again.

You learned to hate everything about the dark, the scent of his cologne, the way he would bring in your mother’s expensive face cream—that you would get in trouble!

For using! When it never went on your face now, did it?

And it burned you inside!—and how you memorized the squeak of every floorboard in your house, how you heard an echo of a scream inside yourself every time you heard one, and how that was how you learned to come, betrayed even by your own body, as he cruelly laughed above you the night you turned thirteen.

And you raced away, galloping down the stairs, because there were still grown-ups at the party, before spinning out and falling, barely catching yourself before you hit your head, and making enough of a mess of yourself an adult finally noticed.

“Lia?” the Rhaim of the past had asked. “Are you okay?”

He’d come up to you and picked you up at once, setting you straight on the stairs with strong hands that didn’t stray, and his entire expression was one of concern.

“She’s fine,” Uncle Freddie had said from the top of the stairs.

“I wasn’t fucking asking you,” Rhaim told him, his disgust with Freddie written over his entire body—it was the first time you realized anyone else might possibly feel the same way as you.

But then Freddie stared you down, where Rhaim couldn’t see, and the same tongue that’d just betrayed you with a moan as he shoved you against your bedroom’s carpeting couldn’t make a sound.

“Are you okay?” Rhaim asked again, and you nodded slowly. The longer this interaction went on, the safer you’d be—maybe Freddie would get so bored with things, he’d just wander off.

But you knew he wouldn’t. Ever. He was like that tick you’d gotten running across a field in second grade, fat, bloody, and burrowed in deep.

“You scraped yourself up pretty good,” Rhaim murmured, spotting the carpet burns on both your knees, assuming you’d acquired them in your fall. “Let me wrap those up for you. Stay here,” he said, then walked away, leaving you alone with Freddie Sr, and he squinted at you.

You were attuned to his moods like a bird was the weather. He was mad. You were going to get punished. And you might even like it in that horrible way that made you want to throw up.

You had thrown up around him before though. When he’d gagged you too deep. And that hadn’t stopped him.

But for some unknown reason, and for the first time…he chose to walk away.

Just as Rhaim returned.

Tears sprung to your eyes—which clearly panicked this man, instead of urging him forward.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere?” he asked, setting down a small first aid kit. “Did you get a sprain? Or a break? I saw you fall—you were running pretty hard.”

Then his hands touched you and it was all over.

They didn’t roam, they just stretched your leg out, moved your ankles, one by one, and tried to rattle your kneecaps back and forth.

“I know you’re not a horse, but most things should be pretty much the same,” he said, and you realized he was making a joke with you about things.

Like you were normal.

“It’s just the skin,” you said, pointing at the wide scuffs of red that friction had left, and he grunted, pulling out a small can of antiseptic spray.

“Hopefully this won’t hurt,” he said, giving a squirt of it to both your kneecaps, and it didn’t, it felt soothing and good, like everything about the moment.

Like not being frightened, for the first time in years.

Which was why you had to ask him—because there was no one else you currently trusted.

Because he might know how to get you out.

“Have you ever hurt people before?”

His head tilted, and both his eyebrows rose up. “Is that why you think I know where the first aid kit is?” he asked, rocking back, and you shook your head.

“No. I’m just curious.”

And whatever he told you next—he took long enough to think about it, that you felt certain he wasn’t lying. “Only people who deserve it.”

“How do you do it?” you asked in a rush.

It might be your only chance to learn.

And this time he thought even longer before answering. “Hard enough that they don’t get to do it again.”

There was alcohol on his breath, but his eyes weren’t dangerously bright and his gaze was just thoughtful, with a tinge of appropriate concern.

Then he got out two large bandaids and strapped them across the worst of your knees—but your real wound was like an iceberg, all of the rest of your history and trauma and fear, floating unseen beneath.

Your uncle walked by, behind him this time, talking to someone else, holding a drink, noticing you noticing him across the room.

But behind him was the mantel of your fireplace, where your father kept the lighter with a long stem, and boxes full of matches.

Then the fucker didn’t die.

“I think I’m going to throw up—” I warned Rhaim.

“Hang on sec,” he said, leaving the couch, but then quickly returning to press a wastebasket into my hands.

I heaved the second I was holding it, as he sat down beside me, pulling my hair back.

“Get a lot of practice at sororities?” I asked him, the second I could breathe again, my eyes watering, as I tried to spit the taste out of my mouth.

“I didn’t go to college. I majored in life,” he said dryly.

I snorted, set the wastebasket down between my feet where I could find it again, and then just sat there, practicing breathing, as Rhaim ran a chaste hand up and down my spine—and I had a realization.

The dark itself wasn’t dangerous.

It was just who you were in the dark with.

“Do you have any mouthwash in here?” I asked him.

“No, but, hang on,” he said, this time turning the light on his phone on, as he poured me another drink. “Swish and spit,” he said, handing it over to me, before turning his flashlight off.

“Isn’t this expensive?”

“Nah,” he lied, sitting back by my side.

“I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”

“What’d I tell you about apologizing?” he said, before shouldering me.

“Doesn’t matter—I am.”

“I like to think I would’ve noticed you didn’t like the dark eventually, seeing as I intend on sleeping with you a lot.”

I put my face in my hands, and looked over at him, even though I couldn’t see him. “Still? Really?”

“Ride-or-die, Lia. But,” he said, then paused. “How’d you make it through that night at Isabelle’s place?”

“The lights outside the window—plus,” I said, finding his hand with one of mine. “I trusted you.”

“C’mere,” he said, lifting that same hand up until I stood. “Let’s go see the view.”