Page 40 of Penance

Draco

M y fingers are trembling as I flip the deadbolt with a click that seems to echo in the hollow space behind my sternum. The place where my heart would be if I truly believed it was still there.

She stumbles backward, those hazel eyes wide with fear—fear of me—and something inside me both hates and loves to see it.

I surge forward, pushing her against the bare wall with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs, my hand still at her throat.

The sound of her back hitting the plaster is satisfying in a way that makes me sick.

I hate it.

No, I love it.

No, that’s not it either.

I don’t know anymore.

“Please,” she whispers, but I don’t want to hear it.

The apartment is dim, just a single lamp casting long shadows across the furniture, but even in the dim light, I can see her expression clearly.

She’s scared.

Her skin is warm beneath my fingers, her pulse flutters until my fingertips like a frantic butterfly.

Not squeezing, just resting there.

Just keeping her here.

My other hand grips her arm, holding her against me. I lean in close, close enough to smell the fading scent of her perfume.

“Look at me.”

She does.

Those eyes—god, those eyes—brimming with tears that she holds back.

My fingers tighten slightly on her throat, not enough to truly hurt her, but enough to feel her swallow hard against my palm. The action sends a shiver down my spine that I disguise with a scowl. My cock grows down my thigh.

I’m fucked up.

I’m a monster.

She’s an angel, and that’s why I had to do this.

An angel like her could never love a demon like me.

I’m broken. I’m fucked up. I’m not good enough.

Inside me, my heart is fighting a war against my mind. The satisfaction of seeing her afraid—this girl who represents everything I’ve been denied—battles against the whisper of shame that creeps up my spine. This is my revenge for a past I cannot escape.

For foster homes where I was less than nothing.

For prayers that were never answered.

For scars that never healed.

For the nightmares that would wake me from a dead sleep, shaking and screaming.

This moment, this power, this is mine.

It’s mine, but I don’t want it anymore.

I don’t want to be what I’ve become.

I want to run.

I don’t want to be this.

“Why?” she asks.

The word is like a blade, and she drove it right into my heart.

I can’t answer that.

Her lips part, but no sound comes out. A tear finally breaks free, carving a path through the mud splattered against her cheek.

“How does it feel, Mercy?” I say. I stare into her eyes. I want to see the realization bloom. “How does it feel to be raped and no one fucking believes you?”

I tore these words from some festering wound inside me that I’ve never allowed to heal. It’s bloody and raw, and infection seeps from the flesh.

It’s like cancer.

It eats at me.

It changed me.

My secret made me sick.

Her eyes widen, and the tears keep falling, slow at first, and then faster.

“W-what?”

“It doesn’t feel great, does it, Mercy? It hurts. Doesn’t it? You feel embarrassed, hurt. Right? You feel stupid and scared. You feel it. You know how it feels now. You know how I feel now.”

I nod, hoping she will too, and she does. She nods, and realization blooms like a field of wildflowers across her face. It’s beautiful, and it’s sickening.

“Draco, I—”

The sound of my name on her lips—not “monster,” not “demon,” but “Draco”—sends a crack through the armor I’ve covered myself with. I’d die a thousand deaths to hear her say my name.

“Draco, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry!”

Her tears are a flood now, and she’s trembling under my hands.

A sound escapes me, something between a laugh and a sob, and I hate myself for it, hate the weakness.

I hate myself.

“Don’t,” I spit. “Don’t you dare apologize to me.”

But she doesn’t stop. The words pour from her lips like the rains poured over Noah. She’s drowning me with them, and suddenly I can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, please, Draco. I’m sorry—”

“You’re sorry?! You’re fucking SORRY?!”

“Draco! I was scared!” She sucks in a breath, and it’s so forceful that it shakes both of us.

“You saw what happened!” My voice tears out of me so hard that it hurts. My heart hurts, but the flood has broken the dam, and I can’t stop it. “You saw what he was doing to me! You saw me crying, and bleeding, and asking for help, and you didn’t do anything! You walked out! You ran away!”

“I was scared, Draco! I was so scared! I’m sorry!” Her hand lifts to her face and covers her eyes. I let go of her arm and reach up, tearing her hand away from her face.

No.

She can’t hide.

I have to see her eyes.

“I was scared too! I ran to you for help, and you fucking lied to everyone and told them I was lying! I needed you, Mercy! Goddamn it, I needed you, and you just fucking left me there! You ran away and LEFT ME!”

“I’m sorry! Draco, I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t say that! Stop saying that!”

“Draco, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please believe me! Please?! I’m sorry! I’m so, SO SORRY.”

Each and every time she says it is like a hammer striking the same bruise, and something in me snaps.

The rage that’s been simmering boils over.

My fist flies past her head, connecting with the wall with a sickening crunch.

Pain explodes through my knuckles, sharp and clarifying.

Plaster cracks and crumbles, white dust raining down like snow, like ash, and it pours over her, stark white against the dark coils of her hair.

“Stop it!” I roar, my voice bouncing off the walls of the apartment, coming back to me distorted and strange. “Stop looking at me like that!”

Like I’m worth saving.

Like I’m something more than my scars and my rage.

Like I’m still human.

Like I’m forgivable.

She flinches, her body jerking against the wall, but her eyes—those damn beautiful eyes—never leave mine. Even now, even with my fist embedded in the wall inches from her head, even with the evidence of my violence literally falling around us, she looks at me with something that isn’t just fear.

She looks at me like she needs me.

The silence is deafening.

I can hear my own ragged breathing, the pounding of my heart, the soft tapping of plaster settling on the floor beneath us. My hand throbs and I can feel warm blood trickling between my knuckles.

Blood, to atone for an eternal sin.

I pull my fist from the wall, slowly, wincing at the pain as my fingers flex and extend.

Mercy’s tears have slowed, but not stopped. Her breathing is still uneven, but it’s not the sucking, sawing gasps of before. We stand frozen in the hallway, just watching each other.

Neither of us speaks, or moves to pull away.

My hand still rests at her throat, but the pressure is gone. It’s just skin against skin, a point of contact to keep me in the moment.

The rage that drowned me is gone now, like it was a tsunami wave that’s pulling back, retreating back into the ocean. I feel hollow, like someone scraped out the wound that finally burst, leaving only raw, bleeding flesh behind.

I step back, releasing her, watching as she slumps against the wall. I can see the imprint of my hand on her wrist, fingerprints that will bloom into bruises, and I hate it.

Evidence of what I am.

What I’ve always been.

Broken.

A monster.

A wounded animal lashing out.

An abuser.

I’m just as bad as him.

My mouth floods with saliva. The thought makes me nauseous. Looking in at myself makes me want to puke, but she’s still watching me. She doesn’t run, though the door is right beside her. I’ve given her every reason to run away from me, to run to the police and tell them what I’ve done.

I wouldn’t stop her if she tried.

I can feel blood dripping from the tips of my fingers, and when I listen carefully, I can hear the plop as it drops down onto the tile. I flex my fingers, thanking the pain that stabs into my skull.

It’s familiar.

It’s comforting.

Pain is something I can understand, not whatever is throbbing in my chest, in the dark void where my heart should be.

“Draco.”

That’s all it is, just my name. But on her lips, it sounds different. It sounds like I’m human.

And that is suddenly so terrifying to me.

Before I can think, I pull her away from the wall, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arm.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me, crushing her against my chest and letting my body fall against the wall behind me.

When we settle on the floor, nestled in a nest of dust and the scent of blood, she leans her head on my shoulder, and I can feel the wet skin of her cheek against my skin.

The change confuses me as much as it must confuse her.

I need to touch her.

I need to feel her skin, and know that she’s real.

My eyes burn, and I blink furiously, refusing to let the tears fall. But my body betrays me, as it always has. A single drop escapes, trailing down my cheek to land on her skin.

“I hate you,” I whisper, but the words are weak and fluttering.

They sound like what they are—a lie I told to protect myself.

The last flimsy attempt at a shield.

Her hands come up to press against my chest, right where my heart is. I should push them away. I should remind her of her place.

“I hate how you make me feel.”

It’s closer to the truth, but still not right.

The truth is too painful, and it scares me.

The truth is that I want her to save me. That I want her to see the man I could have been, not the monster I’ve become. I want to wrap myself around her and never let her go. I lean closer, my lips brushing against her forehead.

“No. No, I fucking love you, Mercy.”

The words hurt, but something inside me releases, like a muscle that has been clenched painfully for all these years.

Inside me, guilt and longing writhe like serpents.

I love her.

I hate her.

I want to protect her.

I want to destroy her.

My hands move from her arms to her face, cradling her tear-stained cheeks and forcing her to look at me. My thumbs brush away her tears, smearing the tracks through the dirt and mud. I study her features like a man memorizing his last glimpse of the world before death takes him.

“I love you so much. I’ve always loved you. I loved you back then, and I love you now. I’ve loved you since I realized what love was. I don’t want to live without you. I won’t. I won’t live without you, Mercy.”

There is no hatred in her eyes.

No judgment.

Just a deep, throbbing sadness and something else—something that might be understanding.

I kiss her. I press my lips against hers and taste the salt and dirt that clings to her skin. I taste the fear and the confusion, and I know it’s all my fault, the same as I know I’ll do anything to chase it away. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for this, as long as she’ll let me.

I kiss her hard, but not violently.

I kiss her with desperation I never let myself touch before, and it feels right.

It feels human.

Her hands clutch at my shoulders, pulling me closer.

I pull away from her, gasping for air and looking into her eyes.

“You should hate me,” I say.

Her hands find my hair, her soft fingers tentatively threading through the strands in a way that’s so gentle it makes me want to scream.

To break something.

To run.

“I should,” she says. “But I can’t.”

I suck in a deep breath, and I realize I’m crying harder now.

It’s real, but it feels wrong.

When was the last time I cried? That day in the church?

I think that was it.

I kiss her again, tasting the salt of both our tears.

Salt, to cleanse us of our sins.

I pull away again, and this time I notice I’ve left the ghost of a bloody half-handprint on her cheek.

Blood for atonement.

“I hate what I’ve done to you,” I tell her, and the words scrape my throat raw.

“So don’t do it again.”

I’m stuck between the monster I have become and the man I wish I could be. The father, the husband.

Maybe I can?

I want to be.

I want to be everything that makes her happy.

I want to see her smile.

I want to smile with her.

I press my forehead against hers, and our breaths become one.

Right now, at this moment, I am no longer a demon, and certainly not a savior.

I am a man holding a woman who has everything that’s left of my broken heart, all the pieces she could find in the darkness.

I am a monster seeking forgiveness, and in my hands, I hold the most forgiving woman in the world.

She is mine, and I am hers.

And somehow, impossibly, that is enough.

She reaches down and grabs my hand, the one that drips with blood that smears across the front of her white dress. Her fingers are soft as she inspects my knuckles.

“Well,” she says with a sigh, looking up at me. “I guess you’re not getting the deposit back.”

She turns and looks up at the wall, at the hole in the plaster, and I burst into howling laughter. It echoes around the hallway, rich and heavy.

Briefly, I wonder, when was the last time I laughed like this?