Ember (Constant Flame Duet Book 1)

by Christi Whitson

  “I’m sure you remember that I didn’t talk to anyone but you when we were at the Colemans’. I didn’t talk for about six months after I left there either. My mother had me in therapy, presumably because that’s what was expected, but I refused to cooperate. I still couldn’t tolerate being touched, and I never felt like I could be certain of my next meal, so… I hid food. I think maybe she wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t act like such a freak when I started school, because it was around that time that the beatings started.”

  Lena paled considerably, her eyes widening in horror. She remembered his habit of stealing food from the table and hoarding it in his pockets and pillowcase, and it was only now that she realized the full implications of his willingness to share his stash with her. Owen shifted self-consciously, finding it difficult to look her in the eye as he continued.

  “I shaped up pretty quickly after that, and we moved to Seattle. I stopped hiding food, but she’d already figured out that it was my weakness, so she punished me with hunger pretty regularly. I started talking, but only when someone spoke to me first. I stopped reacting badly to people touching me… at least outwardly. It was always uncomfortable, I just learned how to keep my reactions to myself.

  “She expected perfect manners and behavior at all times, and when I slipped, I paid for it. No one knew for a really long time; no one would have believed it. My parents were fairly well off, and image was everything to my mother. She sat on the boards of several charities and helped them raise millions of dollars for various causes, even one for abuse victims. She never left a mark where it would be seen, and she…” He trailed off, looking for the right word.

  “She brainwashed you,” Lena supplied, her lip quivering as the tears slipped down her cheeks. Owen met her gaze and frowned in regret. He handed her a tissue from the end table and waited until she’d collected herself a little before he replied.

  “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. More than that though… she was grooming me. Looking back, I think that was her plan all along. From the first time I met her.” Owen’s eyes glazed as he remembered the first time he’d seen Vera Monroe. Where other children might have been reassured by her beauty, he had been terrified. Her eyes had pierced right through him.

  “Grooming?” The hesitant question brought him back to the present, and he sighed, wishing he could skip the next part.

  “She started molesting me on my thirteenth birthday.” His voice was quiet and hollow, and he squeezed his eyes shut when he heard Lena sob.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “No,” Owen shook his head. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t want anyone’s pity.”

  “It’s not pity. It’s empathy. What she did was reprehensible and appalling. You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to.”

  “It…” He hesitated, filtering the details of those years into words that wouldn’t send her running from him in disgust. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I just don’t want you to look at me differently.”

  “I won’t,” Lena vowed, reaching out to hold his large hand in both of hers. “Nothing you could say would make me love you any less than I do right now. I’ve always loved you, Owen. That will never change.” His emerald eyes were full of doubt, anxiety, and hope as he stared back at her.

  “My mother was a sadist. In the worst sense of the term. A pedophile too, obviously. We didn’t…” he paused again, closing his eyes. Not ‘we,’ Owen. She. She did it. You didn’t do anything. The lessons he’d learned in therapy were still in full effect. “She didn’t technically take my virginity. It was… other things.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was soft and reassuring, but the tissue in her hand had nearly disintegrated from her steady stream of tears. “So… the scars were from her? She hit you with something?”

  “A bullwhip.”

  Lena’s renewed sobs made him feel sick to his stomach, and his chest ached painfully as he pulled her into his arms. She wept against the soft fabric of his t-shirt, and to his surprise, Owen felt a few tears of his own escape his eyes. They soothed each other for several long minutes, and the silence was interrupted only by Lena’s occasional sniffles and the soft patter of rain against the window.

  “How long did it go on?” Lena asked once she’d pulled herself together again.

  “A couple of years.” Owen gave her a brief summary of the day Mary had caught a glimpse of his back and the events that had followed.

  “And your father just disappeared?” Her tears had been replaced by anger.

  “He never actually did anything to me.”

  “That’s exactly the point. There’s no way all of that was going on in his home and he never saw anything. He didn’t do anything to stop it, and that’s just as bad as if he’d raised a hand to you himself. Negligence is just another kind of abuse. He should’ve gone to jail too.”

  “I guess,” Owen sighed, more than ready to be done talking about his parents. “I really just wanted him to go away, and that’s what he did. He signed away his rights and disappeared. It was the best thing he’d ever done for me.” Lena frowned in disapproval but didn’t contradict him.

  “When does the bitch get out of jail?”

  “Not for at least another eleven years or so. She got fifteen years without parole, and she’ll have a no contact order in place when she’s released.”

  “Not good enough,” Lena growled. In spite of the weight of the conversation, Owen felt his lips turn upward. She sounded like an angry kitten.

  “I agree, but believe it or not, that was the maximum combined sentence for the charges. She’s probably gone insane by now.”

  “One can only hope. Why do you think that?”

  “Well, I don’t know much about what happened to her after she was sent to jail, but I’m sure you can imagine that pedophiles don’t fare well in general population. I overheard Sean and Mary talking about it once. Apparently, she got beaten up really badly not long after she was incarcerated. She needed surgery afterward.”

  The precise details of what had happened to his mother weren’t for the faint of heart. But then, neither was the abuse he’d suffered at her hands. Vera had been beaten by at least four other inmates. Every inch of her body had been covered in cuts and bruises, and she’d been sodomized with a number of objects, including a makeshift blade. The reparative surgery had included the placement of a permanent colostomy bag and the reversal of nearly every previous surgical alteration Vera had made to her body. According to Sean, she had been bouncing back and forth between solitary confinement and they psychiatric ward ever since. If Owen were to look her in the face at that very moment, he was certain he wouldn’t recognize her but for the chilling hatred in her eyes.

  “Serves her right,” Lena said bitterly.

  She shuddered, fervently hoping that she’d never have to see the woman in person. A bullet between the eyes sounded like a pretty good remedy for Vera Monroe’s particular brand of insanity. Shaking off the violent thought, she adjusted her position and curled into Owen’s side. She wrapped her arms around his torso, sighing deeply when his arms encircled her as well. Lena’s eyes were fixed on the coffee table in front of them, but her notes and textbooks had been forgotten for the moment.

  She had spent years dreaming up possible life stories for Owen, characterizing him as everything from the typical All-American boy to the superhero with the tragic backstory. She’d gotten the tragic part right, but even in her darkest moments, she’d never come up with anything like this. The fact that he sat next to her now, apparently having healed from his experiences, was nothing short of amazing. The contrast between how they’d dealt with their own individual traumas was not lost on her, however, and Lena felt suddenly ashamed of herself.

  Owen had somehow managed to pull himself out of absolute hell and come out of it as a fairly normal guy. Not normal, she amended silently. Extraordinary. Where she’d spent most of her life punishing herself for being alive, he’d b
een able to rise above his circumstances and pursue his dreams. His reaction to her occasional weekend partying now made a lot more sense as she realized what her behavior must’ve looked like to him.

  “How did you come out of something so awful and still turn out so… wonderful?” she asked quietly. “A lot of people would’ve let something like that derail their entire life.”

  “I guess I could have,” Owen sighed, resting his cheek against the top of her head. “I was lucky to have Sean and Mary. And you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes,” he chuckled. “Sean and Mary gave me the tools and the guidance, but sometimes I think having known you was the only reason I survived it at all. The thought that you were out in the world somewhere gave me hope. Made me feel less alone. My mother was fond of saying that I’d never amount to anything. After I got out of my parents’ house, I was determined to prove her wrong. I didn’t want to let her have any power over me anymore. I wanted to do things my way. I wanted to do all of the things she told me I was too stupid to achieve.

  “She didn’t just abuse me. She humiliated and degraded me on almost a daily basis for eleven years. It didn’t matter how good my grades were or how perfectly I behaved. Nothing satisfied her. She expected perfection because my behavior reflected back on her, but in private, she never missed an opportunity to tell me how stupid I was. How unlovable.”

  “Unlovable?” Lena echoed, moving so that she could see his face more clearly. “But you don’t really believe that.” He gazed at her sadly for a moment before he graced her with his sweet smile.

  “Not anymore. You proved me wrong about that. I still struggle with it sometimes, but… you’re healing me,” he said softly. “I think, deep down, I always knew she was wrong because you had loved me back then. Maybe that’s why she could never completely destroy my self-worth. You were the first person I ever trusted, and you’re still the person I trust the most.”

  “I’m honored,” she smiled. “What about your past relationships?”

  In the early days of their ‘friends with benefits’ relationship, they’d discussed past encounters only briefly. Though neither were virgins, neither of them had had much experience with sex or romantic relationships. Owen looked slightly embarrassed now.

  “There was only one person before you, and I was only with her once,” he confessed. Lena’s brows lifted in surprise.

  “Okay, no way. A guy who looks and fucks like you doesn’t just avoid women. I’ve seen how girls react to you. On campus, at work, at the damn grocery store… You could easily get anyone you want.”

  “But I only want you,” Owen reminded her, tapping his finger lightly against the tip of her nose. “The other girl was just someone from high school who had a crush on me, and I only did it because I thought it might make me more… normal. I didn’t really care about her, which is probably part of the reason it was doomed to fail. If I’d cared at all, I would’ve made more of an effort to connect with her before we had sex. I didn’t prepare her for my scars or the fact that I didn’t want her to touch me.”

  “And she freaked out?”

  “Well, yes, but I’m not sure it was just the scars. We fell asleep afterward, and I had a nightmare. I don’t usually dream when I’m with you, so you haven’t seen it, but they can get pretty bad. I was terrified to sleep next to you for a long time. That night… When I became aware again, my hands were around her neck. She ran, broke up with me with a text on her way home.” Owen shook his head in embarrassment. “I pretty much avoided women after that. I figured I was too damaged for anyone to be able to handle being with me.”

  “You’re no more damaged than the rest of the world, Owen.” She frowned at him in disapproval, sitting up completely so that she could look him directly in the eye. “If anything, you’re less damaged than most people who have gone through the kind of shit you went through. You don’t take your issues out on other people. You’re not self-destructive. You work hard to better yourself. You know what you want, and you go after it. You’re a survivor.”

  Owen’s breath caught in his throat as she spoke. It wasn’t the first time he’d been praised for how well he’d turned out, but to hear it coming from Lena meant infinitely more. For the first time, he actually believed those words. On some level, he almost felt as though all of the work he’d done to overcome his circumstances had been as much for her as it had been for himself.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, emotion swelling in his chest.

  “One more question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s with the tattoo? I know you said you just hadn’t gotten around to having it finished yet, but… Why did you want one in the first place? Why would you put yourself through that when you hated being touched?”

  “To prove to myself that I could,” Owen replied. He pursed his lips in chagrin as he continued, “I couldn’t see it through though. I was able to make it through the outline, but there’s supposed to be a lot more detail and shading to it. Mostly black, and some red. Right now, it looks like an eagle, which is fine, but I was going for a phoenix.”

  “That’s perfect for you,” she smiled in approval. “What’s keeping you from getting it finished?”

  “I… I chickened out, I guess. Sitting in that chair and letting a stranger hurt me was harder than I’d expected. I’d gotten myself really amped up to do it, talked myself into it… and then I couldn’t handle it.” His eyes fell to the floor in embarrassment, and Lena gently touched his face to reclaim his attention.

  “Do you want to finish it?”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t know if I can even get back in that chair.”

  “What if I held your hand?” she offered, smiling gently. “I could even get something done too! I’ve always wanted one. I just couldn’t make up my mind.”

  “I don’t know,” Owen winced slightly. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet. And to be honest, I’m not sure I could handle watching some guy cause you pain.” Or touch you at all, he added silently.

  “I guess I can understand that, but… if you change your mind, I’ll be there.”

  “Okay,” he chuckled. He leaned toward her to press his lips to hers and closed his eyes in contentment. “Actually, there is something you can do for me.”

  “Name it.”

  “Mary really wants me to come for lunch next Sunday. I haven’t been there as much lately, with school and work -”

  “And me.”

  “And you, but I wouldn’t change anything about that. I’d like you to come with me.” Owen expected her to refuse outright, especially since he knew she had an exam scheduled for the following day, but to his surprise, she seemed to actually consider it. Her eyes flickered to the coffee table where a couple of her books still lay open, and she mentally calculated the hours she’d have available to study over the course of the week.

  “Just lunch?”

  “Yeah. An hour… two at most, if Mary talks your ear off. She’ll like you.”

  Lena smiled but felt a twinge of anxiety at the idea of meeting the Langfords. They’d invited her to their Thanksgiving dinner as well, but she hadn’t wanted to meet them for the first time during such an important family gathering. Fortunately, it had been a non-issue since her plans with her father had conflicted anyway. After having heard Owen’s story, however, Lena found that she was now very eager to meet them.

  “I hope you’re right. I’m sure I’ll like her too.”

  “So, you’ll come?” His face lit up, and she giggled.

  “It’s a date.”

  Chapter 24

  The Following Sunday

  Lena sighed as she checked her phone for the umpteenth time since she’d woken that morning. She’d been expecting an email from Logan for days, but his name was still missing from her inbox. She hadn’t actually spoken to him in weeks, other than a brief Skype call in early November. He’d been headed back out for another mission, but he’d still been hopeful that he might be able to make i
t home for Christmas.

  “Still nothing?” Owen asked, catching her checking her email yet again.

  “No,” she grumbled. “I hate when he does this. He tells me how long his mission will last, and then the deadline comes and goes and… nothing.”

  “So, he’s done this before.”

  “Twice. The first time, their communications facility was… damaged.” Bombed, she corrected inwardly, unable to say the word out loud. “It caused a delay. The second time, he couldn’t contact me because he was injured. The Army called his dad, who told my dad, who told me.”

  “But he was okay?”

  “Mostly. Okay enough to go right back as soon as he’d recovered, I guess. Idiot. He could’ve come home then, but he didn’t.”

  Owen reached over to hold her hand, bringing it to his lips in a gesture he knew she found comforting. Sure enough, her sweet smile was making a reappearance, even if it was one or two degrees cooler than usual. Although Owen still felt rather ambivalent in regard to Logan James, he was determined to support Lena in whatever way possible, even if he was unable to reassure her that her friend was safe. He steered the conversation to safer topics, and by the time they reached Kirkland, her mood seemed to have improved a little.

  Lena smiled softly up at the large house as Owen parked his car on the circle drive. The Langfords’ home was nowhere near as grand as her father’s, but as far as Lena was concerned, that was a good thing. The warm stone facade and wide windows welcomed them, and she felt a comforting familiarity before they’d even walked through the door. If the atmosphere weren’t inviting enough, Mary’s brilliant smile and outstretched arms would’ve been. Lena was momentarily surprised to find herself swept into a tight hug, and she smiled as she returned the embrace.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I’m just so excited to finally meet you! I’ve been pestering Owen for weeks to bring you to dinner,” Mary confessed. She moved on to Owen next and pulled him into a hug as well.