by Nicola Haken
“A little prior preparation,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. I was getting restless. Surely she could preen herself later. But then I saw her dampen her finger and rub it vigorously around her eyes. She purposely smudged her mascara and smeared trails of eyeliner down her cheeks. She looked like she’d been a hysterical mess and I suspected that was the exact look she was going for.
Christ, the conniving cow was good.
“Remember, five minutes,” she stated as she opened her car door. “Once you’re in the pool house don’t come out until you hear us leaving. I’ll leave the patio doors by the pool unlocked for you.” I nodded. By the time I thought it might have been wise to ask ‘but what if I don’t hear you leave?’ she was already gone.
The five minutes felt like an hour but the tiny LED clock on the dashboard assured me it was in fact only five minutes. Taking a deep breath I stepped out of the car, keeping myself bent over slightly as I slowly eased the door closed and gently pushed on it until I heard it click.
Fuck I was nervous. I felt like an MI6 agent on some kind of top secret mission and the safety of the whole world was relying on my success.
“Davis… Maddie Davis,” I whispered in my best James Bond accent as I started tiptoeing past the garages. Yes, I really am that much of a loser.
I was on the verge of crapping my pants. In fact when the tip of my shoe knocked into a flowerpot as I scurried around the side of the house I had to pat the back of my pants just to make sure I hadn’t.
I hadn’t I can assure.
Still bending down slightly I reached the pool house without being assassinated. Pulling the key Trudy gave me from my pocket I glanced over each of my shoulders in turn before going inside. I’m not really sure why I looked around. I guess it’s just what people on secret ops do in movies. I mean, if anyone had been standing there it’s not like I would have pulled out my weapon and made a run for it whilst shooting under my legs as I karate kicked my way the hell out of there. Let’s face it, I probably would have just stood there petrified and pissed my knickers.
The pool house was dark and I must have tripped over at least three different things whilst I scrambled around looking – or feeling – for somewhere to sit. Eventually my eyes acclimatised somewhat and I made out the shape of a sun lounger so I perched myself on the edge of that whilst I drummed my fingers on my knees as I waited. And waited. And waited…
I have no idea how much time had passed before I heard Mitch and Trudy’s muffled voices coming out of the house. It was too dark to see the time on my watch and stupidly I had forgot my phone. The muffled voices grew progressively louder as they made their way to the block of garages although they were still too far away for me to comprehend what they were saying. That was irrelevant though – all that mattered was that they were leaving.
Moments later I heard the slamming of a car door, shortly followed by another one. Then came the revving of an engine and the sound of gravel crunching beneath the heavy tyres. Gradually all sounds of movement disappeared. They were gone. Blaine was alone.
Suddenly, I wondered what the hell I was doing here.
Blaine doesn’t want you. A voice buried deep in the back of my mind was torturing me and I wished it was a real person so I could punch it in the face. Blaine had broken my heart. He’d shattered it into so many pieces I wondered if they’d ever fit back together again. Yet absurdly, I also knew the only person who could even get close to fixing the puzzle was Blaine.
It would be easier if I really believed Blaine didn’t love me – that I was just another notch in his extremely battered bedpost. It would still hurt like a motherfucker but it would surely be easier to move on if I could put the way he’d treated me down to him being a complete and utter womanising twat. But he loved me! I knew he did! At risk of being a walking cliché… I could just feel it deep inside my fragmented heart. I tried to stop myself thinking it for fear of sounding egotistical – as if I was saying ‘I’m so special, he couldn’t possibly not love me’.
But there were moments I’d shared with Blaine that neither of us had shared with anyone else before. Conversations, the way he looked at me, the things he’d told and shown me… He loved me.
After waiting in the dark for another immeasurable length of time and hearing nobody return to the house I figured it was safe to come out of hiding. Opening the pool house door just a little, I peered out at my surroundings. Seriously this was the most nerve-wracking situation I’d ever been in. I would make a crappy spy.
I tiptoed quickly towards the house, glad of the subtle lighting coming from the recessed LED’s trimming the pool and only narrowly missed going for an evening swim when my foot caught on one of the overflow grids. Swallowing my heart back down I carried on until I reached the French doors. Tentatively I tugged on the handle. It was unlocked like Trudy said it would be.
I stepped inside and paused for a minute whilst my eyes adjusted once again to the darkness. After squeezing my eyes a few times I could see well enough to make my way out of the room without even nearly falling. The grand hallway was easier to navigate thanks to a shallow stream of lighting radiating down the stairs. I crept up the stairs slowly, my heart thumping painfully against my ribs with each one.
I was…terrified. If Blaine rejected me again, I was almost certain it would kill me. I mean how many rejections can someone take before they break completely?
All the upstairs doors were closed but I could see from the cracks under the doors Blaine’s room was the only one with a light on. I’d found him. I was about to talk to him. Force him to talk to me. And maybe get the last few remaining fragments of my heart smashed in the process.
Holy hell what was I thinking?
Chapter Sixteen
Maddie
Nothing could have prepared my eyes or my heart for what they were about to witness when I opened Blaine’s bedroom door. He was sitting in the middle of his king-sized bed with his knees drawn into his chest and his head buried between them. His naked body was alarmingly red with huge weeping blisters forming all over his back and the tops of his shoulders. His hands were fisted in his hair. His knuckles were grazed and trails of dry blood marked the back of his hands.
“Jesus, Blaine…” I attempted to shout but the words came out as a hoarse whisper. He started to lift his head slowly, as if he might have just heard a noise but he wasn’t sure. His tortured blue eyes caught mine and I dragged in a deep breath as I edged cautiously towards him, preparing for the sound of him telling me to go away.
He didn’t.
He didn’t say anything. Our eyes only met for a few brief seconds before he dropped his head but it was like something inside them had died. The electricity was gone. They were dull and lifeless. He was lifeless. He was broken. It was the most painful thing I’d ever seen.
I sat down on the edge of the bed letting my feet dangle off the end. Instinctively I reached out to touch him but as my hand stuttered around different parts of his body I realised there was nowhere for them to settle that wouldn’t cause him pain.
“Blaine?” I pressed gently. He didn’t respond. Didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me so I said it again. “Blaine?”
Still he was unresponsive.
“Blaine please, look at me. You’re really scaring me.” As if my words had flipped a switch inside his mind he raised his head. Then he reached out and traced my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb.
“I’m sorry. You don’t ever have to be afraid of me,” he said mournfully.
“I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of what’s been done to you! What is this?” I asked, motioning over his naked body. “It looks like… burns. What in hell did he do to you?” My voice was higher than I’d intended. But being calm about this was impossible. This needed to end. Mitch needed to pay for what he’d put this beautiful, broken boy next to me through.
“It wasn’t him,” he muttered softly.
“What?” Who the fuck else was hurting him?
/> “It wasn’t him,” he repeated and sounded almost frustrated. “My dad didn’t do this to my skin.”
“Well then, who did? Who else is hurting you, Blaine?”
He swallowed forcefully and then used the back of his clenched fist to wipe a tear from his cheek.
“It was me,” he said simply, as if that should make complete fucking sense.
“What do you mean it was you?” I snapped unintentionally. I immediately softened my tone. “How did you… why would you…” I trailed off. My mind was spinning. It was just one more revelation away from imploding.
“It hurts, Maddie. It hurts so fucking bad. I can’t get him off me no matter how hard I try. I can feel him, smell him… all the fucking time. I feel thick with dirt and I cant get it off. It hurts…”
Blaine choked on his words and a soul-destroying sob consumed his entire body. I knelt in front of him and cradled his head to mine. Knowing that was the only place he wouldn’t feel pain I stroked his hair, occasionally trailing a finger along the rough hair on his jaw which was growing thicker by the day. It aged him so much. I’d never seen a boy of our age sporting a full-on beard before.
His body started to shake violently and with our faces touching, his inconsolable tears mixed with mine as they spilled down our cheeks. My breath came in short pants as I struggled to breathe past the crushing pressure on my chest.
“We need to get you cleaned up,” I whispered as I gently broke away from him. “Do you have any antiseptic anywhere?”
“I’ll be fine. You don’t need to do that. I can-”
“Stop being a stubborn prick and tell me where you keep the medicines in this place.”
“Try the main bathroom. End of the hall,” he muttered under his breath. I hopped off the bed and set off in search of a medicine cabinet. “Maddie?” he called just as I stepped through his doorframe.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
I closed my eyes and replayed the words in my head. That was what I came here to hear. That was what was going to get us through the never-ending maze of shit we were going through. As I gave him a warm smile I could literally feel the shards of my broken heart fluttering inside my chest as they tried to piece themselves back together.
“I love you too. You have no idea how much.”
Blaine exhaled heavily as if he couldn’t quite believe that, and then I left him alone.
Christ this house was huge. I must have peered inside twelve different doors before I found what could be classed as a ‘main’ bathroom. Stepping into a room bigger than my school (okay so I might be exaggerating slightly) I walked across the white granite floor tiles until I reached a row of mirrored cabinets that stretched across the full width of the far wall.
After a serious rummage I found some pre-packed sterile gauze and a bottle of Safetec burn gel. Next to the gel was a little blue box with ‘Advil’ printed on it. On closer inspection I decided they must be America’s version of Nurofen so I grabbed them too and then headed back to Blaine.
He winced as I dabbed his raw skin with the gel-soaked gauze. Oh, Blaine. What have you done to yourself? I couldn’t bring myself to ask him out loud. He was still shaking as silent tears trailed miserably down his cheeks. I consciously searched his skin for fresh ‘strikes’ and was surprised when I didn’t find any, unable to fathom what else could have destroyed him so badly. When I’d finished I noticed some bottled water on his nightstand and I passed it to him along with two of the little green Advil Liqui-Gels.
“What has he done to you?” I asked but I didn’t mean in the physical sense.
“I can’t talk about it. Not yet. Please not yet,” he begged. “I couldn’t bare it if you left me.”
“Blaine look at me.” He didn’t, so I cupped his face with my hands and forced him to. “Nothing you can say to me will make me leave you. I’m here for you. Through anything. I’m going nowhere. Do you understand?” Blaine winced at my last words. Maybe he didn’t believe me. The thought clawed at my heart.
“Will you hold me?” he asked, his voice guarded – as if he was afraid I’d say no.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said as I wondered where I could rest my hands on his broken skin.
“Please,” he whispered, pure desperation dripping from his voice.
I scooted up the bed and lay back, propping myself half-upright on his mountain of plush pillows. Holding my arms open for him, he crawled over and laid himself down next to me. He rested his head on my stomach and tucked one arm right around my waist until his hand was underneath me.
“I’m so tired, Maddie,” he murmured against my body. There was a heart-wrenching ache to his voice that told me he didn’t just mean in the sleepy sense.
“I know you are, baby. I know you are.”
Desolate tears trickled down my face as I smoothed out his coarse dark hair with my hand. My hips involuntary swayed slightly and I rocked us gently from side to side as I hummed my own made up lullaby until we both fell asleep.
We woke up in the exact same position the next morning. I had been awake for a while, combing through Blaine’s hair with my fingers as I watched him sleep. He looked so peaceful – his face relaxed and free from pain.
Then I looked at his broken skin…
Eventually he stirred and after looking up and seeing me still holding him he gripped me tighter as if he couldn’t believe it.
“You stayed with me,” he breathed – more to himself than me I think.
“I told you, Blaine. I’m not going anywhere.”
I made myself enjoy the next few minutes of silence because I knew the conversation that needed to follow would be an intense at best, heart-breaking at worst, one.
“Blaine?” I said gently.
“Don’t, lish. I’m just not ready,” he uttered as if he could read my mind.
“But this can’t go on. Look at what he’s doing to you. You need help. You can’t live like this.”
“I know,” he admitted, his voice heavy – lost. “I’ve thought about nothing else for weeks. My dad is a powerful man. He has powerful friends and a hell of a lot of money. It’s not going to be as easy as telling someone and they’ll take him away.”
“But…” But what? I was by no means experienced in the criminal justice system but you hear stories of people buying their way out of trouble all the time. Despite only meeting him a handful of times it was clear to me that Mitch was an arrogant bastard. He’d put himself on a pedestal he was sure nobody had the power to knock him off. What if that were true? How long would Blaine have to suffer like this?
“We could leave,” I blurted in a rush. “Just you and me. We could run away and leave all this shit behind us.”
Blaine let out a soft laugh devoid of humour. Then he hitched himself up the bed, wincing as he did, so that his face was level with mine.
“You know we can’t do that. You can’t leave your mom. I can’t leave Kara.”
His sister’s name punched a hole in my chest. The second I laid eyes on Blaine last night the whole gaining a mum and a sister crap had completely lost itself in my overcrowded mind. I clutched a hand to my chest as I tried to ease the pain building right in its centre.
“What’s Kara like?” I asked inquisitively. Blaine’s face melted into the warmest smile. He adored his little sister – our little sister. I shuddered slightly. It sounded almost incestuous. Jesus, this was going to take some getting used to.
“She’s amazing. She’s fun, sarcastic and annoying as hell. She’s just like you in fact…” If it hadn’t been for the angry blisters speckled across his shoulders I’d have smacked him with a pillow. “She looks so much like you too. I didn’t notice until I found out the truth. But her hair’s the same colour. And her eyes – she has those beautiful chocolate eyes of yours.”
I had never been close enough to Kara to study her eye-colour but on reflection her hair was most definitely the same chestnut shade as mine. Just thinking about her felt so
surreal.
“Do you think she’ll hate me?” I asked. That poor girl had no idea what was waiting for her when she got back from her sleepover. The idea that I was being presumptuous crossed my mind. Nobody had actually said Kara was to find out. But surely there have been enough lies between our fucked-up families?
“Of course not!” he didn’t hesitate to respond. “How can you possibly think that?”
“Because I kind of hated her when I found out. Or at least I wanted to.” Scorching waves of heat flooded my cheeks as I revealed out loud what a spiteful, jealous bitch I was. “I was so jealous of her. Envious of the fact she was wanted. But then I realised that wasn’t her fault. She’s just a kid. I was a nasty bitch for even thinking such things.”
“You were hurting,” Blaine interjected.
“That’s no excuse,” I said firmly. “Besides, I also realised that I had always been wanted. Maybe not by the person who should’ve wanted me, but I was loved all the same.”
Somehow we had gotten off track. When I started this conversation it was my intention for us to work out how we were going to end the years of abuse he’d suffered at the hands of his twisted father. Yet now we were talking about me and my problems and I wasn’t quite sure how that happened.