by M. Leighton
“So perfect,” he whispers as his movements slow and become blissfully lethargic. “So perfect.”
Those are the words that usher me into a peacefully exhausted slumber, tucked in the arms of the man who turned this girl into a woman. A normal woman.
NINETEEN
Eden
I WAKE TO the most amazing smell–bacon, one of my favorite foods.
I turn onto my side, my body tender and weak in the best possible way. I smile. I can’t seem to help myself.
My eyes search for Cole. I know he’s still here. I can feel it in my chest, in my soul, like a warm breeze.
I smile even bigger when I find him. Cole is standing in front of the stove, bathed only in candlelight and the faint bluish glow from the gas burner. He’s naked except for the strings of an apron tied around his waist. For the most part, that’s all I notice. I can’t take my eyes off his incredible butt. God, it’s amazing! Firm and narrow, the cheeks rounded just the right amount, the dents on either side pure, masculine perfection.
I hear the pop and sizzle of hot grease, and I push myself into a sitting position and rest back on my heels. I’m not sure what I’m hungrier for right now–the bacon or the man cooking it.
My body heats as though I’m close to the stove, as though I’m close to Cole. All I have to do is look at him and…
I groan. It’s unintentional. Practically pulled out of me when I squeeze my legs together to quell the throb of desire that pulses in my sex.
Cole’s head whips around and his eyes fix on me. I see the dark, fiery look in them. He’s hungry, too.
He turns back around, stabbing strips of bacon from the pan and setting them on a paper towel to drain. He cuts off the eye and brings the whole plate, paper towel and all, into the living room.
I smile when I see his front covered by an apron. A tented apron at the moment. A blush stings my cheeks. I can’t believe something that size fits inside me.
Another squeeze at the memory of what it felt like to have him buried so deep, his body slamming mercilessly into mine.
“If you don’t stop that, all this bacon will go to waste and we’ll starve to death,” he warns in his silk-and-gravel voice. Just listening to him talk could get me all worked up.
I try to curb my enthusiasm. “What’s with the apron?” I ask, taking the proffered plate.
“Didn’t want my junk splattered with hot grease. Can you blame me?”
His expression looks horrified. I laugh.
“No, I suppose not. I didn’t even think of that, actually.”
“That’s because it wasn’t your junk in peril,” he explains, taking off the apron and tossing it over the chair before he sits down beside me and takes a strip of bacon.
He snaps off half the piece in his mouth before offering me the other end. My lips part willingly, trembling only slightly when I see his eyes focus on them as he chews.
I wish he wouldn’t look at me that way.
I also wish he’d never stop.
It makes me a little self-conscious. But it also makes me a melty, gooey mess, which I love.
We watch each other as we chew the salty meat. Cole reaches for another strip, this time trailing the crispy end around my nipple. I inhale sharply, glad that I wasn’t swallowing or else I’d have choked on bacon bits.
His eyes follow his movements and they get all dark and voracious again. I feel like I’m on the menu. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Do you like my bacon?” I ask breathily, grinning behind my rising passion.
“Your bacon is the most delicious bacon I’ve ever tasted. I could get addicted to it if I’m not careful.”
“By all means,” I reply, fighting back a groan when Cole swipes my salty nipple with his finger and brings it to his mouth. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”
“Are you sure? Because I have a huge…appetite.” As he speaks, he brings the piece of bacon to my mouth and I let him lay it on my tongue.
As I close my lips around the flat slice, Cole reaches between my legs and slides a single finger from his other hand into me. The flavor on my tongue, the slight pressure of his touch…the combination dances over my senses, one accentuating the other.
Cole’s gaze is riveted to mine, searing into me like his finger. In and out, in and out, his pace never quickens even as he snaps off the bacon and puts the rest of it into his own mouth.
The moment is instantly shattered by a familiar, high-pitched scream–Nooo! The single word is shrill with terror.
Panic skitters through me. I grab my sweater from the couch as I pass, throwing it over my head as I race down the hall. I find Emmy in her bed, stiff as a board and thrashing her head back and forth on her pillow. It’s as though she can’t move her body, only her head. That’s how I know what she’s dreaming of.
I draw her into my arms, holding her against my chest. “You’re safe, Emmy. You’re safe, baby. It’s just me. It’s just momma.”
I rock her back and forth until she relaxes. It’s almost instantaneous, as it always is. Once my words penetrate her fear, once they break the hold of her nightmare, she goes limp as a rag. Always.
Her scream fades into soft sobs and quiet murmurings. I’ve never been able to understand them. Maybe it’s the way she calms herself. Maybe it’s something she’s telling herself to ground her in reality. I don’t know. I’ll probably never know. I’ve asked her about it before, but she never remembers saying anything.
But she does. She always does.
I don’t let her go until her breathing is deep and even, until I know she’s drifted back into a peaceful sleep in the safety of my arms. Even after I lay her gently back onto her mattress and cover her chilly little arms with the blanket, I don’t leave her side for a long time. It’s not until I see the first fingers of snowy light filtering through a crack in Emmy’s curtain that I remember Cole waiting for me in the next room.
He’s sitting in the chair, fully dressed, watching the hallway with a fathomless expression. When his eyes click up to mine, I stop and we watch each other again. It seems we do that a lot–watch each other, wordlessly. Thinking. Wondering. Imagining.
I walk to the couch and sit facing him, curling my legs up under me. Before I can turn to stare into the fire, Cole speaks. His voice is quiet, yet as intense as a shout. “Are you going to tell me about it?” he asks.
This time, I do turn to look into the flames. I study the way they lick at the blackened logs. I ponder the way they consume with such beauty.
I don’t have to ask what Cole means; I already know. It’s the only thing he can mean. It’s in the air–the haunting voices of our past, the rattling chains of our bonds. The arterial spray of our wounds.
I consider not telling him. I’ve never told anyone, after all. It’s been my own personal albatross, my own personal hell. But I’ll tell him. I know it before I even really make the decision. I know it as surely as I know that the soft velvety material of the couch tickles my bare feet when I wiggle my toes. I don’t know why, but I feel like it’s important that I do. And, for once, I don’t question it to death. I just go with it.
“It’s hard to know who to trust,” I begin with a sigh. Cole doesn’t assure me that I can trust him. He doesn’t beg me to divulge all my secrets. He doesn’t try to convince me to spill my guts. He simply waits. Silently. Rock steady. In true Cole form.
I drag my gaze from the fascinating fire in front of me to the fascinating man across from me. I meet his eyes. I examine them. I dissect them. I search for an agenda, for some plan he might have to hurt me, to hurt Emmy. I find none. I find nothing more than a gentle yet cautious curiosity. It’s his peace within the moment, it’s his unspoken patience, his unshakable steadiness that carves out the dread and replaces it with resolve. Maybe it’s just time to share my load with another human being. Maybe it’s just time to let someone else take the weight, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
“But I’m going to
trust you.” Still, he says nothing. He only watches me. Within the silence, though, there’s a solidness, as though the very air whispered to me that Cole is a rock and that I can lean on him as much as I need to. He can take it. Although he’s broken, he’s still strong enough to bear it.
“My parents left for Papua New Guinea when I was fifteen. They were both involved in Doctors Without Borders before I was born. I wasn’t planned. I ended up being a surprise that they weren’t particularly thrilled about. I changed their lives in ways they didn’t want changed. They were never mean to me, but they weren’t able to hide it either. They gave up the fight eventually and left me with my Aunt Lucy so they could do one more tour. Or at least that’s what they said. They sent cards for Christmas and for my birthday every year, but that was it. I haven’t seen them since I was fifteen years old.”
Cole’s eyes drop to my lap where I’m rubbing circles on my thigh with my index finger. A nervous habit. I’m sure he’s figured that out. I can feel all the emotions, all the fear and…aloneness that I’ve fought to overcome creeping back in, like the memories themselves have life. Or that they can steal it.
Cole’s expression is unreadable. I should expect no more. He hides what he’s feeling well. Until he wants it to show.
“Anyway, Lucy is a lawyer. Ambitious. Controlling. Cold. It didn’t really surprise anybody when she married Ryan, a guy ten years younger. She was thirty-five, he was twenty-five. He was an on again/off again underwear model who looked really good in a tux. She was loaded and bought him whatever he wanted. That dynamic worked for them.”
I drop my eyes when I feel the frown tug my eyebrows together. It happens whenever I think about this part. Whenever I have to acknowledge that maybe my parents knew. Although I hope they didn’t. Just the idea that they might’ve known steals my breath for just a few seconds. The sense of betrayal is that intense. I have to concentrate on inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling, willing myself to calm.
I clear my throat. “I don’t know if Mom and Dad knew about them. I like to think they didn’t, but…I could never be sure.”
I pause again, wondering if I’ve made a mistake by going back, back to a time that nearly killed me.
“Eden, you don’t have to do this. I shouldn’t have asked,” Cole says quietly, drawing my eyes back to his. His face is still handsomely inscrutable. It’s probably better that way.
“I want to.” And I do. Although it’s hard to think about and talk about this time in my life, I feel like I need to tell him. Like he needs to know this about me. About us. It’s like it has to come out. And maybe that’s good. It has eaten away at my insides for too long. “Ryan drank a lot. Always smelled like alcohol. He was up at all hours. Slept at weird times. He was the party boy. The arm candy. The trophy husband. And he was okay with that. I guess I should’ve known that it took a certain kind of man to live that kind of life. I just had no idea what kind of man.”
I take a deep breath and try to relax my tense muscles. I remind myself that I survived. That Emmy and I both did. And that we are safe. That calms me somewhat, but my stomach is still in a tight knot as the first words roll off my lips.
“The first night he came to my room, he said he’d heard me scream and thought I was having a nightmare. I didn’t remember screaming, but I couldn’t say for sure that I didn’t. I thought it was kind of sweet when he pushed me over and climbed in bed beside me. I’d never had someone who actually cared enough to check on me when I had a nightmare.” I hate the sadness in my voice. I hate that what I had thought was an act of kindness ended up being something awful and dirty, and that it devastated a young girl who only wanted to be loved. And to not be alone.
“But then it started happening more. He’d tell me that he heard me scream, even when I didn’t remember having a nightmare. But then one night, I realized what was happening. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted him to be someone in my life who cared about me. But he didn’t. He only wanted me for…other reasons.”
I’m staggered by a wave of nausea as, out of the blue, the sweetly alcoholic smell of Ryan’s breath assails me. It’s as though he’s kneeling beside me, whispering all the things he plans to do to me. Just like he used to. Just like I hated.
I focus on reality, on the scent of logs burning only a couple of feet away, and the subtle soapy aroma of the man across from me. All that is here in the present. Where the past can’t hurt me.
“The first time it happened, he’d crawled in bed with me and I’d fallen back asleep. I don’t know how long he waited, or how long I’d been asleep, but I woke to his hand under my nightgown, slipping into my panties.” My throat is tight, like a strong hand is curled around my neck, something that happened a time or two when Ryan was drunk. I struggle to swallow, to find my strength. To push the words through to my mouth, out past my lips, into the air where they’re free. “I stayed perfectly still for a few seconds. I didn’t know what to do. I think I even thought maybe he was dreaming. Or that I was. Only I wasn’t. And neither was he. The instant I reached for his hand, the minute I was going to ask him to stop, he rolled me onto my back and pinned my arms to my side. He was so strong and…he was so heavy…I-I couldn’t move. I-I…” I lean forward, fighting the burn in my lungs, the burn in my eyes.
He’s not here. He can’t find me. These are just memories. Memories can’t hurt me. Not anymore.
Cole says nothing, and I’m afraid to look up at him. I’m afraid of what I’ll see.
“I remember my heart was beating so fast, looking up into his face. He looked scarier than he did in the daylight. He wasn’t a gorgeous older guy anymore. He was...real. Like the way he usually looked was a mask and I was just seeing his real face. ‘Don’t scream,’ he said. ‘It’ll only make it worse.’ So I didn’t. I-I didn’t scream. I d-didn’t do anything. I just laid there and let him touch me. And the only other words he said to me were that I was tight. ‘God, Eden. You’re so tight’.”
My voice breaks as I think about the night my innocence was taken. How frightened, how shattered, how disillusioned I was. It was as though Ryan tore away my childhood and all of life’s possibilities with a few words and one sharp thrust.
“Jesus! Is that why…when I said that…? Is that why you…?” he asks, referring to my freak-out the night before.
I nod, squeezing my eyes shut, forcing myself to continue. I just want to get this over with. I just want to let it out and then put it behind me again.
“He came to me every night for a week. I thought maybe he would get tired of it, tired of me. But he didn’t. Each night, he would come earlier. He would pull the blankets off the bed, take off all my clothes and kiss me everywhere. Touch me everywhere. And if I started to struggle, he would stop and hold my arms at my sides. Like a threat. He didn’t have to say a word. That said it all.”
Anger begins to surface. I’m relieved to feel it. It’s easier to hide behind anger than drown in misery that can’t be changed. It saved me once before. It’ll save me again.
I dry my face, wipe away the tears I wasn’t even aware of shedding, and I press on. This isn’t the hardest part. If I fall apart now, I’ll never make it to the end.
“When that week was over, I knew I had to tell Lucy. I thought she would help me. She had to help me. When I came home from school that Monday, I waited for her. I didn’t know she was working late. Ryan brought takeout, like he was this caring, doting uncle. We watched a movie. He even made popcorn. It was so…normal in the sickest, most twisted way in the world. But it was always there underneath–the knowledge of what was coming. Like a clock ticking away the minutes. Or a bomb counting down to explosion. I was so afraid to go to bed, I fell asleep on the couch that night. I didn’t wake up until he was carrying me up the stairs.
“I pretended to be asleep, but that didn’t stop him. I didn’t fight him. I knew it would be no use. I just wanted it to be over so I could go to sleep. And then tell Lucy in the morning. Only there was no need.” I pause,
reliving that sinking moment like it happened only seconds ago rather than years. “I didn’t see her standing in the doorway until Ryan rolled me over onto my stomach. I don’t know how long she’d been watching. Or how many nights she’d stood in that doorway. I think probably most of them.”
My heart squeezes painfully at the memory of how hopeless that moment felt. I’d never felt so alone, so afraid. But I had no idea how much worse it would get.
“I guess once I saw her, she stopped trying to pretend that she didn’t know. Or that she didn’t enjoy it. I remember watching her walk to the bed that night. Her eyes on mine. I thought for just a second that she was going to stop him. I hoped against hope that she would. Prayed that she would. Only she didn’t. She just stood at the end of the bed, looking up at me for a long time before she started undressing.”
Bile rises in the back of my throat like acid, bubbling up from a corroded wound, long hidden and neglected. “Lucy had it all. Had her act together. Or so everyone thought. But no one knew. Not really. As smart as she was, though, even she didn’t stop to think about birth control. That or Ryan lied to her. I’m not sure which. Either way, I think he wanted me to get pregnant. Sometimes after he’d…” I trail off. I can’t even force the words past my lips. “Afterward, he would push it all back up in me and tell me to stay curled up on my side. He’d wrap his arms around me to make sure I stayed still.” A small whimper moves into my chest and I force it back down. “And if that was what he was after, he got it. It worked. I found out four weeks later that I was pregnant. Not quite sixteen years old and pregnant by my guardian’s husband.”
I continue, trying to be matter-of-fact. And probably not succeeding.