by Selena Kitt
He lowered his head to touch hers in the darkness, kissing the top of her ear. “I wish…”
“Don’t say it.” She didn’t think she could stand another ounce of kindness or pity.
Zach sighed, his breath warm on her neck. “I don’t think I have the words, anyway.”
“Good.”
He feathered kisses over the back of her neck, pushing her long hair out of his way. “Sleep…”
“I was,” she sighed as he settled in behind her, pressing his chest to her back, forgetting, she knew, but she couldn’t help her gasp of pain at the sudden pressure.
“Ah damn!” He moved back a little, his big hand resting on her hip. “Oh damnit, Lindsey. Damn them!”
His sudden change, the vehement anger in his tone, startled her. The Zach she knew didn’t get angry, not really. The hand moving over her hip shook, and she knew it was trembling with rage.
“I could kill them.” He whispered it under the cover of the darkness, as if he’d been afraid to speak the words aloud before, in the light, with all its possibilities. “With my bare hands.”
She believed him. “It was my own fault.”
“No.” His grip tightened, and his hand would have made a fist if he hadn’t been squeezing her hip. “I don’t care what you said about the little games you play—played,” he made his insistence on past tense perfectly clear, “with these guys.” His voice broke and she heard nothing but his breath, harsh and uneven, for a moment. “No one deserves what happened to you. You didn’t do this to yourself, Lindsey. You didn’t beat your back into a bloody pulp, or…or…”
It was like he couldn’t make any more words. She gave a strangled little laugh that sounded more like a sob to her own ears than anything else. “Didn’t I?” “No,” he murmured, pulling the sheet aside, exposing her back to the air. “Oh my god, no, sweetheart, no…” His lips moved over her back, kissing the wounds there. The deeper ones he had carefully bandaged before they’d gone to bed, but there were too many to cover completely, and it was the shallow ones he kissed now, over and over. It reminded her of those few memories she had of her father, of falling down and him putting on the Band-Aid, kissing it and making it all better. “Please don’t believe it. Not for a minute. You didn’t ask for this. It’s not your fault.”
She didn’t believe it—couldn’t—and she cringed away, rolling to her belly and clutching the pillow. He didn’t stop touching her, his fingers grazing lightly, cautious, as if he were petting a shy animal, his lips murmuring words against her back, and he kept on whispering those awful, painful words.
“I know you’re hurting.” His breath was too warm, too human, too comforting. It made her want to cry and she fought it—hard. “God, baby, I could tell from the first minute I saw you. It shouldn’t be possible for a girl your size to be carrying around so much pain.”
“No,” she choked, begging him to stop, knowing he wouldn’t. This was worse, his tenderness, his kind words, worse than the rape, worse than anything.
“I just want to love you.” His forehead pressed against her lower back, and the sting she felt there was the salt of his tears. That realization broke her—Zach, crying, in pain—and all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and die.
“I don’t deserve you.” She sobbed against the pillow, the dam breaking, her body shaking with it. “I don’t deserve this.”
“Oh, baby.” Zach moved in beside her, taking her, fighting, into his arms. She tried to resist, shaking her head, pushing back, but he was too strong for her. “Please,” he murmured into her hair as she began to give, letting him hold her. “Let me love you. Just let me love you.”
“I can’t.” Her strangled cry muffled itself against his chest, and he rocked her, back and forth, into a bed covers cocoon in the dark. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t care.” He tucked her head under his chin, as if he could get her even closer. “Lindsey, I know more than you think I do. And I don’t care. Baby, I don’t care what you’ve done, how many other guys you’ve been with, the lengths you’ve gone to...just to hurt yourself.” She tried to make herself smaller against him, as if she could hide from his words.
“God, baby, you’re so full of that spite.” His words made her feel cold, achy, as if she had the flu. “Watching you do this to yourself…it’s like seeing you eat rat poison, but you think you’re hurting someone else, don’t you? You’ll show them, right?” He squeezed her tighter when she snorted and nodded through her tears. “And all the while you’re just killing yourself…”
“I know.” She drew a shuddering breath. “But I don’t care.”
He sighed, kissing the top of her head. “Because if no one else cares…why should you?” She nodded, holding back a full-blown sob, her throat closing off any words.
“I care, Linds.” He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her wet cheeks. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”
Burying her face against his chest, she gave a deep, shuddering sigh, sliding her hand down over the hard, flat surface of his belly, reaching under the sheet to find his cock, soft in a nest of dark, kinky hair.
“Lindsey!” Zach jumped, startled, at her touch. “Oh, baby, no no…” He took her hand, pulling it up to his waist, wrapping it around him. “It’s so not about that.”
“It’s always about that!” she choked, trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he held on, rocking, until sobs racked her body, trembling them both. It was a while—to Lindsey, it felt like forever—before they subsided into little hitching noises, the same kind she used to get when she was very small and had been crying a long, long time. Zach kissed the top of her head, using the sheet to wipe the tears from her face, his chest.
“He raped me,” she whispered, the words lifting a weight in her chest like an anvil.
“I know, baby, I know,” he crooned, stroking her. “I’m so sorry…”
“My stepfather. When I was twelve.”
His silence stretched until he managed a breathy, strangled, “Oh…god…” in response, his arms tightening around her.
“I had never even kissed a boy before.” The words, once begun, seemed to form themselves now.
“Oh Christ.”
“There was blood everywhere.” She shuddered. “And I tried to clean it—he told me to, before my mother got home. I tried…” She sighed, remembering. The memory wasn’t far away, like it usually was—the circle-face of the moon through a pane of glass—instead it was close, bright, painful. She wanted to push it away and found she couldn’t. “He was always like that. I couldn’t ever do anything right with him. It never mattered what it was. I wasn’t ever good enough.”
“Oh my god, Lindsey,” Zach’s voice cracked and she could feel how tense his muscles were, felt his jaw clench as he tucked her head under his chin. The words came and came, spilling out of her mouth , a fountain of pain, and he listened, mostly quiet, his jaw working, as she told him everything.
“I remembered…” She tried to swallow the memory, but she couldn’t. It hurt more than any of the others. “When I was little-little and I’d fall down and skin my knee…I remembered my father, putting on that spray stuff that hurt and telling me to go to the moon…”
“The moon?”
“It was something we did…” She smiled through her tears, remembering her chubby little girl finger, pointing at the glass. “At night, he would show me the moon out my window before he put me to bed…so whenever I was hurt, he’d try to distract me, tell me to remember the moon…think about the moon…”
Zach nodded, just holding her.
“I think I got to the point where I became the moon,” she whispered, closing her eyes. She could see it, tucked neatly into one square pane of glass. “I went to the moon whenever he touched me, Zach. I went away. Whenever anyone touches me, that’s where I go. And tonight…I went there, too. I felt like I swallowed the moon tonight, and it burned…”
“Oh baby…” He gave a
deep, shaky sigh, swallowing hard. “Can I ask…what about your mother?” “I tried…once.” Lindsey shook her head. “She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to know.” Her lip trembled and she pulled the comforter tighter around her. “She always loved him more than she ever loved me.”
“Oh no…” His denial didn’t make it not true, and she blinked back more tears.
“And after that…I just wanted someone to pick me up and tell me it was going to be okay, you know?” She felt him nodding. “But there was never…anyone. And it felt like…like I just kept falling down…over and over…and there was no one there…”
“To catch you?”
She nodded her assent, her throat closed tight.
“I promise you…” Zach’s voice was hard, but his hands, cupping her face, were tender. “No one is ever going to hurt you again. And I will always, always be there to catch you, Lindsey.”
She wanted to deny his words, to tell him she didn’t need him—she didn’t need anyone—but that part of her was far away now. He’d managed to find a way into the biggest, most secret part of herself, and she couldn’t push him away anymore.
“I don’t care how hard or how far you fall,” he murmured, kissing her wet eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. “I promise I will be there to catch you.”
“I’m sorry,” she choked, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing against him. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much, and I am so, so…”
His kiss stopped her, his mouth hard, too hard, and she cried out. He stopped, panting, and she felt the anger in him. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” He sighed, his fingers moving over her sore, tender lips. “I’m sorry all of that happened to you. I’m sorry you think it was your fault, that you deserved…” He shook his head, swallowing the words. “Lindsey, if I could take it back…if I could get my hands on him in a dark alley somewhere…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, throwing a leg over his and snuggling in closer. “None of it matters anymore. I have you now…I have someone, a place to be, to feel safe.”
“Oh damnit…” His arms tightened again. “This is so not the right time to tell you this…”
Her head came up sharply, her heart thudding. “Tell me what?”
“…I’m leaving.” He winced when she gasped, sounding as if she’d been punched. “I’m being deployed to Iraq.”
“Again?” She frowned, feeling indignant. Just how much time could one man serve for his country, she thought selfishly.
He sighed. “I go when they tell me to go, baby.”
“I don’t want you to go.” She pouted, trying to imagine her life without him, and found it more than a little difficult.
“And I don’t want to go.” He leaned back on his pillow, throwing an arm over his head, and stared up at the ceiling.
She approached him cautiously. “You can’t get out of it?”
“You can’t tell the U.S. Navy no, sweetheart.” The flash of his smile gleamed in the dark. “But here’s the thing…” He sat up on his elbow, earnest now. “I want you to stay here. Stay here and wait for me.”
“Wait?” The word felt weighted in her mouth.
“You’re graduating in a few weeks. I’ll probably be gone through the summer, no more…”
The whole summer? She sighed. “When are you going?”
“June twenty-sixth.”
“So soon?” She heard the whine in her voice and tried to curb it. That was only a few weeks after graduation.
“I’m sorry.” He leaned back again, this time throwing his arm over his eyes. “It’s terrible timing.”
They were quiet for a while. Lindsey watched him, his chest rising and falling, and wondered what he was thinking. “I don’t want to stay here without you,” she said finally. “This is…this is your home, not mine. I don’t belong here.”
“Yes you do,” he insisted, up on his elbow again. His eyes flashed in the dimness. “Want me to prove it? We’ll go the justice of the peace tomorrow.”
She laughed, incredulous. “Was that a proposal?”
“Yeah,” he said, serious, reaching out for her hand. His swallowed hers as he squeezed and then pressed her palm to his lips. “Yeah, it was. Lindsey, will you marry me?”
Her heart soared, but she tried to make light of it, still. She snorted and gave him a shove. “A shotgun wedding?”
She heard him grinning. “Well, for it to be a real shotgun wedding, you’d have to be pregnant… not that I’d object.” His hand moved over the smooth, flat expanse of her belly, but she pushed him away, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Where are you going?” His hand moved to encircle her wrist. “I don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Zach…I can’t get pregnant. Not anymore.”
He sat up then, too, moving in behind her. She leaned her head back against his chest and told him her last, biggest secret. “He made me get an abortion after that first time.” She felt him stiffen, but she went on anyway, needing to tell someone, needing to tell him. “And then, you know, he got me the pill. But I stopped taking them.” She laughed in the dark, remembering how angry, how defiant, how ridiculously naive she had been. “I thought maybe, if I had a baby, my mom would have to…”
“Oh Jesus.” He rested his forehead against her hair.
“But it’s never happened.” She shrugged. She had stopped worrying about it a long time ago. What kind of mother would she ever be, after all, she reasoned. “All this time…I’ve never gotten pregnant. And I haven’t exactly been careful.”
“Oh, baby I’m so sorry…” He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his lap, her back against his chest, rocking her. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. You. Do you get that?” She nodded. She did get it—for the first time, maybe ever. Turning in his arms, she straddled him, up on her knees, to give him a long, tender kiss. She felt him smile against her lips.
“Well the good news is the hospital says I’m clean,” she whispered into his ear. “Not even one STD. You know what that means?”
He chuckled. “Is that a yes?”
“Oh yes,” she agreed, wiggling in his lap.
“Not that.” He laughed, pulling her back into bed, covering them both. “That can wait.”
“To what, then?” she teased. “Your romantic proposal?” “What else?” He snorted.
She hesitated, biting her lip. “It’s a definite maybe.”
“Well then you better sleep on it some more.” He squeezed his arm around her shoulder as she snuggled up and rested her head on his chest. “My alarm’s going to go off in another hour so I can check on you.”
She groaned, rolling her eyes before closing them and drifting almost immediately into the soundest sleep she could ever remember.
Chapter Nine
School wasn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be, when she went back a week later after Zach deemed her “healed”—at least, on the outside—although teachers and students alike remarked on Lindsey’s sudden, subdued nature. She also heard them talking behind her back about the sudden appearance of jeans without holes ripped through in the seat and tops that actually covered her midriff.
They’d gone back to her house briefly to gather some of her clothes and things—she made sure both cars were gone before they chanced it—but after reviewing the wardrobe she’d chosen to throw into the big white garbage bag they carried out to the Camaro, Zach insisted on taking her to the mall to do some shopping. And when she went, out of habit, to look for a tube top to wear to school that first day, she couldn’t even find one in the drawers Zach had cleared for her to use—her new clothes were folded neatly, button-down shirts and crisp new jeans—but all of her old clothes had disappeared.
Zach, of course, feigned innocence, even when she pummeled his back with her fists and pinched his sides, insisting, “You do so know where they are!” He just laughed, shrugged, and gathered her up, still fighting, to kiss her quiet.
S
o she felt like a complete geek that first day, and even considered ripping out the seat of her jeans—but the guilt of knowing how much Zach had charged on his credit card for their little shopping trip kept her from actually taking scissors from the office to the bathroom with her to go through with her little plan. She even resisted the temptation to unbutton the bottom of her shirt and tie it up high under her breasts.
Instead, she sat quietly in her seat and pretended she was impervious to the stares and the whispers and the double-takes, even from the teachers. There was only another week left of school, anyway. For Zach, she could endure that long. That’s what she told herself, and when she walked home every day—his apartment was in easy walking distance from school—letting herself in with the key he’d had made at the local hardware store and even starting dinner before he got home, she knew just from the light, easy way she could breathe, the absence of dread, that it was true.
The only thing looming was Zach’s upcoming deployment, and she tried her best not to think about it. That, and the nightmares, which had started after that first night, and had continued, at least once a night, since. Sometimes she woke him with her panic and he would hold her, but mostly she trembled beside him in the dark, eyes wide, the sheets wet with her sweat, staring up at the ceiling and remembering while he slept beside her, oblivious. If Zach had known, he would have been angry, of course, and insisted she wake him. But she wouldn’t. If nothing else, she had learned to keep things to herself.
Although, with Zach, that talent was fading—keeping things from him was getting harder and harder. Her emotions seemed to spill over when he was around, no matter what she did. Like when they saw Brian in the Sav-Way while they were grocery shopping.
“So what do you want for graduation?” Zach asked, taking out the powdered donuts she’d put into the basket and replacing them with a loaf of wheat bread.
Lindsey sighed, eyeing the little chocolate ones instead. “A diploma.”
“Don’t even think about it.” He took the donut box from the hand behind her back, putting them back on the shelf. “I meant besides a diploma.”