Fall in Love

by Anthology

  “Have you? My mom didn’t even understand it. All my anger. In my early teens, I was filled with rage almost all the time. It would explode for no reason. Mostly I directed it at myself. I loathed myself. Even when I did something well, I mocked my own achievements. Who did I think I was? I was dirty, grubby and gross for the things I’d let happen to me. I was ugly. And I bet that no one liked me because they could tell I’d had to do disgusting things.”

  I stop and it feels as if my sharp, furious words are bouncing around the walls of the room. I can’t believe I snapped and said those things. Those things are supposed to stay inside.

  I’ve said them to make him hate me. Despise me.

  It probably worked.

  His fingers are barely holding me now, but I sense if I try to break away and hit myself, he’d tighten his grip and stop me in a heartbeat. Tears dribble down my face, which is already sticky and itchy from the tearstains of the gallons of waterworks that came before. The cut on my jaw stings.

  He saved my life and I shouted at him. He saved my life and got to see me act like a self-destructive lunatic.

  That’s what I was. And whenever I think I can leave that disaster of a girl behind, I slide right back.

  “I’m a failure,” I mumble. I bow my head. I didn’t want to do it in his club, didn’t want to play submissive. But now I can’t hold my head up in front of him. “I can’t even keep my mouth shut properly. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone ever—”

  “Stop it.” Jonathon releases my hands and takes a step closer to me. He doesn’t touch me but holds his hand out to me.

  Shaking my head, I put my arms around myself. I can’t put my hand in his. I can’t even look at him anymore. Shame paints my cheeks with a hot flush.

  “God, Mia, don’t hurt yourself like this. Please don’t.” With his fingers he tips up my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his. I try to slide it away but he whispers, “Look at me.”

  When I do, I don’t see shock or anger or disgust. I see tenderness in his green eyes. It’s stunning.

  “I know about your anger, Mia. I know about hating yourself. You were abused. I don’t mean just last night, but in your past. I can tell that’s what happened to you. I know because I was abused too. I’ve felt everything you have. I’ve wanted to explode in rage and hurt people.” He pauses, thick black lashes dipping over his eyes. He takes a deep breath. “I’ve wanted to hurt myself.”

  “You—”

  I can’t finish what I was going to say. Shock hit me first, but it dissolved. I remember the night we went to his club, Tied. I asked him who he was really hitting when he used a whip. He claimed he never ‘exorcised his personal demons’, but at first he didn’t say anything. Now I understand what my words touched within him. Memories. Brutal ones.

  “Yeah. I’ve been beaten in my life. Subjected to years of physical abuse.”

  He says it coolly but deep in his eyes, I see the flicker of flames. The anger is still inside him. I don’t know how to put into words how badly I feel. It’s like a kick to my soul. He didn’t deserve that.

  I’m struggling to find words and the wrong one comes out. “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you, Mia. I assume you don’t want to tell me who abused you?”

  “No. No—that’s something I don’t want to talk about.” I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just—I guess I just needed to know the identity of the person I want to hate with every fibre of my being.”

  He sucks in a long breath of his own. A soft smile plays on his lips. “You are beautiful. Probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

  I can’t believe that.

  “We’re a lot alike, Mia,” he says. “I can’t talk about that. I can say that it happened. I can talk about it in a detached kind of way. It’s just a thing that happened to me. It happens to lots of people. I was a kid.”

  “How old?” Should I ask that? Am I pushing in with more questions I have no right to ask?

  “I never knew anything different until I was big enough to stand up for myself.”

  “It happened all your life. When you were a child. Even a—a toddler?” My voice rises in shock and pain. I put my hand to my mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to speak so loud. I’m just—so angry for you.”

  “But I never experienced what you did tonight. Some sick, sadistic bastard attacking you. You’ve been through a frightening experience. Don’t get angry at yourself for feeling fear, or rage, or horror. You are a strong woman—”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You are. Since I have an idea what you’ve been through, I know how strong you are. Do not ever deny what a courageous and good person you are, Mia.”

  “I don’t know about good. How can you think that about me? All I ever do is complain to you. You’re always there for me.”

  “I can tell you care about other people. Even me.”

  “Especially you.” I hesitate. I didn’t mean it quite the way it sounded. I love Ryan more than anything. This is so strange. I always thought love would be black and white. That once you loved the right guy, you wouldn’t feel it for anyone else.

  But I do care about Jonathon. I do love him. Just not…not as much as Ryan.

  I want to cry again, but not out of fear or anger. I want to cry because someone cares about me, and I want to cry because bad things happened to Jonathon and he deserves so much better than that.

  ***

  I’m good for a couple of hours, then I start to cry again. Lara’s at class, so Jonathon and I are in his house alone. He has his driver take her to Yardley. He’s vowed that he’s going to ensure we are both protected.

  Jonathon and I are making lunch in his huge kitchen. Normally he has a cook to handle his meals, but it’s her day off. I am chopping red peppers when out of nowhere I lose it.

  He takes the knife from my hands. Probably a good idea since I can’t see through the tears and I’d probably cut my finger off. Or drop the thing through my toe.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks softly.

  I manage a weak smile. “I was actually thinking about you. I know what I went through and it was bad enough. But to survive being beaten?” The thought terrifies me. To have gone through physical pain and injury seems terrible. The damage done to me was just to my psyche. To have that on top of bruises, maybe broken bones…how does any kid survive that? How does a kid survive it and become as strong as Jonathon?

  He wraps his arm around me. He makes me coffee and we sit at the granite counter, drinking it.

  “I’ve never told anyone what happened to me,” he says. “I never knew anyone who would understand.”

  “Not even a past girlfriend? I think Lara would have.”

  “She would have felt pity for me. Sorry for me. You’re different—you hurt for me, but you also feel anger. I saw you before you started to cry. You gripped the knife like you wanted to break it, and you were killing that innocent red pepper. Your tears came out of an explosion of anger.”

  “And that’s better?”

  “To me it is,” he says.

  I sense he wants to talk. I sip my coffee and stay quiet. He has to make the decision of what to say next. I can’t make it for him. I can’t even help him.

  Then he tells me about his past…

  He does it in the way I think about my past—detached, like he’s watched it happen to someone else. Or maybe like someone who has been hurt by it so many times, he can’t feel anything anymore.

  “It’s funny because you start out thinking you can stop it,” he says, softly. “But after a while you submit to it, because you figure it will be worse if you don’t. That you’re smarter to let yourself get punched or kicked or hit with a belt or—or whatever in hell happens to be around that can do damage. You figure if you be a victim willingly, you’re a good boy and you’ll make them happy.”

  I really wonder who ‘them’ is. His parents? It must have been at least one of them. Someone he trusted, someo
ne who should have loved him.

  My heart aches for him, but I know he didn’t want pity. He shouldn’t be pitied. Should I be pitied for what happened to me? No, because I don’t want to need pity.

  Maybe that doesn’t quite make sense, but I do understand what Jonathon means. I didn’t want to be a victim—not of my stepfather, not of my deadly stalker.

  The things he tells me…God, they’re horrifying.

  He was beaten once with a spatula around his buttocks and legs. Burned once, behind the ear, with a cigarette. He was almost drowned. Slapped. I’m shaking when he stops talking, horrified to my soul by what he’s revealed.

  Whoever did this to him should be arrested. But I can understand why he might not want that.

  He looks right into my eyes when he’s finished, and I think I know what he’s looking for. He wants to see if I look at him differently now. I don’t intend to, but I know fury is burning n my eyes.

  “I think you had it worse than me.” I say it angrily.

  His strong hands are wrapped around his coffee mug, and he looks down at them. Gorgeous hands with long fingers. Like Ryan’s hands, except Jonathon’s fingernails are neat and manicured and Ryan’s used to have staining of black from grease that even his gritty, orange-smelling cleanser wouldn’t remove.

  “It’s not a competition.” His voice is soft. He sounds younger.

  “I know.”

  “And if it was, I don’t know if I’d have the winning hand,” he says. “Sexual assault is a different thing. Something that intimate…it’s just different.”

  Silence hangs between us. With Ryan, I pretended I was normal, happy, that I’d never been touched by anything bad, sordid, wrong. I liked being that person. Being honest hurts. It brings back memories I want to bury forever. It twists my heart in knots.

  But in a weird way, it feels good, too.

  “You think this explains why I built my club, why I have the room upstairs, why I want to tie up my sexual partners, why I’m into bondage and domination, why I need to take pleasure to the edge.”

  “You said it isn’t the reason.”

  “You don’t believe me. But everything I said is the truth. Not every victim of abuse is into BDSM. Not every practitioner has been a victim. Brains are programmed differently for pleasure and mine just happens to be made this way. I don’t deliberately hurt someone when I act as a Dom. It’s a mutual act. It’s shared pleasure that is heightened by an incredible sexual experience. But my past has hurt me. Shaped me. I don’t trust many people—actually, I don’t trust most people. I’ve never told anyone about what happened to me. Honestly, Mia. You’re the first person I realize I’ve trusted. I must trust you—why else would I open up to you so much?”

  “You can trust me.”

  “I’ve never loved anyone,” he says softly. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it.”

  I thought he was experiencing unrequited love for me. Apparently not. What he feels must be a very deep, strong sense of friendship. And trust. I have that with Ryan, but enhanced by love.

  I try hard to hide it from Jonathon but what he said makes my heart fracture. He’s a good guy and he deserves to have love.

  I want him to know his trust is not misplaced. And I guess I want to talk. “I was sexually abused,” I say softly. “You were right. It was my stepfather. It happened…it started before I hit puberty. It went on for years. I didn’t stop it. I let it happen. I could have told on him, or called the police, or run away, but I didn’t.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s all on him.”

  “I did…stuff. Everything. There isn’t anything I don’t know about.” I say it glumly. I wish so much it wasn’t true. “My mom found out eventually. She…caught him. It was bad. Gross. I can’t explain it. But we stayed with him. I had the choice—” I look up at him. “I was scared I’d be throwing us into poverty and all I wanted was for it to stop. That was all. It did stop. They broke up anyway. I guess…I assume it changed things between them. So you were right about everything. Everything you’ve said to me has been totally true.”

  “Do you want revenge?”

  “No. No one else knows. I don’t want anyone else to know. As long as he’s changed. As long as he never does it again.”

  I start to cry. I didn’t know I could anymore. I thought at a certain point I would be all cried out.

  Jonathon holds me. “You’ve carried a lot on your shoulders alone. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

  ***

  It keeps happening over the next couple of days. I think I’m okay, then something happens and I smell something that reminds me of the wet grass of the ravine, or I have a sudden flashback into being grabbed or having the guy on top of me, and I freak out.

  Completely.

  Jonathon is there for me all the time. He hugs me when I burst into waterfalls of tears. He doesn’t care when I fly into a rage over stupid things—running out of toilet paper, messing up my mascara, deciding I hate the sketch I just did for my project. I keep working. Otherwise, what am I going to do? Play over what could have happened again and again in my head?

  I try to be tough and pragmatic about things. The only way the guy will be caught is with clues. Again, channeling CSI. And the T.V. show Castle.

  On the second day after the attack, I’m sitting with Jonathon at the coffee shop in the University Center. Lara is writing a mid-term, and Jonathon and I are waiting for her to finish so we can both take her back to Jonathon’s house. I’m supposed to be studying, but when I’ve read the same sentence six times, I give up.

  “I keep trying to remember what happened,” I explain to Jonathon. “There had to be some clue I could give the cops and campus security. Some minute, insignificant clue that points directly to this guy.”

  “You’ve done everything you can. Don’t torment yourself. I know what that’s like.”

  But I feel I have an obligation—to myself and other women on campus—to get this guy caught.

  That night my mother arrives, and I stay with her at the inn for a couple of days. It’s nice to be with her. Of course, we talk to campus security and the cops. Mom is angry with Yardley’s security, even though I keep explaining there wasn’t much they could do before I was attacked.

  I also get interviewed by the local news media. Jonathon kept them away from me at first, but I agreed to do the interviews. I want to make sure other women know about the threat.

  Posters get put up all over the campus, warning women to go to Security if they feel threatened, or if they receive strange messages. A description of the guy is put out over all local media, but given he wore a mask, I doubt that will lead to an arrest.

  He’s out there.

  Has he given up on me? Does he want to take another shot?

  When my mother leaves, Jonathon sends his driver to take her and me to the nearest airport, so I can see her off. She’s so scared to go, I can tell. I promise her I will be careful.

  I make her swear once more not to tell Ryan.

  ***

  After three days at Jonathon’s, Lara and I return to our dorm room. I ask her if it’s okay. I’m afraid if I wait longer, I’ll never be able to go back. I’ll be trapped by fear. I know what it’s like to be aware of fear all the time. I used to be like that with my stepfather.

  “I’m tired of being afraid,” I say to Jonathon, quietly, when he drops us off at the room to ensure we get there safely.

  His brows tug down in concern. “Just be careful. I’ll take you anywhere on campus you want to go. At any time.”

  “What about your classes?”

  “Mia, do you really think they mean more to me than you do?”

  The things he says break my heart. If I didn’t have Ryan, I think I would fall in love with Jonathon in a heartbeat.

  He says, “If I find that guy, I don’t know if I’ll turn him over to the cops. I’d like to kill him.”

  “God, Jonathon, no. I don’t want you going to prison.” I’m sca
red. He is like me, which means there is rage burning inside him. He told me he constantly fights to control it. What if he lets go of it?

  “Promise me you won’t do that.” I touch his arm. “That scares me more than knowing the guy is out there. Please, please, promise me.”

  My eyes are gazing into his, pleading. I know he wants to refuse to make the promise.

  “Jonathon, I couldn’t live with that. God, that would destroy me to have you do that.”

  He frowns. “I would never hurt you. I promise, Mia.”

  Leaning down, he brushes a kiss to my forehead. It’s not a sexual kiss or romantic. I realize it is the gesture of a guy who is trying to hang on, and he’s found someone who understands what a struggle it is. It’s a mark of sharing, of friendship. When he steps back, I impulsively throw my arms around him and hug him. Then I let him turn away and leave.

  When he’s gone, I close and lock the door. I ask Lara, with hope in my heart, “When you guys were alone together at Jonathon’s…did anything rekindle?”

  As she returns clothes to her drawer, she shakes her head. “It’s over, Mia.”

  Damn. I want Jonathon to have a loving relationship. I really do.

  Chapter Eleven

  A snowstorm hits on Friday, two weeks before Thanksgiving. Lara and I run back from the residence cafeteria, pelted by snow. We are wearing hoodies and sneakers because it has been warm since Halloween, but tonight the wind is bitter. Jonathon isn’t with me, for once. But to stay safe, Lara and I are walking with a group of a dozen women from our floor. Now, we always travel around the campus in groups. Since Lara and I are freezing, we run ahead of the others.

  As we near our dorm, I slow down. There’s a guy on a motorcycle on the drive outside the front door. His legs are stretched out in black motorcycle pants, he wears a leather jacket and he’s pulling off his helmet—which is black and crimson, with a reflective visor. As he lifts it up, I see his hair, illuminated by the outdoor lights at the door. Even through the swirling snow, I can tell he’s got light blond hair, buzzed short.