Clinging to Rapture

by Megan D. Martin

  “He should be her boyfriend. I don’t know why they’re both dicking around and acting like assholes about the whole situation.”

  I spun around to stare at Gran who was shaking a cigarette out of her pack with trembling hands. “Gran, that’s not—”

  “Oh, fooey, Julia. Don’t try and make excuses. The way you kids are acting is ridiculous.”

  My face heated and I rubbed a hand against my neck. The thick scar tissue that met my fingers startled me. My wound was practically healed, it was hardly even sore anymore and there was no need for a bandage. I hadn’t looked at it yet. I’d made sure it was bandaged every time I looked at myself in the mirror at the hospital, and if it wasn’t I just didn’t look.

  “I have some work to do.” Cole cleared his throat and turned away before I could catch his reaction to Gran’s words. “I’ll just be in the study.” He set Weasley down on the floor and gestured toward the hallway that led to the staircase. “It’s on the bottom floor on the other side of the first living room.” And then he was gone from sight.

  Mandi nudged my shoulder with her hand. “You never mentioned he looked like a fucking god!” She put her hands on her hips. “That would have made the story more exciting!”

  I glanced after Cole. Had I really left that detail out when I told her about him? More important, was all of this really happening? I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around standing in Cole’s kitchen with my gran and my newest friend.

  “If I was younger, I would give Julia a run for her money for that man.”

  Mandi giggled. “He’s way hotter than that other asshole who came into the store.”

  The memory of Kevin showing up at the gas station popped in my head for the first time since I woke up. “I forgot all about that.”

  Mandi gave me a worried look and eyed my scar. “You think he had something to do with it?”

  I hadn’t even considered it. Would Kevin try and have me killed? The thought was disconcerting, but I shook my head. “I don’t think so. If he was going to hurt me he would have done it himself, not paid some stranger to do it.”

  “You should still tell the cops about him, if you haven’t already.”

  I nodded absently.

  Gran mumbled something to my left.

  “What, Gran?”

  “Huh?” She glanced up at me.

  “You said something.” I moved to her side.

  “Oh, huh? I don’t think so.” She dug in her pocket for a minute before extracting a lighter. She had been doing this a lot more lately, before I was attacked. Going off to somewhere in her head that no one knew about, talking to someone there.

  “Let’s go outside. You can smoke out there.”

  She waved me away and lit her cigarette with shaky fingers. “It was that bitch woman who told me I couldn’t smoke in her kitchen. Think I’ll do it anyway now that she’s gone.”

  I considered letting her. It would serve Elaine right, but I grabbed the handlebars and started pushing her toward the back door. “I want to get some fresh air anyway. I haven’t been outside in what seems like forever.”

  Once we were on the back porch, I sucked in a breath of warm air and was instantly relaxed. The two medical personnel had disappeared and the patio was empty. I rolled Gran up to the table and stepped off the stone porch into the yard.

  “Wow.” I stared out at the simple garden, but that wasn’t what impressed me. It was the rolling fields beyond the garden. The land seemed go on forever, rich with a golden color. “I thought we were in the city.”

  “About thirty minutes outside of Dallas in Summerville,” Mandi said next to me.

  “Summerville? Never heard of it.” I frowned.

  “I hadn’t either. It’s pretty small though. I don’t even think they have a school.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are y’all gonna spend all afternoon talking about the damn field or are we going to talk about important things?”

  “Really, Gran?” Her forward attitude often got on my nerves, but I refused to let anything bother me today.

  “I’m glad you’re here with Cole.”

  I sat down in a chair next to Gran and Mandi followed suit. “Oh, Gran. I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do. This is the safest place for you.”

  “He does have the place hot-wired for protection. The gate to get in here is massive and there are foot guards everywhere. In fact…” Mandi trailed off as she glanced around. “Look, there,” she pointed out at the field we’d been admiring. I squinted my eyes and sure enough there were men, two that I could see. They were some distance away, tinkering with something on the ground.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Randy said they’re installing some sort of security system for you.”

  “For me?” I glanced at her. “Me staying here isn’t permanent.”

  “It will be until this person is caught,” Gran said on the exhale of her cigarette smoke.

  “I don’t think it will be that simple.” I sighed and leaned in, glancing around anxiously. “I’m afraid that—”

  “The bitch did it?” Gran said loudly.

  “Shush, Gran! They could hear you!”

  “She didn’t do it.” The ash on Gran’s cigarette had grown to be an inch long.

  “How can you be so sure?” She and Cole were both adamant about this. I didn’t trust Cole as far as I could throw him, but Gran was a different story. She had those gut feelings that were never wrong.

  “She’s too stupid for something like this. Plus, she won’t be around for long.”

  My heart jumped. “Why do you say that?” I glanced at Mandi who was staring at Gran too.

  She leaned in and placed an aged hand on top of my mine, her fingers quivering against my skin. The cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth.

  “Because he belongs with you.” She pulled the cigarette from her lips with her free hand. “You just have to step up and take what you want.”

  THIRTEEN.

  It was a little after midnight when I shut the front door of Cole’s house behind Mandi. The door made a soft thud and then the locks clicked into place as I pushed them down. I smiled to myself. I’d spent the day with her and Gran and I could honestly say it was one of the best days I’d had in a long time. I hadn’t laughed so much in my whole life, of that I was certain.

  “Have a nice time playing house with your trailer trash family?”

  I whirled around meeting Elaine’s gaze head-on. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, her dark hair in a ponytail, a sheer nightgown hugged her petite form. She was the complete opposite of me, like some dark exotic beauty, where I was light. Her body was small, not an ounce of fat on her. I was certain my ass weighed nearly as much as her whole body.

  “We had fun.” I wasn’t going to let her shit on my good day. I wouldn’t let her ruin it for me.

  She took a couple steps toward me. “Don’t get used to it.”

  I frowned. “Don’t get used to what, seeing my family? My friend?”

  She snorted. “Don’t get used to seeing them here, playing house. Cole just feels sorry for you. He has a big heart. It’s why I love him.”

  Her words ate at me. No, don’t entertain her. Choosing not to answer, I moved past her.

  “Dumb bitch,” she muttered.

  I spun on my heel. “Why do you hate me? I haven’t done anything to you. Not even the night we met.”

  She raised her chin arrogantly. “Hate you? I don’t even have time to consider you. You’re beneath me. Your presence is like that of an irritating insect.” She put her hands on her tiny waist. “Why Cole bothers with a charity case like you, a whore,” she spit the word, “is beyond me.”

  A sarcastic smile broke across my lips. “Maybe you should ask him that. In fact, instead of being a bitch to me, maybe you should take your problems up with him. He’s your fiancé. Not me. I didn’t ask to be brought here to deal with your nasty attitude.”

  I whirled back ar
ound and stomped up the stairs.

  “Just remember, Julia. He’s going to bed with me tonight and every night after this. He may have wanted you for a little while, but that’s over now. He’ll always come back to me.”

  She knows about what happened between Cole and I before? Who was I kidding, of course she knew. It all made sense.

  I didn’t stop my movement up the plush white stairs. I didn’t want her to see how deeply her words wounded me. How much it hurt to think about them going to bed together, about Cole pulling that silky nightgown from her body. It made my stomach churn.

  “Be careful,” Elaine said quietly just as I reached the top of the stairs. The words made me stop. I turned my head. She stood at the bottom looking up at me, an expression of utter hatred draped across her face.

  “What?”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t a sweet and innocent parting of lips. There was something sinister in her eyes. “Nothing.” She paused. “Julia?” I turned back around, my nerves quaking uncomfortably. “He’ll always come back to me. Remember that.”

  I rubbed my fingers against the soft silk of my temporary sheets. I’d been tossing and turning for over and hour since I left Elaine standing on the stairs, her final words ringing in my ears. It made me uncomfortable and doubled my fears in thinking she had something to do with my attack. Gran didn’t think it was her, but I wasn’t so sure. Elaine was a lot smarter than anyone gave her credit for.

  I curled up in the big king-size bed under sheets that probably cost a fortune. I let my mind slip to Kevin, to when he came in the gas station, his smile lazy, staring at me like I was a piece of meat under a microscope. My hands started to shake and I clutched the sheets to make it stop. The look in his eyes just before he left, even with Mandi’s gun pointing at his head. The look was unmistakable, promising pain, retribution, that he would be back.

  Kevin always kept his promises. The only promises he ever made were ones that eventually hurt me. He promised I would be sorry when I made him mad. He promised he would never hit me unless I deserved it. He promised me a lot of things, and in his mind he felt justified in how he kept them.

  And then I was back there again. Him standing over me, shirtless, his hand dripping blood while tears slid down his cheeks.

  “Fuck, Julia.”

  “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  And then he was on top of me, swinging his fists, but it wasn’t his fist, it was something else. I wasn’t in his shitty living room anymore, but in a dark alley. The scenery changed around me until I was lying on the hard pavement with Kevin on top of me. But it wasn’t Kevin. It was someone else. A man with a white scar on his lips. A man with a knife. A red knife.

  Why is it so red? So red. So red. So red.

  He slashed at me with his big hand, burying the object in me, but I couldn’t feel it. The pain wasn’t there, but I fought him. I squeezed my eyes shut and punched at his face.

  Not me. Not me. Not me.

  My hands met nothing and I opened my eyes to find myself in front of the mirror, just as I had been earlier before I climbed into bed, except the mirror was bloody this time. My blood. I stood there, staring at my red-coated reflection.

  The mirror is so nice. It’s too bad it’s all dirty now. The only thing that didn’t look red was the scar on my neck. I’d looked at it finally, before bed. The horrid scar was pink and jagged. Not a clean cut like a doctor made the incision. The blade must have been wide because the scar was thick and grotesque, starting on one side of my neck and not ending until it reached the other.

  “I wanted to have more fun with you.”

  I flinched at the sound of the words whispered in my ear. I twisted to look behind me, but no one was there.

  “They told me I could, but you’ve gone and fucked it up.”

  I looked back at the mirror, the blood was still there. My blood. Coating everything, dripping down in huge melting drops. I flailed, pushing against an invisible barrier.

  “No! Please! No!” I squeezed my eyes shut. “No more. No more!”

  “Julia.” Big hands touched my shoulders.

  “No! Don’t hurt me, please.”

  “Julia.”

  “No more blood. No more!”

  “Julia.”

  I opened my eyes to see Cole’s silhouette leaning over me, his visage illuminated by the digital blue of the clock next to the bed.

  “Julia, it’s me, Cole.”

  “Fuck.” I sat up and wrapped my trembling arms around his shoulders.

  “You’re okay. It’s okay.” He rubbed his hands up and down my back.

  “They were going to hurt me.” Tears spilled down my face. “They did hurt me.” My body shook and he held me tighter.

  “No one is going to hurt you again.”

  I breathed him in, his deep musky scent. His hair was damp against my cheek, as if he’d just taken a shower.

  “Wait.” He leaned back. “They? You told the police only one man attacked you.”

  The thug’s face popped into my mind, his white scar slashed across his lips. I nodded quickly, bobbing my head up and down before I started full-on sobbing.

  “Was there another man, someone else?”

  I shook my head vehemently. “N-n-no. Just bad memories.”

  “Kevin?” The fact he remembered his name made me flush. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  The question seemed absurd. What would I say? That Kevin had beaten me until I was nothing more than a bloody pulp, that it was the random woman he planned to hook up with that night who’d kept him from killing me. Her dainty knocks on the door stopped Kevin in his rage. Would I tell him that, like I told Mandi? Would I admit to him that I laid on that floor, beer bottles scattered around me, a broken, bloody version of myself and listened to him fuck her because I was too weak to move? Would I dare show him just how vulnerable and pathetic I could be?

  “No.” I shook my head. I couldn’t see his face very well, but I had the feeling his eyes were searching mine for answers.

  “No one is going to hurt you again.” Strong fingers brushed against my chin. “Do you understand? I won’t let them.”

  My bottom lip trembled like a child’s. “But—”

  “But what?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head slowly.

  “Tell me.” The anger in his voice startled me. “Sorry.” He slid his hands up and down my bare arms. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just frustrated this happened to you.”

  “Me too,” I whispered and brushed my fingers against the scar on my neck. The image of the bloody mirror came back into my head. It wasn’t the blood that stood out the most, it was the scar. Thick and ugly. I would have to look at it every day for the rest of my life and remember.

  “You can talk to me, Julia.”

  I wanted to, desperately. I’d been longing to talk to him for months.

  “It’s just that…” My fingers moved back and forth over the destroyed flesh. “This will be all anyone sees when they look at me from now on.” More tears spilled down my cheeks. “It will be the first thing people see when they look at me. It will be the first thing I notice every day when I look in the mirror.” I dropped my hand into my lap. “I won’t ever be able to forget.”

  And that was the root of the problem right there. I didn’t realize it until I said the words out loud. I didn’t want to be characterized by this horrible tragedy. I didn’t want to be the girl with the scar. The girl everyone pitied. I didn’t want to be her. And more than anything I didn’t want Cole to be around me just because he felt bad for me.

  Cole leaned in, his spearmint breath fanning across my face, warming the tears that dripped onto my nightgown. “It won’t be.”

  I snorted unattractively and wiped my hand across my face. “Oh yeah? Easy for someone to say who doesn’t have a big scar across his neck.”

  Silence greeted my sarcasm. What am I doing? Am I really being like this to him after all he’s done to help me the last couple of weeks
?

  “Fuck, I’m sorry.” I rubbed at eyes, smearing the wetness all over my face.

  “You don’t need to be sorry.” There was tension in his words. In the room. It was there surrounding us, building like helium filling a balloon.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he brushed his warm fingers against my neck and I flinched. I wanted to jerk away, not give him the pleasure of touching me, but I couldn’t. I wanted him to touch me, even if it was there, the most vulnerable place on my body. His touch wasn’t sexual, but the tips of his fingers were soft, almost loving against my distorted flesh. He moved them back and forth, taking his time.

  I closed my eyes, letting his touch soothe me. He seemed to seep into my pores and heal me with each stroke, like he was some sort of conjurer with magical hands. I sighed and leaned back, letting my body slump on the bed.

  “No,” I said when he started to pull his hand away. I wrapped my fingers around his bare forearm. “Just for a little bit longer, please.” It was pathetic, I knew it was. To ask an engaged man to touch me, a man whose fiancé was certainly sleeping in a bed just a few doors away, but I couldn’t help it. I needed him right now, more than anything.

  He let out a whoosh of air from his lips. Lips I couldn’t see in the darkness, but I didn’t have to see them. I knew what they looked like, had them memorized by heart. Soft but firm. Perfect for kissing, for sucking. A shiver traced down my spine.

  “I’m sorry, Julia. So sorry,” he whispered.

  I frowned. “What for?”

  “For letting someone hurt you.” His whole body seemed to tighten next to me. “I never should have called my men off. Never.” He bit the last word off like it hurt him to say it.

  “Don’t blame yourself.” I paused. “We said goodbye.” My mind jumped to that night at the club. It seemed like a million years ago. My ebbed tears started to seep out the corners of my eyes again. “There was no reason to waste your time and money on me anymore.” I meant to say the words nonchalantly. I meant to sound like I didn’t care, but they came out barely above a whisper.

  His fingers slowed and seemed to tremble against my skin, though it could have been me that trembled. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore, I was such a mess. His hand slid up and touched my cheek, his rough palm sliding effortlessly against my damp skin. And for a moment I let myself picture it in my head. What my life would be like if Cole was in it. He would hold me at night. He would kiss me, love me. He wouldn’t see me as a scarred woman. Or would he?