Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  I find her curled into herself, her face resting on her knees. She does not look up, even though she knows I'm here. She continues to cry. Shattered. Defeated.

  Her feet are bloody, and her knees are skinned. She is scratched from head to toe.

  I scoop her up into my arms, and she does not fight me. She does not say a word the entire walk back to the house. She does not say a word as I draw her a bath and clean her wounds. She remains silent even as I bandage her. It is only when I put her to bed that she looks up at me.

  Broken.

  Empty.

  Her eyes are absent of the light that used to shine so bright.

  "I was wrong," she whispers.

  "Wrong about what, Bella?"

  "I don't love you," she tells me. "I despise you."

  I swallow. And I wish I had just let her stab me. But I give her the words that she needs to hear now. The only ones that matter.

  "Then your transformation is complete. And nobody can ever hurt you again, my sweet."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  MY BONES ARE weary and everything aches, right down to my very soul.

  Javi lays me in bed. His bed. If I had any energy left to argue, I still don't know that I could.

  I certainly don't have any fight left when he lies beside me and swallows me in his arms. He holds me while I cry. Comforting the hurt that he caused. The despair that is so much a part of me now I doubt I'll ever be right again.

  I think that Javi is correct. He has broken me completely this time.

  He thinks I can protect myself now. But I've never been able to protect myself from him. Because even as we lay here in the solace of darkness, unburdened from the heavy strain that still lives between us in the light- his presence does comfort me.

  I bury my face into his chest and breathe him in. I beg him to stop. What, I don't know. I just want it to stop. I want it all to go away.

  Either let the blackness swallow me whole, or push me back into the light. It’s too much. Too much to be torn between the two.

  He holds me closer still and tells me it will all be over soon. Then he kisses me. He kisses me like it's the last time he will ever kiss me. And we fall asleep.

  Together.

  I WAKE with a sluggish heartbeat and an invisible pressure bearing down on me.I don't know where it came from, this foreboding feeling inside of me. Because when I open my eyes, Javi is still there. Watching me silently as he strokes my arm.

  Desolation shadows his eyes, and I think it is only fair. I wonder if he slept at all, and then I remind myself that I don’t care. Because I hate him.

  We all lie to ourselves, sometimes.

  His scars are unsheltered in the early morning light. Old and new, they litter his body in shades of pink and white. Today, my monster is visibly fraught with sorrow.

  This battle has raged within him for so long. Whatever torture Javi suffered, it extended far beyond his body. It embedded itself within his mind and made a home there.

  He’s been caught between two sides, just as I have.

  Only now, he’s made his decision. It’s written in his eyes. What’s done is done. But I don’t have a map to his secret language, and I am too weary to guess anymore. Whatever my fate is, it’s for the gods or Javi to decide.

  He pets my cheek and brushes his lips against my forehead. Gentle. Sweet. Reverent. It terrifies me. It soothes me. And I cry when I reach out to touch him.

  I'm in too much pain to move. Javi does not smile this time. He does not exalt in this kind of pain. Instead, he tells me to hold tight while he retrieves some pills and a glass of water. He helps me to sit up and waits until I have swallowed them before he lays me back down.

  The distance between us now may as well be an ocean. He remains on the edge of the bed. His thoughts are somewhere else.

  "What is it, Javi?" I ask him. "What's happening?"

  His eyes move over me, and they are open now. Mournful and reverent.

  "I was only thinking that perhaps I would like to be selfish," he says.

  "I don't understand what you mean.”

  His lip curls up at the corner in the faintest hint of a smile.

  "I think you have made me want to keep you. And that would be the most selfish thing of all, my Bella.”

  I don't want to hope. I don't want to fall for any more of his cruel deceptions. I can’t afford to get stung again. Not when I am so empty. But it does not feel like a trick anymore. Not with his eyes on me like this. Not with his voice gentle and sad and thoughtful.

  "You said you would always keep me," I remind him. "Always."

  I don't want him to throw me away. Maybe that makes me pathetic. Maybe it makes me so fucked up in the head I can't be fixed. But when he even mentions a scenario where we don’t exist together, I can't cope. The possibility douses me in fresh terror.

  Javi is the poison I drink so willingly because nothing else has ever tasted so sweet.

  He is everything. The light and the dark. The solace and the pain. The torment and the peace. And I can't imagine not having him here with me. I can't even consider it.

  My nails dig into the flesh of my palms until I draw blood.

  "You promised," I tell him again. "You promised that you would keep me forever."

  "My Bella." He comes back to me, tilting my chin so that his lips hover over mine. "It is alright. I am here now, yes?"

  I buckle in his arms, and he catches me. His touch hurts like nothing else ever has.

  It is the best kind of pain. The only pain I ever want. Javi drags his nose down my throat, breathing me in.

  "Say what you said before," he whispers. “Say it, and this time, I will try to believe it."

  It scares me. It scares me so much I hold onto him so he can’t let me go. But I say the words. I tell him the irrefutable truth in our bed of lies.

  "I love you, Javi. I love you so much. You've fucked me up so bad. You've messed with my head, and I don't know... there are so many things I don't know. I don't know how to fix them. Or unbreak them. But this is the one thing I know. I love you."

  He does not lash out this time. He holds me. He kisses me.

  Whispered apologies flow from his lips over and over. He tells me everything is going to be alright. He says he will protect me and never let me go.

  For once, my mind and my heart are at peace. There is light in the darkness.

  And I believe him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  JAVI TRIES to rouse me from my sleep, and I dig in deeper. My dreams are too sweet, and his touch is so warm against me.

  I don't want to move. I don't want to go anywhere other than this space between my dream and reality. But he is insistent.

  "My Bella, I need you to wake up. Wake up and be a good girl for me, yes?"

  My eyes are cemented together, and the thing that he asks of me is easier said than done. The pills he gave me knocked me out. I don't know how long it's been.

  Days, months, weeks.

  I’m groggy and confused when I realize that I’m already dressed. Not just dressed. But dressed for outside, with a coat and shoes and socks. My hair is braided too.

  I blink up at him, and he is still blurry until my eyes adjust to the light.

  "It is time to go," he tells me. "There is something we must do together."

  I shake my head and tell him no. Whatever it is, I don't want to go.

  "You will want to see this, my Bella.”

  Still, I try to pull the blankets back over me. Javi sighs.

  "It is about your father."

  And now he has my attention.

  "What about him?"

  My voice is froggy. I sound weird. Terrified. Terrified that he will have bad news for me. But Javi's only answer is to help me from the bed.

  "Come," he insists.

  I follow him. It isn't easy. I'm still in pain. But he helps me every step of the way, allowing me to lean on him for support.

  He unlocks the front door, and my leg
s grow weak before locking into place. I don't want to leave anymore. I only want to stay.

  The caged bird is me.

  And I am afraid. More afraid than I have ever been in my whole life to step foot out that door. But I know that I must. Whatever news there is of my father, I must go. I must find out.

  Knowing and doing are two different things. So even when Javi steps outside, I hesitate on the threshold. He looks back at me, extending his hand. A gesture that means so much more than just this moment.

  It's there in his eyes. The change I had been hoping for all along. His barriers down. My monster is asking me to walk beside him. To trust him to guide me. To protect me and care for me.

  With this knowledge, I step beside him. He holds my hand and nods. He feels it too. We are in this together. The walls have come down, and the only barriers we have now are those of the outside world.

  He leads me to a motorcycle. His only mode of transportation. After providing me with a helmet, he helps me onto the back and secures my arms around his waist.

  The engine roars to life, and the comfort of his scent surrounds me when I lean into his back. He drives us away from Moldavia and back towards the lights of the city.

  My heart is calm, but my mind is loud with questions. It only gets louder when the scenery begins to change. When Javi turns into my old neighborhood. Then onto my street.

  I hold onto him long after he parks in the driveway. He doesn't move either. But then the front door opens. And everything implodes.

  My father stands on the stoop. The same stoop where I never thought I would see him again.

  He is alive.

  And his eyes are on me. Swimming with relief. I try to spring from the bike, but Javi captures me around the wrist. Our eyes meet for a split second, and there is real fear in his. Fear that he might lose me.

  “Javi, it’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s okay.”

  He hesitates for another long second before releasing me. I bound towards the stoop, the aches in my body fleeing in the presence of the joy I feel at this moment.

  My father moves to meet me. Slower than usual. He is walking with a limp. But he is alive. Alive and... hugging me.

  I sob against his chest. There are no words. None. Not between either of us, for a very long time. We just hold each other. And I am a little girl all over again. But he has never held me this way.

  It feels so right. It feels like everything in my world is right again. Until I look up at his face and catch the way he is staring at Javi.

  I have never seen him look at anyone this way. I have never seen so much hate. My arms fall away, and I wrap them around myself instead.

  Relief dissipates and fades into confusion. Turmoil. The reality of my current situation is like a brick to the face. There is no peace to be had. There never was. Because now I'm caught between the two of them. The two men that I love the most.

  The two men who hate each other.

  "Let's go inside," Dad says. "Shall we?"

  Javi dismounts from his bike and reaches the stoop in three long strides. Both men try to usher me in beside them, but Javi is the one I allow to guide me.

  I don’t know why.

  I am ashamed when I see the hurt in my father’s eyes. I am torn. I want to feel happy, but right now, all I feel is that the ground is about to give way beneath me at any moment. And Javi is the one I lean to.

  He has been my source of comfort and pain for so long now. Perhaps it is just conditioning, but it doesn’t make it less real. I want my father to understand that. But it is clear he does not.

  I try to read the unspoken messages that linger between them. Awful silence fills the room as they look to each other and then me.

  Dad instructs us to take a seat on the couch while he sits in his usual chair. The chair that has been empty for so long.

  I have so many questions.

  “Where have you been?” I ask.

  And now it is me who is unable to hide the hurt. It might not be rational, and I never realized it until now, but a part of me has blamed him for his absence. A part of me has been so angry with him for leaving me.

  “Isa, I am so sorry,” he answers. “Something went bad on a job. It wasn’t meant to happen this way, but it did, and I’m sorry for the pain I have caused you.”

  “That isn’t good enough,” I tell him, swiping away the fresh wave of tears as they fall. “You’ve been gone for months. I need to know where. I can’t accept your canned responses anymore. I need to know what happened to take you away.”

  He sighs and rubs his forehead.

  “I was in South America,” he says. “Our convoy got hit by a rebel group, and they took us hostage.”

  I search his eyes, trying to discern whether he is telling me the truth. But the reality is, I don’t know. I have always accepted whatever my father told me without question. Only now, I am not so sure.

  Regardless, it doesn’t matter where he was. He could tell me whatever he wanted to, and I wouldn’t know the difference. He could be spoon feeding me agency scripted dialogue, for all I know.

  The important thing is that he’s home. And he’s safe. This is what I try to tell myself.

  "There is much to discuss, my dearest Isabella," he continues on. "But we have all the time in the world for that. First, I must know. Are you okay?"

  He glances at Javi again as he asks.

  I swallow and nod. It doesn't look natural, but I really do feel okay. Dad isn’t buying what I’m selling either though. His eyes are roaming over my scratched face and arms.

  "They are nothing," I assure him. "I'm okay, Dad. I promise. I'm just so happy to have you home. I thought… I thought I would never see you again."

  My voice cracks and he reaches out to take my hand in his, squeezing with reassurance.

  "I am okay, Isa," he assures me too. "I promise."

  I choke back my emotion to give him a watery smile. Beside me, Javi squeezes my other hand. A gesture of comfort and possession. I glance at him and smile too. He wraps his hand around my knee, staking his claim on me in a way that provokes my father even further.

  "Isa," my father commands. "I would like to speak to Javi alone."

  Javi sneers, and he does not break eye contact from my father when he tells me it’s okay. I rise to give myself distance from both of them.

  "No."

  "No?" they both ask in unison.

  "I said no," I reiterate. "I'm done with the secrets. With the lies. Whatever has happened between you, I deserve to know the truth. The whole truth. And I'm not going anywhere until I do."

  My father shifts in his chair, unbuttoning the top of his shirt and rubbing at his throat. Javi is still calm, but now his eyes are on me. Concerned. I don't like it. But it only makes my point that much more valid.

  My father does not miss Javi’s concern, and he seems to relax if only a little.

  "Would you like to start, Javier?"

  Javi scoffs at him and then paces the length of the floor.

  “You would like that,” he says. “You would like me to be the one to hurt her this way. Because you are a coward.”

  My father does not answer. His easiness is gone now, and all that remains is the flint in his eyes.Neither one of them is backing down from this silent war of wills. Javi moves towards me and tucks me back into his side.

  "This is where we stand," Javi says. "Bella has been with me for the duration of your long absence. Much has changed since you were gone. Because she has been with me, and she has fallen in love with me."

  The guardianship in his tone and body language can’t be denied. Even his stance is fierce. Protective. For some reason, he feels the need to safeguard me from my own father. But his eyes are soft and warm when he looks in my direction.

  “And I have fallen for her, as well.”

  My father shakes his head in disgust, but I can only focus on Javi’s words.

  He just admitted that he’s in love with me. In front of my father. I don’t
know what this means. But my stomach won’t stop fluttering, and my head is all fuzzy. I’m smiling, and I can’t help it.

  Even though my father’s face is tomato red. Even though he looks so disappointed in me right now. He curses in Italian and scrapes a hand through his balding hair.

  "I suppose you feel as though you have served your just desserts then."

  "I will not deny that it is precisely what I set out to do with Bella,” Javi admits with shame in his eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell them both. “None of that matters now. It’s the past. Dad, you are back home now. And Javi and I… we love each other.”

  "What have you done to my little girl?" My father howls.

  His eyes are teary when he looks at me, pleading.

  "Isa, he is a dangerous man. Whatever he has done to you... we can get you help. Whatever you think you are feeling for him right now, it isn't real."

  Javi argues before I can, speaking in his native Spanish tongue, which my father understands but I do not. My head hurts as they continue to bicker, and I realize that maybe this wasn't the best idea after all.

  I can't understand their words. But body language has no barrier. They hate each other. It is clear as day.

  I still don't understand what happened between them. But despite the obvious tension in the room, I’m on a cloud of euphoria right now. It feels as though the storm clouds have finally lifted away and the sun is shining again.

  Javi loves me. And my father has returned. The rest will have to work itself out. The rest, we can figure out later.

  My father segues back to English, and Javi follows suit, answering him so that I can hear.

  "I have hurt her," Javi says. "As I set out to do."

  The tone of his voice threatens my haze of blissful ignorance. Something is off. Something is wrong. Javi is withdrawn. His eyebrows pinched, his shoulders tense.

  He looks so ashamed. So guilty. And worse, he looks so far away.

  “I learned from the best,” he continues. “I had every intention of coming here to thank you, Ray. For guiding me. For showing me the way. For teaching me how to destroy the fragile minds of people who are not like us.”