by Nicole Thorn
“YOU CHEATED!” Marshall yelled, poking the scary man. “You told me the X’s couldn’t be next to each other.”
“Not my fault you believed it.”
Melissa got between them and dared to put a hand on both of their chests. “Fellas, we’ve got a lot of work to do in not that much time. And Marsh, Robin’s gonna pop any second now. She’d be real pissy if her husband wasn’t there for the start of that rollercoaster.”
He conceded. “True. Point me, and I will do as I’m told. I am your bitch.”
“What’s new?” Daniel mumbled.
Marshall full-on hissed at him like a cat, and we went inside.
It was astounding to watch two men haul a dresser out of a house. They bickered the whole time, but Marshall never lost his grin. They acted like they were sixteen, but I thought they were closer to thirty. I honestly couldn’t tell. Though Marshall pulled the big brother card more than a few times. Daniel just rolled his eyes.
“All done,” Frank sighed once we got everything in the dumpster a couple blocks away. His arm snaked around Melissa’s shoulder, and he pulled her close. “I say we all go get dinner.”
“I’ve gotta pick up the missus first,” Marshall said. “Danny?”
He shrugged.
I hardly paid attention to them. My eyes were on the ground, and my thoughts a million miles away from here. Worried about Bennett, and what he was doing right now. If he was okay. I knew he wasn’t, and it scared me.
Melissa nudged my leg with her foot. “You should probably check on him,” she said, reading my thoughts.
I made a face. “That cu—” I cleared my throat. “His mother wouldn’t let me in the house if I knocked. I have no way to see if he’s all right or fucking dead right now.” A chill rushed through me, coming from my fear. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen.
Daniel shrugged for the hundredth time today. “If you can’t use the front door then sneak around back. A little B&E now and then keeps the spark alive.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I like your style, buster.”
He smirked.
Marshall timidly held a hand up. “That was my idea. Mine.”
I laughed at him, and I decided that breaking into a house was probably not all that bad. “Okay, so, this is happening.”
Frank grinned. “We’ll bust you out of prison if you get caught.”
I bowed. “Thank you. In exchange, you may have my sister’s hand in marriage.”
She gasped. “Yay!”
Frank pressed his forehead to her temple, grinning like crazy.
I started walking backward in the direction I needed to go. “Oh, by the way, Liss… I kind of fucked Bennett.”
“WHAT!?” she screeched.
Well… she needed to know. Marshall snickered, Daniel stared at the sky, Frank stared with wide eyes, and Melissa gasped.
“Yup,” I said. “Great butt by the way. And we forgot to use protection.” I turned sharply, and started running away. “Just wanted you to know!”
All I could hear was Marshall’s loud laugh, Melissa’s gasping, and Frank trying to calm her down.
“I REGRET NOTHING!”
I ran all the way to Bennett’s house, and I was dying by the time I got there. All I could feel was cold in my chest, but I powered through.
His slag of a mother’s car was in the driveway, so I snuck around the side of the house. They didn’t lock the fence, so it was more than easy to slip in. I was quiet as a mouse as I latched the thing again, having made my way to the backyard.
I walked to his bedroom window, and I felt like James Bond as I looked around the corner to make sure the coast was clear. All I saw was Bennett’s stupid fucking father as he walked out of the kitchen.
When I got to Bennett’s window, I tapped gently with my nails. He didn’t answer, so I sighed and tried again with my knuckles. The stupid curtains were closed, so he couldn’t see me. I would have texted him if I could have.
Finally, my boy opened up the window, pulling aside the curtains. “Layla,” he said, smiling. “What are you doing here?”
The bruises were setting in now, and his cheek was little more than a shadow. I wanted to trace it with my fingertips and make it go away.
“Move,” I told him.
He did, and I crawled through the window.
I landed less than gracefully, and Bennett caught me before I could make a total fool of myself. But I ended up perfectly fine on my feet, and I got a better look at him. His forearms showed, and they were splotched with bruises and little cuts. New ones… It looked like glass might have done it. They were so small and thin.
He looked so fragile as my hands drifted up his arms. Like he could be broken with words, and he wouldn’t even try to defend himself. Such a gentle creature, and it would be the death of him. I couldn’t lose him. And it wasn’t like I couldn’t lose the others. This… everything that was happening, it tore me to pieces. How could something shattered become even more destroyed? I didn’t have the answer. All I knew was that I needed him. In the most selfish ways.
“Benny,” I said, daring to look up at his hooded eyes. My fingers still trailed his skin. “Just one more time. Okay?”
He kissed me in a second, and his hands wound in my hair. His kisses were desperate and impatient, but I couldn’t have handled anything else. I fell onto him and then the bed, and Bennett started taking my clothes off and tossing them on the floor.
It was maybe a minute before we were both naked and he lay between my legs. We were kissing when I felt him slip into me, and I gasped into his mouth at the feeling. Less pain this time and a lot more pleasure. I just felt… better, when I was with him like this. Connected to something real in this world.
I had to stay quiet this time, and I almost couldn’t do it. Bennett paid the price when my nails raked down his back. My reward was a rough thrust forward that had me almost biting a hole through my bottom lip. I smiled, and he continued doing it.
We finished quicker this time, and I rolled so I could rest my head on his chest while we caught our breath. Here it was again. Heaven, right in the middle of the hell that was this house. So much misery happened under this roof that it should have had a darker aura around it. It was such a lie, the outside of it. All pretty and clean. Like a Barbie Dreamhouse. It was perfectly manicured, but everything about it was plastic. A façade that managed to trick anyone passing by. I wanted to burn it to the ground.
“Can I stay?” I whispered, tracing the outline of a bruise on Bennett’s side. I couldn’t leave him, and it wasn’t even for him this time. I… I needed him. I needed to lie here and listen to his heart beating so that I would know it was really still working.
“Don’t ever leave,” he said, combing his fingers through my hair. He sounded a million miles away.
This had to be the last time. Really, the very last time. I couldn’t let myself sink into this bliss just because it was easy. I had to think of him and what was best. It was not this. It was the last time.
Never again.
ne more time turned into two more times before I went home, and most of the night was spent with us holding each other, kissing every once in a while. I needed him so badly, and I didn’t know how to stop myself. Everything about him was comforting.
I spent the whole night there, and I didn’t leave until his parents both left. We had breakfast together, and then I had to go. I couldn’t keep spending time with him like this. I couldn’t let myself fall into something comfortable. It would sneak up on me, this thing. I couldn’t let it win. I wouldn’t be selfish with him.
Bennett promised he would be all right home alone. He had some editing to do for that story that was being featured, and he was working on the plans of another. I could tell myself that it was all right that I abandoned him. I could almost believe it.
I needed to be away from here and somewhere I could think of something that wasn’t Bennett. He was in every thought I had, and that wasn’t healthy at all.
I was turning into some kind of infatuated teenager, and that wasn’t okay with me.
Wilson and Riley always needed help down at the shop, so I decided to go there. I avoided home as well as Bennett. My sister would only let me avoid my problems for so long before she took it upon herself to tell our parents I needed help. The last thing I wanted to do was bring them into this. It was one little outburst, and it wasn’t a big deal at all. Melissa would figure that out soon enough. I had to prove to her that I was totally fine.
I swung by the house to freshen up before I went to the shop. My parents weren’t home, and my sister was at school. It was more than easy to get in and get out. Since it was a chilly day, I was forced into jeans and a sweater. Blah. I liked my dresses and skirts. Boo on the coldness. The summer would be interesting to experience again, to feel the heat and the fresh grass. I wanted to lie in it all day and stare up at a perfect sky.
Ignoring the sick feeling I had in my stomach, I got in my car and started for the shop. The only place I wanted to be was with Bennett, making sure he was okay. I couldn’t even call him to check, thanks to his crazy mother. God, I would have loved to bash her head in with a crowbar. But instead, she walked about town like she was not a monster. How could a person live with themselves when she did what she did?
Driving angry wasn’t the smartest thing, but I did it anyway. I made a lot of bad choices in my life, I guess. Impulsive and selfish. That was me. Riley was the brave and selfless one, Adalyn was the quiet one, and I was the one who let herself be reckless. I’d get myself into a lot of trouble one day, and I knew it. Too bad I didn’t have enough control to stop the avalanche before it started.
The first thing I did when I got to the shop was go bug Adalyn. She was at her desk, picking away at the appointments scheduled. She had a whole system down, and it was all in code. I couldn’t have even tried to crack it if you gave me a case of Dr. Pepper and a decade. I settled for sitting on the edge of her desk and watching her.
“Cooking the books?” I asked.
She smiled but didn’t look up from her papers. “Wilson won’t let me touch the books until I start up on school again. Turns out he doesn’t want someone with a sixth grade education doing his money stuff.”
“Fair enough. When are you going to work on that?”
Adalyn tilted her head up and tucked stray hair behind her ear. “I wanted to do it soon, but I don’t know anymore. That publishing lady,” she started before she paused. “She said that there’s an agent who liked those samples I showed her. She thinks she can get me a publishing deal. Like a real-life book with my name on it.” My sister smiled with more light than I knew she was capable of. Blue sparkled in her pale eyes as her nose twitched. “Little kids would see the pictures I drew.”
I tried to match her joy with a smile as big as hers. “That’s so cool. Like the books will be in stores and stuff?”
She nodded rapidly. “Yeah, and they would want me to do readings. I think I can do it if it’s little kids I’m talking to instead of the adults. And if you or Riley were with me, then I for sure could do it.”
“Have you talked to Bennett about it?” She hadn’t mentioned him, and he would have told me if he planned on something with her, so I didn’t think it would be a yes.
“I’m waiting on something from him,” she said as she capped her pen. “He’s getting me the script for a comic he’s making, but he said there’s something he wants to change in it. Some girl he’s tweaking.”
I nodded casually, listening to her go on about it. So she was going to work with Bennett. I shouldn’t have been jealous, considering she could hardly even be in the same room as a man on a normal day. Bennett was nonthreatening in every single way, so he only terrified her a little. I had to stifle a laugh when I thought about what would have happened if Adalyn was the person who slammed face-first into that human wall. She would have literally had a heart attack.
Okay, so my jealousy was still there. Bennett wouldn’t touch her, and she wouldn’t even think about touching him. So why the fuck was I so petrified that he would out of nowhere fuck the hell out of my sister? It was nuts for me to worry about, yet my hands almost shook from fear. Pictures haunted my head of him grabbing her by the face like he did with me. Of him on top of her, throwing himself into her like he did with me. Holding her hips like they were the only thing keeping him alive… like he did with me. I didn’t want him touching her like that or any other girl. The thought more than angered me; it made me miserable. I wanted to be the owner of the only hips he held.
I didn’t know wanting someone could hurt like this when it felt so damn good at the same time. Every time I pictured that boy, I got all fluttery in my stomach. I felt like a bumbling dork, but I loved it. I liked when I couldn’t always form a sentence when I talked to him or when he caught me staring like a creep. None of it was bad.
After Adalyn finished talking to me, I started cleaning up the back room. Wilson wasn’t the tidiest person in the world, so there were quite a few papers and dirty towels thrown around. Men… They would live in their own filth if they didn’t get told not to. Riley was too busy dealing with customers to clean up the messes. That was what I was here for.
I checked the clock after I finished mopping the floor up. I had about two hours before I was due at the center. They had a few more people on since it was after the holidays, and everyone was getting started on their resolutions. Word was that they would start showing up less after winter was over. For now, I was needed far less, and it left me with too much free time on my hands. Time I used to daydream about Bennett and me doing things on the floor…
“We should do a movie marathon,” Wilson said casually as he stuck his head under an engine.
“Ooo,” Riley added, tapping her fingers on Wilson’s back. “Like an all-nighter?”
“If you want.”
Riley looked over her shoulder at Adalyn and I while I rung out the mop. “What do you think? Too much to stay up all night?”
Adalyn shrugged noncommittally. “I’ll probably fall asleep around midnight. Maybe one.”
I held the mop over the bucket, gagging at the smell as the dirty water dripped. “I could do it, I think. Benny’ll pass out, but then I can draw on his face.”
Riley giggled. “This’ll be fun. We can get candy and soda.”
I dipped the mop again and left it in the bucket to retrieve the cones that needed to be put out. They rested against the wall. “You get so excited over the littlest stuff.” I laughed, looking over my shoulder. “You know you can have candy and soda whenever, right?”
My back was turned from my friends as I got the cones, and I had to assume no one else paid attention to where Riley walked. I didn’t even think to tell her to be careful until I heard her slip.
“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s a lot more fun if it’s for an occas—” She screamed in surprise when she slipped in the water. I heard a thud and a snap at the same time her scream turned to one of pure agony.
My head whipped around in time to see Wilson almost fly. He shoved away from the car he worked on and ran to Riley as Adalyn and I were doing the same thing. He fell down hard to get to her level, but he didn’t acknowledge the pain that had to have caused his knees. He was entirely focused on Riley.
She sat on her butt, gasping weakly. Her legs bent awkwardly, with one under her and one sticking out in front of her. Wilson knelt in front of her and Adalyn stood behind her with me, and we were all scared to touch her.
Riley’s silence didn’t last more than a few seconds before she started muttering to herself, her eyes squeezed shut. “No, no, no. Don’t wanna go. Don’t make me go. I’ll be a good girl. Don’t make me go. I’m sorry.”
It all blended together like mush in her mouth, but I knew exactly what she was saying. I remembered days like this. Riley was a clumsy girl on a good day, and that meant something else at The Dollhouse. The Clean Room wasn’t a place to be.
“Shh,” Wilson hushed,
reaching out to take her shaking hand. She flinched when he did. “It’s okay, baby,” he said softly, not able to hide the panic at the back of his throat. “You’re safe, Riley. I’m here. Do you know where you are?”
She shook her head so hard that it had to have caused her pain. When she screamed out, my fingernails dug deep into my own knee. “PLEASE!” she yelled. “DON’T MAKE ME!”
Her body shook like she had been electrocuted as Wilson examined her leg. Adalyn and I worked to calm her down as he assessed the damage. She whimpered out pleas I’d heard from her hundreds of times, only to a different man than the loving one before her. Riley wasn’t here right now, and we couldn’t bring her home again. She had to find her own way back. Still, we tried.
“We’re at the shop,” Adalyn said, voice trembling as she wiped away tears with her wrist. She placed her hand on Riley’s shoulder. “Wilson is here, and Layla, and me. It’s okay, Riley.”
“Please,” she cried as her eyes opened. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t, I didn’t!”
Wilson cursed as he set her foot down. Riley wouldn’t stop screaming, even when he tried calming her down. She was too far gone, and I wasn’t sure when she was coming back.
“She needs a doctor,” Wilson decided. “I’m taking her, now.”
Wilson scooped Riley up as carefully as he could, but he still hurt her when her leg dangled in the air. She clung to him, begging him not to lock her up. The look on his face when he realized who she thought he was… well, it was unpleasant. Heartbreak didn’t begin to cover it.
“I’m going,” I said, standing with Adalyn.
Wilson was already walking. “Close up the shop.”
Fuck. “Adalyn,” I said as I was making my way to the door. “Please?”
She nodded, watching us as we left her there.
Wilson gently put Riley in the back of her car while I got in on the other side. She shook so hard that I thought she might start seizing, but she curled up and lay down, still mumbling. This was… not good at all. She hadn’t been hurt this badly since we broke free, but she never reacted well. Same with her cycle. When she started, it was four days of her being scared at everything. Fucking bastard was dead, but none of us would ever be right in the head.