Shallow River

by H. D. Carlton

  I glare at Mako’s back as he sticks out a massive hand. My cheeks redden when I think about what those hands could do to me. With him, he’d use them for things that would only excite me, that’s a promise.

  “I’m Mako. I’m the nice brother,” he greets. Amelia shakes his hand as if she’s the queen of England and he’s a lowly peasant. Despite my frustration of Mako popping up once again, I smile at Amelia’s sass.

  “Uh huh,” she murmurs, unconvinced. The only thing Amelia knows is that I stayed at his house when Ryan was being a shit after Billy beat me within an inch of my life. I hadn’t told her that Mako was the one that came and picked me up after Ryan left me on the couch helpless and took care of me in ways Ryan never has, or about how he’s been keeping Bilby at his house for the past week. I’ve also never told her about all the times Mako has shown up after my classes to convince me to leave Ryan. Certainly didn’t tell her about the library incidences and how I lost all common sense and let Mako get too close. Whatever voodoo that library has on me, it’s dangerous when Mako’s around.

  But worst of all, I never told her how sinfully delicious of a man Mako is. Amelia eyes him up and down, both hands now cocked on her rounded hip like a mother scorning her child. She really is going to be an awesome mother.

  I pray I’m around to witness it.

  When Amelia’s distrustful eyes slide over to me, I feel like that scorned child. Words don’t need to come out of her mouth in order for me to know she’s hurt. I’ve been lying to her. By omission, but keeping secrets is still lying.

  I give her a sheepish smile. “You’s got some s’plainin’ to do,” she sings with a look that says you’re-so-in-trouble.

  Mako looks back at me, a sinful smirk on his face. The way he looks at me can only be described as dirty—with his salacious smirk and heated eyes. And with Amelia watching the interaction very intently, it makes me want to wipe the look off his face with a Clorox wipe and then spray him in the eyes with Lysol for good measure.

  I clear my throat and look back at Amelia with the most innocent smile I can muster. Which isn’t saying much when nothing about me has ever been innocent.

  “Mako here has enlisted himself as my personal knight in shining armor, no matter how much I’ve tried to show him I’m the dragon,” I explain. Amelia cocks an eyebrow.

  “Yeah? And how long as he been trying and failing to save you?” she asks, her tone almost condescending. Amelia knows as well as I do that I’ve never been one to accept help. Doesn’t matter if you’re a six-foot-five beast with bear paws for hands, I will drop kick you in the balls if it means you’ll stop trying to save me. Seems I always end up just wanting to fondle his, but the message has at least been said.

  “Too long,” I mutter. I’ve yelled in Mako’s face, and even slapped the damn sexy work of art, and alas, he still persists. So, it looks like I’m just going to have to drop kick him in the balls next… and then maybe fondle them.

  “River has made it perfectly clear she can take care of herself. Despite her badass abilities, what I’ve made perfectly clear is that I’m not going anywhere until I know she’s safe. And if you take a look at Exhibit A”—he points to my bruised face— “that hasn’t happened yet.”

  I open my mouth to show him the exhibit my foot is about to disappear into when Amelia cuts me off. “Okay children. Clearly this has been going on for a while.” She shoots me a dirty look. “I think it’s clear River is in a tough situation and it’s not always easy to leave right away, no matter how much we want her to.”

  My shoulders relax with Amelia’s unexpected understanding. Sometimes I forget Amelia had a rough childhood, too. She grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father. Even after she turned eighteen, she stuck around to try and take care of him until she left for college. To this day, she still struggles with her love for him.

  The biggest misconception with survivors of abuse is that they’re making a choice to stay. Anyone in our situation would leave if it was that easy. But when someone is threatening your life on a daily basis, sometimes staying seems like the safer choice. Even if you know it’ll kill you one day.

  The unpredictable abuse is still predictable, and that can be a little less scary than trying to rebuild a life on your own with the constant fear that this person is going to come after you and snatch it away. All that hard work—gone. And sometimes your life, too.

  “I’m going to leave you two to work out whatever tension you have going on here. River, I expect a phone call later,” Amelia announces, still eyeing mine and Mako’s odd interaction. How I could be thinking about another man when the current one in my life is using me for a punching bag is beyond both of us. But it’s happening. And I’m not really sure how the hell to stop it.

  Or if I want to.

  Amelia hugs me goodbye, gives Mako one last onceover and walks towards her car. I pivot towards the most frustrating man I’ve ever met.

  “What do you want now?” I whine, taking up Amelia’s position and planting my hands on my hips. It takes several swallows to shove the lump back down my throat when I remember that I could look like Amelia in a few months too. A rounded belly to look down on and haunt me.

  His eyes narrow, but nevertheless, he doesn’t sass back. Instead, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and skirts his eyes over campus.

  “I just want to help you, River. That’s all,” he says finally.

  I cock an eyebrow. “You don’t want to fuck me?”

  Emerald green eyes piston towards me, shining like freshly polished gems. The same salacious smirk glides across his beautiful face, and fuck me, if my heart doesn’t stop and speed up all in the same breath.

  “I do want to fuck you, and not only do I want to, but I will fuck you,” he says boldly. My heart drops at the promise. I hate that my pussy grows wet in response. But I love it even more. “But that’s not why I want to help you. I can’t woo you and show you what a real man is like if you’re dead.”

  Can’t help but respect someone who is as blunt as I am. I tap my foot and purse my lips, contemplating this man’s intentions. Aside from the library incidences, he’s never made any indication that he wants to steal me away for his own personal gain. There’s no denying what he’s done for me. Taking Bilby will always be something I’ll be grateful for. Keeping my cat safe means more to me than I am capable of expressing.

  “How’s my baby?” I ask, changing the subject away from me.

  “He’s still adjusting. You never said what exactly happened, but I think he’s still recovering. He’s very… cautious.”

  The fact that my loving bundle of fur is now reduced to distrust is heartbreaking. I haven’t gotten the chance to visit him yet, but the second I do, I’m going to shower him with so much love, he won’t know what to do with it.

  “He sleeps with me at night, though,” Mako continues, sensing my plummeting mood. “He’s coming around, River. He’s going to be okay.”

  I nod my head as I chew on my lip, forever worrying about him. The guilt will never go away.

  Mako glances around, my eyes following the same track.

  We’re out in the open and Ryan only graduated a few years ago before he left for law school. He was very popular and never let any of his college friends completely go. Many times, Ryan-the-big-shot would meet up with his college buddies on campus or show up to college parties. People know him. They know me. And whether they know Mako or not, they can easily tattle and tell Ryan I’m speaking to another man. A very large, very attractive male. One who keeps looking at me like I’m the icing he likes to lick off his cupcake.

  “I need to go home,” I say instead.

  “Let me take you out. Somewhere that’s not a library, as much as I do enjoy those.”

  I hate how little consideration I give my answer. “Fine.”

  I turn and walk away.

  “When?” he calls.

  Pivoting, I walk a few steps backwards and say, “You’re good at stalking me. I’m sur
e you can work out a time and date.” His smile is slow and lazy, sending all kinds of feelings straight to my core before I give him my back once more.

  THE FITZGERALD FAME AND fortune could not have affected my life at the worst possible time.

  The clerk behind the cash register eyes my purchases and then eyes me. She’s an older, shrewd woman with salt and pepper hair, extra sag with her wrinkles and a curious gleam in her eye. She’s definitely the nosy neighbor type, constantly peeking out her window to spy on people. Good thing she isn’t my neighbor. I’d just open my curtains, pull down my panties, spread my legs wide and give her a show she’d never forget. And I bet she’d never, ever look through my windows again.

  “Aren’t you dating Ryan Fitzgerald?” she asks, picking up each box and scanning it. Five of them total.

  It’s in my nature to be rude and tell the bat to mind her business. But that little voice in that back of my head—the one I haven’t kicked to the curb yet—still demands I protect Ryan’s reputation. Not for his benefit, but for mine. If I’m going to get out of this situation alive, then it’d be stupid to poke the bear before I’ve set the trap.

  “Yep,” I say with forced cheer. Hopefully she doesn’t see how fake my smile is. Looks like it was about as effective as Botox would be on her crow’s feet.

  “I sure hope so if you’ve found yourself in the situation you think you have,” she comments, tapping a few buttons on the touchscreen. “$60.87.”

  Goddamn, these are expensive. I insert my card into the slot harder than necessary. She doesn’t miss it, either. Or maybe the nerves in her sag is malfunctioning and she’s not actually giving me a smug little smile.

  My transaction finishes up as she bags my items. And now the awkward moment where she waits for the receipt to spew from the machine while I think about stabbing her in the eye with the pen clipped to her work vest. When she hands the receipt over, I give her the sugariest smile I can manage.

  “Thank you so much, ma’am.”

  We’re both rolling our eyes when I walk away.

  Seventeen

  River

  I STARE DOWN AT THE sticks, on the verge of tears.

  Not pregnant.

  Utter relief fills my body, so potent that I nearly faint. I scramble to hide the sticks in one of my sneakers.

  Ryan’s in another mood. I’m sitting in the closet, snotting and crying as he slams around the house. I’m naked and even more bruised than before. He didn’t hit me this time, just grabbed me roughly until I cried out in pain. Only then, did he squeeze harder. Guess he didn’t have to hit this time when I complied like a good little girl and let him defile my body.

  He doesn’t like that I don’t love sex with him anymore. It bothers him, cuts him deep. He wants back what we had in the beginning. When he could be as rough as he pleased, and I’d fucking beg for it. I wouldn’t flinch away every time his hand gets within an inch from my face. My face wouldn’t curl in disgust, my eyes wouldn’t glaze over as I disassociate. Every time I show my displeasure, he shows his in violent and angry ways.

  A lot has changed since the night I met his parents five months ago. It feels like that was the beginning of our downfall. Why, though? What possibly could have such a dramatic and negative effect?

  Meeting Mako.

  Ryan was rough, and he was manipulative. But he didn’t attack me until Mako came around. What is it about his brother that he hates so much?

  Is it because he’s better looking? Is it because Mako is the tall, dark and handsome type while Ryan looks like your typical frat boy? No, Ryan is too vain for that. His looks have been validated his entire life. Women have fallen at his feet, begging for his attention since girls stopped thinking boys had cooties.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Ryan is scared of Mako. But why? Anyone with goddamn sense is scared of spiders or snakes. The experts say they’re more scared of you than you are of them, right? Well those fuckers bite when they’re scared. And sometimes those bites end up being very deadly.

  I stumble to my feet, wiping the snot from my nose and wiping it on one of Ryan’s button up shirts. My side of the closet is chaotic. Ryan got pissed when I wore a V-neck shirt to class the other day so now most of my clothes are ripped to shreds, still dangling from the hangers like haggard scarecrows. I walk over and finger one of my favorite dresses. A sexy emerald green dress that hugged my body like a child would their favorite toy. It reminds me of Mako’s eyes.

  I wore this to the club many years ago, when Ryan was just a fantasy to me. Memories from that night come filtering back in. The sexy bartender. The Long Island ice teas. The lemon drops. That man….

  I hadn’t forgotten about him, at least not completely. I thought about him consistently for a long while after that. But once Ryan officially entered my life, I tucked that little memory in the far back corner of my brain, leaving it to collect cobwebs and spiders for company.

  Now, I brush away the webs and uncover one of the most thrilling moments of my life. Feeling the mystery man behind me, touching me expertly, leaving me panting and needy for more. His breath tickling my ear, sending shivers down my spine and making my knees weak. I close my eyes, swaying as I reminisce my favorite memory.

  If I lose myself enough, I can feel the phantom hands curving around my hips, his broad chest pressing into my back. My body fitting into his like a puzzle piece.

  Ryan has never danced with me like that before. Matter of fact, he’s never danced with me at all.

  There was one time Ryan accompanied me to a bar. I had dragged him out to the dance floor, laughing and squealing, buzzed from a few shots of vodka. I moved my body seductively, eyes only for him, and he responded by storming off the dance floor.

  Later, he told me I was dancing like a whore and it embarrassed him.

  A tear drips from my eye as I finger the shredded material. This was one of the first things he grabbed, scissors in his hands and eyes of a madman. He split the scissors and dragged the sharp end down the dress, over and over as I just watched silently, tears streaming down my face.

  I was too scared to scream and fight back. I didn’t want those scissors turned on me.

  “River!” Ryan shouts from outside the closet, causing me to jump several feet. Every time I hear his voice, the survivor in me wants to reach into his throat and tear out his voice box. But the poor little girl inside me wants to curl in a ball and hide myself from this cruel fucking world.

  Fuck, what’s the goddamn point in even being alive? Maybe I should kill myself. I tip my head back and smile. The thought doesn’t sound so bad. On the contrary, it sounds quite alluring, just like the siren’s voice leading sailors down to their death. I could be that sailor, willingly handing over my life. Fading into blissful silence, nothing but darkness surrounding me. Not the same kind of darkness that’s been my shadow my entire life, but just… nothingness.

  I don’t care if there’s a heaven or hell. I don’t care if I become a spirit trapped in this world. Anything is better than this life.

  The door slams open, the doorknob nearly cracking against the drywall. I don’t move.

  “Where’s Bilby?”

  I almost laugh. Did he seriously just now notice the cat missing? Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Ryan never paid much attention to him anyway. I bring my head down and meet crazed blue eyes. What would his eyes look like full of love and tenderness? Anytime I thought I was finding that in his eyes, it was only the reflection of what a sociopath thought those emotions should look like.

  “I gave him back to the shelter,” I lie. God forbid I tell Ryan the cat’s at Amelia’s and he goes looking for him there. There’s several shelters around our city. It’d be easy to say Bilby already got adopted if Ryan was crazy enough to find him. I’d expect him to do something like that just so he could bring the cat back and torture me with him.

  His eyes narrow into thin slits. “Why?”

  “Because you almost killed him,” I answer b
landly. I’m finding it hard to give him emotion, too. I’m finding it hard to feel it at all. He steps further into the closet, adopting what’s supposed to be an intimidating pose. Widening his stance, he leans towards me with curled fists and looks down his nose at me.

  “Did I give you permission to give him away?” he snarls.

  I sniff. Dead eyes meet dead eyes. “I didn’t ask.”

  The last thing I see before I close my eyes is shock registering on his face, and then instantly morphing into black rage.

  I don’t open my eyes again, even when I feel Ryan’s vice grip around my biceps shaking me. I don’t open them when he slams me against the wall, holds my head tightly against my white painted cage much like Billy did when I was bent over that dirty table, and takes me from behind.

  He’s lost all sense. He doesn’t care to pretend anymore. Ryan and River are no more. Now it’s just a lunatic and his prisoner.

  That means if Ryan is done pretending to play nice, then so am I.

  I STARE AT MY PHONE, the screen blurred from the tears in my eyes. Who do I call, who do I call? I could call Mako, but fuck, something inside me just… doesn’t want him to see me like this. I’m ashamed—so ashamed. And Amelia’s pregnant and I’ll be damned if I endanger her and her unborn baby.

  I wipe a shaky hand down my face. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Ryan’s going on a rampage. It’s been two more weeks and all he’s done is push me around and constantly rape and sodomize me. Every time I fight back, he fucks harder. I’ve already decided how I want to handle my situation, but I need to be smart.

  He’s pissed tonight.

  I burnt the casserole, so he made me grab the hot dish from the oven without mitts. Obviously, I dropped the glass casserole dish the second I touched it. The dish broke and the food went flying everywhere.

  Tiny cuts and burns cover my hands now. The floor is clean, but Ryan’s temper is still running hotter than the burnt food. I need to get the fuck out of here before he kills me. I’ve never seen him this angry. And I swear to God I’ll kill him before he kills me if he tries tonight.