He moaned into my mouth and rubbed his tongue along mine, going deeper as his fingers tightened on the back of my neck, and then I felt the edges of his fingertips softly exploring my collarbone. Nervous queasiness bloomed inside of me. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby.
But then—
His hands dropped lower.
With a quick twist of his fingers, he popped open the few buttons at the top of my shirt, exposing the delicate satin of my bra. Instinctively, I grabbed the two edges and fastened it closed as best as I could, but I still seemed to be spilling out of the center.
“Hey!” I protested, feeling embarrassed. My chest heaved, relieved to be flooded with clean air but also straining through the narrow entryway caused by the onslaught of nerves.
Staring at my chest, he swallowed hard, and I got the feeling this wasn’t entirely for my benefit. But he played it cool, bringing his gaze back to my face with a laugh, covering my hand with his.
I twisted my shoulder back, flicking him off. “What’s with unbuttoning my shirt?” I struggled hastily to fit the buttons back into their holes.
Damon took my fingers in his and moved my hands to my lap, leaving me bare and self-conscious. “Do you really think people just make out all day long?” He laughed through his nose, clearly jabbing fun at me.
Yes? I thought, but all I could manage was a blinking stare.
Damon huffed. “See, this is what I mean.” The tenderness was back in his voice, his eyes coaxing me to see the error of my reaction. “You’re too nice. Too naïve. Would I ever do anything to hurt you?” His eyebrows pulled in, and he looked offended.
I gulped. Would he? An unease that I couldn’t place sat heavy over me, but this was Damon. “No, I guess not.” I relaxed a little.
“You need to accept how beautiful you are, Eva. Whoever you wind up with is going to want to enjoy you. They’re not going to want to be with a squeamish child.” He rolled his eyes, and I shrunk a bit more, feeling stupid and inexperienced. I couldn’t stand it.
“Now, come on. Judging by that last kiss, you’re going to need lots of practice.” He knotted his fingers into the hair at the back of my head and pulled me toward him once again. The dominance in his grip was unmistakable, even though I’d never experienced anything like that before. It stopped me cold, taking away my ability to make my own choices. He lingered inches from my face, his domineering eyes conveying a message to give in to what was happening, before he covered my mouth with his, more demanding than before.
On instinct, my lips puckered and he bit them, squeezing my hair a bit harder. Then he licked my lips, gentler, coercing me to open them. I just wanted this to be over, even if it meant being labeled a prude. I was starting to feel like my skin was too tight having him this close to me. It was hard to breathe, but I forced my tongue to try and follow his movements.
Until his strokes became more desperate.
Grazing down, his fingers explored until my breast was covered by a foreign hand for the first time in my life. I broke the kiss again, and my lips parted with a gasp.
“Damon, what’re you—”
He slipped his thumb inside my mouth, its taste a bit dirty as it rested on my tongue. “Shhh . . . So beautiful,” he whispered on a moan, securing my neck once again and bringing me back to him.
This time, when the circle of his mouth covered mine, it felt different. There was no room for my breath in the tiny sliver of space, and I could feel my lips object beneath his, the terse lines of mine as my tongue stopped trying to keep up and started trying to figure out how to make him stop and still save face. Helplessness began to funnel into my core like an hourglass, the first few grains that would add up and bury me if it trickled in long enough.
His weight crept up on me, forcing my back to the mattress. “You said kiss, Damon. I didn’t say yes to this,” I spoke around his mouth, panic creeping up my throat, closing it off.
Fully blanketing me, his hardness made itself known on my thigh.
I’m gonna be sick.
“Say yes, Eva. Let me show you.” He pushed a soft kiss to my mouth, still trying to portray sincerity through his actions, but he was having trouble holding back.
That kiss was the last gentle gesture he would offer that afternoon.
“But . . .” The word was garbled under the pressure of his lips, and I knew his request was merely rhetorical. He didn’t care about my response, the vibrations coming off him told me so.
“You said you wanted this. Don’t be a tease,” he spat. “That’s worse than being labeled a slut.” The glisten of my saliva on his lips, the lips I agreed to kiss, stopped me cold.
Tease? Slut? Is that what I am? I did say yes. I said yes. And now I can’t say no.
My mind raced with what that would mean, but I didn’t have time to make sense of it. His finger slid to the edge of my bra and then tugged down, causing my breast to tumble out of the thin material. I tried to grab for it, but he was quick to push further, bearing his weight onto my chest.
I shoved up, wanting this to end, needing him to stop like I needed air. Realization that he had no intention of ceasing swept in hard and fast, taking my breath away at the same speed and I struggled to gain oxygen. “Get off of me,” I objected, trying to knock him side to side, but he grabbed both of my much smaller wrists and pinned them above my head, pushing them into the mattress.
His whole demeanor had changed. He looked starved for my skin, and the spirals in his irises, the promise beneath them that he wasn’t leaving unsatisfied freaked me into silence, tunneling me into shock.
When he lifted for a moment to shift, I found one more protest buried deep inside my body which felt as though it were drifting away from me. “Da—” But his thumb slid back into my mouth, silencing my tongue, pulling down my jaw.
His wet thumb dragged along my cheek as he hovered over the shell of my ear, his breath settling over it on a light whisper. “Shhh. She’ll hear you.”
My blood ran cold, prickling through my veins.
Fear.
I drew my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down as hard as I could, my nostrils flaring, trying to keep the hot flood of tears from my eyes. One thousand thoughts spiraled in a confusing cyclone as I tried to make sense of what was happening.
Shhh. She’ll hear you.
I cringed, feeling as though a thousand tiny insect legs were scampering over me.
Help me.
Pinching my eyes shut, I felt the pool of water sitting between my lashes as I buried the bad feeling I had. I don’t want to do this. My soul cried, spurts of air entered and exited my parted lips on anxious puffs.
But I was helpless. And too far gone. My sister’s boyfriend was on top of me. Kissing me. Touching me in places that no one had ever seen. The breasts that, until this moment I’d been so proud of, felt dirty and cheap as he squeezed and poked at them, drooling over their weight, and it was my fault it was happening. I couldn’t say a word. She’ll hear you.
Gone was the boy next door, the one I knew so well. That had helped me grow up.
Helped me grow up. I almost laughed at that irony. The person on top of me right now was totally foreign to me. Pushy and demanding. I didn’t like anything he was doing, but for some reason, I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t speak. Unable to watch, I looked up at the ceiling blinking away my emotions and gnawing my bottom lip.
I’ve already gone too far.
They would all be so mad at me. Just get through it and then it’ll be over. I would never think about it again. Never talk about it—ever.
His weight dragged down my body, my shorts and underwear gliding down my legs, taking with it an exposed shiver. An uninhibited smile adorned his sly features as he shook the buckle of his belt loose, a jingle that I would hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life. His face pinched with longing, and I wondered briefly what he was thinking, but his next words pinned me down, slamming what remained of my adolescence int
o the coiled springs beneath me.
“Hold on tight, beautiful. You’re about to become a woman.”
No. No, no, no.
How had so much changed so fast? My body was jostled beneath his efforts, and all I did was flop around like a fish out of water. His prey, ripe for the taking.
But still, I didn’t say a word.
Blackness crept in, washing away the light of the room. My body felt light and airy even though the pressure on top of it was all consuming—the sounds, the moans, the rustling and rubbing, drifting into a muffled fog. His movements seemed to be coming from some far off place, but I couldn’t focus on them completely—his tongue swiping at random points to my breasts and torso, but I was shutting down. Going outside myself somewhere.
“Beautiful,” he dragged out on a whisper, and I shuddered at the first breach of my virgin barrier.
Inside, I wept as Damon obliterated any hopes for a happily ever after. Or a Prince Charming. Each push was like an ice pick, shattering the young girl I was. Tears of anger, grief, guilt, fear, they all streamed down my face in a silent parade. And when it became too much, the final pieces of me shut down completely.
I turned my face away from his to find Mary, the stuffed lamb Abby had given me to keep me safe. To take away bad thoughts. I focused harder on her fleecy fur, turning what was left of my reality to a grayed-out darkness. I started chanting, wishing she could take me away, back to a time of innocence.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb . . .
~ And in the darkness, the dust buries the fallen.
Present Day
DAY ONE.
DAY TWO.
DAY THREE.
I ROLLED OVER.
The sadness of my disarray fell in cascading waves around me. The physical pains of being assaulted and having my insides ejected from my body were nothing compared to the pain of losing my heart. Losing my soul.
One would think that, without a heart, you’d feel less. But I’d have to rebut that argument. I now knew it to be a falsity because I felt much, much more. I was feeling . . . everything.
Live me.
The words rang in my head on a constant loop. If I thought I was broken before, I was only a piece of a shattered person now. The rest was missing. My light—gone. A sliver of my soul had been carved out and had evaporated into thin air. He was gone.
Live me. Live me. Live me.
And there it replayed again, torturing me from the inside.
The disappointment in his eyes would never leave me. The hurt. The anguish in his blue diamonds as they sparkled their last dying light.
I rolled to the other side and tucked the sheet into the crook of my neck, wincing when even the softness of the pillow grazed my tender cheek. I gritted my teeth. Served me right for thinking my life would ever be anything other than this, engulfed in suffocating loneliness. I had needed the wakeup call.
As promised, Blake had walked away without even a text. I knew it was for the best, but the hurt I felt each time I checked the screen of my cell phone was insurmountable. There was no clinical term for what I had. I had death, plain and simple. When your heart no longer beat but for the simple passage of blood through your needy veins, you were no longer alive.
Live me.
I fisted the pillow and slammed it over my head, groaning.
Live me.
Live me.
Live me.
“Go away!” I screamed into the cotton-covered feathers.
But it never left.
I wanted to open the top of my head and take a hard piece of pink rubber to it, erasing all the words Blake had ever put there. Un-remember all of the feeling, all of the love, and the raw emotion. I’d never known a real love like that existed. That shit was for the movies.
But it wasn’t.
It was a real, living, breathing, tangible thing.
An entity.
It swam through you and pulsated beyond your body. It reached out toward the one it yearned for and pulled them back inside, tucking them away into the little broken crevices of you that needed them.
It was real. It was true. And it was alive.
Live.
Me.
I did. That was why I was dying.
A light clinking sounded in the room as the door opened, and the smell of food drifted through the air. Toasted bread—jelly, maybe? Fruit?—and the unmistakable scent of freshly brewed coffee.
I felt so fragile beneath the covers as if their gentle fluffiness could snap my bones. The corner of the comforter lifted, sending new air in, replacing what my lungs had been recycling with fresh oxygen.
Jace’s face pulled in with disgust. “You stink.” He dropped a tray on my nightstand.
“Go away. I’m not in the mood.” I replaced the cover over my matted mane. This time, the comforter was ripped aside with less patience. I folded the bend of my arm over my eyes.
“Well, that’s not happening.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “The least you could’ve done was hose yourself off. Sprayed some juniper on your stank or something.”
I dropped my arm and glared at him. “Did you come here to make me feel worse?”
He crossed his arms, lifting his chin. “No. Time’s up. Today you get out of bed, you eat, and for the love of God, you shower.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I rolled to my side and shoved my hands under my cheek facing him.
He put his hand to his chest. “Why am I . . .” Without another word, Jace left the room.
I closed my eyes, content that I had succeeded in getting rid of his pesky, meddling ass. All I wanted to do was lie here and rot until I disintegrated.
Two seconds later, the swoosh of metal sliding across metal shrieked, and bright light pooled in as Jace tore open my curtains. I squeezed my eyes so tight, they ached. “Jace, what the hell!”
There was a hard tapping on my head. I grabbed for the assault weapon and only opened my eyes when I couldn’t find it. A familiar shade of green looked back at me, albeit slightly duller than I remembered and lackluster. I pushed at the mirror propped between Jace’s hands and clutched the comforter to my chest, trying to shrink smaller.
“That, my dear, is why I’m doing this. This place is going to be condemned soon.” He threw the mirror beside me on the bed.
“You’re being dramatic,” I huffed.
“Sweetheart, I am drama.” He swept his fingertips along his blond highlighted hairline. “But I’m not being dramatic this time. You smell like the zoo . . . at a circus . . . held in a dumpster. Shall we take a poll? Call in for opinions?” He straightened and looked around.
“Fine! Just shut up.” I flung the sheet off my body and swung my legs off the side of the bed, wincing as I clutched a rib that was still sore. Jace swallowed through his frown as his eyes roamed over me briefly before he caught himself. He quickly replaced the melancholy expression with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Self-conscious, I jacked up the hem of my tank and tried to smooth down my hair. My fingers rolled over what felt like hard cotton, and I realized I’d never washed out the hospital.
How many days has it been?
I looked at the ceiling, mentally trying to tick off my time spent in this room when my sights rested on a delicate rose poking out of a petite, white vase in the corner of the tray. My heart wound back and punched me in the gut. I knew Jace had meant well, but that flower brought back too many painful memories of Blake, my only love.
“Get that out of here.” My voice shook, the prickling of tears stinging my ducts.
Jace followed my eyes and then winced. “Sorry, love. I forgot.” He disappeared with the flower. He really was cute. He’d thought of everything down to the vitamins and Tylenol lying beside a glass of orange juice. My heart warmed. He was forgiven for the flower.
The bed dipped down, and Jace’s arm slid over my shoulder. He reached past me with the other arm and held a bagel with cream cheese and grape jelly i
n front of my mouth. “Bite.”
I did as he commanded, and the food landed like a lump in my empty belly, but the sweetness on my lips was divine. I opened again, and the corner of Jace’s mouth lifted in a genuine smile for the first time. His eyes lightened as he pushed a new bite into my mouth.
I ate half of it before he handed me the pills and the orange juice, ordering me to swallow. Already feeling a little better, I grabbed the mug of coffee and squeezed his leg, moving in for a kiss.
Jace’s head snapped back. “Don’t you dare. I was in diapers the last time you brushed those teeth. That mouth’s not coming near me.”
My jaw dropped open, and I quickly put a palm in front of it to blow and smell.
Jace stood and pointed toward the door. “Bathroom. Now.”
I knew when not to argue with Jace. And truth be told, I wouldn’t have had the strength in me to do so if I wanted to. On feeble legs I wobbled, not having used them a whole bunch in the last few days, my pajama bottoms hanging from my hips and dragging across the hardwood.
I flicked the switch on the wall and walked into the bathroom. The cool tile shocked my bare feet, and I rubbed my arms as a chill raced through me.
Jace took my hips and maneuvered me aside so he could make his way over to the tub, which forced a broken girl to stand in the reflection in front of me. I wasn’t ready to see her. But now that I did, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She looked so empty. So shattered. Her eyes were a slimy shade of grayish green, surrounded by red vines, encased in shallow purple shells. Right below, a yellowish patch was splayed over a cheekbone which was more pronounced than I remembered. Atop her head sat a matted nest.
After turning on the water to the shower, Jace came and stood behind me. He put his hands on my shoulders and stared with me, not saying a word—not having to speak. Although he had no trouble reading my mind, I knew this was one time he wanted to stay out of my head. I closed my eyes and turned away.
Breathe You Page 2