Roar

by Cage, Aria

  I lift my clothes from the building pool allowing the small pieces of Paul to sink away down the drain. It should feel wrong to be glad it’s gone, that he’s gone, but I don’t and can’t. I wanted him dead—no, I wanted him to suffer first for what he did. Being shot was a mercy he didn’t deserve. He was luckier than I. I know for all my sins I should suffer more, I do every day as I watch my loved ones suffer from my own sins and the sins of other monsters. I’m not unalike them in many ways; I selfishly keep Charlie even though the right thing would be to set her free of me. I too should sink down the drain like Paul, never to hurt another again, because only then, will I be able to stop wanting Charlie in every way.

  I won’t be able to merely set her free, I tried that. My desire and need for her, physically and emotionally, is way too strong for me. I’m weak when it comes to her and always have been. Maybe that’s why I’m so helpless to protect her, because I’m hopelessly in love with her.

  There’s a knock at the door and I jump like a scared idiot. “Yeah.”

  “It’s Sheriff Noel.”

  “I’m coming.” I won’t be wearing these clothes again, not even my shoes, so I need to get rid of them. I pull on the shower curtain and it rips from its small, plastic rings; some of them ping around the bathroom. I wrap my clothes in the silky fabric, wrap a towel around my waist and rummage through the basic first aid kit for gauze and tape. I rip the gauze from its protective plastic, slap it over my shoulder and begin to rip pieces of tape off the roll with my teeth, attaching the gauze to my skin. It’s a bodgie job, but it will do for now.

  Snatching up my bundle of hatred and violence, I head straight for my room and dress quickly, throwing a pair of jeans and a tee on. I leave the wet bundle in the corner, planning to get rid of it later. Barefoot, I pad down the stairs to where I hear the voices at the table in the kitchen. I kiss Nona on the head as I head past her, pat Davey on the shoulder, before Charlie rises from her seat and launches into my arm. It surges the pain in my shoulder, but fuck it. I would take a hundred times the pain to have her in my arms, and more for her to want to be there.

  “It’s okay, we’re all okay and that’s what matters.” Well, not all of us are okay; some are dead and gone from torturing our lives. I can’t say I regret that; it actually empowers me to know Gregory Barns is all but dust in the ground and Paul will soon be worm food.

  She kisses my neck and if we were alone I would drag her to bed. Fucking dirty, yeah, I know. But I need her, I need all of her. Instead of being thankful I’m surrounded by my loved ones, I wish they would just leave us alone so I could drive my cock deep inside her and fill her, take away all the bad memories, so she only has room for me, for us.

  Alternatively and with deep hunger, I pull her from my hold and kiss her warmly because everyone is waiting for us, watching, and in Noel’s case, judging.

  Charlie gazes into my eyes, I can see the turmoil within their brown depths and I wish I could take all of that away, but I don’t even know where to start. We need to sort this out first. Then we can begin to rebuild our lives, and I will begin by taking her as mine.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sobs. I wipe her tears from her face, shaking my head. This isn’t her fault; she can’t blame herself for the actions of Paul. “I didn’t plan for this to happen. I don’t even know what happened. I…”

  “You defended yourself, I saw the scalpel.” Noel fills in for her. “He didn’t die from your hands, and that’s what the law sees.”

  There’s something going on that I don’t know, something they’re keeping from me. I don’t like it. She’s looking at Noel like they share something, like she is silently thanking him. I want to ask what the fuck is going on, but I dare not, because he’s giving her a legal pass. Charlie won’t see any time for this, she won’t have a record, she’s free from Paul and his violence without paying the price with her life. How can I argue with that, even though I feel like they are leaving me out and keeping secrets? How can I be so selfish to not let it all go? It feels utterly wrong for her to have a secret with anyone other than me, and I hate it more than I should.

  I fucking hate it, but it’s never about me. “So she won’t face a judge?”

  “No. With my testimony and the circumstances, Charlie’s, Nona’s, and your statement should be enough. I will expect you all to come into the station to make your statements by the morning so I can put this all to bed. In the meantime, I found this when I was investigating a separate investigation at Mister Parker’s. I figured you might want this instead of it going to the station. It’s not a part of my investigation, so…”

  He slides an old, weathered book toward her. It looks like a few books bound together with scraps hanging out the edges. Charlie snatches it from the table and cradles it like it’s delicate, like she was protecting it. This is what she was screaming for when Paul threw her stuff to the curb. This book holds something important, important enough she kept it secret, and suddenly, I know exactly what it is.

  I wasn’t aware she kept a diary; I thought she told me all her secrets. Then again, she had to keep them somewhere when I was locked up. She tried to, but I pushed her away wanting her to move on. Her letters came for a while anyway, and I knew when they stopped I had made the right decision. Well at the time I thought I had. Now … I look at her diary in her arms, seeing how much she wanted it back from Paul, and I realize it was all a lie. She lied for my peace of mind. I hate that more.

  Noel isn’t just giving her a pass or her diary back; Noel is giving what I have wanted for her since I met her—peace and freedom.

  I shouldn’t hate that.

  SHERIFF NOEL HAS LONG left. He knows more about me than I like, than he likes. I took a lot from him today; his hero, his righteousness, his belief in the black and white of the law. He gave us a gift as his apology, and I took it like a hungry, wild animal on a scrap of meat. He gave us finality, freedom, and justice, and I will forever be indebted. I hate to be indebted to anyone again, but I had no other choice. Paul and Daddy, they all took that from us.

  Now we sit in heavy silence at the table, stirring our bowls of Nona’s chili. We told her she shouldn’t make anything, we weren’t hungry; she too has been through an ordeal and should rest. But this is her way of coping, I guess. We all cope in our own way. Davey shuts down; he doesn’t sit with us. He’s in front of the TV with cartoons and a box of his favorite cereal. I want to pretend we just had a bad day and move on. I want us all to go back to normal, and I want more than anything for Nate to look at me like he used to. For just the smallest moment he had. He gazed at me like he wanted to savor every part of me, and it made my lower belly tingle. Now, it’s a shadow behind a stranger’s eye as I catch him gazing at me like he’s searching for someone or something, longing for what isn’t there, and then he looks back at his untouched chili. He chose to sit across the table instead of beside me and passes off my advances of conversation. I guess his way of coping is not unlike Davey’s; shutting us all out must be in their DNA.

  “Are you going into work tomorrow, son?” Nona asks, trying to break the thick tension.

  Nate looks at her and then me before returning back to his chili, as though, it holds all the answers to him freeing himself from all the drama that I bring. “After I make my statement I will, but only for a little while.”

  Okay, so he hasn’t shut down to everyone; just me. I brought more danger and regret to him and his family, and to top it off, I’m keeping things from him. I wish he understood I couldn’t bring him in on my plan for his own good. I’m lucky Sheriff Noel understood what drove me to it. I will never forgive him for his part in taking years away from Nate and sending him to prison, but I’ll never forgive myself, either. Sheriff Noel discerned I distracted him with a few truths while I lured Paul in as soon as he received my call for help. I was aware he figured out I had planned it as soon as he said the words, “Charlie, what are you doing?’”

  I guess, though, it was lucky Paul didn’t
bring the diary, that the sheriff had found it and read as much as he had about what Paul done to me. I’m still unsure as to why he started an investigation into Paul, but I realize I opened his mind to many ugly pieces of my puzzle today, and Sheriff Noel is no idiot.

  It all would have worked out cleaner if I could have held myself together. Losing my shit wasn’t part of my plan.

  I didn’t account for Paul thrusting the page of my rape in my face, and how that would affect me. He mocked me, hurled my grief, and blame at me, slamming me back to the past where I had no control. He played me right into the darkness, until I lost sight of one monster and replaced him with another. If I couldn’t kill one, I was going to finally rid our lives of the other.

  My mind broke, my soul wept, because after everything he did to me and to Nate, taking our innocence and our light, I had chickened out. I had wanted to kill my daddy; I have wanted to kill him even though I loved him for most of my life, even though it was wrong to, even though he took so much. Nona took on that sin for me when I was cowering in the corner of my room, and this time Sheriff Noel killed for me—there is so much blood on my hands despite their physical cleanliness.

  I planned to do it myself, to rid our lives of this wolf in sheep’s clothing before he hunted another unsuspecting, broken weakling. I wanted it to look like self-defense. Well, it would have been, because just like I thought, Paul lost his temper. It didn’t matter that he taunted me, reading every raw word from the page he ripped from my very head. But instead of shooting him in the chest, I shot him in the leg and froze. He was supposed to bring my diary, but he was too smart for that, and too calculating. Instead, teasing me and threatening was more his game. I might have shot him in the chest had he not lunged when I got distracted and lost in my recurring nightmare; I shot him before he could lay one finger on me again.

  I was so lost and so raw, fighting away my ghosts; I didn’t even notice when Nona and Nate arrived. I couldn’t drag them into my mess, my secret nightmare, or my plan; I had done that before, and it pretty much destroyed them. They were just getting their lives back, and I couldn’t ruin that. I couldn’t look into their shattered spirits again and know that I was the one who held the hammer.

  But, as always, I failed at keeping the toxic ramifications from infecting them. I thought I could handle it myself. I thought my secrets could stay with me, that I would be saving them from the hurt. I don’t want to keep marring them with my demons. They are mine and mine alone. Once again they are going to lie to the police for me, only this time, I brought it upon them and myself with my broken humanity, which could only heal at the sight of blood. No one else is to blame here; not Daddy, not Paul, just me.

  Either I walk away for good this time or tell them everything. Show them everything and open my dark thoughts for them to judge and persecute.

  I know I can’t do option one; I should, for them I should. I just can’t. So alternatively I get up from the table with all eyes on me, feeling them bore into me in fear.

  They don’t trust me, and I don’t blame them; I don’t trust me, either. I’m a broken being. What they don’t realize is, I have been that way since they met me. I go to the grocery bag that holds my destroyed clothes from today, and my diary of the ugly truth and empty dreams. My fingers grip the hard, worn cover like my life depends on it. Well, it does; everything I hold dear depends on me letting these bound pages go, figuratively and literally.

  With a huge breath, I find the courage in my trust and love for Nate and Nona. I take my secrets to the table and I drop them all in one hit. The motion makes Nona jump in her seat, and me flinch against my galloping heart. I look at them both when they stop staring at the pages of my secrets and look at me, their eyes mimicking the trepidation they try so hard to hide.

  “Read it. I want you to know. I can’t keep it from you if I want us to have a future. Nona, you can read it if you want; I don’t want to hide from the ones I love, and the only way for me to move on is to stop holding onto the past. I don’t want to hide anymore; I don’t want to keep secrets from you. I planned to kill Paul today. I know you have thought it, and it’s true. I invited him over and planned to shoot him. None of it worked out the way I thought, other than he came out dead. I’m not the girl you used to know. I’m not innocent; I’m just a woman who didn’t feel like I had another way out. I didn’t want the people I love most involved, or to suffer anymore.”

  My eyes have blurred with unshed tears as I take a shaky breath. “I think I need some cartoons, too,” I confess, and walk from the room to leave them to read my thoughts, my nightmares, my unanswered prayers, and skeletons; everything I have hidden from the world or tried to put behind me. They’re going to see my soul and then make the decision on whether I’m worth it.

  I wipe the useless tears from my cheeks and eyes with the sleeve of Nate’s check shirt and plonk down beside Davey, exhausted. He doesn’t acknowledge me; he’s watching Bugs Bunny, and as much as I try, I can’t lose myself in it like Davey. Nona surprises me, kissing me on the head from behind the sofa. She couldn’t have read it. I’ve only been in here minutes; there are years of my life in those pages, years of sin, tears, and even my own blood.

  “I don’t need to read it, child, and I understand what you did is something you felt you needed to. I understand that more than most. I hope you won’t feel that lonely again, because we are here for you. We are your family, no matter what.” She kisses me again and wipes a tear from my cheek. “No more tears now. That boy in there loves you. It doesn’t matter what you wrote in those there pages, Nathan has always, and will always will love you. Now I’m going to put David to bed for the night. He needs some sleep, as do I. These old bones need rest.”

  “Okay.” I hate that I have driven them to take refuge in their rooms while Nate and I work this out. Nona would hate me to feel like that, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. They love me, and I love them so much, I would do anything for them. They are the only family I have and ever really have known or trusted. I owed them everything. If I was strong enough, I would go back home. But I’m not that strong. I don’t think I could face the blood and ghosts under that roof tonight; that will be tomorrow’s dirty job.

  “Don’t be too hard on him; he will come round.”

  “I love him; I’ll wait and fight for him,” I promise her and myself. It’s a binding oath that’s been present since I knew what I felt was love. I feel the binding notched around my heart like a noose linked to Nate. If he retreats, it will pull on that noose and kill me. There are no ifs or buts about it; it is a brutal fact. Nate is the only thing that has kept my heart pumping for most of my life. Without him, it will turn to ash.

  “Good girl.” She pats my shoulder and grants me a tired smile. “Come along, David. Let’s go to bed.”

  Davey places the cereal on the coffee table and claps his hands, “Read Jack?”

  “Yes, son, I’ll read Jack to you.” Nona ushers him along and up the stairs to read him The House that Jack Built. It’s a story all of us have read countless times to help Davey settle before bed. I watch them disappear upstairs, leaving me on the sofa with Bugs Bunny to keep me company until Nate has finished reading and deciding on my future—our future. I grab that box of cereal and rummage through the packaging to get a few sweet loops, popping them in my mouth.

  I eat almost a quarter of the box without tasting a single one. I’ve gone through countless tissues before I feel Nate enter the room and sit beside me with the looming decision maker in his lap. It is like a bomb device waiting, ticking, taunting me with its countdown.

  He sits in silence, his heavy breathing thickening the air. The damn bunny annoys me in the background. I snatch the remote and shut the box off. I wish he would say something.

  “Did you read it all?” I ask, afraid, my voice shaking.

  He turns to me; there are shadows under his eyes, and I can see he’s been crying. I can’t hold back my own sob even though I clasp my mouth
. What if he doesn’t want me to touch him? What if he is now repulsed by me? He now knows what Daddy did to me that morning that flares me in nightmares every night. He now knows about the foster parents who were just like him, and he now knows how bad it was with Paul. He knows everything that I tried to hide from the world and my mind. I go to stroke his cheek and hesitate, but he grabs my hand with both of his and kisses mine before bringing it to his cheek and breaks down in my arms. My tears are nothing in comparison to his, it’s as though he is feeling it all at once, every bit of my pain, betrayal and more.

  “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” He keeps chanting into my neck, his voice as broken as his heart. I knew it would hurt to read it, but never did I think he would be this wrecked.

  “It’s not your fault,” I keep repeating. “It’s not your fault.”

  I don’t know how long we remain like this, but when he begins to kiss my cheek, I feel the deepest need in my belly and chest. Tear-stained, I search for his mouth, tasting his salty tears across his stubbled jaw until I find his warm, welcoming mouth. His tongue is strong and needy; I want it all over my body, like his hands. I want him inside me more than ever. I need him.

  My diary falls to the ground when he pins me back against the cushions of the sofa. My shirt is hiked up and within seconds it’s gone, as is his. Our skin is touching just like I need it to be. I never felt a need like this before; I never thought I could want someone so bad as though my life depended upon it.

  Grasping at his trunks, I pull at them and take his firm length in my hand, drawing him to me, enticing him to take me here and now on the sofa that bears so much history. He can’t deny me, and I’m glad. He pulls at the leg of my shorts and his fingers find me, sliding between my fold with ease, making me groan. I’m loud enough he places his other hand over my mouth to hush me from announcing to Nona what disrespecting deviants we are.