“Because the one thing I fixate on is usually pretty close to the root. And baby? He’s not that smart. He’s good at manipulation but the man never thought past what he was going to do to me the next weekend. You might have spent a lot of time with him but I spent a lot more…. Very intimate time with him. I know exactly how he fucking works, how he thinks.”
I put a hand over my eyes so I didn’t have to see. “I don’t want to hurt you. I never have not that way. As soon as I even get close to it I flip out. You might take it but I couldn’t do it to you. I know what it looks like, what it feels like Olivia. You know that you like to take some pain and that you got Natalie to do that to you. You didn't know she loved you like she did. You kept her at arm's length. I did the same thing to the people I dated. That doesn’t make us monsters, it makes us flawed. I’m not going to rape you and you’re not going to want me to kill you. Ben would have killed me eventually. I didn’t tell you that. You probably guessed. He would have. He told me.”
“He thanked me, Avery. He thanked me. He said it was self-sabotage on his part. He told me he thought about killing you.”
“Of course he did. You fell right into his trap.” I choked. “He’s sitting in his jail cell right now thinking about how you’re hating yourself.”
“Right. I’m such an idiot,” she cried. “I’m so dumb.” They were bitter words though. Not so sure words. Olivia had always been known to be smart. It was sarcasm.
I never called her dumb before. She didn't take it.
“If you’re dumb, I’m dumber. I’m the stupidest. It’s not about that. He’s just really good. Some people have that. The ability to make you do and think things that you could never otherwise. To touch you with their own wants and needs in a way that warps your own perception of yourself.”
“The difference between us is I have always believed that Ben’s been telling me the truth,” she said adamantly. “I don’t feel that about other people. Ben was the only one before you.”
“And I know he isn’t,” I hit the couch with my fist. “Spend some time chained to his wall and you’ll find out.”
She got quiet for a second. I watched her struggle to get up all shaky and scared to breathe.
“You’re scaring me,” she said, walking away to the room and laying down on the bed to be away from me.
“You’re scaring me too but look at me Olivia. I’m not running. I’m right here. I’m not doing things the stupid way. I want you to see it. You need to see me like this. This is what Ben makes, how he can twist you and turn you, kill you inside. Till you’re joking about bleeding out in a suburban three bedroom house at the hand of a psycho.”
“Please,” she said, seeing me and motioning for me to be quiet and be still.
She couldn’t take my words. They were too hard. Too dark.
I walked over, slipping onto the bed and up beside her, hanging my hand in the air before settling it on her, not close but not far. I didn’t want to presume. I probably really scared the shit out of her but it burned inside me that he got to her. I was so angry at myself and at him. She was vulnerable to him in that way. Similar to the way I was but a little different and now he had his claws in her head.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“You get so violent sometimes. I get scared,” she said, her eyes squeezed up tight. She was facing me but trying to calm down. “My thoughts are violent, I know,” she said. “That’s probably worse. I just couldn’t not talk to him. I had to. My mom knew it was wrong but she knew she’d do it too if she were me. Please don’t hate me. Please,” she cried quietly, her eyes all shut up, her voice different and nearly gone.
“I told you. I can’t hate you. Maybe if I scare you then we shouldn’t do anything.”
I couldn’t imagine making her feel like he made me feel. I’d never do that to her.
“What do you mean?” She asked. “You only scare me when you yell at me and slam your fists and make me feel like I’m so wrong.”
“Oh, I thought you meant when we have sex sometimes.” I wanted to beat my fist against something now but I didn’t.
“You only scared me once,” she swallowed. And even then it wasn’t you. I scared myself.
“I won’t do it again and I won’t do anything that scares you when we have sex either. I swear.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said. “I can’t promise that to you. We do things to each other. We scare each other. It’s not something we can avoid.”
“But I don’t understand what you want. You’re saying all these things like we’re not good for each other and it scares me because it makes me feel like you’re gonna break up with me or something.”
“Avery?!” She scoffed out a laugh, her eyes opening to see me. “I’m marrying you,” she said, so sure of it no matter what. “I’m in love with you. I’m not going to break up with you or leave you or do any of those things you keep thinking I want to do. That was never a question.”
“I don’t think you want to do them. It worries me that you might do it because you feel like it’s best for me and it’s not.”
“It’d be best, if I stopped doing things that pissed you off so badly you go mad and think these things. That’d be best. I just didn’t know how to tell you about Ben. And when you came home and you were touching me I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was bad for you. I wasn’t about to leave you though. I love you too much. I wouldn’t leave you unless I really fucked up. Really hurt you. That’s the only thing I couldn’t bare. I just couldn’t let you touch me when I was thinking all that. I may not be enough for you but I want to be enough.”
“You’re enough for me. You’re the exact amount. I don’t think I could take anymore or any less.” I rubbed my nose on her arm and thought for a second. “Is it sad that I’m proud of myself for not doing something crazier than hitting the floor earlier?”
I knew it was. She didn’t have to answer me but I knew she would.
“You’re terrifying,” she said, half smiling half upset. “Those words of yours cut. You can’t just talk about what he did and expect me not to think it and feel it like I was there and I was you.” Her smile went away.
“Baby, no. You don’t need to be there. I said it because I wanted you to see what he can do. How he can trick you. I’m not a dumb person but I was vulnerable mentally to his skills and so were you. He knows exactly what to say and when to say it. He’s so proud of himself right now.” I glared at the bed.
“Don’t hate me,” she said. “I just don’t think he’s getting as much satisfaction out of us as you think he is. I think he thinks he did right by us in the end.”
“You didn’t see his face when he had that razor blade in his hand.”
“Oh no, that’s not what I meant,” she said. “That satisfied him. I know that satisfied him. He told me it did. But this is different.”
She kept saying words. Kept making me feel like she was giving him something. Like he was right about anything like he actually felt sorry. I couldn’t. I was going to explode. I couldn’t sit here and listen to her say these things. He was winning. He was getting to us. I clenched my fists, my whole body rigid.
“Don’t tell me you think he’s really sorry for what he did. He’s not... He’s not. He would have plead guilty. He would have thrown himself down and owned up. If he was truly sorry. Don’t say these things. Like you’re the same as him. That makes me feel so fucked up. I’m not right, Olivia. It just makes me feel like he’s still inside me. You’re not him. You’re not him. You’re not him.” I whispered it all but hard and insistent, through my teeth.
“Avery?” She pushed, running her hands over my face nervously. “Avery?” Her voice got louder and I felt her hands on my fists. “Look at me,” she whispered. I felt her crawl over me and look down.
“You’re not him. You’re not like him,” I told her. “You wouldn’t make me want to die like that.”
“Hey,” she said, pushing my fists down with both of h
er hands. “Hey, look at me,” I felt her shake me, her hand at my face again.
“Tell me it’s not happening all over again,” I focused on her eyes. “I feel like he’s reaching me through you.” It hurt me and I knew it would hurt her.
“I’m not him,” she said, looking down at me more serious than she had in a long time. She was stirring but still, solid and touchable, as real as real could be. “I’m not him, okay?” She let out in an exhale.
I just nodded, trying to believe it and feel safe again. She was touching me. That was good. If she hadn’t touched me then I’d know. It was him.
“Baby, hear me,” she whispered, dipping down and laying her body on mine. I felt her nose brush my face and her breath as it warmed past my ear. “I’m Olivia Eaton Holbrook and I’m in love with you, remember that?” She was asking me, her body rubbing. “Smell,” she said, pulling her wet hair across my face and then pulling her head slowly away so her hair would drag and I could feel it all over me. “Remember?” She begged.
I felt her, smelled her. I wanted to taste her. “Kiss me,” I whispered.
Her hand came up to my face and she gently moved to meet my lips and taste me.
Her whole body surrounded me again. I felt her tense ontop as she spent so long teasing my tongue and then gasping inside me so I’d have to breathe her same air. “I’m your girl,” she reminded between kissing me. “I’m your girl.” I felt her kissing me, touching me, surrounding me and filling me up. “Remember?” She asked, taking me back, taking it all back. Every soft whisper repaired something inside.
I kissed her harder, longer, clinging onto the feeling of her. She was so different, so good. It made me feel the world when she kissed me and when Ben had I’d just felt cheap. “Yes,” I whispered into her, moving to flip her over.
I grabbed my shirt, pulling it off and throwing it and then pressing my body into her. “Feel me. I need you to touch me. “
Her hands slid up my sides as she pulled me in and wrapped her legs around me again.
I felt her hands slide up my back right up into my hair. She was breathing me in and trying to keep me. Every inhale longer and more intense than the last. “You’re my girl,” she kept saying. “Don’t forget,” I heard her breathing me in.
She was erasing him again. Every time she touched me, it got better. He went away from that spot. I kissed her again, taking her words inside me, her intentions healing my mind.
“Touch them,” I told her, hoping she knew that I meant the scars. I could still feel the blade, every single cut, sometimes inside the same cut he’d just made.
Her hands knew where to go, they slowly moved to places he’d hurt. She started beneath my arms and to the backs of my shoulders where he’d changed me for maybe life. “You’re beautiful,” she said, feeling me gently, taking great care. Every touch so gentle it was like a kiss, like soft soft rain. She was gentle, taking care of me. So different.
“I need you.” I kept feeling her hands, her lips. I didn’t want anything but that, her touches, everywhere.
“I’m yours,” she reminded. “You’ll always have me. I’ll always be yours...” Her hands traced down my body and searched for any space he may have been. Soft fingertips brushed my skin as she kissed me like the world depended on our loving one another.
I moved her hands to the spot he liked to use the most and I felt her fingers slip over my sex from behind, right below my butt where he would concentrate. Her fingers flowed over my skin, making me feel the scar tissue rather than cuts, reality instead of the past.
“You remember?” She asked thirstily, dazed but trying to find me.
“I feel you.” I gasped. “You’ve got me. I know.”
I wasn’t stuck there anymore. I’d been back there in my head a few times but this was the first time that it felt that real. I could feel him whispering at my ear. I felt better now. I was here, present. I let go and laid on her body, slack and uncoiled.
“You’re everything,” she said, feeling my body and keeping me hers.
“You brought me back. No one else.” I would never trust myself to go there with anyone else. She was unique to me. We shared so many things that no one would ever be able to touch.
“I’m not here without you,” she said tasting my lips and letting her hands rightly slow.
“Then you're always going to be here because I will be with you. I don't like when we're apart at all. I've decided.”
“Don’t let me leave then,” she suggested.
“I'll keep you hostage. Don't worry.” For once I couldn't smile and joke. I'd been too far gone to feel light even in a jaded way.
“Please keep me,” she begged painfully, a smile chasing her as she hugged me to her and moved me around.
With me she moved slow and took time. Care didn’t cut it. Tenderness didn’t quite explain.
I let her put me where she wanted. We needed some normalcy, time to recover. “We definitely need the rest of the week off. I can't go back right now.”
“Then we’ll take it,” she said lovingly as she pet me.
I was hers.
“But we’re already so behind,” I groaned.
My brain would rather focus on the mundane right now.
“What if I can't graduate?”
“You are going to graduate. What are you talking about?” She surprised me and laughed.
I guess graduation would be the least of her worries.
“Do you want me to talk to your teachers? I can ask them about extra credit and make-up tests. Have you done that? Email does exist, you know?”
“I should. Tomorrow. Maybe I can do some while we’re out.”
“You can most definitely do some. Just give me your schedule. I’ll inquire. It won’t take me long.”
I forgot how, with a goal, she could immediately switch gears.
“Thanks.” I curled up into her, glad to not have to worry about it. “You smell like the pool.”
“I had to do something,” she said. “I was too broken. Wanna go in?” She asked holding me. “You can still go to practice. I’ll take you and watch if you want.”
“I don't know. People will want to ask questions. I do but I don't, you know?”
“Yeah,” she said registering my words.
“I like when you watch me though.”
Anyone else and it would have been creepy. Maybe going to practice would be a good trial for getting back on track.
“I love watching you,” she said, not at all perturbed by her own honesty.
“Then we should go. At least I can let people know I'm back and maybe we’ll miss most of the rumors before we go back to class,” I said hopefully.
“Well, okay then. You move first,” she challenged.
“That’s just evil.” I didn’t want to get up. “You’re being all yummy and comfortable.”
I knew if I didn’t get up though I would want to do something, touch her and right now that might not be the best idea. She was too sensitive about it right now and I needed to work off the energy I’d come in with. Our fight had only made it worse.
“But if you insist.” I scooted to the side of the bed and lifted my feet to the floor. She stayed in contact with me all the way. “I guess I’ll change.”
“Fine,” she teased, rolling over and spreading out to feel the bed.
“You can’t look all hot like that and expect me to actually go through with getting up,” I countered.
“I’m not expecting you to do anything,” she said.
“Ah, good point.” I leaned back against her body and found solace in the closeness, but I knew I should get up. She let me, following me with her eyes as I took off my shirt and jeans, slowly.
“Okay, okay,” she said finally after I gave her an amused sort of look.
She got up and walked past me going to the closet to find something to wear. I could tell she was still a little shaky from before but she seemed to be in a good mood now at least.
We dress
ed and she threw a few things in a purse to take: a book, something that looked like a book but was probably electronic, a few things she pulled out of another purse (some chapstick, a pack of almonds, a long wallet), and a Kleenex pack. I watched her pick her sunglasses and fix her hair.
So quiet. So rare.
I slipped into my suit, pulling a hoodie and sweats on over. I liked this. Us getting ready together. Another nice instance of domestic bliss.
Paper Dolls [Book Three] Page 27