by Nicole Thorn
Where are we going? Am I making noise? I thought that I had started crying. My shirt would be ruined. My hand hurt. Why did my hand hurt? Did it still bleed? I would probably need stitches, the fool that I was for cutting my hand, and then I wouldn’t be able to fix any of the mess that I had made.
A door open and banged shut. I blinked, and tried to look around. White walls. White furniture. Everything looked so fucking white. Why did I want white? It was an ugly, bland color. It had nothing redeemable about it. So hard to keep unmarred. Why did I do that to myself? I hated white . . .
“Here ya go,” he said, quietly, putting me on the bed. Verin kept up a constant stream of chatter, but I could still hear the strain in his voice. Like he tried to convince himself that it would be all right if he kept talking.
He stopped touching me. He would leave. He couldn’t leave. He said he’d stay here. Had he lied when he said that?
“Don’t go!” I begged, reaching for Verin. Blood dripped from my hand, landing on the comforter. Another thing ruined. I hated that comforter. White. Now white and red. “Please don’t go. You aren’t supposed to go!”
“Shh, shh,” he said, hands touching my face, pushing hair aside. Quiet words that meant nothing followed. He would leave, and then I’d be alone. He slid into the bed, pulling me against him. Something hard touched my back, something familiar, but I couldn’t figure out what until he started reading. I closed my eyes, letting the words wash over me, letting them push into my head, and chase away the crazy thoughts, the tears.
I put my cheek down on his leg. I tried to forget everything that had happened, and let the words he spoke calm me down. The familiar rhyme and canter, in an unfamiliar accent. I just laid there, and tried to believe that he wouldn’t leave.
“I’m so tired of being broken.”
CHAPTER TWENTY:
Mingle
Verin
It is very hard to be soft when you’re so full of fear and anger you can’t quell. The man was dead, but he would haunt this home for the rest of their lives. It didn’t seem fair.
I’d been quiet for far too long, and Juniper would need a response. What could I say to her? How did I comfort something so deeply embedded into her being?
By starting from the outside in.
“Luv,” I whispered, reaching for her cut palm. “Broken does not mean useless. Plenty of things that are broken are just a little better than the ones all put together.” I laid her hand on me, watching fresh blood trickle out. She would be upset to make more of a mess. I tore off fabric from the bottom of my shirt, and I started wrapping her hand. “I think being a little broken makes you more of a person, honestly. The ones who’ve never had anything real happen to them . . . well that’s how you get people like Celeste.”
That made her smile, and I felt an overwhelming sense of victory. Even when her nose wrinkled at the makeshift bandage. “You . . . ripped your shirt . . . ”
“I have more.”
“Not the point. This seems unsanitary . . . ”
I gently patted her arm, sighing. “I can wrap you up proper if you tell me where the materials are.”
Her eyes widened, and I felt her nails dig into my arm. “The bathroom.”
I waited for her to let go of me so I could get up, but she held on tight. “I have to go get them,” I reminded her. “It would be a lot easier if your fingernails were not inside of me.”
She blushed, and removed her hand.
I knew the issue, so I attempted to help it by speaking loudly the entire way to the bathroom. I made sure she could hear me reciting the book I’d just been reading to her. After what happened last time, I took it upon myself to memorize the thing, should I ever be in a bind and need it, of course. I read from the book when I sat with her, because I thought that had always been part of it for her. I didn’t want to do anything that would make her uncomfortable.
I brought back the little box of medical supplies, and I sat on the bed again. I began cleaning her wound. Juniper winced when it stung, but you couldn’t heal a wound properly without cleaning it out first. That came with pain.
I smirked at her as she watched me clean. “Have I ever told you that blood on a girl is incredibly sexy? Makes her look dangerous.”
She groaned, rolling her eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Thanks. You’re swell too.”
She shook her head, hanging it.
After I got her all cleaned up, I decided to give her no warning before I shoved my arm under her thighs, and one around her back so that I could pick her up. She made a sound of surprise when I stood up on the bed with her. And then when I jumped off and started walking to her dresser. I carefully placed her on top.
“What the hell!” she squeaked.
Casually, I said, “I have to fix up your bed, luv. You have extra bedding?”
She nodded and pointed me to her closet. I pulled out a set of bedding that looked just like the bloodied ones. I set them aside while I stripped her bed. She watched, looking concerned.
“My mum can get the blood out,” I promised her. “She’s a miracle worker.”
Juniper didn’t say anything while I fixed up her bed, and I had to think that she just didn’t know what to say to me. I killed her father, and as evil as he had been, he was still the man who put her on the planet. Would she hate me now? No, I didn’t think so. Not when she looked so afraid at the thought of me leaving. I didn’t think she even felt angry with me.
I made her bed so that it looked just the way it had when I brought her in. I folded the bloody sheets and set them in the corner so that I could take them home and ask Mum to help me clean them.
I walked back over to the dresser, and picked Juniper up by the waist. She did nothing to stop me, and let me sit on her bed with her on my lap. She sat sideways, leaning her body on me and her head on my shoulder.
“I’ll get you new cups, luv,” I promised her.
She nestled her head against me, reaching up and putting her hand on the other side of my neck. It felt absurdly lovely when her fingertips started absentmindedly brushing my skin.
We sat in silence, and I let myself enjoy the simplicity of holding her against me. I knew it then, with my hand on her hip, and hers running against my skin. I knew that this would be it for me. I hadn’t understood before what it would feel like. I had been under the impression that it would’ve been like a big light that flipped on out of nowhere. Not in love one second, and then consumed with it in the next. Something that took over every cell in your body until you felt like you would burst. That hadn’t happened for me. It came in the form of comfort that I didn’t realize existed. Peace, and sureness that felt entirely new. In an easy life, Juniper made it feel even easier to breathe. She made bliss better, and I wished I could have found the words to explain that to her.
Instead, mush just fell out of my mouth. “I’m in love with you.”
It started with her hand stilling on my neck, and then Juniper sat up on my lap, straddling me. Any other day, that would have been the entire focus of my being. But not that day.
“What?” She flipped her hair out of her face, and stared into my damn soul with massive eyes. “What the hell did you just say?”
I could’ve lied. I could’ve said that I meant I loved juice. Something about that felt oddly wrong . . . I didn’t lie, though I almost wished I would. I killed her father. She deserved to hear that I loved her over some nice dinner I made, or while we sat under stars. Instead, I chose to say it right after she broke down, and while her father’s body cooled in the home he raised her in. I supposed love wasn’t as clean and pretty as I used to think.
I took Juniper’s undamaged hand, because I didn’t want to accidentally hurt her. I held it, and avoided her eyes. My hands shook. My hands didn’t shake. I didn’t have trouble making eye contact. I didn’t get lumps in my throat, or feel my chest tingle as my body told me to just run the fuck away. Run because she wouldn’t say it back to me. I didn’t want to see disg
ust or pity in her eyes when I told her the truth.
“I . . . ” I paused, swallowing fear. My face actually felt hotter. What the hell happened to me? “I’m in love with you, Juniper,” I finally said, staring anywhere but her face. “I’m keeping you.”
She went quiet, and that cemented all the new fear in me. Had I really been wrong before? She didn’t want me? That meant that the kiss had been a whole new level of wrong, and I had been a bastard for constantly telling her that she would come around. I had no right to do that.
“Keeping me . . . ” she repeated, whispering.
I nodded, finally able to look up at her eyes. She didn’t look like she judged me, or felt disgusted or even upset. She just looked . . . doubtful. “Keeping you,” I repeated in the same quiet tone. “Forever.”
Juniper shook her head without hesitation. “You don’t want to keep me.”
Oh, but I did. I wanted to keep her forever. Not just those sixty or so human years she had left. I wouldn’t let that one fly. And I wouldn’t let that happen to Zander or Kizzy. Fuck that. Fuck losing the things you loved. I’d figure out a way to save them from that damn prophecy, and I would make them forever, like us. It would all be fine, because I would accept nothing less than that.
“I very much want to keep you,” I said, a slight smile on my lips as I cupped her cheek. “I’m going to. If you don’t love me back right now, that’s fine. I’ll just have to make you fall in love with me. I’ve got a son of Aphrodite on my side. I think the odds are in my favor.”
Juniper scurried off of me, chewing on her lip and beginning to pace her floor. Her nose twitched about, and I just watched her for another few moments. Of course, she wouldn’t know what to do with this information. Someone raised to hate themselves wouldn’t understand unconditional love. I would still be there when she figured it out. I wouldn’t go anywhere. Not ever.
I left the bed as well, just wanting to be closer to Juniper. She turned to pace in the other direction, and I put my arms around her, pulling her back to my chest. “Would you like me to leave?” I asked her. “I can give you a little time, if that would help.”
She turned so that we faced each other, and her still big eyes landed on my face. “I don’t want you to go away.”
I smiled and nodded. “Good, because I don’t want to leave.”
Juniper blinked at me, and then stared at the wall. “My dad is dead . . . ”
My eyes shut for a moment. “He is. Are you . . . I need you to tell me that you don’t hate me, Juniper.”
I waited for what could have been a hundred years for all I knew. Time stopped as I waited to hear if I ruined things for us. I couldn’t say that I regretted what I did, because the man needed to die. He needed it a long time ago, but life had not been that kind or fair. He got to live off of his children, happy and without care. My only regret was that he died as quickly as he did. I would have preferred to take days, or weeks. To make him tell me himself what he did to those children, and why. I would have let him soak in his hatred until he begged me to show him the mercy of death. And then I would have taken a picture.
But I didn’t do that. I let rage consume me, showing me an entirely foreign side to being alive. Loving something so much that you filled with fury when something hurt that thing. All this love and all this hate combined in my chest oddly. They mingled together, but stayed completely separate at the same time. Like they knew they needed both to be there. One created the other, and I needed one so that I wouldn’t turn into the kind of monster I just killed.
Juniper saved my life with four words. “I don’t hate you.”
Air entered my lungs again, and colors came back into view. She didn’t hate me, and that felt close enough to love for now. I could work on the important bits of that later. I could try and make her see just how easy it had been to stumble into love with her, and how happy I was to be there. She’d have to start believing it eventually. You could only lie to yourself for so long when the truth pounded at the door.
I took Juniper in my arms, holding her for as long as I thought I could get away with.
I walked out into the living room with her, and I passed by Zander. He gave me a questioning look, and I nodded in response. I almost would have said he appeared surprised, but didn’t feel right. He nodded back at me.
The kitchen had been cleaned up, but I knew that the cup being missing would still bother Juniper. I wanted to sit her down and make her some cocoa, or put together a bowl of ice cream for her. She wouldn’t take it, and it bothered me more than I could say. I had to comfort her in other ways.
I took her to the backyard. The rain had let up, but the grass would be muddy and wet. She would not like that, so I sat on the back porch with her on my lap. She wouldn’t talk, so I decided to tell her some stories about when I had been little. Juniper got a kick out of hearing how silly I had been, and I just wanted to see her smile again.
***
“He had it coming,” Mum said sipping her tea from beside me on the couch. Her legs crossed delicately as Cerberus made himself comfy on her lap. She pet him with one hand. “Anyone who could treat a child with anything but love should rot for eternity. You did the right thing.”
I didn’t give her any of the details of what the man did to Juniper or her siblings. I only told her that what he did had been . . . beyond a proper explanation. And I told her that I loved Juniper, because she knew already.
“How do you feel about it?” she asked me. “Taking a life. I know that must take getting used to.”
I shrugged it off, staring at my cuppa without wanting to drink it. “I don’t care that I killed someone. I care that for the better part of two decades, a man tortured his children and got away with it. And where the hell is their mother? What kind of a woman could leave three children behind? She had to know what kind of man he was.”
Mum took my hand, sighing. “Some people are not kind, luv. I just wish that Juniper would understand that the problems were entirely with her father, and none with her. She’s such a sweetheart, and she doesn’t deserve to be burdened with this kind of pain.” Mum sipped her tea and grinned. “She should be very happy by the time she gives me my grandkids.”
I laughed and patted her hand. “We’re a long way off, Mum. I have to make her fall in love with me, then eventually marry me, and then I can get her on board with having a baby so that you can play with it.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “One?”
“At first, sure.”
She chuckled. “Oh . . . well . . . She’s the one that sees the present, right?”
“Yeah.”
Mom issued another laugh that made me nervous. “You should have a little talk with her, darling. You’ve got a happy little surprise waiting for you. No matter though. We’ll all be just fine.”
All right, I didn’t like the smirk on her face, or the knowing way she spoke. I would have to figure something out why later. I really did have a long time before Juniper and I would even think of children. The whole, her-barely-able-to-stand-me thing kind of had to be worked through. But Mum had been wanting me to settle down for years.
“I should go see her,” I said to myself. It had been over twelve hours, and that wouldn’t do. She might miss me, after all. Wishful thinking? Nah, I was a delight. She knew it.
Mum handed me a sleepy Cerberus, and he collapsed his meaty body against me, snoring from three heads. One of them yawned and huffed in his sleep. I said goodbye to my mother, and then headed out the door.
My movements felt light as I made my way to the Nelson house, because in a few seconds, I would be seeing Juniper again. Everything felt better when I could see her. Surely the mad grin I wore on my face should have made that clearer. Alas, she refused to believe that something like this could happen. After watching her siblings moving on after all this time, I wanted to think she would eventually catch up. I’d be by her side for all of it. All the breakdowns, and tears, messes she could clean, and the ones she could
n’t. I would be there for the sleepless nights, and the insecurity. She’d have the support, no matter if she thought she needed it or not.
Zander opened up the door for me, and he wordlessly stepped aside. I set Cerberus on the ground, because he saw Jasmine feeding Nemo and wanted in on it. He sleepily stumbled into her open arms, and gave her lots of kisses for the Cheetos she held.
“AH!” Juniper screamed from the kitchen. I would have been alarmed, but she didn’t sound . . . well, I didn’t know how to explain it. It sounded more freaked out, and not the in-danger screaming.
“Morning!” my father said, though I couldn’t see him from where I stood. “I picked these up for Verin to give to you.” I walked into the kitchen to find my father setting little boxes on the table. Mugs, I saw. “One to replace the broken one, and a replacement for each of the others, should you need them.”
Juniper stood with a dishrag clutched to her chest, her eyes forever wide. “Thank you, sir.”
I smiled as I strode in. I stood beside Juniper, just in case she needed someone to hide behind. “Morning, Dad. How goes it?”
“Better now that my dog is safe,” he said, looking ‘round the corner. He whistled, and Jasmine squeaked just before I heard something thud against the floor. Little claws dug into the floor as Cerberus barreled through the house and to my father. He leapt up, soaring through the air to be caught by my father. Who he proceeded to lick the hell out of.
“Oh!” Dad said, moving his head around against the assault. “Right on the mouth . . . We talked about this!”
Cerberus began to howl, utterly pleased to be back with his master. He rubbed his heads on Dad’s sweater, showing as much love as he could.
Dad looked at him, holding him out as legs kicked. “Oh, look at your teeth. What did that bad man do to you?! Nubs!” Dad held Cerberus out so I could see. “Nubs, Verin!” He looked at the dog again. “It must have been so hard for you to kill that man. You poor thing.” He patted Cerberus’ side.
Juniper took a step behind me, looking over my arm at the scene. She blinked up at me, and I put my arm around her shoulder.