In the Garden of Discontent

by Lily White

  The kids fell asleep pretty quickly after I put them to bed, and I crawled up from Lena’s bed, making sure to tuck her teddy next to her where I had just been. Crawling out my window, I was careful to shut it quietly before taking my usual route through the two yards before I looked up and noticed Noah’s light wasn’t on.

  Glancing out at the horizon, red sunlight was still a smear against the darkening sky. The kids had conked out early, but not so much that he wasn’t in his room yet waiting for me.

  Confused, I considered that maybe he really was mad, that I’d pushed him too far this time. I stared out at his window while stuck in place, not knowing what to do.

  I saw someone move, saw a shadow cross through a flicker of light coming into his room from the hallway door. I waited for him to flick on the lamp, to tell me it was okay to come over. But he didn’t.

  But there was still someone moving around. You couldn’t miss him. Noah was a big guy, he filled up the space around him, and that light from the hall kept flickering like he was standing in front of it.

  My feet crept forward before I realized what I was doing. Just kept going until I was standing in front of his window staring in.

  My jaw dropped open initially, my confusion so thick I couldn’t comprehend what I was looking at.

  Noah was standing in front of the bed, his pants unbuckled and his dick hard. I turned to look at the girl on the bed, my eyes rounding to see it was Josie Buckland, the bitch who picked on me about my clothes in elementary school. She was naked with her hand between her legs, staring up at Noah like he was a piece of meat.

  When he grabbed her hips and lifted her up to wrap her legs around his waist, I was torn from my momentary shock. Taking a step forward, I watched as Noah screwed her, his body moving with such force that Josie was bouncing over the bed. Sweat dripped down his beautiful body, his muscles rolling and flexing beneath his skin.

  My hands fisted, my breath held in my lungs, that ugliness inside me rearing up until I couldn’t think straight. When Noah lay down on top of her, I took another step. And another. My head shook with my refusal to believe what I was seeing.

  But I was seeing it. Plain as day, right there in front of me like I didn’t matter to him anymore.

  My heartache turned dark, a rattling inside me forcing anger through every vein, every bone and every organ. I was red hot, my teeth slamming down and shoulders rolling back.

  Fuck that bitch and her fucked up belief that she had any right to touch him. She didn’t love him. Not like me. She wasn’t the one he planted flowers for. She was only using him.

  I may have been the type to let people use me, but I would kill anybody who dared to use Noah.

  I tried to open the window, but it was locked. But, I wouldn’t let it stop me. Not with how angry I was. Not with all the nightmares pouring out of me. Not with violence inside me so damn strong I was looking forward to releasing it.

  Marching around his house, I climbed the stairs to the porch and entered through the front door. I glanced at the couch and saw her shirt and bra lying on the ground in front of it, saw where she’d dumped her purse in a recliner when she came in. My eyes shot to the photo on the wall Noah’s mom had hung of us when we were twelve and my anger only strengthened.

  My body was shaking as I walked down the hall, rage simmering just beneath my skin. When I walked in his room and stood just inside the door, a pair of brown eyes looked at me from over his shoulder, her hand clenching the sheets as she smirked.

  But then she opened her mouth to dig her claws in deeper.

  “Yes, Noah, yes. Fuck me harder.”

  My eyes narrowed. Oh, hell no.

  I reached out for the first thing I could find, my fingers wrapping over the heavy lamp Noah had always used for me to run to him. I wasn’t running now. I was fucking pissed.

  Ripping the cord from the wall, I took a few more steps into the room and hurled the lamp at the bitch’s head. She screamed when it grazed Noah’s shoulder but then slammed against his headboard, the wood splintering as the lamp bounced down to smack her in the face.

  “The fuck?”

  Noah rolled off her and jumped to his feet, his eyes narrowed on me as I glared down at her with every intention to kill the bitch.

  “Ensley?”

  He was rounding the bed to get to me, but I’d already lunged forward. I was on her before he could grab me, my first punch cracking her nose so that blood burst over her face. She screamed, and I screamed back while punching her again. I was able to bitch slap her one last time before Noah wrapped an arm around my torso, trapping my arms in place and pulled me away.

  “The fuck, Ensley! Stop! What are you doing?”

  Killing her. That’s what I was doing.

  Who did that spoiled bitch think she was, taking the only thing I had? She always had nice clothes. She had parents that loved her and bought her a car. She had a beautiful life where she didn’t have to whore herself out to pay the rent and take care of her brother and sisters all the time. She didn’t get beaten and used and yelled at so much that she just wanted to die.

  She had everything. So, she couldn’t have the one thing that was mine. She couldn’t have Noah.

  My legs were kicking, and I tried to break Noah’s hold, but he kept me suspended in the air, my back to his chest. And the poor little spoiled bitch cried because I’d ruined her chance at getting dick.

  Boo-fucking-hoo.

  Like she gave a damn about the man who was giving it to her. Like she knew anything about him.

  “That bitch broke my nose,” she cried.

  I laughed. “Have your parents buy you a new one. They can afford it.” I tried to break away so I could punch her again.

  Noah held on to me, his arm like a steel band locking me against him. His voice roared when he said, “Josie, get the fuck out and let me deal with her.”

  Her eyes rounded into saucers, but she was smart enough to listen. Quickly jumping from the bed, she gathered her clothes and ran from the room. Noah didn’t let me go until we heard the front door close and her car back out of the driveway.

  Then he threw me on the bed, his body tense as stone and his eyes pinning me in place.

  “What the fuck was that?” he bellowed.

  My eyes swept down his body. He wasn’t hard anymore, but he was vibrating, every muscle beneath his skin shaking like mine. Noah was seriously pissed at me, but that was fine because I was pissed at him.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” I screamed back, my hand finding the lamp so I could throw it at him. He dodged and it thumped against his wall, the bulb shattering. I looked down his body again.

  “You might want to toss the condom, Noah. It looks like you’re all done here.”

  His nostrils flared, and he peeled the condom off his dick to toss to the floor. Sweat dripped down his chest and arms, his shoulders so broad he looked like a warrior.

  Only then did I stop to think that maybe this was a bad idea. But it was too late. He was already lunging for me on the bed, and I couldn’t move away fast enough.

  I flipped to my stomach before he came down on my legs. Kicking at him, I tried to crawl away, but he grabbed me by the back of the pants and tugged me down to him.

  “Let me go,” I screamed.

  “No. You’re going to tell me why you came in here and attacked her.”

  Pinning me down, he sat on my legs to keep me from kicking him again, his strong hands holding my arms in place against my body. I was trapped on my stomach, thrashing around to get free, but quickly discovering it was useless.

  “She was using you. Can’t you see that?”

  He laughed like the entire thing was one big joke.

  “Maybe I was using her, Ens. Did you stop to think of that?”

  No. Not Noah. He had a heart that filled up his entire chest. He was one of the good guys, a man so rare that most people didn’t believe someone like him could exist. He wouldn’t use a woman because he wasn’t like the a
ssholes that were constantly using me. I refused to believe him.

  “You’re not like that.”

  “Maybe I am,” he roared. “Maybe I have to be so you’ll actually want me for once. Like all those other guys.”

  I froze in place, my anger turning cold.

  “Don’t you dare say that. You’re nothing like them.”

  “Why not? Isn’t that the way it works? Isn’t that the way you like it?” He turned cold with me, our energy always finding a way to match, like we were one person and not two.

  Noah’s hands slipped beneath my waist, fingers fumbling with the buttons of my shorts while I struggled to free myself. “Stop.”

  “Why?”

  The button was loose and he slid down my legs to jerk my shorts off my hips, his fingers sliding under the sides of my panties next.

  “Isn’t this the way you like it? Isn’t this what you told me I should do? Just today, in the woods by the school. Didn’t you say I should take notes on how to make you come?”

  He moved to rip my shorts and panties down my legs and off my feet, one hand gripping over both of my ankles immediately after to keep me from kicking. I flipped over now that my arms were free and was pushing up to reach for him when he slammed a hand against my chest and crawled up to straddle me.

  Noah didn’t look like himself, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him this angry.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure he heard me. I wasn’t sure he heard anything, his anger too controlling, his rage making him blind to what he was doing.

  Grabbing my shirt, he ripped it up my body, my arms flying up. I tried to hold on when the material passed over my hands, but he was too strong. Underneath I was wearing a cheap sports bra and he shoved that up to expose my breasts, his eyes running down my body.

  I slapped him. Hard. So hard that his head whipped to the side. Noah smiled as he turned back to look at me. There was nothing friendly about that smile.

  “You’re going to fight back for once?”

  My eyes narrowed, and I nodded once. Then I slapped him again. His head whipped to the side, the skin of his jaw and cheek turning red. But then his hands were on me, one on my throat and the other running up my body to grab my breast. He squeezed, and I cried out.

  When his eyes returned to me, I saw nothing behind them but pain. His fingers tightened on my throat, but then he let go to fist his hand.

  I screamed when he threw the first punch. Not at me, but at the headboard above my head, at the crack in the wood I’d made with the lamp, his fist knocking one square wooden panel out before he punched again to knock out another.

  Angling my neck so that my head rolled back, I saw nothing but the hollow frame, one thin slat of wood left that ran down the center.

  “What have you done?” I asked, knowing his mom would be angry about the damage.

  He leaned over me and broke my heart as easily as he’d broken the furniture. “I wanted to do that a week ago when you were fucking a guy in your shed.”

  What?

  I didn’t have time to ask what he knew, didn’t have time to say much of anything before he moved to flip me over to my belly, his weight coming down to sit on the backs of my legs. He grabbed my wrists and moved my hands up to the slat to force my fingers to grip around it.

  His mouth was near my ear, breath hot. “I don’t have chains to hold you in place, so you’ll have to hold onto that instead.”

  Oh my God. My thoughts raced back to the night a noise had stopped us, the slam against the shed we’d assumed was something falling or the table moving weird.

  It was Noah, I realized. He’d somehow seen us and he knew.

  “Noah-“

  His hand gripped around my mouth. “No. You’re not the one supposed to be saying names, remember? That’s my job.”

  His weight lifted off my legs, and he shoved them apart, his knees coming down between them as he lifted my hips and positioned himself behind me. I tried to let go of the wooden slat, but he released my mouth to run his hands up my arms and force my fingers back around it.

  “What was it you told me to call you? Oh, that’s right. You wanted to be called slut.”

  His dick thrust inside me and tears burst from my eyes, not because of what he was doing but because of what he’d said.

  There was only anger in his voice, only pain. He’d somehow taken my anger and shame inside himself and was working it out, untangling the knots, stripping it from me.

  Another thrust and he called me a whore. Another and he called me a toy. All the names I’d said he should call me if we ever fucked again.

  And my body responded to him, like it had never responded before. I was hot and wet, swollen and throbbing, my fingers gripping that slat so hard despite the splinters pushing into the skin.

  The mattress springs squeaked with the movement of our bodies, the back of the headboard slamming the wall, and he kept talking to me and doing everything I’d once told him to do while I was straddling him.

  Noah was slicing me open, revealing all the ugly parts while demanding I fight against him. At first I refused, but then he leaned down and spoke again, his words pulling the rage right out of me.

  “What’s wrong, Ens? You couldn’t stand seeing me with my dick in another woman? You hated it so much you had to race in here and knock her away so you could ride it yourself?”

  His hips thrust forward and my mouth opened on a moan, the beast inside me rattling and rolling, solidifying into a monster I couldn’t contain.

  “How does it feel to know that my dick was in someone else before I shoved it in you? Do you like it better that way? How many were already inside you today? Three? Four? Did they ride you good? Use you like a pretty fucking doll?”

  That’s when the rage burst out of me. The need to fight. The need to bite and scratch, scream and kick. Throw punches and yell right back.

  I pulled up on the slat, cracking it forward in the process and was able to get away from him only because he was caught by surprise. Rolling to my back, I kicked out and slammed my foot against his chest, but all he did was grab my ankle to tug me down beneath him.

  This was war. It was fucking, but also war, both of us finally releasing the love and hatred we felt for each other.

  “Fuck you!” I screamed.

  “You are!” And he was inside me again, riding me so hard that I thought the bed would break beneath us. And while he used my body, I slapped him again, yanked his hair, fought against him like I should have been doing every time I let someone else touch me.

  And it felt good in so many ways, not just in getting the violence out that had been choking me for so long, but to feel his body against me, inside me, all around me because he was the only touch I wanted.

  His eyes held mine, jaw tight and sweat slipped down his beautiful body to land on mine.

  “That’s right, Ens. Make it hurt. Just like you always have. Make it hurt so fucking much that I carry more scars because of you.”

  He lowered his body over mine, our skin slick, my breasts flattened against his chest, and my fingers gripped into his hair, my teeth locked over his shoulder, blood drawn when I bit down and my body was taken over.

  I think it was the first time I had a true orgasm, every muscle locked, my breath held and eyes rolling back as I shook from the violence of it.

  And, God, it felt good. So fucking good because I could still feel him inside me, filling me with every smooth stroke, my muscles locking on him to hold him in, letting go when he pulled out to push back deeper.

  I felt him and everything he did for me.

  Blood rushed in my head like rolling thunder, but I could still hearing him whispering that he loved me, still hear the apology in his voice while he pushed me through that orgasm.

  And when my body relaxed, the tears burst from my eyes, every one I hadn’t cried while locked in that shed, every one I wanted to cry when led off school campus. Every single one of them wracking my shoulders unt
il Noah came too and wrapped his arms around me.

  He was holding me while I broke apart beneath him, holding me until I couldn’t cry anymore.

  Kissing me on my cheeks, my eyes and my forehead, he palmed my face and stared down at me, his eyes rimmed red like mine.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head, refusing his apology, refusing to be mad at him when he had every right to be mad at me.

  “I want to die sometimes,” I confessed. “Just end it all. Go into those woods and never come back so that nobody has to find my body. I want to die, Noah.”

  My body shook with my sobs, my throat closing over them so that I couldn’t get it out. Noah pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes pinning me as sorrow bled in to replace the anger that had been there before.

  Slowly, so slowly, he closed his eyes and opened them again, his voice a bare whisper when he answered.

  “Don’t you dare. You’re not allowed to leave me, Ens. If you go, I go. You hear that? I can’t exist in the world if you’re not in it with me.”

  My eyes closed at those words, but he just held my face tighter.

  “I mean it, Ens. If you die, I die. Never think I won’t follow you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ENSLEY

  Present

  A smile stretched my lips, my forehead pressed against the cool glass of the car window, the rocking and swaying lulling me into a state of peace and satisfaction I never thought I’d experience.

  For so many years, I’d dreamed of driving the open road, of seeing all the states and sights, of whizzing past mountains and flying through flatlands with the slow wave of wheat and tall grass, like the ebb and flow of an ocean.

  I’d dreamed of the wind flying through my hair and the setting sun blazing in the reflection of the rear view mirrors. Through hot days and long nights, I’d wanted to run, to escape, to just keep going until the past was so far behind me that none of it could matter anymore.

  In all those dreams though, I’d never imagined it could be this much fun.

  “Fuck, woman, you’re killing me.”

  The low gravel of Noah’s voice vibrated against my body in just the right place, the heat of his breath fanning out to cover me where he was crouched behind me. I still didn’t know how we’d managed to fit ourselves in the back seat.