Page 16 of Absolution

“Are you afraid of me? Still?” I frown. I don’t want her to be. I understand if she is. I wish she knew me, that part of me deep inside that isn’t a total fuck-up. The innocent I once was too. I have done bad, bad things, and she knows them all too well, but I am more. For her I want to be more, to find that again.

She regards me for a long time. “A little, yes.”

My heart sinks, but I grasp at that she’s just ‘a little’ afraid. “What are you afraid of?”

She swallows hard. “That you’ll hurt me again, I think.”

“Hurt? Or… touch?”

Her eyes widen. “Both,” she answers with a small voice, almost as a question instead of a statement.

“Can I just hold your hands?”

Her fingers thread in and out of each other and she squirms. “Maybe,” she whispers.

Victory. Small, but undeniable. I shuffle closer until I sit before her. Then I take her hands in mine and just hold them, my thumbs slowly stroking the sides of her thumbs. She gasps, and her mouth falls open, her eyes darting between our joined hands and my eyes.

“Tired?”

She nods. “You’re still warm.”

“You’re cold.”

She flinches when I lift my arm to push a tendril off her forehead. I stop mid-air before I make contact. When she starts breathing again, I carefully caress her hairline with the tips of my fingers. Her skin is so smooth. I remember that.

From before.

I lower my hand and let it rest on hers again. “You’re beautiful, Kerry.” My heart clenches. I doubt this woman would ever want to get to know the real me. As she wriggles her hand out from beneath mine and ties it into a fist in her lap, her knuckles whitening, I know she won’t ever want to get to know me. Not after all I’ve done.

And yet, I can’t leave her alone. Something in her calls for me, beckons me. I need her to become mine, I need to find our common ground.

I need her. I need Cecilia.

Or I’ll drown.

Kerry

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

I ache so bad at his tender words. I want to believe him. I want him to be good, but those beautiful eyes can turn to death in a second. These warm, kind hands can remorselessly take another human’s life. They came so close, so very close, to claiming mine.

His fingertips touch my cheek. His caress is lighter than a feather as he softly strokes along my jaw and then down my throat where I’m sure he must feel how hard my pulse beats. Goosebumps spread rapidly along the side of my neck, causing my whole spine to tingle and tense. I look into his eyes, barely able to keep my gaze locked with his. A soft smile plays at his slightly parted lips. It is as if he’s directing a beam of light, want, need, and desire toward me, and me alone. It calls to me, pulls me closer, transfixes me. I want to stay in its center and remain there, safe, loved. I lean into his touch, I can’t help myself, I’m pulled to the promise of closeness, the opposite of hurt. It stings somewhere deep inside as I remember Christian, before all the bad things happened, this is the man he was.

The man I thought he was.

He’s pressing a rag over my mouth and nose, never letting go.

I stiffen, unable to defend myself from the onslaught of memories. They nag, burn holes in my soul, erode me and make me sway, tossing me violently between comfort and pain.

His fingers leave my cheek and grip carefully around my hands, pulling me closer, urging me to comply. I’m here, not there. It’s now, not then! He’s different, he’s changed. His thumbs massage my knuckles, rubbing circles on them, making my skin burn.

He carries me in the darkness, toward my death, unaffected by my fear, by my screams, smells of rotten seaweed surrounding us.

Then, then, then!

Pulling me even closer, wedging his thighs between mine, his eyes roaming my face, he then smiles. Victoriously. Beautifully. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to resist what’s about to happen. He’s given me the most, and he’s taken the most. In my life. Ever. No one before I met him has meant more to me. How can I deny him? Maybe I do belong to him and have just never realized it until now?

“I want to kiss you, Ker.” His voice is raspy and thick and it makes me shiver.

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