Page 23 of Fear Me, Love Me

Dad has a bucket of soapy water at his feet and he’s aggressively scrubbing at the paint with a sponge, but it’s useless. The paint is indelible, and it’s going to need strong chemicals to take it off.

He glances over his shoulder and sees me, and his face transforms with rage. “Who did this?”

Dad’s voice is loud enough for all the neighbors to hear. I sense twitching curtains all around me. They’ve probably been twitching since the sun came up and revealed this pretty piece of graffiti.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, wishing he’d stop shouting at me in the street.

“Have you been seeing that piece of shit?”

I feel like I’ve been slapped. I feel like he’s just calledmea piece of shit. “Don’t call him that.”

Dad’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare, and his expression fills with righteous indignation. “I knew it. You’ve been seeing that man when you swore there was nothing going on between the two of you.”

“Can we just go inside?” I plead, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“You want to enter my house when you’re a filthy goddamn liar and you’re involved with a criminal?” He points at the graffiti. “Are you sleeping with him? Are you one of his whores?”

My chest hurts. His words feel crueler than knives.

“Tell me that you hate that man, and you can see Barlow. Swear that even the thought of him touching you makes your skin crawl. Promise you’ll call the police if you ever see him again.”

There’s movement out of the corner of my eye. Samantha has come to the window with Barlow in her arms and her expression is accusatory as she peers out at me. I gaze at my baby brother with longing.

Dad is clenching the sponge so hard that water drips down his leg. “Choose. Your brother or that low-life bastard.”

I don’t understand why I have to choose one or the other. Tyrant never hurt Barlow. I never hurt Barlow. The only one who ever hurt this family is Dad.

“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t run up a debt in his club,” I whisper tearfully.

Dad’s face transforms from angry to incandescent, and he shouts at the top of his lungs, “I will not be talked back to on my own property. You are so ungrateful, Vivienne. Depraved. You disgust me. I put a roof over your head when your waste-of-space mother died. I excused your strangeness, your unwillingness to fit into this family, but now you’ve gone too far. You’re not safe to be around us.”

My strangeness? My unwillingness to fit in? I wasn’t trying to be the family weirdo. I was trying not to take up too much space in their lives. Cause any problems. I was afraid of Dad’s irritation. Samantha’s disdain. That they might get sick of me and throw me out. The only one who’s ever smiled at me is Barlow, but now even he’s being taken away from me.

I step forward, reaching desperately for my father. “I wanted to fit in. If I thought you liked having me around—”

He steps back sharply. “You live in a make-believe world, and you always have, and now it’s making you dangerous. Leave. Get out of my sight.”

My chest heaves in a sob. “Dad. Please don’t do this.”

He speaks slowly and loudly like he’s talking to a very stupid person. “I. Don’t. Want. You. Here. Vivienne. Ever. Again.”

Each word hits me like a bullet.

“But Barlow,” I whisper through my tears. I can survive if Dad and Samantha don’t want to talk to me, but I can’t lose my brother as well. He and I have been through so much together. If I can’t visit, he’s so young that he’ll forget all about me. I’ll have no family to my name whatsoever. “I’m his sister.”

“Stay away from Barlow. I have no daughter.” Dad throws his sponge into the bucket of soapy water and storms into the house, slamming the door behind him.

The silence that surrounds me is the loneliest sound I’ve ever heard.

I don’t know how I make it back to the dorms, but somehow I do because the next thing I know, I’m on my knees by my chest of drawers, pulling the bottom one out so I can get to the box hidden underneath.

The hurt. It’s too much. I need to let it out.

I open the box and my shaking fingers pick up a slender, pointed knife that’s been sharpened to a wickedly gleaming edge. I want to stab the knife into my arm. My thigh. Anywhere that bleeds. I have just enough grip on my senses to pull my top off and then seek a fresh spot on my ribs. There isn’t one because they’re scored with dozens of scars. It doesn’t matter if I go over old ones. I’ll still bleed. I’ll still hurt.

As I hold the blade to my ribs, there’s a ragged shout and running footsteps. “Vivienne.No.”

A hand closes around mine on the knife, and I’m dragged back against a broad chest. We’re fighting with the knife, me to pull it closer, him to push it away. Tyrant’s much stronger than I am, and after a full minute of struggling, all the fight goes out of me, and I hang loosely in his grip, panting.

---