Page 33 of The Shadows We Keep

“I guess there really wasn’t anyone because the police couldn’t find a next of kin. They placed me with CPS that night. The women who worked through my paperwork kept telling me I’d get adopted quickly. I was young, a girl, and pretty. She repeated those words over and over until I finally tuned her out and fell asleep in her office.”

“When I woke up, it was to her shaking me, pulling me from the seat and shoving me through the door toward a man with gangling limbs and stringy hair. I remember a feeling washing over me while I stood there in front of him like something bad was—” She stops mid-sentence, new tears dripping down her rosy cheeks. Her breathing is even, her eyes are on me, yet they leak without her knowledge.

“It did, not even twenty-four hours after he took me to the all-girls group home they had momentarily assigned me to. It didn’t happen to me, but that night after lights out...” She pauses, shivering even though the room is hot and humid. “The door to my new room that I shared with a handful of other girls creaked open. I was lying on my side, counting backward from one-hundred, trying to fall asleep, but it was pointless being in an unfamiliar place. The light from the hall was blinding against the pitch black where we were trying to sleep. The old flooring groaned under his weight. I didn’t dare move. His shadow was huge. I wasn’t sure if it was him or a demon roaming the night. But then my mattress dipped from the opposite side. You see, there were five of us in the room, but only two beds and one mattress thrown on the floor. The youngest girl was nice enough to give me her space on the bed, but at that moment I was wishing she hadn’t. My whole body stilled when the mattress moved. I held my breath once the antique, iron bed frame started moving and squeaking rhythmically. The girl behind me, I couldn’t recall her name yet, cried, but he muffled it. I’ll never know what actually happened because I didn’t move, I didn’t turn around, I didn’t say a word. I just laid there. I was only eight, and I knew whatever was happening mere inches from me was wrong.”

I shift her weight, lifting us from the hard bathroom floor, and walk us back to the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the mattress, settling her again on my lap. Her thighs grip my waist and I want to climb inside her, erase all the horrible memories from the inside out, but she hasn’t even gotten to the reason behind the scars on her inner thighs. I still my wandering hand, calm my racing heart and nod for her to continue.

“I was at that house for sixty-seven days. His visits didn’t happen every night. There were five other rooms with just as many girls in them. He made his rounds, switching from one to the next, never visiting the same room two nights in a row. After I’d been there a few weeks, the mattress dipped behind me.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, scrunching her entire face, as her breathing becomes labored. The deep tremble pulsing through her body shakes her small frame in my hold.

Every fiber of my being is burning with rage at what she just insinuated. I’m fighting with my logical side that knows I can’t flip my lid. But the need to hunt him down and make him suffer tenfold for what he put her through surges within me. I make a mental note to do just that when the time comes.

I stash the those thoughts deep down because she needs me calm and collected, here to hold her as she relives one of the most traumatic times in her life, that I stubbornly pushed for.

My finger finds her lips pushing softly. “Do you want to keep going?”

Her head gives a small shake and some of the tension releases between us.

She’s right, the marks aren’t what I thought at all. I never would have associated them with something that she went through at eight-years-old.

She blinks at me, the tears have stopped running down her cheeks, but the haunted look holds fast. I drop my forehead to her chest and pull her in tightly, flopping back against the bed. The towel is long gone, discarded on the bedroom floor.

She settles against me, burrowing into my chest, and I wish we could stay like this forever. After a few minutes of nothing but our matched breaths filling the quiet air, she shifts, interlacing her fingers and splaying them flat against my chest under her chin, looking up at me.

“I did it.” Her rich eyes fixate on my face. Her words don’t register at first. I’m lost to what she’s referring to until my confusion clears. My question in the kitchen, the stupid question shaped by my fury. The shortsighted invasion into her past that I wasn’t ready for.

“Why?” It’s a dumb question, but it slips out anyway.

Why did I let the burn of alcohol numb me or use the sting of needles to steal my pain after the accident.

“I needed a release. When the grief and hopelessness felt like it was swallowing me whole from losing my mother. Losing the only person who’d ever loved me, cared for me. When the agonizing torment of that night settled on my soul, even though I didn’t fully comprehend what was happening, I needed a release.” The pain in her explanation is palpable all these years later.

“I snuck through the kitchen drawers one afternoon when I was on dinner prep. In the back of a junk drawer was a red BIC lighter. I’d seen him use one just like it to light the menthol cigarettes he chained-smoked. I tucked it into my waistband and ran to the bathroom. When I slipped inside and shut the door closed behind me, I pulled it free and flicked the wheel quickly. The flame blazed before my eyes, drawing me into a trancelike state before it burnt my finger, pulling me back to reality. I did it again, until the heat became too much, and the metal burnt my thumb on purpose. That burn calmed something in me, so I did it again. Only the next time when the pain hit my finger. I pulled it away and pressed it against my skin. It sizzled and the smell of burnt flesh was nauseating, but I learned if I left the lighter against my thigh until the heat dissipated, my body transferred my overwhelming internal pain.”

Her weight shifts against me; she’s relaxing. And the tension building in me lessens. Shoving my hips up, I flip her body underneath mine so I can look down on her. She’s beautiful, broken, but so strong, and I want to consume every inch of her.

“Is he still alive?” I need to know. Her eyebrows pinch together. “The man from the group home,” I coax.

“No.” She doesn’t elaborate, but her pupils dilate. A tinge of disappointment spikes at her news, but I still plan to dig further into that time of her life so I can find out what happened to him.

Her eyes wander down my face, and further still, and my gaze follows. Her delectable curves are on full display beneath me. Her breathing hitches at my blatant perusal and I smile down at her.

“Tell me, sweetness, should we start where we left off in the kitchen?”

SIXTEEN

KEIRA

Apartment – Bobi Andonov

What the hell was I thinking?

Spilling all my dark secrets, well, almost all of them. I’ve never hidden my scars; I’ve never cared what anyone thought about them. Guys I’ve slept with have asked, but it’s easy to brush off when you’re already naked and can redirect their attention. Girls, on the other hand, were the ones who would look at me with understanding in their eyes. We didn’t need to have matching scars to have matching pain.

I trace my foot up his calf to his thigh, hooking my leg around his hip before I pull him down on top of me. His face is a mere inch from mine. My tongue darts out and licks across the seam of his lips and then we’re back to where we were before.

A moan breaks from the back of my throat. He’s settled between my thighs, thick and hard, pushing against the thin material separating us. I rock forward, creating a tantalizing friction. I’m desperate for more; without the barrier. His lips trail over my skin, heating it with every new touch.

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