Page 92 of Only the Small Bones
“I was confused. And I wasn’t ready. Not to talk to you, to talk about my feelings or what happened to me. I wasn’t ready for any of it.”
I nodded, opening up for his kiss. “I had a feeling it was you who waited at the hospital before I even arrived.” I touched his beauty mark. “Davidson had given me a description of you.” Davidson saw my need for irrelevant details as a trauma response, a need to know exactly what I was walking into. So he indulged me. “I thought you were gone, but without a body there was always this hope.” I closed my eyes, and Asher slid his hand under my shirt, his fingers brushing over my plea to Gargantuan again.Bring him back.
He already knew why I hadn’t said anything. Already knew I’d hoped he didn’t remember me or what I’d done, so I didn’t bother explaining that any further.
“Did a part of you like my silence?”
“Yes, because as much as I wanted to hear you speak, a part of me also feared it, because I knew what happened tonight would come next. I feared you talking to Davidson, and once you went to Safe Haven, I feared your therapy sessions too. The idea of your weekly vision boards both awed and terrified me.” I’d wanted him to deal with his trauma. I wanted the people who hurt him caught. But I was afraid that reliving his life might’ve triggered his memories of me. I struggled with wanting him whole, but not wanting to be pushed away.
“Looking back, though, I can see all the little mistakes I subconsciously made on purpose. Tests, I guess, to see if you truly hadn’t remembered me, because I couldn’t ask you outright. I was petrified when you remembered your favorite childhood meal, because it proved how far back your memorieswent.” When nothing else came of it, though, I figured it was something that carried into his adulthood, and he had no recollection of how or why.
“There were other instances that proved you held on to some of your younger memories, like you knowing how old you were when you stopped speaking. But I told myself you either didn’t know I was Malcolm, or you only remembered pieces of your past, and the pieces that included me weren’t a part of it. Still, sometimes you’d look at me with such contempt, and I’d think ‘heknows.’ I’d then convince myself it wasn’t true, but the truth is, I felt protected by your silence.”
Asher scraped his fingers along my scalp, nestling deeper onto my lap and my burgeoning erection. It was my turn to kiss him again, this time deeper than I had before.
“How did you end up with my mother’s violin?”
“You knew?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Yes. I remembered leaving a scratch inside one of the openings near the strings. It was my proof that it belonged to me if one of the other boys ever stole it.”
“Clever little thing,” I grinned. Asher smiled at that, two clefts appearing in his cheeks. I’d spent too much time reflecting on his sadness to remember what his joy looked like, to remember it came with a set of dimples.
“My mother took me to St. Joseph’s after they were informed about what happened to you. They let me have the violin.”
“You gave up the piano for it.”
“Yes,” I breathed. Most prodigies started playing around age five. At twelve I was practically a senior citizen. It just meant I had to work harder to master it. “How did you end up back here?” I slid my hands to his hips.
“I was sold again. All of us who made it back were. But this time to someone who said they would help us. I don’t remember much. We were out of it for most of the trip here.”
“Will you talk to Davidson about all this?”
“Yes,” Asher sighed after considering it for a while. “But will youpleasemake love to me first?”
I tossed my head back on a laugh, the sound replacing the heartache hanging over our home like a dark cloud. “Yes,” I said, smiling up at him. “With pleasure.”
Asher
I waited in the living room like William asked me to, biting down on my thumb nail and staring out into the snow. The night started with me thinking this would be the last time we saw each other, but now it would end with us making love. My heart wanted it, but I was scared my mind would get in the way. Flashes of the past played out in my head. The rush the men were always in. The way they treated my body. The pain.The blood.
A hand squeezed my shoulder, and I jumped, turning to find William watching me with soft green eyes. “Don’t say we don’t have to do this,” I warned. It still felt strange to speak. My voice sounded weird to me and all the crying made the burning in my throat worse.
“I won’t.” He placed his hands on my cheeks. His palms were wide, his fingers long, and his body large. It made his touch feel like a shield around me, keeping me safe.
“I’m scared, but it doesn’t mean I’m not ready.”
“I trust you, Asher.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that at first, but I’d come a long way from that night in the hospital. He trusted me to know what I wanted.
William pressed his soft, full lips against mine, his tongue entering my mouth slowly. His hands slid down my neck and shoulders to my chest. My body heated in places that used to go cold when anyone touched me.
I fought against the shame creeping in, and the voice in my head saying what happened to me was my fault. Telling me he’s just like the others. I wanted so many things. To cry, to scream, to hold him close, to push him away. Would it always be so hard?
The first time I’d let William touch me was hard, and I took a long hot shower afterward, scrubbing my skin because I couldn’t scrub away the painful things in my head. Being the one to touch him first helped, because I’d had time to prepare my mind for it.
Now he kissed and touched me—within reason—whenever he wanted to. I loved it, but sometimes it took me back to those dark rooms and chains, times when I couldn’t fight back.
