Page 82 of Margot
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LENNOX
I had to quiet the rage steeping inside of me while I held Margot. Once I put the pieces together, I wanted to burn the entire puzzle to ashes.
If Margot was Sutton’s way of dealing with sexuality and she appeared when Sutton was four-years-old it meant that she been brutally abused when she was practically a baby.
It explained why the fuck Margot chose the last name DuBois.
Jonathan DuBois was Sutton’s piano instructor.
I had my suspicions but I didn’t want them to be true. I wanted my mind to have concocted something unfathomable but the opposite was true and my heart was broken for Sutton.
Everything made sense in that one moment of true clarity.
“I don’t know how Sutton doesn’t remember,” Margot finally said after her sobs subsided.
“It was your piano teacher, wasn’t it? He hurt you when you were…four?” I just couldn’t wrap my mind around someone hurting a fucking child.
“Yeah,” Margot nodded tearfully.
My poor Sutton.
The look in Margot’s eyes was excruciating to witness. It as like she turned into a little girl all over again.
“You remember everything, don’t you?” I asked quietly. I held her as if letting go meant death.
“Every fucking thing, Lennox. I remember the metronome tick. I remember the way his breath smelled. I remember the way the piano keys dug into my thighs when he made me sit on top of it. I remember the way his hands felt and the way his nails scraped me raw when I was only four-fucking-years-old.” She spoke through gritted teeth. Her face shook against my chest while I held on to her.
I understood right then, holding her in the most vulnerable moment of her life, why she split in two. There was no way for a kid that young to process something so heinous.
“I don’t know what to say, Margot.” I swallowed back the ball of hot emotion dying to spew venom at her piano teacher. “I feel helpless. Like there’s nothing I can do to help you heal from that.” Even though she’d grown and moved on, it was clear that Sutton never healed. Margot was living proof.
“The fact that you’ve loved…Sutton through this even before you understood anything is amazing and I don’t think she can ever repay you.”
“I love you too, Margot.” I had to let her know that she was just as special as Sutton because she was a piece of Sutton.
“Not like you love her though. I get it.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t possibly get it becauseIdon’t get it and neither does Sutton. Stop trying to be strong. You’re scared and confused and you feel unwanted by the very person you’re a part of. All of that has to hurt. It’s like you’re rejecting yourself and that’s not an easy pill to swallow. You don’t have to be strong with me. I’ll be strong for the both of us.” I don’t know when my cheeks had gotten wet but my emotions couldn’t stay locked away inside. Not while I was witnessing the love of my life trying desperately to put herself back together again.
“I’ve never had anyone tell me they love me and the way you do it makes me feel like the world isn’t such a black and ugly place.” When she looked up at me with those brandy colored eyes, my breath hitched in my chest.
“I love you enough to chase away all the darkness in your world, Margot. I understand if Sutton has to use you to cope with intimacy but it doesn’t mean you have to be surrounded by darkness.” I slid my fingers through her hair and kissed her forehead.
The fact that she didn’t shrink away or turn into a plank of wood made me feel like I could help see her through this. Like maybe she wouldn’t push me away. Maybe she’d actually let me love her like I’d always wanted to do.
“I don’t know how I existed before you. You’re the epitome of love and I’ve never needed a person more than I need you.” Her fingers slid around to the back of my neck and she guided me to her perfect mouth. She met my tongue with hers and I treated her like porcelain.
I didn’t hold her too tight and I didn’t push her too hard. I let her do all the steering. She led me to the bedroom and I laid her on the bed. I stood back to look at her for a moment because she was still the most stunning work of art I’d ever seen. All her pieces and flecks of light and dark combined to make the very reason my heart continued to beat.
“Please don’t treat me like glass, Lennox. Don’t try to be gentle.”
“I don’t want to…”
She cut me off and said, “He used to try to be gentle. It never worked. It never took away the feeling of being filled with nothingness. When I’m with you I feel full of purpose and love. So, don’t try to be gentle. Fuck me like you love me.”
“I do love you, Margot.” I settled between her thighs and kissed her neck until kissing no longer sufficed and only biting would do. She moaned for me and arched her back to the heavens.
