Page 23 of Digit's Deflection
“Li – princess …” I shake my head vehemently, praying that he’ll take the hint and stop talking. If he’s kind to me, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I will shatter into a million pieces, and there will be no way to put them back together again. Thankfully, he takes the hint.
Taking a few calming breaths, holding the image of a calm lake in my mind’s eye, I get a grip on my composure.
“Yeah, good ol’ Dad didn’t believe in wasting his hard-earned cash on me. So, when he wanted to go out and spend time with his drinking buddies, or if he felt I needed to be punishedfor some transgression or other – of which there were many, according to him – he would drag me down into the basement …”
Bile rises up into my throat, and I have to swallow hard so as not to embarrass myself all over Treven’s floor. I knew this was going to be difficult. I just had no idea how hard. I become aware of body heat along my left side at the same moment he speaks. I can’t suppress the jerk of fright.
“Li, I’m sorry. I had no idea whatever the issue was would be so difficult for you to talk about. Much as I need to know what happened that night back home, I can’t stand to see you going through whatever internal hell you’re currently going through.
“I don’t know what I thought it was, but I never once considered that it would be something that would tear you up inside like this. I thought maybe it was just a momentary blip – that maybe I did something to offend you, and instead of talking to me about it you chose to remove yourself. I didn’t realize it was something that had you cut up like this.”
“Stop. Please.” I hold up an imploring hand. I have to swallow, then swallow again as the nausea rides me hard. Lifting my head to look at Treven, I pray the devastation I’m feeling isn’t reflected in their depths. A phantom pain that feels like a knife slashing me to the very bone ripples through me.
At the raw expression in his eyes I have to look away, so I shift my gaze back out the window, and continue in the same monotone. “We’re in it now. May as well finish it, otherwise this pain is for nothing.”
“I – okay, well, if you’re sure?” I nod.
“He would drag me down to the basement and, using jute – or any other rope that came to hand easily – my father would tie me up to one of the poles supporting the floor above.” I shudder as the memories flood my mind. “I can still feel the roughness of the rope on my skin, how it used to burn as I’d struggle.
“No matter how hard I cried, it never affected my father. He’d backhand me and tell me to ‘shut the fuck up.’ That it was my own fault that I was in that situation. If I hadn’t been such a bad girl, my mother wouldn’t have left him, and I wouldn’t find myself in a predicament.”
“Jesus, Liora …” I hear Treven move away from me, hear him pace behind me somewhere. Then jerk hard as I feel his hand land on my back. He rubs slow, soothing circles there, and more tears flood my eyes.
“Treven …” The sob comes out of nowhere, ripped painfully from my throat, and the hand on my back slides around my shoulder to encircle me. Pulling me into the warmth of his body, he wraps the other arm around me and holds me close. So close, in fact, I can feel how hard his heart is beating. Like an echo of my own.
“Shh, princess. I’ve got you. You’re safe here with me now. Let it all out.”
Feeling like a small boat lost in rough seas with no anchor, which finds its way into the harbor, a sense of safety envelopes me as I stand within the circle of Treven’s embrace and allow the years of fear, pain, trauma, and isolation to flow from me in a storm of tears the likes of which I’ve never experienced before.
I imagine this is what people mean when they talk about an ugly cry, because there is nothing pretty about this release. Tears, snot, hiccups, an inability to breathe through the sobs – it’s like a tsunami of emotion that simply drags me under and tosses me about.
Treven rocks me in his arms, and a strange calm washes over me. Spent, I finally just rest my head against his shoulder, taking a moment to catch my breath and center myself. I now have a pounding headache – feel raw and exposed. Yet weirdly, at the same time, I feel at peace.
Time passes but has no meaning as we stand holding onto each other, and I soak in the feel of his solid body against me. His hard muscles are a stark counterbalance to my soft curves, pressed against his body from chest to knee as I am.
Eventually, I feel ready to finish what I’ve started. Oddly cathartic, getting all of this poison out of my system and out into the open, I feel somewhat lighter than I have in a very long time.
Resting against Treven, unwilling to step beyond the comfort and strength his embrace offers me, I feel the vibration of his words through his chest as well as hear them. “Are you sure you want to finish telling me or would you rather leave it here?”
“I would rather leave the story here, but now that I’ve come this far, I actually think it would be best to get it told. I already feel a little lighter just having gotten this far. Almost as if the simple act of speaking the words out loud has robbed them of their power.”
“I can understand that to a certain extent, I guess.” He tightens his arms for a quick moment. “When you’re ready then.”
“From the day after my mother left until I ran away, being tied up in the basement happened regularly. Multiple times a week, in fact. There was always something that wasn’t right, that needed to be punished, so I spent a lot of time a prisoner in my own home.
“The night in the hunter’s cabin, I was fine until you took hold of the scarf to help me roll over. The shifting of the material, soft as it was, triggered something in me. The memory of the bite of rope as it chaffed my skin while I struggled futilely against my bonds, the burn of it as it rubbed my skin raw.
“Yeah, that just flipped a switch in my head that had me freaking the fuck out. My mind went to that basement, and it was all I could see. So I ran. I went home, took the things I thought I’d need, and left, leaving everything else behind.”
“Me included, and that hurt.” I can’t decide whether Treven’s words sound sad or bitter. Maybe a little of both? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I know this is hard enough for you. I don’t mean to make it harder.”
“I should be the one apologizing.”
“No, you’re not. It’s perfectly understandable, and you never have to apologize for what happened. What I don’t understand, though, is why you never told me what was happening. I mean, I can understand why you never told anyone else. But me? I would have hoped you trusted me enough to tell me what was going on.”
And there it is. The giant elephant in the room.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, Treven. I was too ashamed. I believed my father when he told me it was because I was inherently bad that my mother left and that, because of it, I had to be punished. I had to atone for my sins.”
