Page 7 of Vile Emotion
The world has rejected me in more ways than one. I don’t remember the last time I saw the sun and was glad to have it embrace me or hit my face giving me its warmth.
“You think I’m going to kill you and let you enjoy hell without me, Juliana?” Alaric asks, taunting me to say something back, to fight back but I fight that. That was my old nature and itwas beaten out of me. This is the new me. “When I ask you something, you answer me.”
“No, sir,” I answer, defeated, as if I was a soldier and my superior was asking me something.
“You better eat every single meal I have them bring in here. You will not starve and die to get away from my punishment. You and I are sealed. We’re binded and we’re not ourselves anymore. We’ve disintegrated and morphed into one being. I am me and you,” he says with a wicked smirk on his face. “You have lost all sense of self. You are my shadow; you take the steps I take and you breathe when I do. Am I understood?”
It takes me a moment. One hesitative moment and Alaric reaches out toward me which makes me react.
“I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!” I cry out as I lift my hands to protect myself from the brutal slap that’s coming but… it never does.
“What are you doing?” Alaric asks me but I turn into the fetal position.
“Please, don’t hit me. I promise.” My mind isn’t exactly transported to Edwin but my body can’t forget.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m in a place where I can’t control the narrative, I can’t run away because I don’t know where everything is and where would I go without any money left?
“Why would I hit you? Physical pain isn’t my thing and it never will be. I told you, we’re going to morph into one being. Why would I hit myself?” Alaric speaking those words again doesn’t put me at ease instead it further drives me into my shell.
“Get up.”
His words will never be suggested to me and that is my new reality. After taking a few breaths, I finally turn and don’t look at him but the ceiling. Anywhere but him.
Alaric doesn’t do anything but wait as I slowly sit up then stand up. Without touching him, I venture over to the bed and I slip in under the covers.
Instead of him leaving, Alaric moves back to where he was hidden in the shadows as he sits down.
“You’re not leaving?” I ask.
“You won’t sleep on the floor as long as I’m in here. You think I don’t know you, Juliana but I know you better than you’ll ever know yourself.”
His words make me shudder and I shut my eyes. I don’t sleep nor do I even feel like I’ll fall asleep soon as long as Alaric is watching me.
“Tomorrow,” he begins when I finally get so lost in my thoughts I didn’t realize I almost fell asleep which shocks me back to being awake. “My son, Ricky, you will be meeting him. He came back tonight from his grandparents, you will be good to him and raise him right.”
“Your son?” He has a son? I haven’t heard of Alaric having any kids from the media or have I been so busy running away from the reality of all that I don’t remember.
“My son. You may have birthed him but he’s my son.”
His words stun me into silence. What does he mean by this?
“I don’t understand.”
I’m not stupid, I’m just… I don’t understand.
“The only good thing that came from you, Juli, is my son so you will raise him but you will not tell him you are his mother, am I understood?”
Before I could think, I shot up the bed and got out of the sheets making my way to Alaric.
“Please, please tell me you don’t have my son. How could you have him if it was a closed adoption?”
“Closed for you. He’s my son. You couldn’t even name him, don’t give me that right now.” He shoos me away but the pain reverberates through me.
“But he’s my son. I wanted him to have a good life! To be with people who loved him!” I yell out because I’m angry.
Alaric places one leg over the other as he watches me in my emotions as they switch just as quickly because I drop to my knees in front of him, begging.
“Please, please let him go to a family that will love him. He is innocent in all this. He doesn’t deserve this. please.” Tears fall down my face, in distress and a wave of sadness comes over me, an emotion much deeper. Something that’s stirring from the pit in my stomach.
