Page 39 of Grave Love
Blaze makes it different though. He sends energythroughme until I’m feverish. I always yearn for what’s coming next.
I give him a dull look. “It’s not like I’ll tell the police,” I say. “You’re going to kill me anyway, right?”
Blaze huffs, and this time, I’m the one who snickers. I adjust, getting a better view of his face. Brown dust collects near his temples, lingering from his work outside. A faint smile lingers on his lips.
He knows I’m right.
“Some people love their mothers.” His eyes gloss over, a sheen covering them with darkness. “My brother might have loved her once. He was the good one. The one she wanted. The one that eternally connected her to the sonofabitch she once called a husband. Me? I was the fucking parasite that broke them apart. The rodent that shit all over her house. The one from a nameless man I’ve never met. The child who got sick constantly. Who got kicked out of school. Who caused her trouble when she had better things to do than to take care of a piece of shit like me.”
A chill prickles over my skin, creeping across me like growing vines clinging to a rocky cliff. I grab the mug and take another sip, desperate for something to do. Blaze’s eyes stay fixated on the window, like it’s a portal to his memories.
“She worked at this pizza shop in town. Crappy little place, but the boss sold drugs, and that meant she got a discount on her habit. Plus, his other regulars became her boyfriends. They all got high together.” He glares into space, irritation seething in his shoulders. “The thing was that those fuckers had needs. My brother was older, smart enough to stay in his room. I got in the way. Tried to stop one of them from hurting her once. She started locking me in the closet for hours after that and would forget I was there. Until finally, I learned to watch them take her like that. To gethardfrom it.”
The back of my throat seizes, a dry tightness that unnerves me. How can that be real? It’s unbelievable to think that a mother would lock her own child in a room, probably starving him, until he learned to watch her have sex.
It is believable, though. The most horrible things are usually true. People used to say things like that to me, back when I was in high school:I can’t believe you saw your mother hanging there when you were a toddler. She really killed herself? No way!
“She made you watch?” I ask.
“And then she let them have me.”
I shake my head rapidly, but it’s real. I know it is. Blaze scowls, his rage funneled into that furious expression, the veins bulging from his face.
“Make no mistake, Ren. This isn’t about justifying what I did. My brother insisted that we did this the right way. All I had to do was wait until he graduated from high school, then he could take care of me. He would take care of itthe right wayif I just waited a few more years.”
A sharp breath fills my lungs.
“As you can guess, I didn’t wait,” he continues. “She held these ‘parties,’ right? Orgies where they were all blasted out of their minds. When I was fourteen, they all left, and I went to go find her. The cunt was passed out on a lawn chair in the backyard. So drunk that when I kicked her, she didn’t even move.” He grits his teeth, and my stomach lurches. I cross my arms over my chest. Still, I listen.
“Her legs were spread so fucking wide that I couldsmellher cunt. Smell what they did to her. How they used her like they used me. And this thought hit me.” He cocks his chin to the side, and for the first time since he started sharing his story, a hint of amusement sparks his lips. “What if I fucked her? What ifIwas the one who tookherpower for once?” The smile spreads, his teeth exposed like the jaws of a predator. His eyes widen, bloodshot and shocked, suddenly aroused by the memory unfolding inside of him. “She was my biological mother, but I didn’t care. She wasn’t my protector or my nurturer. She was a cunt who had controlled every part of my life since the day I was conceived. Fucking her was exactly what she deserved.”
Footsteps tap down the hallway. A child laughs and a mother whispers, guiding the child to the bathroom. Blaze looks at me, his jaw loose, those innocent sounds a reminder that he never had that sort of carefree past.
“So I fucked her unconscious body,” he says. “Treated her like a corpse. It wasn’t about the sex, or the lust, or some Freudian bullshit about wanting my mother to care about me for once. It was about forcingher.Making her pay. Giving her all the rage in my soul, taking back what she hadstolenfrom me. Her warm cunt gave me strength, made me realizeIwas the one in control now.Iwas the one who could do whatever the fuck I wanted, my future be damned. Because what kind of life is worth living if you’re getting stepped on by the people who are supposed to love you?”
I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. Blaze’s eyes flicker to my neck, settling on my bruises. I gulp instinctively again; I’m not swallowing anything.
People who are supposed to love you.
My grandmother never locked me in a closet. She always made sure I had food to eat, even when she refused to speak to me. And my mother left before I could remember her. Sometimes, I’m angry at my mother for abandoning me like that. Leaving me with a caretaker that she must haveknownwas the kind of person who would beat your soul until you had barely enough strength to breathe for yourself.
Sometimes, I can’t understand why my mother did it, and sometimes, my mind reminds me that Idounderstand. I wasn’t enough to keep her here, and I’m not enough to keepmehere either.
Blaze turns away again, and I lean forward, examining him. He probably hasn’t told many people about his past, and I don’t want to interrupt him. Our pasts are so different, and yet his pain seems familiar. I want my grandmother and mother’s acceptance, their unconditional love, and I’llneverget that. Maybe that’s how he felt once too.
“She woke up,” Blaze continues. “And when she saw it was me, she screamed. Punched me in the nose.” He flicks a hand over his face. “I knew that if I was caught, I’d never have a fucking chance. So I covered her mouth and nose until she passed out again. Rendered her unconscious.”
I focus on the toes of my flats, processing it. Blaze coveredmynose and mouth last night. Made me unconscious. When I woke up, he wasstillfucking me. Just like his drunk mother.
Why didn’t he kill me too?
Maybe I don’t want to know.
Blaze is probably only telling me about this because he knows he’s going to kill me. I can understand that. It’s part of why I can let go with him. There’s nothing holding you back when there’s nothing at stake.
“What happened then?” I ask.
“I dragged her into the woods. Adrenaline is a funny thing; you can be high out of your goddamn mind, but your will to survive kicks in, and suddenly you’ve got the power of a giant.” He forces a laugh. “So I stabbed her in the stomach. That did the trick. And as she bleed out, I kept fucking her, and you know what? The bitch came. Came like I was one of those men that she fucked while she was high. She got this look in her eyes after that, almost like she wasrelieved.Like she knew that death was the best thing for her.” He taps the window, and an insect flutters off of the pane outside. “She died, and I didn’t stop. I used that cunt,” he snickers, then scowls to himself. “But I wasn’t going to get caught because of her.”
