Page 72 of Mine To Possess

I’m glad she’s gone out though, even if she didn’t bother to say goodbye to me. It means I can do a bit of tidying up without having to make any sort of small talk with her, and then I fix myself a sandwich and eat it in the living room for a change. I refuse to go out there when Dan or my mom are around. I have nothing much to say to either of them, and I don’t like being around Dan, always wondering if he’ll try to rape me again.

I think he’s likely learned his lesson with that one, but you never can tell with someone so dense and deluded. I’m pretty sure I’m safe this time around though - although my mom took his side the first time he tried to rape me, he’d be hard pushed to sell the idea of me trying to seduce him when I’m always wrapped up with only my hands and my face showing. Surely even my deluded mother couldn’t believe I’m trying to seduce Dan dressed like this.

I go through to the living room, shaking my head at the mess. Let me clean up before I eat. I grab a trash bag and scoop up all of Dan’s empty bottles and cans. I empty the ashtray and the aluminum take-out tray with congealed remains of a curry. I take all the trash down to the trash cans and then I come back and run the tap, rolling up my sleeves, ready to tackle the dishes. There aren’t many.

Dan isn’t civilized enough to use glasses or plates. There’s just the plate and fork my mom used and a fork that she must have persuaded Dan to use. Plus, the cups from breakfast and two cereal bowls. None of them are mine, but it’s nothing new that I end up doing the dishes too. If I don’t, they’ll just pile up until they’re moldy and the whole trailer stinks of partially rotten food. The stale beer and cigarette smell is bad enough.

I fill the little sink with hot water and add some dish soap. I’ve barely gotten started when the trailer door opens. My heart sinks when a drunken, swaying Dan steps in. He pushes past me although there is plenty of room to get around me without touching me. I don’t know for sure if it’s intentional or if he’s just so drunk that navigating around me was too hard for him.

He goes to the living room, throws himself onto the trailer’s answer to a couch and turns the TV on. I keep washing the dishes, telling myself I’ll be done shortly and then I’ll go straight back to my room. I might even go out and stay out until my mother will be back. As much as I have nothing to say to her, at least I’m confident Dan will keep his dirty hands and his inane thoughts to himself while she’s home.

40

VIKTOR

I’m physically sitting in the car, but mentally, I feel like I’m floating on air. In minutes, I’ll be with my Amelia again. I’m going to pull her into my arms and kiss her like I’ve never kissed her before. Then I’m going to take her home and make love to her all night long, and we’ll never, ever look back.

I’m never letting her go again.

I really hope the two weeks we’ve been apart have gone well for Amelia and she wasn’t as miserable as I’ve been for every second of them. I know she was hoping her mom had really changed this time, and while I don’t think her mother is a useless human being, I really want Amelia to have a relationship with her again if that’s what she still wants.

Jerome turns off the main road and drives down a thin, winding road with no traffic. It’s the road I’ve driven up to so many times over the last two weeks, but I’ve always forced myself to turn away from. And now here I am again, only this time, finally I don’t have to turn away.

I feel my heart skip a beat when I see a sign saying Sunny Vale Trailer Park is coming up. I can feel butterflies swirling in my stomach and while I laugh at myself inside for acting like a lovesick teenager, I don’t want the feeling to go away. I love being in love with Amelia and I want to feel every part of it, every little emotion that goes along with it.

We drive beneath the Welcome to Sunny Vale sign, and for the first time, I see the trailer park Amelia was living in before we met. I have nothing in particular against trailer parks, but this one is ancient looking, really run down. It looks like it might have been a nice enough place to live in back in the eighties or nineties. Amelia deserves better than this.

I give Jerome directions as we make our way through dilapidated trailers.

“Fucking hell. If I’d have known it was this bad, I never would have let her come back here.”

“It’s better to live a bit rough for a couple of weeks than it is to be at risk,” Jerome says.

“Yeah, I guess,” I agree.

But she’s never going back to living this life ever again, I vow to myself. She’s never going to live like anything but the queen she is from now on.

We pull up outside of the right trailer. It doesn’t look as old and decrepit as some of the other trailers, but it’s hardly welcoming. All the curtains are pulled tightly closed as if Amelia’s mom is afraid someone might see in. It’s not because she’s ashamed of where she has to live since the trailers around hers are all in a worse state than this one so there’s nothing she’d have to be ashamed about there.

“I won’t be long,” I say to Jerome as I get out of the car.

I have no intention of dragging this out. I just want my Amelia back home. If things have gone well though and Amelia and her mom are getting along, I’ll obviously have to make the effort to get to know her, so maybe I’ll stay for a cup of coffee or whatever and spend some time getting to know the woman. It’ll be hard to be nice to the woman knowing the way she made Amelia’s childhood so miserable, but if Amelia can forgive her, then I’ll have to find a way to accept her, or at least put on a damned good show that I have.

Jerome nods, opens the glove compartment, and pulls out a newspaper. I walk quickly along a short concrete path that’s cracked and full of weeds growing through it.

Despite this depressing place, I am deliriously happy at the thought of being reunited with Amelia in just seconds. It’s hard to believe she’s behind that door, and I have to pinch myself to convince myself this is real and not a new form of torture my nightmares have conjured up.

41

AMELIA

Ifinish washing the dishes and grab a grubby looking tea towel. It’s not dirty, it’s just stained. I start drying the dishes with it. Dan looks over at me, but I ignore him, forcing myself to keep drying the bowl in my hand and pretend I haven’t noticed his eyes on me. He mutes the TV.

“Get me a beer.”

No ‘will you’ no ‘please’, just the demand. I debate telling him to get his own beer, or better yet, to go fuck himself and die, but I don’t. It’ll be easier just to give him the beer. It will keep him distracted while he has a drink in his hand. I bite my tongue, and as painful as it is to respond to Dan’s commands, I put the now dry bowl down and go to the fridge and grab a can of beer. I dutifully take it to Dan and put it on the table. He looks at me with a sly smile and he reaches out towards the can of beer, but instead of taking the can, he changes direction and clamps his hand around my wrist.

“What are you doing?” I ask angrily.

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