“Get off me.” I push, but he doesn’t budge. My breathing is coming in short gasps. “Damn you, Sean, leave me alone!”
“Stop lying to yourself,” he whispers in my ear, and I desperately push and squirm, trying to escape his hold. “You want me.”
“I don’t want you. Why are you doing this?”
“I like to watch you struggle.” He’s still whispering, like imparting a secret. “I like to watch you run about, like a mouse inside a maze, when there’s no way out.”
No way out. My life does seem like a maze, full of false routes, dead-ends and painful shocks. What am I missing? Why can’t I escape?
“You want to please your parents,” Sean goes on, his hand running through my hair, an intimate gesture. “You want to give in to me, don’t you? Say it.”
I think I may throw up. “Stop it. Let me go.”
“You want me. You just don’t want to accept it.” His hand fists in my hair and pulls my head back. It hurts. “I’m a great catch. Lots of women want me. But you… You’re fighting me. You’re afraid of me. It’s exciting.”
“You’re sick,” I whisper.
“Tessa… When we’re married, our families will be so powerful, you can’t imagine.”
“I don’t care.”
“Of course you do. Money. Power. All this,” he nods at our surroundings, “has to be paid for, somehow. This is how you pay for it. You do as I say, and you stop resisting me, or I’ll be angry, and you don’t want that, do you?”
His grip on my hair is excruciating, and his hold on my mind is even stronger. Memories of him forcing himself on me crowd my thoughts, tighten around me like a vise. My father’s face and Sean’s merge, their voices blend. The memories become the long road of my failure to please anyone, to amount to something.
“Sean…”
“Be a good girl,” he sneers, “and do as you’re told. Daddy will love you.”
This is it. This is the answer. My mistake in all of this is that I’ve been begging for scraps, thinking my refusal would be enough, both for my dad and Sean. Thinking they’d let me go.
I thought my refusal would be enough for me—to convince me to sever all bonds, to give up on the silly hope my parents would change their minds, change their nature.
But I was wrong on both accounts. My father is a mad wolf, my mother a dumb sheep, and I have to save myself. I was wrong to think I could do this on my own.
“Say you want me. Say it. You’ve wanted me all along.” His breath is hot on my cheek, smelling of the cigars he smokes and alcohol. “Say it, before I make you cry and the neighbors know what a little slut you are for punishment.”
I don’t care if the neighbors know. I don’t care about the money. And I certainly don’t care about Sean. “Let me go.”
“That’s not what I want to hear.”
I draw a long breath in my lungs and scream. “Let me go! Let me go, you bastard. Help!” I kick at his shins. “Let me go.”
He shifts, his eyes widening for a moment, and I knee him between the legs. He howls, and I rush back to the elevator. I press the button, and miracle of miracles, the elevator is still here. I step inside, my legs shaking so badly I fear they might fold at any moment, and punch the button for the underground parking lot.
As the doors begin to close, ever so slowly, I see Sean coming at me. I hit the button again and again and fumble in my purse for the pepper spray. When he puts his hand between the closing doors, I finally locate the can and lift it, turn the nozzle toward him and press, releasing the contents in his face.
He cries out and backs away, clawing at his eyes, and I jab viciously at the button again. My whole body is shaking, and when the doors finally close and the descent starts, I lean back and let out a strangled sound, somewhere between a sob and hysterical laughter. The can falls from my nerveless fingers, crashing to the floor, and I lean on the wall, fighting not to fold down.
I’m out of the maze. And I’m not coming back, not as long as Sean is out there. As long as I remember that my parents sold me out, that Sean wants to hurt me, that no matter how hard I try to please these people they don’t care about me, the maze becomes an illusion, and I’m free.
***
Night has fallen. As I drive out of my building, I pull out my cell to call Audrey, but somehow when I look down, I find I’ve automatically dialed another number—one that has always been at the top of my list for years.
Shit. I slow down, squinting at my cell, trying to see the disconnect button, but before I do, the call goes through.
I bring the cell to my ear as I turn out of the avenue, my eyes on the rearview mirror, still sick with fear. Would Sean follow me?