I pulled back and curled up by the headboard, yanking the covers with me. I could feel myself overreacting, losing rational thought, but it was unstoppable. Each beat of my heart got harder, louder, blocking any logic from reaching me.
“What, Ana? What’s going on? Talk to me. Baby, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.” Kevin’s panicked voice pleaded with me, but I clutched my head and tried to think while I simultaneously beat myself up for being so weak.
“Ana,” he lowered his voice, trying to reach me.
“I can’t do this,” I said between clenched teeth. I didn’t want to do this again, but I didn’t have a choice. I was so stupid for shoving my reasons to the back of my mind when he touched me. “I can’t have these marks on me, Kevin. What if people see? What am I going to say?”
He crawled to his knees, lifting his hands as though approaching a wild animal. “Ana, calm down. Breathe.”
“Calm down? Look at me,” I shouted, ripping the sheet away, baring my marred body to him. “What am I going to tell people at work when they see these marks? What will they think?”
“It’s summer,” he answered, too rational. How could he sit there so calm while my chest caved in on the reality of what a mistake giving in was?
“It doesn’t matter. What about later?”
“Who’s going to see marks on your hips and breasts at work? And you don’t owe anyone an explanation.” His calm tone began pissing me off. I knew it wasn’t rational, I knew I was letting the panic swallow me, claim me, transform me into an angry banshee. But I was so tired of explaining, and he should’ve known. He, of all people, should’ve known how much I struggled with this. He, of all people, shouldn’t look at me and ask me over and over again to explain such a painful thing.
I shouldn’t have been with him, and having to say it again and again hurt, and that hurt was changing—warping—to anger.
Horrible, misplaced, irrational anger.
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “I’ll just let them jump to conclusions like I’m abused. That would go over well. And it starts with my breasts and hips, but what happens when I have bruises on my wrists, legs, shoulders? Or neck when you want to choke me again? And I let you because I’m some freaky slut who likes it.”
“Don’t you dare call yourself that.” Kevin’s eyes darkened to almost black, and even in the middle of him commanding me, I’d never heard him use such a dark voice. “And do you really think I’m so careless about your needs?” he asked. He dragged a hand through his hair, pulling at the ends.
Higher and higher I climbed in my panic, refusing to take responsibility for what I’d just done. I didn’t stop to think, too lost in my mind, and I let words tumble from my lips. “It’s all about you, Kevin, and what you want. You know I would submit to anything.”
“You know better than that, Anabelle.”
“Do I?” I whispered. “If you know so well, then what about the scrape on my back in college? The bruises on my arms in high school? The time you left me to the wolves after graduation so you could save yourself? What about then? Were my best interests on your mind then?”
Jaw clenched, his face paled at my assault. The words were unfair. The memories ours; decisions we’d made together. Decisions that were made when we were kids and didn’t know any better.
“I was eighteen and the son of a politician. Drunk. I was scared and wasn’t thinking. I’ve apologized over and over.” Color rose in his cheeks and I watched Kevin lose his calm patience before my eyes. He was no longer aloof, go-with-the-flow, always-love-Ana Kevin. He was mad, and I deserved it. “I’ve begged you to be with me time and time again, and yet you just simply choose to walk away. For what? To try and be normal? Do you think if you fucked enough normal guys often enough, they’d be able to pound some of that normal into you? Did you really think that would work?”
His chest heaved after his outburst, and I looked away, unable to meet his rage. His words hit me like a slap to the face.
“Jesus, Ana. Take some responsibility. This is the girl who promised me she would kick a guy’s ass if he did something she didn’t like. Including me. And now you’re going to sit there and act like you didn’t know what we were doing? You were right there with me and knew damn well that I would have stopped if you wanted me to. We aren’t kids anymore. We aren’t new to this. You don’t get to play shocked and naïve.”