“I’m not a rapist. You agreed. You knew exactly what you were getting into. What you put on offer.”
She’s clawing at my forearm, opening and closing her mouth. I squeeze, and she brings one hand to my face, her nails scratch my cheek, drawing blood.
Blood.
I blink.
I see it on her neck too from where my hand is bleeding from the broken glass. It’s on her face. Her chest. Wherever my hands have been.
Her arm falls away and I look at her eyes. I release her throat, slide off the bed. She rolls onto her side coughing, gasping for breath. I take a step back, watching her, looking at the blood on her, on myself.
Giving a confused grunt, I turn, walk to the door. I stop there, my back to her. I run my hands over my face, through my hair. I force my legs to move, to get out of her room. Because I don’t know what I’ll do to her if I don’t get the fuck out of her room.
Without turning back, I take hold of the doorknob. “Don’t come out, understand? Do not come out of this room.”
I slam the door shut and go into the living room, then through it and out onto the balcony. I don’t care that it’s pouring rain. That wind whips me like a lash. I don’t care. I stand in it, letting it wash away the blood. Letting it pelt my face. I stand in it and remember and I can’t think about anything else. Not the terrified girl in the bedroom. Not the fact that I almost killed her. Nothing.
Because all I see is blood. So much fucking goddamned blood.
5
Cilla
I lock the bedroom door. I know it won’t keep him out, but I do it anyway. Trembling, shivering, fucking freezing, I back away, covering myself. I look down at my chest, see his prints in red. I raise my hand and find skin and blood under my fingernails.
What happened? What the fuck just happened?
What the hell have I gotten myself into? He’s going to kill me.
I look around the bedroom. A bed, two nightstands, one on either side of the bed, a vanity, a dresser. I go to it, begin to shove it toward the door, but the thing must weigh a thousand pounds because I can’t budge it. I give up, take the chair before the vanity and slide it beneath the doorknob. I don’t think it’ll hold if he wants to come in here, but it’s something. I open every single drawer to find a weapon, something, anything I can use to defend myself, but come up short. In the bathroom, same thing. Bottles of shampoo and conditioner, bath wash and lotions, a toothbrush in its package, toothpaste. But nothing I can use to hurt him. Maim him.
Back in the bedroom, I listen for him. I force myself to put my ear to the door and hear nothing. There are two windows but we must be at least twenty floors off the ground. I’m not exiting that way.
He said I could leave anytime I wanted. I can’t though. I know what that means for Jones.
Jones. Fuck. I’m so fucking stupid. He said he’d been clean for months and I believed him. Jones, my big brother. The one who gave up so much because of me. Who lost so much.
I sit on the edge of the bed. I remember what he went through at the house. I know why he’s the way he is. He was brave once. Courageous. But that was beaten out of him good and hard.
Tears fill my eyes, wet my face. My stomach is empty but it feels like it’s filled with bricks. This is an impossible situation. I have to do what he says. I have to give him anything he wants. Everything he wants.
What happened just now though makes me pause. He could have taken it tonight. He’s bigger than me. Stronger than me. He could have made me, but he didn’t. What was it that triggered his violent reaction? Not the word bully. He knows he’s that. He doesn’t care that he is that. Things changed when I accused him of being a rapist.
I stand, shaking my head to clear the image of that glass shattering in his hand.
He won’t take what I don’t give. But the question is, how long will he allow me to not give it?
I walk to the bathroom, lock the door behind me and switch on the shower. The water is steaming when I step under the flow. I wince at the heat but force myself to stay and when my body adjusts to the temperature, I wash away the blood, the skin under my nails. I scrub my hair and body and only switch off the water when I can’t stand it anymore. I wipe the steam from the mirror before wrapping the towel around myself. My reflection looks back at me, my tired, reddened eyes, the bruises darkening in the shape of his fingers at my throat. I squeeze the moisture from my hair, wind it into a bun, use a rubber band I find in one of the drawers to hold it in place. I then tear open the toothbrush packaging and brush my teeth like a normal person. Like it’s a normal night. Like I’m not trapped like some animal waiting her turn for slaughter.