“No. I’m fine.” I shielded myself with a pillow and stood up. My gown was made of thin material. With a quick glimpse, the guard would be able to make out my nipples and possibly the dark hair between my legs. “I had a bad dream.”

“That’s fine.” He bent down, did a quick check under the bed, opened the closet door, closed it, and backed out of the room. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. Thanks so much.” Before he could leave, I called out, “What’s your name?”

“Mr. Castillo asked us not to spend too much time talking to you. I’d better not exchange names or anything.” He crossed through the doorway and shut the door behind him.

I checked my phone. The screen said I had forty missed calls from Michael.

I’m going to have to talk to him eventually.

The dream rushed back at me as I sat down on my bed. Lots of the things in it had actually happened. I’d run to Michael’s house, just a young and confused girl, looking for someone to love her. Michael represented my salvation in school. When others picked on my ripped and dirt-smudged clothes, he complimented me on them. When most laughed at my scraggly strands cut in no particular style, he begged me to allow him to run his fingers through them. He made me feel pretty and loved. It was only natural that I’d ask him to be my first.

Once he entered me, he’d left something inside my core that wouldn’t let go. It attached us to each other; a thick rope of chains and elaborate locks that bound us together forever.

The first time we had sex, he did call me another name. It wasn’t Delilah. It was some other girl’s name. He did that a lot, even later in our relationship. It took me a while to realize that he actually pretended to not know my name during sex intentionally. It was all a game for him, how fast could he piss me off, how quickly would I return to beg for more.

But the first time he called me someone else, I pretended to not hear him and dreamed that those words he whispered as he moved in and out of me dripped with honey and adoration. It wasn’t like we were in a relationship together, so I didn’t stop or call him out on it.

But his blurting out another’s name while he took my virginity should’ve been a huge sign to run away.

God, I wish I could run back to that girl, stop her in the rain, and turn her around.

Once Michael got his hooks into people, he dragged them around forever. I had no idea if he ever loved me or simply enjoyed controlling me. One would hope that a person didn’t only thrive off evil and other’s pain. My mom used to say that no one was purely bad, that everyone had some good in them. I dealt with Michael for over ten years and still couldn’t be sure. What part was real? What part was him just setting up another move in his game?

The morning after I lost my virginity, I woke up to him painting me.

“Don’t move, Ellie.” He slid his paintbrush against the canvas in front of him. “You look like an angel with the sun shining on your skin like that, and all that beautiful hair spread out like huge wings. Don’t ever cut your hair. Promise me.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t ever change. Always be my angel.”

“Okay, Michael.”

I tried, but I was only human. Anytime he gave, he took away. When he finished the painting, he drove me home and didn’t talk to me in school or call for two weeks. I’d cried myself to sleep and walked around my school’s hallways like a zombie. Heavy bags lay under my eyes from lack of sleep. By then Mom had drove off to Vegas with her new love to get married. Dad drowned himself in a pit of depression. I’d had to change the sofa cushions from Dad pissing on himself as he slept. I had no other family or friends to talk to, and considered running away or simply taking my own life. I was a vessel of hormones, rejection, and confusion just trying my best to step along the minefield of life and not get blown away.

The third Monday after I lost my virginity, Michael approached me with a canvas wrapped in brown paper. “Happy birthday.”

“It’s not my birthday.” I shut my locker and walked away.

“Why are you so mad?”

“I’m not.”

He captured my arm and pulled me back. “Yes, you are.”

I stared at the ground. “What do you want, Michael?”

“To give you your present.” He attempted to hand it to me.

“I don’t want it.” I stepped around him and picked up my pace.

Tags: Kenya Wright Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net