In theory.
But when you’re in the thick of abuse and still live with the torment in your head every day, it’s a little different. No one handles it. They just fake it better. How else do you cope with the terrible shit you’ve been through?
“He never cried,” I told her, my voice quiet. “I’ve never seen him cry.”
She remained quiet, and I turned my eyes up to the sky.
“When she’d come in, he’d make me hide,” I continued, my pulse echoing in my ears. “In the closet with his headphones on. And after it was done, he would let me out, and then he’d go take a shower. Sometimes he was in there for an hour. Sometimes three or four.”
Tears sprang up, and I closed my eyes.
The creaks of the bed would breach the music in my ears sometimes. I could still hear it.
“He’d stay in the shower for however long it took to get himself straight again,” I told her. “Sometimes the cuts were on his arms or his chest. Depending on the season and what his clothes would cover.” Silent tears streamed down my temples. “When he was fifteen, he started slicing the bottom of his feet, so he would feel it every time he walked. I didn’t understand how he could run on the basketball court with the pain. His socks were soaked in blood sometimes.” I looked over at her, the blue of her eyes shimmering like a pool. “And there were other things he’d do. Ways he’d make me hurt him…” I paused and then continued. “Until the night it was time to hurt her.”
Damon had beat his mother bloody one night, and we thought that was the last we’d ever see of her. That was the night he stopped hurting himself, because he learned how good it felt for him to hurt others. He didn’t need to suffer anymore.
“Damon eats pain,” I told her. “He will find some way to take it and twist it and fit it down his throat, so he can swallow it. He’s made of it. You all can endure it until you overcome it, but Damon…he wants to be in hell.”
It’s where he shines.
I turned my eyes back up to the sky, sliding an arm under my head. “But still…he never cried.”
Kai
Present
A feathery touch caressed my face, and I stirred, realizing I’d been asleep. My head was like dead weight, and I couldn’t lift it.
Blinking, I saw light pour into the room and Banks lying next to me. I grinned. I’d always hated sleeping with other people—like actual sleep, in the same bed.
She was so quiet, though. And I liked seeing her the moment I woke up.
Reaching out, I snaked an arm round her waist and pulled her in close.
But she was stiff, and something was off. I closed my fingers around her skin, but it wasn’t skin I was feeling. It was clothing.
I opened my eyes fully and saw that she had her head turned toward me, watching me.
Her eyes looked sad.
“What is it, baby?” I pushed myself up on my elbows and turned toward her, keeping my arm around her. “What’s going on? Why are you dressed?”
She was wearing the same outfit she came in a couple days ago.
Her whisper was small as she brushed the back of her hand across my cheek. “Don’t forget how this feels.”
I dug in my eyebrows. “What?”
Pushing myself up, I sat on my knees and noticed her phone in her hand. An unsettling feeling hit me. What did she mean?
I grabbed her phone, and she let me, quietly watching me as I read the screen.
Look out the window.
I didn’t recognize the number, and she didn’t have the contact saved. No name. A single text.
I looked at her, searching for an explanation, but she seemed paralyzed.