Echo(45)

I deserved it. I deserve even worse.

If this is his way of punishing me, then I’ll suppress the need to fight him. I’ll bear it and take it without enmity.

Concentrating on calming myself down, I turn on the faucet and cup my hands under the cold water. My knuckles sting as the water flushes the split skin. It takes my blood and runs red down the drain. I allow the coolness to numb the wound.

After taking a few sips from my hands and rinsing my mouth out, I start opening the drawers and cabinets to find a couple bandages to cover my knuckles. Once I have the band-aids in place, I undo my pants to clean up. Flinching when I wipe myself, I look to see the toilet paper streaked in blood from his assault.

I splash a little water on my face, and finger-comb my hair, before I open the door and take slow steps through the bedroom. I’m timid and nervous about walking out of this room, about facing Declan, about what will happen next. Making my way down the stairs, I don’t see him, so I head to the kitchen where I left my coat and the keys to the car.

I stop when I see Declan leaning over the counter. I don’t move. I don’t make a sound. His back faces me as he’s bent over, leaning on his elbows with head in hands. The rise and fall of his shoulders is noticeable as he stands there, slightly disheveled in his tailored slacks and untucked button-up.

When he senses my presence, he shifts his head to look at me and I notice his reddened eyes. The shame is written all over him, staining him in humiliation, but I’m the only one who should feel it. Not him.

He pushes back from the counter and stands up, facing me, and when I take a slow step into the kitchen, I’m overwhelmed with the need to give him honest pieces of me. To open up with truths he’s never heard before. To finally let him inside of me.

“Being with you has been difficult,” I admit, my words trembling. “It takes me to the extremely dark place of my past.”

“Then why me? Why not choose someone else?”

“Because,” I choke out as the tears flood my eyes. “B-Because you always held my hand,” I weep. “For some reason, that simple touch made it okay. Made me feel safe. I’ve never had that touch before.”

He doesn’t respond to my words as he looks at me with tormented eyes.

So I stand here in front of him and tell him the truth as I continue to cry through the shame of who I really am. “On my tenth birthday, my foster dad forced my brother to molest me while he watched and jerked off.” Admitting my disgust for the first time in my life suddenly makes it all too real. Tears fall from my cheeks as I bear my disgrace in front of my love. “I was only a kid. I didn’t even know what sex was until I was lying underneath Pike on a filthy mattress in the basement.”

“Christ,” he breathes in horror at my words.

“After that day, I found myself in that basement nearly every day for years. I couldn’t believe in heaven or God when I was being forced to do things people want to pretend don’t exist. But what happened to me made me believe in evil. And that the devil is real and lives inside the savages of this world.”

Declan turns away from me, resting his hands back on the counter and dropping his head. His breath heavy as I add, “My foster dad . . . he had a thing for belts as well. He got off on stripping me naked and whipping me until I bled.”

His fists ball tightly at my words.

“You used to frighten me when you’d use your belt on me. All I could think about were all the beatings I was forced to endure as a little girl.”

“Stop.”

“This is the truth,” I sob. “This is what I never wanted you to know about me. I’m ugly and nasty and dirty and—”

“Stop!” he shouts.

I watch the muscles that rope his arms flex with tension. His eyes are pinched shut, and I startle when he slams his one fist into the solid granite with a guttural outburst.

I’m paralyzed, scared to move, completely exposed, and mortified. Never have I opened myself up like this. I never had to with Pike because he was there. A witness. A participant.

With his eyes still closed, he says in acrimony, “Do you have any idea what it’s like to love the person you hate?”

Love? God, he can hate me all he wants if he still loves me.

Opening his eyes, he takes a couple steps toward me. “Because I do hate you. More than anything on this earth. I hate you with every pump of blood my heart proffers. I want to punish you in the worst ways, make you suffer and hurt. But God help me . . . I love you.”