Echo(52)

I stop and drop my head. I can’t bear to look at Declan anymore when I start to feel the filth crawl along my skin. Tears burn the backs of my eyes as I try to keep them at bay, but they come anyway.

“Don’t look away from me,” he tells me when he tugs my chin up to face him.

With my head up but my eyes closed, I say, “It’s humiliating.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want you hiding from me. Look at me and trust me enough to give me this truth.”

So I do. I open my eyes, and while tears continue to fall from my eyes and drip off my chin, I tell him everything that happened in that basement. How Carl would rape me, sodomize me, piss on me, beat me, and whip me. How he’d cum on my face and laugh at me while he’d wipe it off with his finger and force me to lick it. How he’d piss on the mattress and shove my face in it, force me to finger his ass while he’d beat himself off. How it didn’t take long for him to turn me into a machine because it’s what I had to become in order to survive.

I sob as I give him this sick part of me, and explain why I started having sex with Pike by ourselves. Explained how it soothed me and provided an escape for me. I rip myself open and let the rot fall onto Declan’s lap as I reveal my twisted childhood to him.

He listens, never interrupting, but encouraging me to go on. His eyes are wide in disbelief and pity, and I know he will never look at me the same way again. He now knows the reality of my pathetic existence. The worthlessness of my body, the one he used to look at in amazement and admiration. He’d call me perfect, beautiful, and flawless.

But now he knows the truth.

This body was never something he should’ve valued. Anyone would be foolish to value the pile of shit it is. It’s simply a capsule—fancy wrapping paper—that conceals everything I’m made of . . . sewage.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Because I was scared if I did, I’d lose Pike. I feared going to another abusive home and being alone. Pike was all I had; I didn’t want to be without him,” I try to explain.

“He used you.”

“Who? Pike?”

“Yes. If he loved you like you claim he did, he would’ve pushed you to get help, to get you to a place that was safe.”

Shaking my head, I refute, “It doesn’t work like that. And he did love me. He gave his whole life to me. I was always safe with him.”

Declan bites down hard causing his jaw to tick, and I tell him, “You won’t ever change my opinion of Pike. I don’t expect you to understand, but we were just kids. We did what we could to survive. Whether you believe it to be right or wrong, what’s done is done, and looking back won’t change anything.”

“I wish I could take it away.”

“You can’t,” I say weakly. “Just like I can’t take away the pain in your life. I want to. I want that power more than you know.”

Sitting in the darkness, making my confessions and opening myself up, I wonder why Declan remains unmoving by my side. My desire to crawl inside of his head, to know the thoughts he hides in there is strong. His expression is hard to read as he looks at me. The hush in the room is unsettling, yet peaceful. I was starting to wonder if he would ever be able to be in the same room as me without punishing me.

“I should go.”

He stands up from the bed, and when he does, I lie down. I watch him turn back to me, and in a sweet gesture, he pulls the covers over my body and then braces his hands on the mattress, hovering over me.

“Stay.”

“Why?” I breathe.

“I don’t know why. Just don’t go back to the States just yet.”

He pushes off the bed and walks to the door. I’m sad when he leaves—lonely and empty. His scent looms in the air, and I take a deep breath to capture him in my soul. Lying here in the dark, I feel haunted by the demons I just released.

And now he knows the fallacy of it all.

As for me, I’ve just sliced through my deepest scar tissue and reopened the wounds of desecration.

I battle with my heart to shut down, to turn into the machine that protects me from that which is destined to destroy me. Between the memories that just rebirthed inside of me and the loss of Declan’s presence, the mass of emotions is too much for me to even think about right now.

So I cloak myself in armor and delight in stupor.





I WAS OFFERED a plea deal when my attorney came to see me yesterday. Since my part in all this was simply being a man of the books—the white-collared crook—they want me to rat out the bigger names to the operation. The thing is, I don’t have many names. The men that do the runs are worth a lot more to the Feds than I am, but I’m not privy to that side of the business. The one name I am privy to is the one I know they want the most.