by Regan Ure
“Which one?” I asked as I held up both items, showing them to Chris.
“The slacks are too formal for a first date,” he informed me with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Jeans it is, then,” I said, laying the jeans down on my bed. I folded the slacks and put them back neatly in my wardrobe.
Chris stood in my closet, looking through some of the tops. I was glad he was helping me, because I honestly didn’t have a clue.
“How about this?” he asked, holding up a red baby-doll shirt with thin straps.
I looked at the shirt. The color was bold and it was sexy, so unlike me. I chewed on my bottom lip as I tried to imagine what I would look like in it.
“Why don’t you go and try it on?” he suggested. As much as he loved me and wanted to help, I could see he was starting to get bored. A guy could only be so interested in clothes and shoes.
“Okay,” I said, grabbing the shirt and the jeans as well as some underwear and headed into my bathroom.
Once I got dressed, I stepped out of my bathroom.
“So what do you think?” I asked while I stood in front of Chris as he lounged on the sofa.
“You look… hot,” he assured me.
I felt a little uncomfortable in the revealing top. At least my bruises were gone and the only thing that still remained from my attack from Grant was the cast on my arm.
“How much longer do you still need to wear that?” Chris asked, pointing at my cast. He’d seen my gaze lingering on it.
“Another few weeks,” I answered. I couldn’t wait to get rid of it because then I wouldn’t think about the attack every time I saw it.
“What did Damien have to say about your date with Mark?” he asked when I sat down beside him and put my feet up on the small coffee table in front of us.
“He isn’t happy about it,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“I know you have feelings for him, but in the long run Mark will be better for you,” he told me. “I’ve known Damien for a while and I just don’t think he is capable of committing to just one girl.”
Someone knocked on my door.
“Come in,” I said.
“What are you guys doing?” asked Damien as he walked into my room.
“I’m getting ready for my date,” I told him. Damien’s smile disappeared. His eyes scanned me.
“You look beautiful,” he said softly while his eyes held mine.
“Thanks to my good taste,” added Chris, looking at me like I was his masterpiece.
“I’ll see you later,” Damien said to me before he turned and left.
“He feels more for you than he is willing to admit,” Chris said softly, his eyes where Damien had been a few moments ago.
“Maybe,” I said.
He’d moved on, and I was going on my first date with a boy. We were moving on. It didn’t matter how he looked at me or how I looked at him, what mattered was the action, of taking hold of something and never letting go. That was what mattered. The secret looks, the mistaken kisses, the hidden longing just wasn’t enough.
When Mark arrived to pick me up for our date, Damien was nowhere to be seen.
“Hi,” Mark greeted me as his eyes slid over me, making me feel nervous. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I replied, giving him a weak smile as I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking.
“Mark, this is Amy,” I introduced. Amy stood beside me.
“Hi, Mark,” said Amy. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too,” he said, flashing his signature smile, which showed off his dimples.
I could see from Amy’s reaction to him that he’d won her over. We spent a few more minutes getting our pictures taken by Chris.
“This isn’t prom, you know,” I reminded my overeager friend. He was snapping photos like he was shooting a fashion shoot.
“It’s your first date and I want to make sure you remember it,” he insisted. I felt a slight blush tint my cheeks at the thought that Mark now knew this was my first date. My eyes met Mark’s, and he smiled at me. He seemed to be easygoing and didn’t seem to mind Chris going nuts with the camera. Even Amy seemed to be endeared by Chris as she laughed at my attempts to get him to stop taking photos.
“That’s enough,” I muttered, putting my hand up to the camera playfully.
“Okay,” he relented with a grin. “I think I might have enough photos.”
“Thanks for helping me get ready,” I whispered to Chris as I hugged him.
“You’re welcome, have fun,” he whispered back, giving me a quick squeeze.
“Enjoy,” Amy murmured as she hugged me goodbye.
“Are you ready?” Mark asked and I nodded. He opened the front door and he turned to say his goodbyes to Amy and Chris before we left.
I couldn’t help but think about Damien as Mark opened the passenger door to his car and I slid into the seat. He walked around and got into the driver’s seat and I pushed all thoughts of Damien out of my mind. I was on a date with a really nice guy and I was going to give him a chance. He kept the conversation light. He also didn’t ask me questions that I didn’t want to have to answer. I was sure he was curious to know why I was living with the Knights, but he never asked why. Instead, we talked about school.
“Chris is really a character,” he stated with a smile as he drove us to the cinema in town.
“Yeah, he is. One of a kind,” I agreed. I knew what a good friend he really was. He’d been the first to crack through the hard exterior I’d kept up to keep people from getting close.
I had to suppress a laugh when I remembered Chris trying to get near my cast with a pen again after I’d gotten ready, but there was no way I was letting him put any more little messages on my cast. I was pretty sure it would end up being something about Mark, babies and kisses.
Everything was going well and after getting the movie tickets and some food we walked into the cinema. Mark walked behind me as I found our seats and I sat down. I couldn’t ever remember going to the cinema, so it was new to me and I could feel a nervous knot in my stomach. An apprehensive feeling settled in my bones as I glanced around the darkened room. I took a deep breath to try to calm my nerves but it didn’t help.
The dark scared me.
“Everything okay?” Mark asked, picking up on my nervousness.
“I’m fine,” I lied. I could do this. I wanted normal, and this is what normal girls my age did. They went out to the cinema and watched movies.
They didn’t sit in fear of what the darkness would bring. An image of Grant flashed in my mind. I knew he’d been watching me and for all I knew he could be sitting in the darkness, waiting for another chance to kill me. Suddenly it got a little harder to breathe.
What if he was in the cinema? My fear kicked up into panic and my hands began to shake.
You can do this, I kept chanting over and over in my mind. Not once since I agreed to go out on a date with Mark had I thought about Grant, but now it was all I could think about. I managed to hold on until the cinema lights darkened and the screen in front flickered on. The darkness set something off in me and terror gripped me. I stood up, spilling my popcorn over.
“I can’t,” was all I managed to get out before I brushed past a confused Mark.
The cinema doors banged open and I stepped through them from the darkness into the safety of the light. I breathed in like I was starved for air. Mark was right behind me, looking at me with concern as the doors closed behind us.
“Are you okay?” he asked as his eyes scanned my face. There was no point in lying, he could see I wasn’t okay. I shook my head.
Gently, he steered me to a bench and my legs wobbled a little and I sat down.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to feebly mumble, trying to get my hands to stop shaking.
“It’s okay,” he assured me as he watched me struggling to contain my panic.
It was too much too soon. Taking another deep breath, I dropped my
head into my hands. I didn’t even want to think about what Mark thought about my little breakdown. He would think I was a freak. He had no idea what was behind my erratic behavior.
Damien.
With shaky fingers I pulled my phone from my bag. Under Mark’s concerned gaze, I dialed Damien.
“Hey.” Hearing his voice blanketed me with warmth that made me feel safe.
“I…” I stuttered, struggling to form a sentence.
“What’s wrong?” he asked anxiously and I gripped the phone in my hand as the words got stuck in my throat and I struggled to get them out.
Gently, Mark pried the phone from my fingers and took over. Distantly I heard him talk to Damien for a few minutes before he ended the call. I dropped my head into my hands and rubbed my hands over my face, trying to calm my heart, which was thumping in my chest like it was going to explode.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled again when he sat down next to me again and handed me my phone. I felt so bad because I should have known I wasn’t ready to try and move on with my life.
The only way I would be able to carry on with some sort of normality would be if Grant was firmly locked up. Until then the fear that he was going to succeed and kill me would stop me from living my life. We drew a few curious looks as some people walked past us but I ignored what was going on around us.
“It’s okay,” he assured me as his eyes softened.
“I can’t explain this to you.” I wasn’t ready to let another person in on my secret just yet. “But I just want you to know that I’m not crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he murmured. It was like he understood without me having to tell him anything.
After what felt like forever, though it couldn’t have been even twenty minutes, I spotted Damien walking across the cinema toward me. He looked upset and worried as my eyes latched onto him. I stood up on my weak legs as he swept me into his arms. For the first time since I’d freaked I felt a calmness envelop me as I leaned my head against his warm chest and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath as he held my protectively.
I heard Damien’s increased heartbeat thumping under my ear. I’d scared him and I felt bad that I’d overreacted like I had.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled against his chest.
“Shh,” he soothed and held me closer.
“Let’s go home,” he suggested gently as he steered me protectively through the doors of the cinema and out into the night. My first date, Mark, was left behind watching us leave, still confused by what had happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Haven
I leaned my head against the cool window, looking into the dark night while Damien quietly drove me home. A suffocating silence had settled between us. I could see he was worried, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. In a daze I watched the streetlights pass us by.
The evening had started off so well, and I couldn’t believe it had ended the way it had. I felt the heat of Damien’s gaze on me but I couldn’t look at him. I’d tried hard to be normal but I had to realize I couldn’t just sweep what had happened to me under the carpet and carry on as normal.
My life had been anything but normal for the last seven years, and there was a chance I would never be normal. It was probably a good thing that Amy had scheduled my appointment with the therapist. There was no doubt about it, I needed therapy.
Mark would probably never look at me the same way again, he probably thought I was crazy. It didn’t really matter anymore anyway. Deep down I’d known that Mark would never be able to replace Damien in my life. What had happened tonight had brought that truth to the surface. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, allowing the realization to roll through me.
I was hopelessly in love with a boy who was too broken to love me back. It wouldn’t be fair to lead Mark on when I knew my heart belonged to Damien. I let a sigh out.
This wasn’t just a passing physical attraction and it wasn’t a crush that would go away, it was so much more. He was the one I wanted to lean on when everything got to be too much. I wanted to wake up every morning beside him, wrapped in his arms. I wanted it so much.
I couldn’t stand around while he screwed everything in a skirt, it would kill me. It hurt that he was able to switch off whatever he’d felt for me because it wasn’t that long ago he’d screwed some random girl across the hall from me. Despite how understanding and caring he was being at the moment, I couldn’t mistake that for something that it wasn’t. It was sympathy for my situation. I knew he cared for me in some way—just not in the way I wanted.
I was kind of relieved when we finally arrived at home. He switched the car off and turned to face me in the darkness, but I still couldn’t look at him. I was scared he’d see what I was feeling in my eyes, so I kept my gaze on the house in front of us.
“Haven,” he whispered softly as he tugged me into his arms. I should have pulled away and gone into the house, because the more time I spent with him the more I seemed to love him, but I couldn’t. I closed my eyes and lay my head against his chest as he held me close. I pretended that everything was fine like I had this morning. For just a few minutes, I wanted to be happy and in his arms.
He played with a strand of my hair before he tucked it behind my ear. My eyes lifted to his and I was lost. My breath hitched in my lungs as his eyes kept mine captivated. His eyes flickered to my lips and then back to my eyes. I felt so aware of him at that moment.
“Let’s go inside,” he said when he released me and got out of the car.
I put my hand to my chest to stop my heart from bursting out of my chest as he opened the passenger door for me and helped me out onto my shaky legs. He had such a physical effect on me.
Amy was waiting by the front door when we stepped into the house with Damien leading the way, holding my hand.
“Are you okay?” she asked with concern.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to go into detail about what had happened.
A look passed between Damien and his mom before he tugged my hand and led me up the stairs.
It was still early evening, but after everything that had happened, I was tired. By the time we came to a stop in front of my bedroom door, I was suppressing a yawn.
“Go get dressed in your pajamas, I’ll be there soon,” he instructed softly.
I let go of his hand and pushed my bedroom door open. Events of the night kept running through my mind as I went and got ready for bed. I was tired but I remained wide awake with the bedroom light still on when Damien entered my bedroom about half an hour later.
He was dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. He switched the light off and in the dark walked to my bed and pulled the comforter back. After the night I’d had all I wanted was to cuddle safely in his arms and sleep. Tomorrow I’d deal with the consequences of getting closer to Damien and what it meant for me.
He climbed into my bed and I went into his open arms. I breathed him in deep and laid my head on his chest.
“You want to talk about what happened tonight?” he asked softly while he felt and stroked my hair. I closed my eyes for a brief moment.
Tonight had been more than just lingering fear from nearly dying at the hands of my evil stepfather. Nearly dying had broken free my conditioned fear of the dark. Most nights I’d lived in fear—some nights I hadn’t slept much because I was too scared to let my guard down.
It was the reason why I suffered from nightmares when Damien didn’t sleep in the room with me. Even in my subconscious state, I felt safer with Damien around. I’d never talked about the horrors that I’d endured under Grant’s brutal fists; it was still too hard to talk about them, and I didn’t know if I would ever be ready to talk about them.
I hoped that talking about them to a stranger might be easier, but there was no way I was ready to talk to Damien about it.
“I was scared.” I swallowed hard.
He waited patiently as he held me protectively against his chest.
“I didn�
�t realize the cinema was going to be so dark and when the lights went out I kinda freaked. Mark probably thinks I’m crazy,” I muttered.
“You’re not crazy,” he stated. “You’re were just a little scared. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I felt weak and hopeless. Even now that I was no longer being physically abused by Grant, the fear of him still dictated my life, and I hated it.
“It’s okay, you’re safe with me,” he assured me softly.
“I know,” I murmured as I held onto the warmth and safety he provided. Safe with Damien in the dark, I closed my eyes.
Every morning I woke up next to Damien made me feel happy and content. I never got tired of watching him sleep peacefully next to me.
He lay on his stomach, with his arm flung above his head. He was effortlessly gorgeous. There was something about watching someone when they were not aware they were being watched. It was like you were seeing them for who they were, not for who they were trying to be.
Or maybe it was just creepy.
I was pretty sure I was crazy after overreacting like I had last night. Maybe the next step in my downward spiral was becoming a creeper. As much as I wanted to hide out in my bed and forget about what had happened last night, I had to face another day. I got out of the bed, making sure I didn’t wake up Damien.
Now that I realized I loved him, I looked at him differently then I had before. He wasn’t just beautiful to me on the outside. He was just as beautiful and sweet on the inside; well, except for when he had slept with that girl across the hall. I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope with loving Damien.
Loving someone wasn’t a logical choice that was made by stacking the pros and cons together, it just kind of happened, and you couldn’t choose the person you fell in love with.
In front of my bathroom mirror, I looked at my reflection. On the outside, I looked like a typical teenage girl. No one just looking at me would see I was damaged from years of abuse. Only if you looked deeper into my eyes would you see the sadness deep in the depths of my soul.
I couldn’t help feeling guilty leaving Mark like I had on our first date. I’d call him a little later and apologize, if he would still talk to me. I couldn’t blame him if he never wanted to talk to me again. If I sat him down and explained my life to him he would understand, but I didn’t want to do that. There were enough people that knew about what had happened to me, and I didn’t want more people to find out about it. How was I supposed to try and put my life back together if I kept getting those knowing and sympathetic looks? I looked into the mirror and saw Damien, awake and standing a couple of feet behind me.
