With a nod, I agreed to his terms.
The silence at the table adjacent to the truck vendor, serving coffee and other hot beverages, increased an invisible tension between Braedan and me. I held the cup of hot chocolate without moving to taste or drink it. I was scared if I tasted it I would remember Noah in a way I hadn’t in some time. The picture painted of him was no longer the slightly dirty example of a man who had a raw deal in life. It was covered in coal, messy and ugly.
Our time outside Rebirth was a series of fumbles and disasters, and I couldn’t count a time where I felt enjoyment beyond the superficial. I was Noah’s, doing what he wanted when he wanted it. I no longer needed a mnemonic to remember the good in my life because it was at my fingertips. My friends, my family. The career I could’ve had if I shoved all the gloom of my past aside and appreciated it. It was hard to grasp any semblance of it when the reminder of the worst was staring at me, leaving me torn. Every part of me longed for the way things used to be between us.
Braedan’s fingers grazed against my fingertips, nearly frozen after I flipped up the mitten portion to wear the gloves in a fingerless style. He took both of my hands, holding them above the table, and blew a heated breath onto them that affected me beyond my hands.
“Should we leave?” he questioned with a smile saturated in warmth. “You’re nearly frozen.”
I rocked in my seat, remembering it had been too long since I’d been with him in that way. The memories of every time he was inside me began to replay inside my head. “You mentioned something about pageants,” I said, broaching a safe subject to move me away from my carnal needs. “Did you act in the past? Is that why you were so good at being…Reven?”
“They were recreations of important events in our bible,” he recalled with somberness.
“Why not anything more? Was it considered a sin?”
“Anything secular was banished. The only thing left uncensored were the history books. They believed it was important for us to know every detail of the horrors in world history. I suppose it was so we could easily paint it as a scary, evil place and never dream of escaping.” He suddenly turned shy and his face reddened. He looked down at his untouched cup and added, "It didn’t stop me from being curious, and it was severely frowned upon."
“Did most of the men in your cult marry young?”
“We married at eighteen, sometimes sixteen. I was held back from a lot of things because they felt I was inhabited by the devil. My mother…would remind me of it often. Evil was a disease and it could’ve been something as simple as being attractive or expressing your sexuality. During my punishments, I was told I was the embodiment of sin, corrupting the sisters or mothers.”
“So you were never with any women there?” I inclined forward, allowing his hands to warm mine. “I’m sorry, that’s a really forward question.”
He raised a brow and fought with a smile. “After all that we’ve experienced together, you really think it’s a forward question?”
I shrugged demurely.
“Nadine broke my virginity and…taught me other things.”
“You were a virgin up until Rebirth?” I kept my question quiet to prevent anyone else from hearing our conversation. It was difficult to do when the information befuddled me. “It’s hard to believe. Awkward and socially inept, it shouldn’t have mattered. Looking at you now, and remembering your face before, I can understand what they meant by the temptation. What about when you were out in the world without your parents? There’s no way a man who looks like you, and acts the way you are right now, didn’t have his pick of women.”
His cheeks reddened and he gave me a constrained smile, sprinkled with sorrow. “After my parents died, many parts of my life are indiscernible. Alcohol was my best friend and my girlfriend.”
“Noah said he had addiction issues, too.”
He immediately let go of my hand and slid back in his seat. His eyes cast to the untouched cup of hot chocolate in front of him. “And I confirmed he did. A good portion of what I told you the day you were released was true.” He looked over the crowd, searching for something or someone. “Why broach the subject of Noah at a time like this?”
“Are you trying to make me forget him?”
“No. My intent has been and will always be to make you see the truth.”
“If you were so good at playing Reven and making me believe he was real, why would I believe you wouldn’t be as good at playing this guy?”
“Apparently this guy is inept. I don’t think anyone could act this badly. I’m not exactly anyone’s ideal this way. You’re making that clear.”
“You misunderstood what I said.” I shook my head. “The problem with this guy is…”
He crouched forward with interest, urging me to continue. “The problem is what, Keaton?”
“It…doesn’t matter…” I quickly looked around and hushed my voice. “…when you have three people locked away in the basement against their will.”
“Do you want to add the word innocent? As in innocent people in my basement?”
“I know they aren’t innocent. They have all done horrible things to me and who knows who else.”
“Do you think if they were in the same position as you are now, they would raise a hand to help you?”
“It’s not about that. It’s not about what they would or wouldn’t do, it’s about what’s right.”
“Who are you really to say, Keaton?”
“No one,” I whispered. “I’m trying to fit the guy you are showing me with the man who would do that. I can’t.”
“Do you really feel torn about their predicament? Or are you more torn over the fact you know they belong there? Would any of it make you feel less culpable about your feelings for me? Haven’t you learned your lesson? Like Adam’s crime, sentencing him to Rebirth, you let a criminal escape with his crimes. Adam did it once, and proceeded to turn into a criminal himself. You’ve done it twice. If there is anything you should’ve learned, it’s that if you let a criminal go free, they’ll commit their crimes and perhaps more again. You know what I want you to do?” He leaned over the table, staring at me with an inescapable and dark gaze. “I want you to think about what you really want from me. Then, I want you to be clear on who I am. I’m not my brother. I never lifted my hand to kill anyone.”
“You didn’t stop what happened there, either.”
“If I had to go back to that place as the man I am right now, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to save anyone from their death.”
I gasped and tried again to remove my hands from his iron-strong grip.
“Keaton,” he began to sneer, “do you think Gregory deserved his life?”
“No,” I said softly, admitting it out loud for the first time. “He deserved to die.”
“We’re not so different after all, are we?” He reached up and thumbed my chin. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“No,” I croaked, the admission difficult to say. “Because behind all my talk and the annoying straddling the fence thing I’m doing, I know deep down I’m not in the position to let go of you. Your darkness has become the most beautiful and alluring thing I’ve ever touched.”
There was no table, crowd, or anything obstructing us when he kissed me, strongly, securely, leaving his message on my lips.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I exhaled across his mouth.
“My answer will never change, Keaton.”
“I was getting dressed for our date, and I saw myself naked in the mirror and I thought…” I choked up. “I once thought Noah made me beautiful again. I thought every scar he gave me was a declaration of his love. I was crazy to think that. He made me ugly.”
“He never took your beauty away from you.”
Hating the feeling consuming me, fogging my brain from morality, I began to shut down. “We shouldn’t talk about Noah.” I got up and threw away my hot chocolate, walking slowly to ensure Braedan caught up with me.
INSIDE BRAEDAN
’S HOME, I perused the kitchen, searching the cabinets for plates. The smell of the freshly delivered pizza did little to trigger my appetite. I wished I wasn’t present inside my body; it was a chaotic place.
As Braedan stood from the stool, he grimaced and sucked his teeth.
I set the plates down and was at his side in seconds. “Hit the ice too many times?”
“Might have,” he said.
A little concerned he’d possibly broken his tailbone, I reached for the hem of the back of his sweater. “Let me see. You might need to go to the doctor.”
He tried to stop me, but it was too late. I had unbuckled, unbuttoned, and pulled down the waistband of his jeans along with his boxer briefs a little too far before he could succeed. When I gasped, he released a shaky exhale. I pulled down more, revealing a large amount of flesh with too many scars to count on his behind. “H-how far down does it go?”
“Far.”
Removing my hand from the waistband, I clutched my stomach with recognition. His scars looked similar to the ones on my stomach. “Did Noah…do that to you?”
“The scars bleed together. He liked to torment me when we were kids, as did my parents.”
My wall disappeared and I was ready to embrace what I ignored when I was around him. I grabbed his clenched fist as it rested on the countertop. “How long did the abuse go on?”
“All my life. When I did something against our laws—and there were many—my mother would give me a cocktail of laxatives and ipecac when she thought she needed to purge the Devil from my system. Other times, an enema with bleach. Most of the time, they would lock me inside a dark closet. Occasionally, for an hour. Most often, a few days.”
“That’s awful, Braedan. They were awful people.” I couldn’t fight the notion, desiring to know more. “What was the worst thing they did to you?”
He dropped his chin to his chest and his entire body tensed, indicating I treaded into territory he didn’t want to reside in.
“I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to…” Trailing off, I quickly picked up a slice of pizza and plopped it on my plate. “Can we get to watching the movie?” I moved swiftly to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. I unscrewed it and left it to dangle tensely at my side.
“During one particular bible study session, several of the fathers prayed over me,” Braedan began, his voice quiet and sullen. “I was naked and tied to a chair while they took turns beating me with whatever they could find. They beat me until they thought they purged the evil—until I went unconscious. I was in agony for a month and wasn’t allowed to go to the hospital. A former friend of my mother—who was later ostracized—took me to the doctor in secret. Hairline fractures, cracked ribs… You can’t imagine how painful it is for a doctor to re-break your bones and reset it to heal properly. I went to physical therapy in secret because my parents wouldn’t have taken me to the appointments. They believed in miracles and not science.”
His hazel eyes swept upward, stunned by the tears streaming down my cheeks. He cupped my face and wiped my tears away. “And I thought I’d spare you the details by telling you the least horrific of my ordeals.”
Images of Braedan as an innocent boy, stifled by brutality, gutted me with one painful swoop. No one deserved what Braedan had gone through. Underneath all the damage, I caught a glimpse of Braedan’s heart, and it was bright and blinding. His parents were blessed with a son who could’ve been an asset to the world. Instead of nurturing him, they sullied his soul and killed his spirit.
“I don’t understand,” I sobbed. “How could Noah think you had it better?”
“He translated their oppressing focus on me and punishments as love, and he thought they loved me more.” Painful moments of silence, where the hurt Braedan tried to shield from me became my own, were agonizing. I hadn’t the slightest idea what to say or do to make him overcome his abuse.
“You wanted to know the worst?” he asked, his soft tone cutting through the thick stillness. “I’ll show it to you.” He pulled his undone pants down a little more. I was only able to see the beginning of his shaft and his pubic hair. It was enough. Healed cuts in haphazard designs decorated down the length. “Erections without the purpose of reproduction in private or public punishment were seen as obscene. Sex was for creation and regulation only. During my time of evolving into a man, every morning my mother caught me with what she labeled as ‘obscene,’ and she would cut me to make sure it was too painful for me to have an erection again.”
“But that’s a natural part of puberty.”
“Not according to the community. They believed we were born sexual beings, and because we were, we were born evil, and the church is what kept us from turning into what we were born to be. They were convinced I was a vessel for demons.”
I believed every word of what Braedan had told me. All the pieces he gave me began to fit into the jagged connecting parts. “Did they punish you because they thought you were too sexual?”
His response was delayed, and he had an issue with directly engaging in eye contact with me. “I think they punished me because they thought I was temptation personified. The sisters paid too much attention to me, and things of that nature weren’t allowed. Women were supposed to be subservient, quiet, and serve as support at home. Everything a woman did or said was because the man in their life allowed or ordered it.
“Every boy under the age of thirteen was viewed in the same light as a woman. As boys, we weren’t allowed to speak until we received our voices. We weren’t considered men until we completed most of the stages of puberty. We couldn’t speak until the change was over. When we reached the age of sixteen, we were considered men. If we drew attention or did anything sexual—especially before then—we were punished.”
“And how were the women punished?”
“If a woman was deemed as turning to evil—being too sexual—they would take her to the church and have the pastor and head leaders help her cleanse.”
“Cleanse? How?”
“They would have sex with her and ejaculate inside her until she passed out. It was thought once she became unconscious, they’d quelled the evil that was inside of her. It was called The Regulation.”
I gaped at him in awe. “And that was considered normal?”
“It happened to quite a few of the women. Occurred with my mother countless times. The men and boys were made to watch while it happened. At times, the women and girls screamed. Sometimes they didn’t. There was no such thing as rape…or a violation. It was taught to be a curing mechanism.”
How could you know how to love when you’ve never been shown? How could you know when you do everything you can to appease the people you love only to be betrayed and hurt in the process? How could you really know what’s wrong and right when the line was distorted and cruel acts were seen as good?
Braedan had shown me more of why and who he was than I’d ever been shown from Noah. I discovered why Noah was the way he was, and it had little to do with what he told me—because most of what he’d said had been proven to be a lie.
“When you were Reven,” I started carefully as my next question was a shot in the dark, “were you channeling your father?”
“Yes,” he replied in earnest. “At times, he bleeds into me, even when I don’t mean for him to. I’m still learning, Keaton. It’s why I will always be forthcoming with you. I want you to forgive me. I want you to trust me.”
“Someday.” I was careful not to clarify which part he would receive. He had my trust. Forgiveness seemed the toughest thing to give him.
“Someday?” His brow quirked up with a little anticipation. “That’s better than never.”
My past seemed so ordinary and simple compared to what he’d been through. Yes, there had been tragedies, but I grew up with love. He never grew up knowing the proper meaning of it, and I couldn’t help the sensation consuming me, desiring to chuck everything keeping us at a distance aside and show him a true and pure kind of love.
; “Let me in, Keaton.” His words were as soft as the touch of his fingers on my chin.
I clutched the water, nearly making the contents burst out of the open neck. “It’s so minor now.”
“Nothing about you or what you’ve been through is minor. Don’t compare your life to mine and think it diminishes what you’ve been through. It doesn’t.”
The near to exploding water, tightly gripped in my hands, captured my focus. “I have to say, I’m surprised my mother told you to take me ice-skating. She never allowed me to participate in sports. I tried to make a case about how pretty it looked, or how my injuries wouldn’t be so bad. She didn’t believe me. I went against her wishes and made it a ritual to go with my friends every week in December. After three years of her never finding out, she caught me one day.
“She had to have been there for hours, watching me. She had the proudest smile on her face when I finally spotted her. I thought it meant things would change. It didn’t. She forbid me from doing it again and tried to give me a happy medium by allowing me to take up ballet.” I grinned solemnly. “Ballet wasn’t my cup of tea. My dance instructor used to tell me I was too fat for it, and most of the girls…let’s just say they were competitive.
“Everything I was expected to do, the friends I was expected to have, the college I was supposed to go to, the singing, the pageants, the clubs for those who had to rub elbows with other people who had, the boyfriends—I did everything I was supposed to do, and lost my identity. I’d never felt so alone living a life that wasn’t mine.
“I think that’s why I was attached to Jeff. We had so much in common. I’d never felt more free than I did when I lived on the street. I didn’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations, and I knew I had someone at my side who would protect me with his life. He didn’t have any social or financial obligations that would’ve made him find diplomatic solutions for every problem or only got to know me because of who my parents were. Jeff was just Jeff.
Seducing Virtue (Wicked Trinity Book 3) Page 13
