“Sleep now,” is all he says. His hand caresses my back, soft touches up and down.
~*~
With each second ticking over I’m going to be in more trouble, but I just can’t bring myself to leave the safety of my room. I’ve cleaned the room the whole day, not because I had to, but because it gave me a reason to stay in it. Otherwise I have to face her, and her Boeing flew over very early this morning, which means she started drinking at around ten, earlier than usual.
People define abuse as being hit, and nine out of ten times it is by a man. Abuse. Few people would call what my mother does abuse. My dad sure doesn’t care.
My mother inflicts her will upon us. You don’t have your own life; she lives your life for you. Everything you do, you do to please her.
No, my mother doesn’t abuse me. My mother smothered me until there was nothing left, until she could fill the empty space. My mother has sucked me dry, every drop.
She sees herself as the head of the house, and my father is a wimp. You do everything she says or else … she’ll make you pay with words. Her tongue is sharper than any two-edged sword.
Some days she’d just make you pay because she’d have too much to drink. That was usually Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I stayed in my room on those days. I only left it when I really had to. And I have to now. I need to go to the loo so badly.
I open my door enough to peek out, just enough to listen. I can’t hear her, and I make my run for the loo. It’s on my way back she calls for me.
“Emma.” She never slurs. She doesn’t get slurry sloshed. She doesn’t pass out. She’s not one of those drunks.
She hasn’t given me a hiding in two years either. I’d rather take a hiding over her talking. She can beat me to death, any bloody day.
I walk to the lounge, dread curdling my blood. I just need to be quick. Do what she wants and get back to my room. Don’t make eye contact. She attacks then.
She’s sitting on the armchair between the two couches as always, her arms resting on the sides. The telly’s flashing its light, breaking the darkness somewhat. She looks like a nasty old hag, perched on her throne, but I try not to think this as I go to stand in front of her.
“Babes,” she says, and my stomach drops. I’m a goner. When she calls me that it means there’s a speech coming. “Fill my drink. Half ice, half wine.”
Like she has to remind me after all these years, but she does, every day. She kids herself into thinking the ice thins out the wine, only she consumes bottles a day.
I do as she says and get her glass filled, hating myself for doing it. I’m adding to her problem. But if I don’t I’ll be in more trouble, because she doesn’t have a problem, according to her.
I place the glass down on the table next to her, so I don’t have to hand it to her. Touching her is something I try to avoid. I can’t explain how it makes me feel.
“Sit, babes,” She starts and my insides knots up. “Sit with Mummy.”
She’s not my mummy. I want to scream it at her red, drunken, glazed-over eyes. But instead I sit and look down at my folded hands. I look down so she won’t see the disgusted look on my face.
“You’re going to fail, Emma.” I sigh. Real slow of course. It’s more like a slow deep breath. If she catches me being disrespectful in any way it will certainly be the end of my pitiful existence. “You’re so beautiful, but if you don’t study harder you’ll fail. Look at how well your brother is doing. He got the brains and you got the beauty. You both got my fancy genes.”
I don’t feel beautiful, I feel stupid, and it is all because of her. She is so common, and no amount of money can make that right. She looks down on others but look at her, behind closed doors she is nothing but common rubbish. That’s what I think of my own mother.
“You’re mine and you’re beautiful.”
There’s the reason I don’t feel beautiful. To me she is the ugliest person alive. Alcohol has made her ugly.
“You’re going to fail. You can’t go around wasting your time on things like friends and blokes.” This is her way of telling me not to even dare bring a friend home, not that I would, I’d be too embarrassed.
Her voice starts to grow intense, and this is where she won’t make sense any more, she will just fall off the bus. “I was so pretty when I was your age.”
My heart starts to thump faster in my chest, and I say what I know she wants to hear. Anything to make her stop. “Mum is still pretty, the most beautiful Mum of all. None of the other kids have such a pretty Mum.” She beams. Maybe I won’t be stuck for long.
“You’re so lucky,” she says, and dread starts to spin its web around me. “You have me. It was hard growing up with your grandfather.” He died when I was thirteen, all I know of him was that he drank, brandy, straight from the bottle. “Oh, there were good times. He’d bring food home from the restaurant-” She stops. Her beady eyes stare hard at me, dropping to my waist, then back up to my face. “You must be careful what you eat, babes, you don’t want to go getting all chunky like your father’s side. They’re all hips and bum.” Then she smiles, a watery smile, “You’re so beautiful, just like me.”
She reaches for my hand and I know I must keep still. I swallow hard as I watch her hand creep closer, but horrified I watch my own move to avoid her touch.
What have I done? Why did I move? Terror washes hot through my body. She’s going to flay me with that tongue of hers.
“You don’t want me to touch you?” Her voice drips with poison.
Fear ripples over me, tightening its hold on my chest, and I dare a glance at her. Her eyes are normally brown, but when she gets like this they go black. Black and hard and hateful. Spiteful and malicious. Those words don’t all mean the same thing. She hates me. I know she does, because no mother that loved her daughter would do this to her. She’s spiteful and malicious because she only puts me down, never my brother. Never the perfect one.
“No, Mum … I mean yes … I mean … Mum can touch me!” I panic. I need to reassure her.
“Do I repulse you?” Her voice dips even lower and her eyes starts to gleam as they become little slits.
“No, Mum.” I’ll have to work hard to defuse her, or I’m going to sit here until tomorrow morning, listening to her wail, and then the anger will come. “Mum knows I love Mum.” I try to avoid saying the word ‘you’. She really tears into me then. It’s disrespectful to her. She comes from Africa and there you don’t ‘you’ and ‘yours’ your parents.
“Please hold my hand.” I reach for her with a trembling hand, trying not to show disgust on my face.
She yanks away and downs half her glass of wine.
“I can’t believe this!” she wails. “My own daughter finds me repulsive. I sacrifice my life for you. I give you shelter. I give you food. AND,” I cringe back, “this is how you repay me. I only want the best for you.”
“I’m sorry, Mum.” That’s all I can do now until she stops.
“You’re selfish!”
“I am, I’ll do better. I love Mum.” I say the empty words, words that will never mean anything to me. My father comes around the corner and looks from my mother to me. If only he’ll stop her, but he never does. He only goes back into the room to go watch the stupid telly he has in there, choosing to ignore what’s happing in here.
“You’re going to be just like your father if you don’t get your act together.”
She means my biological father. The one in Africa. The one who didn’t want me either. This father, my step father, adopted us, and he’s not much more of a man than my biological father was.
“No I won’t.” I swallow the bile down. “I’ll be like Mum.” I want to vomit. My grandfather was a drunk. She is a drunk. I don’t want to be a drunk.
“You just read those books, that’s all you do,” she goes on. “You’re throwing your life away. There’s no silver lining, no happily ever afters, no fairy tales. Life is hard, babes,” she leans over and hisses in my face. Her stinkin
g breath wafts over me, sticking to my skin. “And without me you won’t make it. EVER.”
She sits back and her chin wobbles. Oh no, not the tears.
I have to hold her. I get up and move to her, my body feeling rigid, as if it’s fighting me, wanting to run the other way. I reach for her, hugging her to my chest. I smell the oil in her hair. I feel the clamminess of her skin beneath my hands.
I go numb.
No, I’m lying. I do feel something. I feel sick. To. My. Stomach. Sick.
“I’m nothing without Mum. I won’t make it without Mum. Ever. Please hold me Mum. Don’t let me go.”
I hate myself most. I hate myself so much.
~*~
I can taste the horrid words still in my mouth. I want to be sick so I can get rid of the bitter taste, the bitter feelings that flow through my veins.
Arms tighten around me and I stiffen. A voice whispers right next to my ear, and it’s not my mother’s voice. It’s not.
“It’s okay, Emma. You’re safe now.” I open my eyes just a little, afraid I’ll see my mother and it won’t all be a nightmare, but then she’d never say something like that to me.
The first thing I see is a swirl of black ink. I pull back slightly so I can follow the trail of ink down from his shoulder to his chest. I see the eagle, and I smell soap and a lingering hint of spice.
“An eagle,” I whisper.
I reach out and expect to wake up any second, but instead he feels warm under my touch. I press my fingers to the ink and trace the outline of the eagle.
As the eagle comes closer I close my eyes, and I crawl into the warmth he brings. I’ve finally lost all my sanity, and in the best way possible.
I’m dreaming about my eagle and him holding me.
I wake up with a heavy weight on top of my chest and I feel … I’m not so sure how I feel. I try to move and freeze, my eyes snapping open. My heart rate shoots through the ceiling, scarpering out of the flat, leaving me to deal with the bloke lying on my chest. Every time I breathe, his head lifts and I feel him brushing against my breast. I stop breathing.
Eventually I can’t hold my breath any longer and it rushes from me, embarrassingly too loud. But no, that doesn’t even wake him. I try to remember the night before. The pub, the weird Amazon woman, the awful-tasting shots and then we left – it all comes back like some bodged-up scene from Bridget Jones’ Diary.
My face turns furnace hot, remembering how I grabbed him, kissed him and then practically begged him to shag me. The loo scene comes back, and I want to die all over again.
“Oh bugger ... just bugger,” I squeak.
The memories keep coming, having no mercy on me. The ones of the shower, and how I tried to undress the poor bloke, have me dying of mortification all over again. He must think I’m some cheap skank.
“Oh bloody hell!” I all but shout when he pulls me into him and his breath warms my breast. He shoots up and I dart off the bed.
The first thing I see as my feet touch the floor is my wet underwear, and I facepalm myself. Twice.
“Oh bloody hell!”
I have no words for what I’ve done. I didn’t think I’d feel this bad the next morning.
I dare a glance in his direction, and it is the worst thing I could’ve done, because he looks shaggable yummy where he’s sitting in my bed.
“We didn’t have sex, if that is the reason for all the bloody hells,” he smiles, and it makes him look even more dishy.
He moves to get up, and I all but run to grab the wet underwear off the floor. I can feel my cheeks flaming up again.
We didn’t have … um … do that. I can’t even think the s.e.x. word without going scarlet, never mind say it.
“I am so sorry.” I don’t know how to apologize for my behavior. “Just give me an hour and I’ll bugger off.”
“What? Why?” He moves fast around the bed. It’s faster than I can move with the left-over grogginess from the alcohol. He shouldn’t have gotten up. With no drunken stupor to obscure my vision, I see every muscle, every piece of ink-covered skin, each one of his perfectly molded pecs.
My. Hands. Touched. All. Of. That! My hands want to touch all of that again. The angels were in a hell of a good mood when they made him.
“Why would you want to leave?” he repeats, when I take too long to answer.
Because I still want to shag you? (But of course I don’t say that.)
“I can’t even face me right now, so I can only imagine how you must feel.”
I’m stand frozen, holding my wet underwear in my hands, and I know I must look knackered. Still he keeps coming, until there’s only an inch separating us and the air thins out, giving me slight breathing problems.
“You’re not leavin’. You paid for six months in advance, if I’m not mistaken. You have classes startin’ on Monday. Ms Jessie will have my ass if you leave.” He takes a breath and tucks some of my hair behind my ear.
His bare chest and Southern accent melts me on the spot. My brain can only come up with three words - take me now.
Please. Take. Me. Now!
“Things happened. We’re adults. We’ll deal. You, Emma Walker, are stayin’,” he says.
I can only nod like a daft nut. Oh, and drool. I can drool at his feet.
He reaches in and hugs me, as if we’ve known each other ages. My body responds by doing some more melting, wanting desperately to become one with his. I’m in so much trouble. How am I going to share a flat with the bloke and not show what effect he’s having on my awakened hormones?
“By the way, welcome. As you know by now, I’m your roommate, Aiden Holden. Please make yourself at home. Unpack.”
He doesn’t take me. Instead, he smiles and leaves me standing wanting him – my flatmate for the next six months.
Things happened. He has that part right.
I stand staring at myself in the mirror. I look like a bloody panda with the mascara streaked under my eyes. One that had a sparkler go off in her hair, or maybe the panda just went on and settled in there, somewhere. I look knackered. I feel knackered. I need to phone Chloe.
I don’t wait for her to say hello. “I have to move. I can’t stay here with him,” I say, panicking my arse off.
“Hold on, Sunshine. Who? Why? What are you on about?” she asks, clearly confused.
“My flatmate. I went to a pub just like you told me to. But you know what I did? Out of all the bloody blokes there, I asked my flatmate, Chloe! Then I got rat-arsed. Then I got sick. Then I slept with him, not … you know s.e.x. sleep with him, but like close your eyes and sleep, sleep with him. And he is the dishiest bloke on the face of our dear Mother Earth! Oh gosh, you should hear his accent,” I try to explain everything that happened in one breath.
“So what’s the problem then? Shag him today,” she says.
“Huh?” I snort.
“You say he slept with you, that means he has to like you, Sunshine. No bloke just sleeps with a girl. Shag him today,” she says again.
“Are you bloody nutters?” I snap. “I’m not throwing myself at him again. I already threw myself at him twice.”
“What do you mean twice?”
“Um … at the pub and then I tried to undress him in the shower. I’m a disaster. I’m going to die a virgin, Chloe!”
“No you won’t,” she tries to calm me, “but let’s just hit pause here for a second, and tell me what happened in the shower?”
“Seriously! I’m dying over here and you want to know what a disaster my night was?” I need to calm down, panicking is not going to help me.
“Take a deep breath. No one is dying. Go and make yourself all pretty. Stay calm. Smile a lot,” she says, and it doesn’t help that I can hear her laughing.
“Alright. One step at a time. Keep your phone on,” I warn her. “I still can’t believe he’s my flatmate. It’s really hard not to just stand and drool when I’m around him.”
“Snap me a photo. I must see what he looks like, if you’r
e going on like this,” she says.
“I’ll just go and ask him to strike a pose for me quickly,” I joke, and then blurt out, “I like him. I already like him too much.”
“That’s a bonus. Just don’t carry your heart on your sleeve. Be yourself, Sunshine. You’re a stunning person,” she once again lifts my spirits.
“You know you’re the best, right?”
“No, you’re the best,” she says warmly, “I want details. Email me the details.”
“I will. Thank you for you,” I say before cutting the call.
I’m worth it. I’m a stunning person. Smile. Smile. Then I catch sight of myself in the mirror and I cringe. Yeah, let’s shower first before we try that speech again.
~*~
Chapter Four
Aiden~
I didn’t mean to fall asleep. It’s just … she felt so good.
First she half-stripped in the shower. That sight took just about every ounce of gentleman I had in my body not to shove her up against the wall and finish what we started in the car. Who knew she had all that under those clothes?
Ahh … and then in the room. I had to go take a cold shower, and that was just because she reached for the clasp of her bra.
I’m just thankful she passed out, if she had made one more move on me I would not have stopped. There’s only so much gentleman in me, and then everything else takes over. But she was drunk, and that just didn’t sit well in my gut.
Like I said, I didn’t mean to fall asleep there, but she drank the aspirin and slumped right down against me. It was nice holding someone, holding her.
The second she grabbed at me, I woke up. Now, I’ve had nightmares and I’ve seen Zac have them after Laurie died, but this was something else.
She whimpered. I mean she really whimpered.
Then the trembling, like full-on trembling all over.
I was all ready to serve and protect, only there was nothing to protect her from. How do you protect someone from something you can’t see? I tried waking her, but she wasn’t having any of that. When the talking started I went over into serving mode. I held her tighter, caressed her hair and back. I whispered I was there and she was safe, praying she’d hear me. She groaned the same thing over and over.
Wake Me Up (Love Knows No Boundaries) Page 4
