Dear Agony

by Georgia Cates

  “You and I are going to dine in the finest restaurants, but no restaurant will ever prepare a meal I enjoy more than one created in the kitchen of this house. We’ll stay in luxurious hotels around the world and see amazing sights, but none of those things will top the way I feel when I’m here. Home. This is where my heart is and will always be. And I’m so happy that you have agreed to live here with me as my companion.”

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  This man can’t say amazing things like that to me, leaving me both speechless and breathless.

  Oh, what a difference thirteen years can make. No guy my age would have the forethought to do anything half as touching as the things Bastien has said and done this morning.

  “Your first cooking lesson is today, baby girl. And it’s going to be a big one. We’re preparing my mom’s version of Cajun Christmas.”

  Again with the baby girl? I guess that’s my new name. I like it.

  My family was screwed up ty-nine different ways. My childhood and adolescent years were a nightmare but I know what’s considered traditional by normal people. “No turkey and dressing with vegetables and side dishes and desserts?”

  “Not the kind you’re used to.” He has no idea what I was used to. And I hope he never does. “We put a hot and spicy twist on just about everything.”

  “Hot and spicy, huh? I’m game.”

  “Meet me in the kitchen when you’re finished getting ready and we’ll get started.”

  I have to thank him first. Show him the appreciation I have for making me feel so welcome and cherished. Let him know that I recognize and treasure the value of his gift.

  His eyes widen as I approach and put my arms around his shoulders for a hug. “Thank you, Bastien. I will cherish your mother’s apron and recipes.”

  He slowly brings his arms up to return my embrace but says nothing.

  I rise on my tiptoes and press a kiss to his cheek. “Merry Christmas.”

  I step away and dash for the stairs without looking at his face. I don’t want him to notice the ice melting. Detect the instability in my protective wall.

  Even if both are happening inside my chest right now.

  I can’t let him see.

  Chapter Twelve

  __________________________________

  Bastien Pascal

  –

  Rose comes into the kitchen holding Mom’s apron. Not wearing it. “Bastien, I’m not sure about cooking in your mother’s apron. I’m afraid I’ll stain it.”

  Not like it’s new. My mom must have cooked in it the last twenty years of her life. “You’ll only be adding new stains to the existing ones. She would be happy to see you wear it. And even happier to know you’re cooking her recipes.”

  Rose looks hesitant but slips it over her head and ties the bow at her lower back. She’s so petite that the bottom hits below her knees. “Do I look like a vintage housewife?”

  She’s wearing a loose black tunic, tight jeans, and her hair is twisted into a messy bun on the top of her head. No makeup. Even like this, she’s lovely. I don’t think the girl can help it. Her beauty is natural. “I’d say more like a glamorous domestic goddess.”

  Dimples deepen in both cheeks. I haven’t noticed those until now. “Glamorous domestic goddess. I’ll take it.”

  I’m surprised by the stirred emotions I have over seeing her in my mom’s apron. “My mother always wanted a daughter. She said she guessed that she’d get two when her sons took wives.”

  “Did Bernard have a wife?”

  “He was engaged when he was diagnosed with cancer.”

  “His fiancée must have been devastated.”

  “I’d say not since she left him a month after he told her he was sick.”

  I never liked Sarah. She always seemed selfish and more concerned with her own wellbeing than anyone else’s. Unfortunately, my suspicions were confirmed. “Said she couldn’t handle seeing him get sick.”

  I can see the sympathy in her expression. She’s sad for me. Sad for my loss. “I’m so sorry he had to go through that. As if getting the news of having cancer wasn’t enough.”

  “He felt alone and abandoned initially. I hated to see my brother hurt, but it was better she ended their relationship early in the illness rather than bailing when his condition worsened.”

  That’s what I want for Rose. For her to be gone before my condition snowballs. Gone on my terms when I say. Not leaving me when I’m at my lowest because she can’t handle my illness. Bernard was so hurt when Sarah bailed. I can’t go through that with Rose, even if our relationship is strictly platonic.

  She’s approaching twenty-three—the prime of her life.

  And I’m exiting mine.

  If I’m lucky—or unlucky, depending upon how you look at it—and my health doesn’t deteriorate rapidly, Rose could spend up to three years with me per our agreement. Half of her twenties will be gone. Wasted on me. Am I wrong for keeping her during a time she could potentially be finding a husband? Possibly starting a family? Finding her own happily ever after?

  She offers a warm smile. “I hope being in the kitchen cooking family recipes today will remind you of happy times you shared with your family. So, what’s on the Christmas menu?”

  “Cajun roasted turkey breast with jalapeño cornbread dressing, praline sweet potatoes, Cajun corn casserole, Cajun string bean casserole, jalapeño cranberry sauce, and cranberry pecan muffins.”

  “Lots of Cajun. And a lot of food for just the two of us.”

  “It’s impossible to cook a Christmas meal like this for two people.”

  “We should invite Vale.”

  “Vale has plans.” Rose lived with her for three years. She should already know that.

  “What kind of plans?”

  “She has a special friend she spends the holidays with.”

  Rose’s brow wrinkles. “I always thought she spent them with you.”

  “We exchange gifts before she meets up with him.”

  Rose grins. “I always suspected she had a secret boyfriend.”

  “He’s a secret all right. She’s never let me meet him and will only tell me his first name is John.” And I think that was a slip-up.

  “That’s weird, considering you’re her best friend.”

  “He doesn’t live in New Orleans. They fly back and forth to see one another but she’s never made an attempt to introduce us while he’s been in town.”

  “How long has she been seeing him?”

  “She was with him when Bernard died and had to fly home from one of their getaways. That was ten years ago.”

  “Ten years ago?” Her mouth is gaping. “That’s so bizarre that in all that time she wouldn’t let you meet him. And they wouldn’t marry.”

  It doesn’t surprise me at all. Vale can be very secretive at times, even with me. “As far as marriage goes, I’m pretty sure she’s happy with their arrangement. She wouldn’t continue seeing him if she weren’t. And I suspect he’s a politician—a very well-known one—hence the reason they keep their relationship hush-hush. It wouldn’t look great for him to be dating a high-dollar pimp.”

  “You enjoy calling her those names, don’t you?”

  “Flesh-peddler is a lot more fun than entrepreneur or businesswoman, don’t you agree?”

  Rose giggles. “No comment.”

  “You aren’t siding with me now, but you will one day.”

  ***

  I open my eyes when Rose’s cries reach my ears and wake my sleeping mind. I don’t hesitate. My feet are on the floor and I’m crossing the hall to get to her.

  Only a month into this relationship and we’ve fallen into a routine where her nightmares are concerned. I crawl into bed, wake her, and she almost instantly clings to me and falls back asleep.

  On average, I’m leaving my bed and getting into hers three to four times a week. And strangely, I don’t mind. Not even a little. What has surprised me the most is the fact I actually
like being needed without feeling smothered. I’d be fine with coming to her bed every night, and I have wondered whether I should just start there, but most women consider that a step toward a relationship. With Rose, I’m not sure. She is different from other women.

  “Rose, wake up.”

  She instantly stops fighting and moaning when I speak. Seems like it’s getting easier to wake her than it was when she first came to live with me.

  “Sorry.” She always apologizes.

  “Nothing to be sorry about, baby girl.”

  She rolls on her side and nuzzles into my body until we’re spooning. I wrap my arm around her protectively, like I do every night when I come into her bed, so she knows she’s safe. My instinct is to keep her from harm.

  I’ve become fond of Rose in the short amount of time we’ve been together. I want to chase away her fears and feel her relax in my arms because she trusts me.

  But I also want to feel the warmth of her body. The softness of her skin. The smell of her hair. Even if that’s as far as our physical contact ever goes.

  “Sweet dreams.” I always tell her that, as though it’s going to chase away the nightmares. I don’t know. Maybe it works because she’s never had a nightmare after I’ve gotten in bed with her.

  Rose laces her fingers through mine and squeezes. That’s something she’s never done. And it lets me know she hasn’t drifted back to sleep like usual. “Bash, I want to tell you about it.”

  She’s ready to talk about whatever it is that torments her; she trusts me enough to finally go to that place?

  I squeeze her a little tighter, my way of comforting her. “I’m listening.”

  “My mom was fifteen when she had me. She wasn’t married, so we continued to live with her mother and stepfather after I was born. When I was seven, my mother’s sister became pregnant. Her eighteen-year-old special needs sister.”

  Rose stops to take a breath, a deep one, and slowly exhales. This is going to be bad.

  I pull her closer and squeeze our still laced fingers together. And wait for her to gather her words. Tell this story at her own pace.

  “My mother’s stepfather sexually abused her for years. She told no one, not even after she became pregnant with me. My grandmother figured out what he’d been doing when Jessica became pregnant.”

  What kind of sick bastard does that?

  I know things like that happen but I’ve never known anyone personally affected. And I’m thrown for a loop. I don’t know how to respond. Nothing feels like the right response.

  “I’m sorry, baby girl.” It’s all I’ve got.

  “My step-grandfather, my father, got my mother pregnant when she was fourteen, Bastien. Fourteen. Only a child.”

  I’m still holding her tightly, bracing for the words I don’t want to hear. So afraid of what she’s going to tell me next.

  “My grandmother kicked my mom and me out. Not him. She forgave him and blamed my mother for everything. She let him continue to stay there in the house with my mother’s sister who couldn’t defend herself.”

  I’m sickened by the thought of everything he probably continued doing to that poor girl, but I’m relieved to hear that Rose had been removed from his evil reach.

  “I hated him even before I knew the truth. I hated him because of how mean he was to my mom all the time. But as far as I remember, he never touched me. He liked them a bit older than I was at the time, but I have no doubt I would have been next, biological daughter or not.”

  Sick, sick, sick bastard.

  “So my mother was twenty-two with a seven-year-old kid, and we were on the streets. She did what she had to do for us to survive. She started dancing and stripping on Bourbon.” I wince when I remember joking with her about being a stripper on Bourbon. I hate so badly that I said that.

  “The money must have been good because we had a decent apartment. Life was okay for a little while . . . until she ended up on heroin. Everything fell apart after that.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen. As you can imagine, I had no guidance. I wasn’t being parented at all. And that’s how I came to be in a place I had no business being.”

  I have a feeling that Rose’s story has just begun, and that I haven’t heard the worst of it.

  “I made friends with a girl in our apartment building. Summer was a couple years older than I was, but I knew her from school. She was in a pretty similar situation. Parents never around. The circumstances were a perfect recipe for a disaster.”

  Rose stops talking for a minute and breathes in deeply before exhaling. I’ve noticed she does that right before she’s about to tell me something difficult. “Summer got invited to a party with some juniors and seniors from school. We were besties, so of course she took me with her. Everyone was drinking and smoking this and that. Not me. I wasn’t touching that stuff after seeing what it did to my mom. But somehow, someway I must have been slipped some kind of drug. I was fine one minute and then my next memory was waking up the following morning at the party with a really bad headache.”

  Her body is shuddering and I know this story is about to take a turn for the worse.

  “I didn’t feel right . . . down there. And then I found blood in my underwear after I got home. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened. Except the who and how part.”

  She’s trembling and the tighter I hold her, the harder she shakes.

  “Weeks passed and little fragments of that night began flashing in my head. And they still do.” Her voice shudders, followed by a sob. “But I never see a face or hear a voice. It’s always a shadow. I’m not even sure if it was one person or a whole gang.”

  “Oh, Rose.” Those are the only two words I can form.

  It’s no wonder she’s never had a boyfriend or dated. How could she trust a man after the evil she’s seen?

  And yet here I am. In her bed. She’s living with me. Allowing me to hold her. Soothe her. How is that even possible?

  “You’d think not remembering would be a blessing, but it’s not.” She sucks in and mucus rattles in her nose. “He or they know what they did, but for me, it will always be a mystery. Sometimes I think not knowing is more painful than if I’d been conscious and experienced the whole thing. I have to imagine the acts.”

  It’s no surprise she has night terrors.

  “My mom overdosed a year later. Obviously going back to my grandmother’s wasn’t an option with him still living there. Not that she wanted me anyway. So I ended up in the system, bouncing around from one home to the next until I barely graduated from high school. They turned me loose after that, and it wasn’t long until I was living on the streets. I had been surviving as a street performer for about a year when Vale found me. I don’t know where I’d be today if she hadn’t.”

  I don’t know either, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be with me. And that would be a heartbreaking tragedy.

  “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.” I know that had to be a gut-wrenching thing to give voice to.

  I’m so angry at Rose’s step-grandfather. Or father. I don’t know what to call him. Son of a bitch is the only name that fits him in my book. How does a man hurt a girl—two girls—repeatedly for years and get away with it?

  And her grandmother? It’s preposterous to think she would blame Rose’s mother and kick them out of her home instead of the abuser. Everything about that situation is screwed up.

  And her rapist. Or rapists. I don’t know what gives anyone the idea that they have the right to drug a girl and have sex with her. I, like Rose, hate imagining what happened to her. Makes me sick.

  “You’ve made it very easy for me to put my trust in you, Bash.”

  “You can always trust me. I hope you know that.”

  “I think we’re definitely on the right path. I’m glad to have that off my chest.” She wiggles and settles into her usual position, while still holding my hand.

  And that’s all we say, although I’m certain nei
ther of us are going to sleep anytime soon. I’m content to say nothing and lie here holding her for as long as she needs. Where she feels safe from the monsters who attack her in the darkness of night. I’ll be here for this girl whose heart is too beautiful for the barbarity she’s suffered.

  Five Months Later

  -

  Chapter Thirteen

  __________________________________

  Rose Middleton

  ∞

  One foot in, and then the other. I step into the red sequined gown and pull it up my body, wiggling as it glides over my hips. Reaching behind my back, I pull the zipper upward until it hits a point where it won’t rise any further. I lower it and try again. Three times I repeat the same process without any luck.

  I crack my bedroom door and call out to Bastien, “Can you please come upstairs and help me a sec?”

  I give the zipper one final fruitless attempt.

  Bastien takes a few steps into my bedroom before he goes completely still. And says nothing. Eyes wide as they scan me from head to toe and then back up again. This is a first. I can’t recall him ever looking me over like this.

  “I can’t get my zipper up.” I spin around and pull my hair off my back and shoulders. “The dress isn’t too tight. Does it look like there’s a thread caught in it or something?”

  He comes to me and examines my dress. Despite clearing his throat, his voice still sounds like a toad when he answers, “Not that I can see.”

  He lowers the zipper and hesitates before pulling it upward. Wonder if that’s because he’s checking out my black lace thong. Doubtful. Bastien never looks at me in any kind of sexual nature. But lately, I wish he would.

  I should be over the disappointment. I shouldn’t long for him to look at me differently. We both made the situation very clear at the beginning. Nothing is ever going to happen beyond those terms we initially agreed upon.

  I stand taller, suck in my stomach, and poke out my butt and boobs. “Try it now.”