by Unknown
“I thought they were married. What are we talking about here?”
“I don’t know what they are. Nothing, as of now.” Hux lets out a deep sigh, shaking his head. “It’s, uh…it’s complicated.”
I believe him.
“He had some hold on her. My parents call it Stockholm Syndrome. You know, Hawke, you might be the only person she’ll really level with. You and that mix of therapists. Somehow, she managed to get away. She won’t really say. She’s been through a lot. We never knew the boy, either, if that makes you feel any better—not a photo or anything. She won’t say much. It’s like she’s stuck in a bubble. Something very traumatic went on—that’s the one thing we know.”
“What the hell? Are you kidding me? Was she on drugs?”
“Maybe. He did something to her. She seems good, though. I mean…don’t you think? She did have intensive therapy for three years, must have done something.”
“Good? She’s a lying sack of shit. Are you an idiot?”
“Hawke, we think she was seriously traumatized. Are you hearing me? I’m not kidding. We don’t think she wanted whatever it was she was living. Take it easy on her. That’s pretty harsh. She really seems to want normalcy.”
“You seriously believe her?” A chill sweeps through my body and I panic for a second. “We need to get to her place. He’s there—the guy.”
“At her house?” Fletch chokes out.
“Was an hour ago.”
“You met him?”
“Yeah. Well, fuck. She has no idea who he really is.”
Fletch moves toward the front door, a panicked look on his face. “I think she’s the only one who does know who he is.”
“I owe you nothing. Seven years. I have more on you than anyone would ever need to lock you up for life.”
“Petal, are you threatening me?” His grip around my neck tightens, my swallows no longer escaping. “Your husband.”
He licks my face, his tongue ending up in my mouth. I bite it and knee him. He blocks me with a punch to my gut while his squeeze on my throat intensifies.
“The man who loved you like no one else ever would have… Are you threatening me?”
I gasp for air, my face filling with blood. At this rate, I’ll pass out in seconds.
“You listen to me, you little whore.” He loosens his hold the tiniest bit then snugs his grip up to my jaw.
I suck air through my clenched teeth as his thumb scratches its way across my gums, the metallic taste of blood coating my tongue.
“I have plenty on you as well.” He emits a deep laugh from his gut, which has to be swirling with acid.
How could I have ever loved him? What’s wrong with me? It was a miracle I left him the day I did. I was so shattered after Hawke Jr.’s funeral that he left me alone at the graveyard for hours. Maybe he trusted me? Maybe he thought I’d never leave him. I still don’t know how I did. I thought I loved him, thank God I ran when I did. I don’t even remember running, I only remember the smell of the rain and the way my body trembled.
“You want your reputation as a filmmaker destroyed? I could do that in an instant.”
“Go for it, you fuck,” I say in a suffocated whisper.
It was one of very few gifts he gave me when I “lived” in his castle. He let me create, let me tell stories on film. He taught me, and I became someone. Or so I’d thought.
I needed something. I was a monster because of what happened to my son—he blamed me, told me I was at fault. I wanted it to be his fault, but deep down, I know it’s mine. I’ll go to my grave knowing that. Had I not been camming, it might never have happened.
I became his in exchange for his willingness to do everything he could to keep my son alive and out of the sight line of my family. I could never, not ever, tell them, of all people, what kind of a monster I was. I had a healthy baby in my womb until I fell. I changed the trajectory of my baby’s life that night. Then Holl took my soul in exchange for a thread. A seven-year thread.
“Tell the world you forced me to marry you. Tell the world you held me in your castle for seven years. Tell the world you threatened my son’s life—my son, who had severe cerebral palsy because of you and lived his life in a bed,” I sob out.
He smacks me again—three times. Once across my eyes. Twice over my mouth. “You do that, Hollyn fucking Lynch or whoever you are. You tell them anything you want about me. Because the most important person in my world just left me. The only person besides my son who kept me alive all those years just walked out of my house.”
He could slit my throat right this minute for all I care.
Everything I had is gone.
“Listen to me, you little skank. He was my son too. I saved you both. I loved that boy, and you know it. I can flee the United States tonight and never be found. Hollywood will continue to love me and my work—make no mistake. I know how the system works. That is while you and your reputation get trashed since you’re a nobody without me.”
I push my throat against him, push with everything I have, tasting the blood from my cut lip. He drops his hand from my throat then examines the blood on it. I glare at him as he licks each finger.
“Get out of my fucking house. I swear to God I will slice you to pieces in your sleep and make soup of your bones if I so much as smell you within fifty feet of me.”
He’s one inch from my face, hot breath smelling of alcohol and stress. “Lots of threats coming from that smart mouth. Let’s put it to better use, shall we?” He shoves me to my knees, unzips, and yanks his cock out. “Open wide. If I feel one tooth, I’ll pull out three.” He grins as he rams his length down my throat. “Good girl. Suck it, Petal. Suck it harder.”
Holl plunges himself into me over and over, jamming my head against the wall. My throat full with him, my air gone, my world disappearing.
I imagine commotion, feet slapping, familiar voices yelling. Hawke.
“You fucking sadist, get off of her!”
After three hours that involved four police officers interrogating me, my house is calm. Calm being the opposite of how my emotion bank is rolling at present. To say I’m a bundle of nerves… Well, “bundle” works if we’re defining it as mammoth amounts.
My brothers left shortly after the police had carted Holl off. Hawke, though, has hunkered down with me. I’m anticipating a conversation that will include all the nasty parts of a fight most of us would just prefer to avoid. I like to think of myself as a fairly nonconfrontational girl—not a wallflower by any means, but not a fighter, either. Spicy, yes; argumentative, no. Mostly, anyway. Most people would take a massive three-day migraine over the conversation I’m jumping into.
After covering me with a blanket and starting a fire, he comes to me. “Here you go,” he says. His eyes narrow as he searches my face, handing me a mug of hot tea. Surely he’s not overexcited about this conversation, either? “You can start anywhere you want,” he says. “The beginning might work. If you’re not ready, I understand. If you want me to leave, that’s okay too. I love you, Sloan, but there’s a decade of answers that need to come out. If you can’t do that now, it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter softly. “I know you’re mad.”
He sits next to me as he lets out a long sigh. “I don’t know what I am. Since I have no idea what you said to the cops, and in view of the fact that we walked in on that prick attacking you, I’m going to dial back my feelings. But, you have some explaining to do.”
“I know.” I quietly choke on my guilt. Time to double down. “I didn’t want to be an excuse, didn’t want us—me and the baby—to be any sort of excuse for you to stop your life.”
“And whose idea was that, exactly?”
Heat rises in my cheeks when he runs his hands down his face. I’m a little fragile right now, in a worn-around-the-edges way a threadbare rug gets after too many years of being used.
“My folks, but I did understand their point of view after plenty of conversation. They adore you, Haw
ke. They never wanted you to get hurt—neither did I.”
“Well, you all have a funny way of showing it. Let’s get two facts straight: the baby was mine, and are you or are you not married to that creep?”
“The baby was yours. I am not married to Holl. I was. He made me do that. It was, well… It’s a void marriage.”
“What did he do?” Hawke asks as he strokes his hand over my hair then down my neck.
I’ll take anything from him right now—any touch, hope, or promise that we could still have the potential to exist as something. Anything.
“He… How do I put this?” I look down to my lap, focusing on my tattoos, knowing that today’s date will be inked there soon. I wonder what the meaning will hold. Will it be the day he left or stayed?
“I was a camgirl, and he was my best client…and—”
“You were a camgirl?” Hawke says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
I look away. I can’t bear to watch the story that must be unfolding on his face.
“Holy shit. Just when I thought I was putting this thing together. So, what? You gave him your address?”
“I went into labor while I was entertaining him.” My eyes fill. My heart beats in rapid fits. And I bite my sobs back in order to speak.
He’ll be the only person I’ll ever tell everything to. “I had fallen, was knocked out…went into premature labor. Oma was traveling, and he was all I had.”
His hand grips mine, and I glance at his glistening eyes, wondering how much more pain I can deliver.
“All you had. While I was here.”
“It was an accident,” I whisper. Maybe he didn’t hear that part. “It’s hard enough for me to forgive myself.”
His face is wet, mirroring mine. Does his heart feel ripped to shreds too? Maybe it’s worse than that. Maybe it’s irreparable. Shreds can heal, but when you lose a chunk of your heart, it can never be replaced. I should know.
“I realize I’m under a microscope, and I don’t blame you. I just ask that you remember…I was eighteen and naive.” I catch myself mid-sob and wonder who it is, exactly, I’m so distraught over. Me, Hawke, the baby?
Then I recognize who it is: The woman I am. I’m terrified for her. She may never get the love she’s craved for years. This is her test, her atonement.
“I begged him for help, but he refused to come and help me. Until he did.”
“He saved you and the baby?”
“I suppose, technically, yes.” I shake my head.
Hawke stills my trembling chin. I focus only on his quivering lips. He’s living ten years of pain and loss in this very moment. I can’t bear to meet his eyes—until some force inside me gives me no choice. And those eyes. The emerald in them glows. It says we’re one, says he’s hearing me. God, I pray. Is he? I grip my mug as tea spills over the edge.
“Our son ended up with cerebral palsy because of it, because of me. Loss of oxygen. I want to blame him, but…you might as well see who I really am right now. It was my fault. Had I not been a camgirl, none of this would have happened. You might still have a son.”
“We might,” he whispers.
The mug rolls off my lap as I collapse onto my knees. He knows I’m a monster, knows what I did. Finally, it’s out there. Hawke knows what I’m capable of.
Then why isn’t he leaving? Why is his hand coming around my shoulders and pulling me to him? Why isn’t he confirming what a horrible person I am? This was going to be a goodbye, I was almost certain of it. Might still be.
“Why the hell were you camming?”
“Says the porn star?” I mumble.
“Why were you?”
I look up to his face. He deserves that much. He stayed. For now, anyways.
“I was trying to make money so that, once the baby was born, I could come back to you.”
“To me? But you never answered my letters. You never even… Nothing.”
“I didn’t know you’d sent them. Oma gave me those afterwards. After I left him—after Hawke Jr. died.”
“Christ. You lived with him, married him, and what? Just tell me what else.”
“Don’t make me tell you. Just know it’s too much for me to say.”
“Jesus, Cricket. How long?” Hawke grabs my hands to still them as my insides cave.
Please, God, don’t let him ask me again. No one can know what Holl did to me. It’s more than I can repeat, more than I can have him hear. Three years of therapy and I’m sitting upright. Sitting next to the man I love. But not for anything will he ever know what went on there. Much of it I’ve forced out of my brain. Sometimes, there’s no choice between remembering and forgetting. Sometimes, choice is served to you.
“Seven years. He never said I couldn’t leave. But, when I tried once, it didn’t end well. I never tried again until he left me alone at the graveyard the day Hawke died. You can’t begin to understand how hard it was for me to leave him, almost impossible. But I was so shaken by Hawke’s death that somehow I ran. I didn’t know why I ran. I don’t really remember my body moving. I almost went back to him, several times in fact. But my parents put me into some hardcore therapy, and I was hospitalized so I wouldn’t go back to him. Try to understand, he took care of us. But, when Hawke died of a seizure one night, that was the end for me. Of almost everything, including my life.”
He grinds on his jaw.
Why did I say that much? Too much. I can’t hurt Hawke by telling him the sick details of what happened to me. I’m ready to be whole again.
“Sure sounds like he took care of you.”
“I can’t explain how I came to love him. I know what that makes me seem like.”
“And what’s that, exactly?”
I take a deep breath. Hawke does too. How will he ever understand this? No one could, unless they’d been through it.
“I’ve tried to. It’s not something you’ll understand. I don’t even—”
“You seem to be choking on something. I can’t figure it out. Is it a lie or is it the truth? You loved him?”
I feel his hate. Of course, I knew I would.
“I’m a monster for that too. But…yes, I did. I’m sitting here, telling you this, wishing I could control what you say next. I’m sorry. I wish… I just…”
A big piece of me wishes he’d slap me across the face, make a sting and a mark that said everything I was feeling. But he won’t, not ever. Only Holl did that sort of thing. Eventually, all those despicable things he did to me became tokens of his love. How? My therapists have tried time and again to explain it. I still don’t get it. Sometimes, I felt rewarded when he did. Sometimes, I felt rewarded when he didn’t. I was confused by everything. Crazy. I may always see myself as a monster. Though I pray Hawke doesn’t. I’m searching for forgiveness. For me and for him.
“You’re not a monster.” He kisses my mouth tenderly as our wet faces collide.
“I stayed.” I sob, knowing what that makes me.
“You had no choice,” he says against my mouth, hushing me. “I’m angry that all of this ever happened. Every bit of it could have been avoided. I’m angry I never met my son and that it sounds like he suffered.”
We stay quiet for minutes that feel like an hour.
“If it’s any consolation—and it may not be—I don’t think he knew.” I pause for a beat to find his eyes. My heart is still pounding. When will that stop? Maybe when I know he believes me. “He was there, but not in a way that we could connect beyond a mother-son bond. But he was there, and I’m grateful we had each other. He was everything for me.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Every person matters, even if they can’t communicate, even if they can’t move. He was alive in so many ways, and I treated him that way. I wanted him to feel my love. He was my son. He mattered.”
Hawke rests his face on my trembling chest.
“Ours. He was ours,” he says.
“Yes, ours,” I repeat. “You want to see video of him? Or a photo, m
aybe, first?” My voice is shaky, but his hand is still on mine, and that gives me something. Hope.
“I do, at some point. Can’t right this second—I need to understand you more. Are you okay? That’s the most important thing right now. You.”
He said it as though the Earth would have caved in on itself if the words hadn’t left his mouth. I don’t know how to answer though. It takes me a few seconds to move beyond the wounded look on his face that matches the pain inside me.
He takes my trembling chin in his hand, steering my face to his. “Are you okay to be with me for the rest of your life? That sort of okay?” he says, an accepting, small grin crossing his face.
I gaze at him, at his smile, which has enough love behind it that he could save all the world’s heartbreak. Most importantly, I think it may be saving mine.
I cry then. Real hard. And then he does too and says just the right thing.
“Welcome home, Sloan.”
When I lived in Holl’s castle, I watched The Sound of Music every night as I fell asleep. It made me feel whole and alive, happy in that whiskers-on-kittens way they sang about. I often prayed I could live in that movie. Most nights, I tried to. I wonder now, if I were to go back in time, what I would do or change, what would my life look like if I had put my foot down and run away with Hawke. Maybe I wouldn’t be leaping onto his lap as I am now. Hugging him as if my life depends on it.
The strain in my voice through my sobs causes an ache in my throat, which I swallow as I speak. “Every day that was closer to the day you’d find all of this out was another notch in my emotions. I was torturing myself, but could I have told you? Would you have understood? All I wanted was you. I’ve only ever wanted you…back.”
“I wondered which part would shake me the most once you did finally tell me,” he says softly. “The beginning, the middle, or the end. I wondered what you were waiting for, and whether it was to fall back in love with me.”
“I never stopped loving you.” I shake my head.
