by Leanne Davis
“I’m not.” Her tone was feeble and unsure. Wasn’t she?
“You are,” he accused. He folded his arms over his chest.
She was more shocked by the grin that started to tilt up her mouth. She was grinning. Now. Just after sex. She didn’t often grin at any time, but now? Never. But he was leaning against his headboard, glaring at her as if she had greatly offended him. She’d never slept with a guy who had asked her to stay, let alone wanted her to say.
“I’ll make you come again later, but right now, I want to lay with you.”
“This isn’t a negotiation. And I wasn’t hesitating for that reason.”
“Oh, I know why you’re hesitating. I’ve gleaned that much about you. Run. Avoid. Push away. Isolate yourself. I know what you do, Mrs. Kylie McKinley. But I really didn’t expect you to do it right now.”
She was on her knees, naked, and he was glaring at her still. She tilted her head. He was mad. She didn’t know how to compute it. No one ever wanted her to stay. She never really considered it a walk of shame, but more an obvious fact of Okay, we’re done.
Except Tristan wasn’t done with her.
“I don’t isolate myself. I have lots and lots of sex. How isolating is that?”
She waited for him to throw back an obvious retort like, It shows. Instead his gaze went darker. His mouth pulled tighter together and his jaw locked. “You’re the most reclusive, isolated college coed I’ve ever met. But I thought you didn’t feel that way towards me. You took me home, to your parents. I don’t buy that I’m another guy to you.”
Her mouth twisted up. “Cocky, aren’t you?”
“No, sure of why you’re suddenly scared of me.”
She bristled. “I’m not scared of you.”
“You’re so unsure of me you can’t see straight.”
She crossed her arms over her scrawny chest. “If that’s the case, then why do I sit here openly naked?” she dared him.
He smiled, but the cockiness was gone and it was a gentle, almost coaxing tilt of his mouth. “Because it’s what you think you have to offer. I’m here to tell you there’s a whole lot more you add to that.”
“You don’t know anything,” she whispered.
“You’re wrong. I know about you. So why don’t you just come here. I’m tired. Let’s sleep.”
She finally crawled to him. He let her settle in against the luxurious sheets. She sighed in bliss. “Maybe it’s that you’re all old and rich and stuff that has me unsure.”
“Uh-huh. There’s that. But there’s your whole recluse thing too.”
“I’m not a recluse.” She tilted her head up so they were facing each other. He leaned over and kissed her mouth again.
“Goodnight, Kylie.” His smile was gentle, essentially shushing her.
She fell back and stuck her tongue out at him as she finally mumbled, “Goodnight… sir.” She then flipped over quickly.
He was just as quick on top of her. “Sir, is it? What did I tell you about that? You want to call me sir, we can find a lot more interesting uses than reminding me how much older I am than your youthful little ass.”
He was grinning and she was laughing as he quickly withdrew her from the covers he’d so nicely coaxed her into and within minutes they were tangled up all together, mouth to toes, as they laughed, giggled, smiled, kissed and touched.
Chapter Eleven
POUNDING WOKE TRISTAN UP. It wasn’t a physical knock but his own head splitting open. He opened his eyes to the pain gripping his forehead. His room was in gloomy morning shadow. He glanced at his clock. Five o’clock. No more sleeping he knew, even if it was Sunday. He flipped the covers off and headed off to his bathroom. He pissed and threw a bunch of water at his eyes and downed some aspirin, drinking liberally from the faucet. He caught his reflection and winced. He had accomplished his goal. He had succeeded. Just as Grandfather had always required. Good trained monkey that Tristan was—he always delivered.
He fisted his hand. He wasn’t telling Grandfather. There was no pictures. There never would be. He wasn’t sure what the situation was exactly. But however he worked this out, he wasn’t telling anyone about what he did with Kylie. He stared harder into the mirror, shaking his head. No one in his family would ever know. Not about her. Not about them.
There had to be some other answer to this. Something he hadn’t thought of or wasn’t seeing. There had to be something so much better than using—no, in all honesty, abusing Kylie. His head beat viciously again as he thought it out. Thought of her finding out. He had to do better. Find a way to make this up to her, how he first came after her. She’d find out about him, of course there was no doubt of that. He had a loaded gun to his head in terms of time with her. But he just needed time to figure this out better. A better way, for her, for him, and for Tommy.
Resolved, he opened the bathroom door. The light arced over her. The covers were twisted around her lower half. Her back was bare and smooth, facing towards him. He stepped closer and slid next to her, staring down at her startled. Her back was maybe the width of his hands together where it tapered to meet with the barely raised ridge of her butt. She had pale skin. But there in a curving S shape, starting up just below her shoulder and traveling down to her tailbone, was a tattoo. It was a branch done all in black that trailed with smaller vines from the thicker main stem. Little flowers clustered in a couple of spots. It was a beautiful picture. Black and stark against the thin smoothness of her back. There was the faintest hint of pink colors in just the center of the blossoms. It cut her back in two halves, breaking her.
He got it immediately. His finger trailed down it, following the line and her thoughts. He was sure she’d created it. It looked a lot like the drawings in her apartment. Last night he hadn’t noticed it. There was something about it. Haunting, sad, tragic, and somehow beautiful. Kind of a metaphor for the girl whose back it bisected. She stirred under his ministrations. He leaned down and kissed the base of it. She murmured a little more. He followed the twist of the first branch as his tongue traced one of the flower blossoms and she murmured her approval, stretching her legs out, falling flatter on her stomach. Her head popped up off the pillow and she turned her profile towards him as her gaze sought out the clock. She groaned when she read it.
“Do you realize what time it is?”
His fingertips kept brushing up and down her back. “Can’t barely sleep past now.”
She let her head fall down and slid her arms over her head and under the pillow. “What? So that means I can’t either? That’s what old people do, Tristan. My grandparents get up at five thirty every day of the week. It’s their routine and they can’t sleep any later because of it. Aren’t you a little young to act so old?”
Her words were muffled into the pillow so every other word came out missing syllables. She groaned however when he kneaded her back harder. Her spine poked his palms when he rubbed his hands over her. “This is your work, isn’t it?”
Her head moved in affirmation. “I designed it. Someone at the dorm had a mom who is a tattoo artist so she did the work for me. I had to start working at The Acorn to afford to finish it.”
He traced it with his index finger. “I can imagine. It’s a work of art.”
“Surprised?”
“Actually, probably more surprised there aren’t more tattoos or that this one isn’t way more visible.”
“I don’t want my mom to know.”
He stilled his ministrations. “Are you for real?”
“Yes. Why?”
“What do you let your family know about you?”
“They know enough. I just try to keep quiet some of the… edgier stuff.”
“Edgier stuff?”
“Yeah, you know, the stuff no parent would want to know about.”
“Kylie?”
“Hmm?”
He leaned down so his mouth was right at her ear. “You’re not all that edgy.”
Her head popped up and she whipped her gaze to
his. “How do you figure?”
“You’re a junior in college, who, shockingly, seems to go to her classes and pass them. You work at a restaurant and from appearances show up and do a stellar job. I’m sorry, I might be missing something here, but what exactly is so bad about you or how you behave?”
“The drinking, partying, sex, and how grossly skinny I am.”
Her breath hissed over the words. He could tell she wasn’t used to uttering them out loud. Something bumped hard in his chest. Damn. She admitted stuff to him she didn’t usually. “Don’t start with the name calling about your body or your sex life, let’s start there. No more name calling.”
“Well, then whatever. But you see I’m skinny. I do things no one understands. Things they wouldn’t approve of.”
“Maybe your mom needs to be told. All of it. What you feel and see and call yourself. You might be surprised what she has to say about it. I see a girl with some issues, mostly self-esteem related that don’t really hurt anyone else. You don’t really do anything that’s all that shocking. I’m sorry. I don’t think your self-assessment is right.”
“I can’t tell my mom about me.”
“Why?”
“You don’t understand how much she’s gone through and how long it has taken her to rebuild her life. I am her greatest failure in life and I don’t want to rub it in even more.”
“Has she told you that?”
“Of course not. She would never talk to me like that.”
“Ally tells you that?”
“Not in so many words. Ally just tries to fix me. So message received.”
“I don’t see the great failure that you are. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Who is Micah?”
Her body went taunt under his hands. Her back arched and her fist clenched as she pulled her arms closer to her. “How do you know that name?”
“The name was mentioned at dinner and everyone went sickly silent. Who is it?”
“My… my…father.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t connect it up. It seemed like an awkward, angry pause, not a sad one.”
“He didn’t die,” she finally admitted. Her reluctance was clear in her tone of voice. “I know that’s what you think. I try to make everyone think that. But he didn’t.”
“What happened then? Why does everyone go silent at the mention of his name?”
“He stole a bunch of money, I never knew the exact total, but it was a lot. He used some of it to pay off our house and bills so when he disappeared mom wasn’t totally ruined. But he also stole from Donny, strangers and his own parents. I don’t see his parents but Mom says they are pretty horrible. Anyway, Micah’s dad was going to turn him into the cops. He told my mom what he did, and then a few days later, just disappeared. He left us. Gone. Poof. One day I had a family, and the next I didn’t. Micah was caught years later, tried and convicted. He spent three years in prison before he was released early… part of some overcrowding relief thing. He was let out way too soon. How could three years make up for the lives he ruined, the people he betrayed and left, and bankrupted?”
“How old were you?”
“Ten. I was ten years when he left. I was only in fifth grade. I came home from school and Donny was there, not Mom or Dad. It was so odd. He stayed the night and then finally the next morning my mom came out. I thought she was sick or dying, she looked so bad. She sat me and Ally down and told us this story. It felt like this fictional fairytale or news story. This could not be us. Not our family. It didn’t feel like this crazy tale could be about us. We weren’t like this. But Micah had just left. It was easier for him to leave us, his family, his wife and kids, than to just do the punishment and come back to us. My family… I mean until then, I thought my parents were the moon and stars. But then…”
“He just left.”
“Without a word. I never spoke to him again. I never heard his voice again. I have spent years, hours and hours, reflecting, and the thing I most think about and can’t answer is what did he last ever say to me? Did he care he was leaving me forever? Did he show it? Some little sign? I—I can’t find any proof in my memories. I just don’t remember our last interaction and that’s what I most want to remember. Him. My father… when he was still in my life.”
And here was the key to Kylie. She was searching for her dad. In every interaction. In every relationship since. She was looking for signs of cracks, of the fissures that would make the next person leave her. Always.
Tristan kept his hands firmly rubbing her back, pushing into the strained muscles as she told her soul to him. She turned her face so he could see her eyes. “He threw us out. Like we were trash. He just walked out. Never once looking back.”
He stared into her eyes. So dark and stormy and full of deep longing. For love, acceptance, understanding. “You tend to talk about yourself like you’re just that.”
“Trash,” she muttered softly.
He nodded slowly, holding her gaze in his. “Yes, like you are trash that anyone at any time could just throw away. Even your own mom, you treat that way. I mean, as if you believe she would just throw you out too. You hide stuff from her, or at least that is what it seems, because you think if she finds out she’ll just abandon you. That you are that easy to leave.”
“I… I know I’m not.”
“I know you intellectually know that. But I think inside, that’s exactly what you think.”
She dropped her head to bury it back in the pillow, nodding her head up and down as she stretched her arms, flexing her shoulder muscles. “He doesn’t deserve it. That kind of power to make me feel that way.” She suddenly sat up, taking the pillow and wrapping it against her chest. She leaned her head down into it. Her nakedness was hidden, but how slight she was wasn’t. How weak. How fragile. How strangely strong.
“But you do feel that way.”
She lifted her face off the pillow. There wasn’t a tear even. Just a hollow, big-eyed gaze. “Yes. I don’t understand why though. You don’t understand how everyone tried to help me. My mom, oh my God, she put us, me and Ally, before everything. My grandparents, and then even Donny’s parents took us in as their own. And of course, there was Donny. He is my father now. I mean, he loves me. I know this… but… it’s never enough. All of this, their love and support and care, is just never enough to fight off this deeper feeling inside of me.”
“This feeling that you’re trash, that any of them, me now included, will leave whenever the mood strikes us, without any warning. Nothing might even be wrong. We all just might leave you and be gone. Poof. Into thin air.”
“Yes,” she said, her tone strangled. She sucked in a deep breath, her face bent down, and her hair falling over the sides of her face. He could just see her forehead, eyelashes, top of her nose, and chin. “Pathetic, right? I mean, that doesn’t happen. It’s crazy to cling to this idea. They are all still there. Still loving me. But I won’t let it be enough. I let him, that criminal, rule what I believe about people I know better. I just don’t understand why I give him that power. Why I’m not stronger. Why I let him define me.”
“But it did happen to you, Kylie. Someone you loved, someone you trusted and relied on just willingly left you and disappeared one day. So no, really, it’s not so crazy you believe this on a gut level… it happened to you.”
“Ally had the exact same thing happen to her and she doesn’t carry it around like some kind of fucking excuse for being such a loser.”
“Ally… Ally… so perfect Ally. Yet, strangely you don’t seem to hate her or even feel a huge amount of jealously of her. Ally isn’t you. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe that’s just the difference in your reactions. Doesn’t mean either of you were right or wrong.”
“Ally cried and carried on. She was angry and horrible to Mom and everyone… She reacted. She was loud and vocal and let it out. I—I didn’t really do anything. I cried maybe a handful of times that I can think of. I didn’t talk a
bout it. I didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t. I just wanted to forget it. I wanted to not feel it. Maybe I don’t feel things right, you know? Things happen. Bad things and I don’t react. I shut down and…. and…”
“What?” he prodded gently.
“I don’t heal. I just get sadder and more pathetic. I just don’t understand, why don’t I react? To anything?”
He leaned forward and took her hands in his. She stared down at their linked hands. Hers were inert in his for a prolonged moment before her fingers suddenly grasped his own tightly. Almost fiercely. “I think…” he started softly, “that hating yourself is a pretty strong reaction.”
Her head nodded. Her shoulders slunk down. “I guess so. Do I disgust you?”
“No.” He took both of her shoulders in his hands. Her bones protruded and he let his thumbs gently rub along the ridge of them where they tucked into her neck. “No, you don’t disgust me.”
“Why? You have a thing for skeletons?”
“No. Never once before. But I can have a thing for you. And I can’t be disgusted by what I like about you.”
“Why would you even want to have sex with me?”
“I can have sex with your body because I find you desirable. Not because you’re so skinny, but neither does it repel me from wanting to. Okay? My reaction to you isn’t the problem.”
“I don’t know why I won’t cry when anyone else would cry. I don’t. Maybe I’m a sociopath or emotionally crippled or something.”
“Maybe it’s just not your way. And I think you’ve convinced yourself that how Ally reacts is the way. She works through her feelings, lets them out from what you describe. You internalize it all. It doesn’t mean you don’t have them.”
“They all want things of me I could never deliver. From the time Micah left, they wanted me to cry and carry on. I was supposed to be angry and express that. Mom was always, always asking, ‘Are you all right?’ ‘Come on honey, talk to me, and tell me what's going on in that head of yours.’ It was the right thing to ask me, as my mother, but it just… I couldn’t ever find the words or the anger they wanted out of me. I couldn’t answer them how they wanted. It made me incredibly sad for many years. I told them that. But they wanted more from me. I couldn’t express it all enough for them. I thought I did express it and they would then want more. More talking, more tears, more feelings. And I couldn’t produce it. I was just…”
