by Lucy Harvey
but I'd wait a million more for you
nothing prepared me for
what the privilege of being yours would do”
I knew Roman was adopted but he was raised by the same affectionate parents as Dixon, why did he feel as though he was not capable of such a strong love? He was this way with me so why did he run from it. No – don’t even go there Lily.
“Come on Lily it’s our turn.” Peyton took hold of my arm as she steered me towards to the dance floor.
The dance after the bride and groom was to be between the bridesmaids and best men. How could I have forgotten about this, when we agreed to dance together we were enhanced by a bliss of endless fucking, not going to the extreme to avoid every essence of each other’s being. I was about to not only face him but be helplessly captured in his embrace.
I kept my head down to avoid that look in his eyes – be strong I tell myself.
Standing before me, Roman placed the firmness of his hand against the small of my back and pulled me against him. I lifted my head and avoided his gaze as I drank in his enticing aroma. That sweet cinnamon scent.
As the song began to play I looked to Roman with a confused expression, the original song we had rehearsed to was the classic ‘The Time of My Life’ from Harleys favorite film Dirty Dancing – I was not exaggerating when I said this wedding had been drowned in Harleys wishes. But the song playing now was the song that haunted my dreams every night since we learnt of the engagement. Angels. The song that Roman had sang for me, the song that first drew him to me.
“Was this you?” I asked him still refraining from eye contact.
“Yes Angel.” He whispered into my ear lingering longer than expected before he pulled away.
“Why would you put that on? Why would you make that speech? Why do you continue to mind fuck me?” The irritation laced in my concern betrayed my confidence as I stiffened against him.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
What.
Someone had told him about the job, surely he could not expect me to contact him. Oh hey Roman I know you just walked out of my life and everything and continue to brake me but just to let you know I am moving to New York to get as far away from you as possible so just maybe I can control my own mind again. That was the first time I had admitted that to myself - my real intentions for leaving – sure it was a great opportunity but I failed to tell everyone I could have the same position here in the unit I was already familiar with and had grown to love.
“I am not doing this here Roman.” My confident portrayal was back before I could surrender and cry.
“Good, we will do it at mine later then.” He stated with a sly smirk.
“You have to be joking me, you do not brake up with me make no attempt to put things right and then expect me to come running.” I tried to focus on maintaining a steady rhythm, I didn’t want Harley to pick up on anything, I know she would have been worrying and I didn’t want any negativity on her special day to be down to me.
Instead of arguing or trying to manipulate me into believing there was some greater reason for his actions he began to sing to me. This was probably going to be the last encounter I shared with Roman before I left on Monday, instead of trying to rebel against his touch I sank into him and cherished his embrace. Just one last time.
“Light reflects from your shadow
it is more than I thought could exist
you move through the room
like breathing was easy
if someone believed me
They would be as in love with you as I am
and every day
I am learning about you
the things that no one else sees
and the end comes too soon
like dreaming of angels
And leaving without them
And with words unspoken
a silent devotion
I know you know what I mean
and the end is unknown
But I think I'm ready
As long as you're with me”
Those beautiful lyrics created by The XX a band I used to love. Now they bring me pain and memories I don’t want to remember.
This was the man I had fell in love with. Not the version of him without his demons because I loved them to. I love all of him with a fire that would never burn out and that meant loving each and every part of him. This was the version I fell in love with because this was the version only I got to see. This was evidence that in some distorted way he did actually feel for me. But it wasn’t enough, he was never going to love me and I deserved more.
The song drew to a close. I took in a deep breath and stepped back releasing myself from him, my body grew cold as I tore it from his warmth.
“This is goodbye Roman.” A tear escaped my eyes as I tried to force the words through my clogged throat. Be brave Lily.
“No Lily you can’t go.” He argued maintaining hold of my body.
Was he fighting?
“Why?” I should not give in to his games but this was me willing to give him one last chance to let me in or at least explain some reason why he treated me like this.
It was pathetic and reckless but I did not put everything I had into this to not learn the truth. Part of me needed to believe it was real, to believe I was wanted.
“You said it yourself love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. I’ve messed up from day one and I know this is going to be no walk in the park but I don’t care, whether I spend the rest of my days groveling to you or just being some sort of part in your life I will take it. I just can’t exist without you by my side. I need you Lily, please stay?” His words pushed me to the brink of no return and I began to hysterically sob, I had longed to hear him beg for me for so long.
“Why now Roman? What has changed? I can’t let you keep doing this to me.”
“It’s not what has changed, it’s the way it has been all along, the only thing that has changed is me choosing to accept it.” I could not let him worm his way out with another one of his famous riddles, he was going to have to come completely undone if I was going to even consider some sort of future with him in it.
“Accept what? What are you talking about Roman?”
“I love you Lily.”
My chin scraped the floor as my jaw plummeted about five hundred feet down to the ground. He said it. He took my hands in his, the all too familiar feeling calming me.
“I have loved you since I very first saw you, that was never the issue,” He leaned in wiping away my tears, “the issue was me. I thought I could not let you in but now I will do anything to make you stay, if you want to know everything that happened? You want to know why I am the way I am then I shall tell you. Just know what ever happens from here, the one thing that will never change is how you saved me. I will always love you Angel, you saved the boy who fought to be saved. You made the cynic believe in love. I love you.”
It was everything I had longed for since that first electric bolt connecting our souls in a truly warped way. He was finally ready to bare himself to me and start the relationship we were destined for.
It was too late.
Whilst he was enjoying his salvation I was drawing closer to my undoing. First the voices came. Then I so desperately ignored the triggers choosing to believe I had control. I knew what would follow. All I could do now was prolong the inevitable.
After endless mind numbing plea’s I managed to convince Lily to hear me out. I had not forced myself through all this mental preparation to enlighten her on my past for her to decide it was no longer necessary. Her persistence that she did not need to know was a sign she had given up.
Not just yet sweet Angel.
Everyone had finished serenading the happy couple with well wishes and congratulations as they departed for their honey moon, their first chapter as man and wife. Once the crowd began to disperse I persuaded Lily to come back to mine.
Now I was stood with an unbuttoned shi
rt and tired heavy eyes preparing myself to unveil my ruin to this sweet soul. Lily was still looking beyond desirable in her bridesmaid dress but all I could picture her in was a white dress, similar to Harleys but customized for my Angel.
I pictured Lily standing proud in a white dress baring herself to me for eternity with everyone one to witness she was mine and I was hers. The image on her face replayed in my mind, it would be her dream come true and the thought enthralled me.
Why was I picturing her in that?
Lily stared at me wide eyed in wonderment, I know she did not want to push me but I needed her to be as ruthless as possible like I had always been with her.
Here goes nothing.
She took a seat on the plush suede couch preparing herself for my confession. The realization that this could be the last time I have her this close to me pushes me to strive forward.
“I would never speak up, I was too frightened.” I cleared my throat before continuing. “They said she was just another damaged kid surviving the ringer of care but it was more than that. Parents that take in orphans and care kids are supposed to be loving and thankful, they are supposed to want a child. The only kinds of people we met were abusers, mentally and physically.”
Lily tried her best to keep her porcelain face in a serene expression but I could see the fear in her eyes.
“Viktor was not the first to rape her but she made sure he was the last.” I squinted my eyes trying to refrain from braking or crying.
Lily gasped at my abrupt statement, “Who is she Roman?”
Ignoring Lily’s question I carried on with my overdue admission.
“I was just six years old. Every single thing I did he would find a way to turn it into me disobeying him, anything so he could beat me. Every night I would cry to her asking why he would not stop it. Daddies were not supposed to be that way I would say over and over. He was not my real dad but he was supposed to act like one wasn’t he?” I ask the rhetorical question but Lily refrains from any movement.
I shook my head preventing the memories to take full place in my mind.
“That night she promised he would never hit me again and after he didn’t. After that I became selfish and horrible, to me it was the best care home we had ended up in but the better I become the worse she would get. It was not until I had a nightmare and woke up crying in the middle of the night that I heard her scream, I thought maybe she was having a bad dream too. I headed towards her bedroom and that’s when I saw it. That was when I learnt just how she made him stop beating me.”
The words began to brake as my throat closed over, by this point I was shamelessly crying, Lily wrapped her arms around me desperately trying to console me. Maybe that was all she needed, but to ever move forward I needed to rid myself of every detail keeping me from her. My hands were gripping at her so tightly I tried to loosen my grip, not too much, I couldn’t let her slip through my fingers.
“His sweaty clothed body was led on top of hers and I watched as she screamed and kicked against him, then I noticed how his trousers were hanging around his thighs as she led there naked. First I ran over screaming for him to stop but it made him go faster.”
I released a deep breathe before proceeding into this nightmare that felt like just yesterday.
“After that every single night he would make me watch. Whenever I misbehaved or my already stained clothes were dirty he would take it out on her. If I moved or looked away he would hit her in some way, at first she would try and fight against him but as time went on I would watch as she lost herself in her own mind, travelling to somewhere far away from the hostility of that bedroom where he would rape her over and over.”
I pushed Lily back and held her at arm’s length.
“Who was she Roman?” She asked once more, the tears down her face matched mine.
“We never tempted to tell the social worker, we were too scared of the outcome. She thought the only way she could save us was by killing herself. Her name was Ava and she was my sister, my big sister who killed herself just so I could live.” I shook my head in disbelief, still trying to come to terms with it myself.
“Once the authorities investigated our case I thought everything would come to light but I never realized just how powerful Viktor was. The death was swept under the carpet and I was moved from that home as I mourned my only savior.”
I took the scotch Lily had just poured me from her shaking hand and downed it in one gulp.
“I was moved to two other foster homes before I finally found the Courts. They say when you hit rock bottom the best thing is you can’t get any lower. I couldn’t have anticipated just how more badly things would escalade. But then I finally met the Courts, they took me in and in time showed me not everyone was bad. That is why I have worked so hard building an empire, I thought if I could provide them with the stability they gave me then in some way we would be even.” That was the first time I had even admitted that to myself.
“Roman I, I don’t even know what to say?” She was crying so hard, I knew the ugliness would consume her.
“That was why I couldn’t fully let you in Lily because in so many ways you remind me of her, if I was to lose someone close to me again I don’t know if I could survive.” I confessed.
“What about Odette? You got close to her?” It pained me she would stoop so low as to compare herself or even Ava to Odette but we needed to rid all our demons.
“Odette is Viktor’s biological daughter. She found out who I was, when I stayed with Viktor the social offices changed my name to Jonah as my birth mother never even gave me one. It was Ava that named me Roman or Rome for short.” I watched as it clicked in her head of why I hated that nick name.
“Once Odette learnt what I was doing she wanted to help, of course she blackmailed me in some ways to cover her own back, insurance if you will. That was the only reason I ever went near her.”
I stood and anticipated Lily’s response, I was mentally and physically exhausted from the over load of emotions of revealing my past. In a way it had felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“Let’s go to bed Roman, you do not know just how much this means to me that you felt like you could share that with me, I know it was not easy.” Lily leant forward on the tips of her toes and planted a delicate kiss on the corner of my mouth then took my hand and led me towards the bed.
Her response seemed robotic, like she was not really there. I guess the unveiling of my past shook her up as much as it did me so I pushed it to the back of my mind.
We spent the entire night coiled around each other, having Lily so close to me was the emotional support I hated to admit I needed. I had come clean. She now understood me. This was it, I would never be without Lily again. I drifted off to sleep as Lily serenaded me with the lyrics I had written for her, she remembered.
“I love you Lily, forever and always.”
I had finally learnt to say it and I would never tire of giving her those words. The ones her heart had longed for before she even knew it.
When I awoke that next morning to an empty bed and a cold room my heart deflated to the pit of my soul. Lily had left me. I searched my entire home where I so freely brought my demons to life just for her to find nothing, not even a note.
I had come clean, I had bared my soul to her. It was not enough. It was too late.
“I cannot believe you are going to do this, you do realize how crazy this is don’t you?” My brother queried down the other end of the phone.
“I’m doing it Dixon” I informed him, nothing would stop me.
“Can’t you just let her be? What makes this time so different?”
“I love her.” I announced.
“So you have finally become capable of such feelings. Why does it have to be with the girl you nearly broke, can’t you find someone else? What if she comes back and she is truly happy without you? I mean a lot can change in a month. It’s a long time bro, she could even be with someone else.” He stumbl
ed on his last words careful not to infuriate me. I knew he was only looking out for me but it was unnecessary.
If he or anyone else truly believed I would let Lily out of my sight long enough for her to move on then no one knew me at all. She may not have seen me but I saw her. The last five weekends I would insist on travelling to my New York firm to keep tabs on the business over sea’s just to be near her. She was the other half of me. Every moment that I was not occupied with something that was code red then my thumbs were texting her, my eyes were scanning her pictures and my heart was calling hers.
“Dixon, it will always be her.” I simply stated.
It was a month since I put everything I had on the line for Lily.
It had been a whole month since she walked out on me after I had given her every single broken part of me.
Tonight she would return and I would make sure she would never leave again.
To think my New York adventure had already came to an end excited and scared me in irrational extremes. My decision to go was the hardest by far but they were right, I needed to leave. They have been here every day since guiding me and watching me. I know I should fight back but I’m weak and tired.
“You ready for the airport babe?” Troy enquires as he pays the tip in the barista.
“Just about, hey let me listen to that a second.” I turn my attention to the T.V. in the café and ask the waitress to turn up the volume.
A news report interrupts the day time schedule and I see his name all over the screen. The picture linked to him is of an old frail man I have no memory of. Evil is laced in his eyes and realization hits me before I double check the name.
It’s Viktor.
The reporter continues, “Earlier this week Viktor Hayes was arrested for committing benefit fraud. Police have been reported to confirm that when inspecting Mr. Hughes personal files they uncovered him to be the ring leader in an international child pornography loop. Since the discovery countless of victims of all ages and backgrounds have come forward pleading their case.”
