“Won’t you come here?” she asked, waving her hand.
We didn’t have a choice, so we walked in a line to the gathering of people. Keen quickly introduced us to the people around, and she went last, shaking our hands. Even Adalyn.
The other people she’d been talking to left, and then it was the four of us. It felt much more comfortable that way. Less eyes on us.
“So nice to meet you,” the woman said to us. “I’m glad you could come. I was kind of worried, what with everything that’s happened.”
Riley arched an eyebrow. “Did you request us?”
I understood Riley’s question because I assumed it was some event organizer that suggested us. It wasn’t like we were local news here. While our… situation had become national news, that only lasted a few weeks. It lasted longer around town. I didn’t have a clue why we were on their radar here.
“I did,” Keen said. “Your story really hit home for me, and I think you can inspire a lot of the girls here closer to your age. Show them that it gets better and that they’re not all alone in what they feel.”
I didn’t know what to tell her, so I stayed quiet. I couldn’t very well tell her that I was a bad choice. Riley should have come alone. She was the brave one, killing that bastard, and setting us free. I wasn’t the important one, and I wasn’t the dead one. Adalyn and I were in the middle, drifting away into the background of this whole thing. Everyone wanted to talk to Riley, and with good reason. She was the one who could talk about it, and I couldn’t.
“I have some people I’d like you to meet,” Keen told us. “Follow me.”
And then it started, and I wanted to run again. We were introduced to woman after woman who deserved to be here doing something this important. The first was a woman named Susan, and she was in an abusive marriage for seven years. She told us about how her husband wouldn’t hit her, but he was all too willing to find other ways to hurt her.
“It was a lot of words,” she told us. Her bright blue eyes stoic. “Calling me names when I didn’t do something right, making me feel like I was stupid. Less than. It wasn’t until he tried it with our daughter that I decided I needed to get out.”
Her daughter recently turned ten and was with her stepfather, getting ready. Susan told us that she met her new husband at a meeting for people coming from abusive homes. She wouldn’t tell us what happened to him.
Next was a woman who didn’t get out quite as quickly as the last. She had been married for almost twenty years, and she had four kids with the bastard. He used to beat them all, and the woman did her best to protect them. Taking hits when she knew her husband went looking for a target. And she stayed because she said she didn’t know any better. Her father was much the same, and her mother didn’t stop him. Neither of the women knew that they deserved better.
Woman after woman with stories like this. Years of abuse, and they were all so kind. They had to know that we didn’t deserve to be here with them, but they all treated us like we mattered as much as they did. We got hugs and compliments. They called us brave.
Brave. They thought I was brave. The girl whose hands still shook when she saw the color pink or when something moved in the corner of her eye.
Oh, God. Was I not fine?
I wasn’t left with much more time to think when they brought us to the very last woman speaking today. Her name was Shawnie, and she was beautiful even with the scars on her body. Her face and neck, arm, and what I could see of her leg, they were all burned. It was like she’d been held to a flame, and it made my body feel cold when I heard her story.
Since she was little, she’d been abused by a lot of people. Most of the men that her mother brought home. Boys she went to school with used her because she didn’t think she deserved better than that. They gave her attention, and she thought that was love. One day, she met a broken boy who liked to throw her around when he was in the mood for it. He hurt other people too, but she was his favorite. She married him when she was seventeen.
“We had a son when I was twenty,” she said in a voice that sounded like music, “because he thought that a baby would heal his brokenness. He didn’t, and it didn’t take him long to figure that out. He liked to be the saddest person in the room, so he wouldn’t let himself be happy.
“Our boy was about three when the beatings stopped being enough, and my husband started drinking. He drank a lot in high school, but not like this. He did worse things to me sober than he ever did drunk, so I didn’t say anything. He wasn’t touching the baby, and that was what mattered. I could live with the pain as long as my son wasn’t.
“Then another year or two passed, and I got pregnant again. I was six months along, and it was a little girl.” She smiled. “Her name was going to be Rebecca.”
My stomach sank, and I already started to shake, my hands first. I put them behind my back, clasping them.
“Jacob was put to bed,” she said, going on. “I read to him, and I kissed him goodnight, and then I went into the kitchen to get something to eat.” Her eyes closed for a few seconds, and my feet told me to run. “I can’t remember what the fight was about. You’d think I would. A late bill maybe…
“I didn’t notice the cigarette left burning in the other room until the fire was already crawling up the walls. I couldn’t put it out, and I stopped trying, so I could call 911. My husband ran, telling me he was going to go get someone.
“The fire got out of control so quickly, and I needed to get Jacob out. He was screaming for me. I ran to him, and I inhaled too much smoke. I can’t remember much. I picked him up, and I started running again, but I couldn’t breathe. I fell, and he tumbled out of my arms. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital a week later. My stomach was…” She stopped, and she looked down, rubbing the spot. “I lost the baby. And I asked where my son was. They told me he breathed in too much smoke.”
Her blank eyes turned glassy, and Keen rubbed her back as she finished. “I never found out where my husband went.” With any luck, he died in a gutter. “Good riddance.”
I was left standing there, unable to say anything as Riley told the woman who we were. Endless pictures ran in my head, and I couldn’t help but put myself in the woman’s shoes. I saw myself with children, and I put myself through the horror of losing them in my head. Both of them in the same day. She lost her entire family, and she was still here.
How? How was such a wonderful person treating us like we were equals? It made no sense.
“It was so nice meeting you, Layla,” she said to me, hugging me. When she pulled back, she ducked to look me in the eyes. “You, my dear, are one brave girl. All of you.” She looked around. “I cannot imagine the kind of world you came from. I am so glad that you’re here now.”
When she was gone, and Keen was gone, I was left with my sisters, and I needed to leave. I muttered something about using the bathroom, and I excused myself.
A lump formed in my throat as I hurried to the elevator. I needed to get my stuff, and I could call a cab out of here. I needed to go home.
My hands shook as I tried to shove the key card into the slot. When the light turned green and it beeped, I almost gasped with relief before I rushed into the room. I went right to the side of my bed where I kept my bag.
“Layla?” Bennett said, and I looked to the corner of my room. He sat at the desk, and his laptop was closed. He walked to me before I even said anything.
I shook my head, denying him already. “I have to go. I can’t be here.” I started digging through my bag, looking for my phone and debit card.
“What happened?” Bennett’s voice was tight, and he took a step to me, too close.
I didn’t say anything until he pulled my hands out of my bag and locked my wrists together, trapped snuggly. His eyes begged me, and I obeyed. “I shouldn’t be here,” I admitted. “There are women here who lost children and who know pain I can’t even fucking imagine. I was kept in pretty clothes and groomed. We are not the same.”
/> Bennett’s hands didn’t loosen on me, but his face hardened. I watched his eyebrows as they sank on his forehead and his jaw as it set. Those dark eyes I loved were too harsh for the boy I knew, and I wanted to run again.
“You were beaten,” he said. “Locked in rooms. Violated. Tortured. He took the sun from you, and he stole away any innocence you may have had. He ruined your world. He made you afraid. That, that is why you belong here. Because after he did all of that to you”—he stopped, and he took my face in his hands, making me look at him when I tried not to—“After all of that, you’re standing here. You are the most beautiful person I have ever met in my entire life because you’re still here.”
A whimper came out of my mouth, and I dipped my head as much as I could. “But I almost wasn’t here,” I whispered. “I tried…”
He nodded. “I know what you tried, Layla. It doesn’t make you any less of who you are. You’re so much more than anyone could even hope to know. You included.”
“I can’t do this,” I cried. “I can’t.”
“Shh,” he said, pulling me to his body. “You can do this, and you will be wonderful. You don’t have to believe it because I believe it enough for the both of us.”
I clung to him, using him to keep me upright. He felt so warm against me, and it fought off the cold that my tears left on my cheeks. “I don’t feel like much of anything.”
Bennett pressed his lips against my forehead for only a few seconds. “I think that’s the point.” I turned my head up again, wanting to see him. His stare was empty. “It doesn’t matter how you feel now because you keep going. You don’t have to be all the things you think you’re supposed to be because you’re all the things you need to be. You don’t have to know how to keep moving forward because you know why you’re trying. Trying is more important than reasoning.”
“But,” I managed to get out through my closing throat. “They all look like they know what they’re doing.”
Bennett shrugged. “So do you. What makes you think that they have a damn clue? Do you believe that those women knew anything about how to survive? They didn’t, and that’s why they’re all here. To try and help people who are now where they used to be. You’ve made progress whether you know it or not. A million tiny steps are still a million steps. You don’t need to feel your whole world fall into place to be where you’re supposed to be, or to know where you’re going. Just take the next step and then another. Eventually, you’ll look back, and you’ll see all the different versions of yourself you used to be, and you’ll understand.”
I felt so… fucking hollow. Like there was nothing to me at all, and I needed to feel something other than grief. I was in the arms of someone that made me feel human.
So I shoved him onto the bed.
Bennett didn’t have time to wonder what the hell was going on before I was on him. My knees locked onto either side of him, and I flipped my hair back with my fingers. I crushed my mouth against his, and everything was… better.
I pried his lips apart with my tongue, and I was rewarded with his taste. Always like candy. I let out a little moan as my hips ground against his. Tightly, he took them, and our kiss became more forceful than it had been before. His fingers dug into me, and his teeth pulled at my lip. I wanted him to do it harder. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted something other than numbness.
My hands slipped across the sides of his neck, searching for his hair. My fingers knotted in it, and his hold tightened again, blissfully painful. A desperate and weak sound came out of me. I needed more. This was not enough for me.
I broke my mouth apart from his, and his head followed mine for only a moment. I slid down his body, and my hands went to his zipper. I started when he ripped my hands away, and I glared at him with questioning betrayal.
“No,” he said, so much firmer than I thought he could get his voice. “Layla, you’re upset.”
I smiled. “I know how to fix that.”
He did not return the smile, and he held my wrists loosely. “You don’t want this.”
I glanced down at where I sat, pulling my hands free. “It looks like you do, honey.” Slipping my hand up his thigh, I grinned again, and I dropped my voice to something sultry. “Just lie back and let me make it all better.”
“No,” he said again. “We’re not doing this because you need a distraction.”
Distraction? What the fuck did that mean?
“Layla.” His voice turned soft when he sat up and lay a hand over my cheek. “Don’t do this. It won’t make the hurt go away.”
“Stop!” I barked out of nowhere. I batted his hand away. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Listen to me,” he said, eye getting bigger. “It’s okay.”
“Stop!” I yelled again.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, putting his damn hands on my face. “It is okay, Layla. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
A tear betrayed me, making me look sad instead of angry. I was furious, and I honestly didn’t know why. I struggled in Bennett’s hold, and he laid me down beside him.
I thrashed around, telling him to leave me alone, and he didn’t listen. He put his head on my chest and took my hand. He whispered under my yelling, “You’ll be okay.”
I stilled, panting and shaking from grief or rage, I didn’t know. Bennett didn’t let me up.
had calmed down, lying with my side pressed up against Bennett’s. I traced his palm, staring at the little x on his wrist that he must have drawn before I got into the room. I moved his hand closer to me, so that I could press my lips to the mark. I left them there for I didn’t know how long.
How was he so calm and so sure? Why did he see something in me that I knew wasn’t there? What gave him the right to see it?
“Are you ready?” he asked me.
I turned my head up, feeling weak all over my body. “I wanna go home.”
His fingers brushed my hip, and I wanted to lose myself in the sensation. “I know you do, but I won’t let you.”
Damn him.
I sat up on the bed and looked over my shoulder. “I’m gonna need you to come with me if you want me not to run.”
Bennett moved off of the bed and glanced at the clock. “I have to change. How do I know you won’t run when I go in the bathroom?”
I smirked. “I guess you can’t change in the bathroom.”
His chocolate-colored eyes got bigger as I watched his throat work. He rubbed his hands down the front of his shirt while he walked over to get his clothes. I didn’t even try to not look at him while he changed. He didn’t face me, but I used the mirror to my advantage.
I stood there, admiring Bennett. He was lanky, but I liked it. Bennett’s chest was smooth, and my eyes followed it down until it reached his happy trail. Hmm. That was pretty. So… very… pretty. Why did I let him stop me from getting his pants off? It would have been a lot of fun for me at least. Oh, he had morals or something. Boring.
Bennett had on a suit. Like an actual suit, and I loved him lots for it. He cared so much about why we were here, and the effort made me happy in such a simple way that I didn’t know if it was real at first. I wasn’t aware that such small things could touch me.
Bennett attempted to fix his tie, dealing with un-cuffed wrists, and an untucked shirt. I got up to help him, and he made a whimpery sound when I shoved my hand down his pants, fixing his shirt. I didn’t touch anything important. Except for his butt. And I regretted nothing. I got his shirt all tucked in, and I started on his tie.
“How do you know how to do that?” he asked.
I smiled, working on the knot. “My dad taught me when I was a kid. No skill I shouldn’t know, he said. I can change a tire, tie a bow tie and a normal one, and I can change the oil in my car. Very useful in this life I’ve had.” I laughed.
Bennett smiled too, but it was softer, and his eyes stuck on mine. Looking up at him made my heart trip all over itself in my chest. I smirked at the pleasan
tness of it and for how warm his hand was on my hip.
Once he was all finished, he took my hand and led me out of the room.
My chest tightened with every step I took down the hall and closer to my doom. My grip on Bennett’s fingers was almost cruel of me, but he did nothing but pull me to his side and lead me where I needed to go.
My sisters didn’t question where I went off to, and I was grateful that I didn’t have to lie to them even more. And I would have. I would have lied because I was a coward.
Bennett stopped once we were at the side of the stage. He smiled and brushed my cheek with his thumb. “You’re going to do great.” His lips pressed to my forehead then the tip of my nose, making me grin like a dope. “If you get scared, just look at me. I’ll be in the second row.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
I got another kiss, this time on the top of my head. And then he left me there.
Three minutes. We had three minutes before we were on, and I could see the people from where I stood. So many seats filled up with people. Bennett and Wilson sat together, both watching the woman speak. They could probably hear her, but I couldn’t. Everything sounded like a ringing in my ears, and I wanted to curl into a ball and never leave this spot ever again.
Two minutes. We had two minutes before I had to stand on a stage and try to believe I was like these other people. That I didn’t somehow have it easier. Heels and baths. That was what happened to me. So what if I was beaten and locked in a room? Oh, but even thinking that made my stomach hurt, remembering what Bennett looked like when I said it before. He was so angry because he believed, truly believed, that I should be here. That my story could help other people. He believed that, and I believed in him.
One minute. We had one minute until we told a room full of strangers about us. They may have known already, but I was still so scared.
I blinked, and people were clapping. Someone said our names, and Riley started walking. Adalyn pushed me in front of her, still using me to hide behind.
Out of time, and I stood in front of a microphone, staring out at hundreds of bodies. Thinking of them naked did nothing, so screw whoever came up with that. The best I could do was not bolt and head for the hills.
The Dreamhouse Page 13
