Faith (Stregth Series Book 2)

by T. L. Nicholas

  I can’t stop the shock from showing on my face, I’m trying, but I know it’s not working. He’s struggling to find words, and I can’t do anything but ride it out and wait.

  “I’m careful. I get tested, I practice safe sex like it’s my religion. I don’t sleep with women who I know are married or in a relationship, though it’s happened a couple of times when it was hidden from me and I’m not proud of that. I’m sorry for that. I swear I didn’t know,” he says, his eyes pleading for understanding.

  “I believe you,” I say. He looks so scared, and I don’t know why. I can’t stop myself from reaching out to caress his cheek, his stubble rough against my palm. He closes his eyes, leaning into it. He opens them again, his voice laced with desperation when he continues, “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, Tiny.”

  He pulls himself up to sitting, his back against the headboard. I follow him up, sitting cross-legged in front of him, pulling my pillow over to my lap and holding it tight. I have an urge to make him stop talking. To hold him and tell him to stop, don’t say any more, but I just clutch the pillow to me, waiting.

  He scrubs his hands across his face, then holds them out, palms up, the epitome of helplessness. “I can’t sleep. I’m afraid you’ll fall apart and I’ll sleep through it, and you’ll be all alone. I close my eyes and see you curled up in a ball, screaming. I can’t sleep.”

  “Jace, I’m okay. I’m sorry I scared you, but honestly, I’m okay. You don’t have to worry. It’s not your job to make sure I’m okay. I’m not your responsibility— “

  “Don’t you think I know that? I fucking know, but I can’t stop it. I want… no, I need to be here. I need to hear you breathing. Normal, even breaths, so I can stop seeing you gasping for air on the floor. Then as soon as I relax, sure that you’re okay, I see you here, in this bed, saying my name and begging me not to stop touching you. I want to do it again. I want to watch you writhing under me, I want to feel you trembling for me. Then you move in your sleep, innocently, the slightest twitch, and I’m ready for you. I can’t control it.”

  I close my eyes, my body responding to his words as though his hands are actually touching me. I measure my breathing, force it to stay even. I don’t know what to do. I’m speechless.

  “I know you don’t want me, and I’m trying so hard. Mentally, I accept it, I understand that you don’t feel the same way, but I can’t make my body get in line,” he continues.

  The laugh bursts out before I can stop it, and he looks like I slapped him.

  “No, no, wait. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing because it’s absurd. Because you think I don’t want to sleep with you. How could I not want to?” I ask, incredulous.

  “You didn’t want to, I pushed you into letting me touch you, just like I pushed you to talk to me. I’m not this person, I’ve never pushed a woman into anything in my life. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know who I am right now.” He looks tortured, and I want to soothe him even as I know I shouldn’t.

  Against my better judgement I slide forward, holding his hands in mine, resting them on the bed between us. “Jace, that’s not how it happened with us. It’s not true.”

  “I was there, Bay. I remember. It is true,” he says.

  “No, it’s not, Jace. I responded to every single thing you did. I kissed your neck, your shoulder, I held on, I begged. I said I wanted to sleep with you, but that I couldn’t. Couldn’t, Jace.” I say.

  “Because of… what’s his name? Mike? Because of him?” he asks.

  “You mean because I miss him or something?” he nods. “Oh, good God, no. There’s nothing left there. I can’t sleep with you because I literally can’t. Physically cannot.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks. I can see that he’s going over it in his mind, trying to find what he’s missing.

  “I’m not cleared. I’m not healed yet.” I want to explain, but I don’t know where to start.

  His hands clench around mine. Almost too tight. “Healed from what? How did you get hurt?”

  “I…ummm…” I can’t seem to form the words.

  “No, never mind. I don’t need to know. Don’t tell me. It’s not important,” his words come out in a rush. His face a mask of indifference, his eyes flat.

  “I want to tell you— “

  “No, you don’t. I can hear it in your voice, see it in your eyes, don’t let me push you. Don’t tell me.”

  “I want to tell you, I do. You’re not pushing me, I am. Just give me a second to find the words okay? I’ve never said them before.”

  He nods, but I can see he’s afraid I’m going to fall apart again, and so am I. “If you truly don’t want to know, I’ll wait until we can find someone else for me to talk to” –I try to read his face, but can’t— “But… you didn’t leave me. You stayed, and I’m not reading anything into it or anything, but I feel safe here. With you. I think I can tell you now, but it’s up to you. I won’t make you listen.”

  “I want to know everything about you. Anything you want to tell me, I want to hear. I want you to be okay, Tiny. I need you to get better,” he says.

  I can see that he means it. I take a deep breath and rush in before I can change my mind. “You know I had the infection, the sepsis.” He nods. “That happened because I had an abortion.” His expression changes abruptly to one of shock or horror, or maybe both. I take a deep breath, preparing myself for him to walk away. I started it, now I have to finish it. Until I’ve said it all, or he walks away. Whichever comes first.

  “Mike’s?” he asks.

  “No. It wasn’t Mike’s baby,” I say, staring down at our hands. I can’t look at his face. I don’t want to see the disgust in his eyes, so I’ll just keep my eyes on our hands. As long as he’s holding them, he’s still here.

  “It’ll be better if I start back at the beginning. When Alex came here,” he squeezes my hands gently, reassuringly.

  “You know what Travis did to her, to all of us. Why we had to kick her out of our house and everything. Once she was gone, Travis turned his hatred on us. Me, mostly. In his mind, it was my fault that she was gone. He leaned on us hard, eventually getting Mike fired again, but telling him he could have his job back if he kicked me out. Mike resisted. For weeks. He tried, he really did. Then Travis had his dad and brother fired. It wasn’t just us anymore. And, honestly, it had been over for a long time. We grew up and the relationship didn’t grow with us. We parted as… nothing I guess. We aren’t friends, we aren’t lovers, we’re just two people who used to know each other, but don’t know each other anymore.”

  “Where did you go?” he asks.

  “I went to my mom’s, but that only worked for a week or so. She was drunk and angry, her usual parade of men marching through, leaving twenty bucks on the table or a twelve pack of beer on their way back out. She’s a shell of a person now. I don’t even recognize her anymore. One night she didn’t do a good enough job, and the guy she was with smacked her around a little. It woke me up, and I freaked out on him, threatening to call the cops if he didn’t get out. He took off, and took his beer with him. She blamed me, and cried because she didn’t have any alcohol left and it was my fault. If I hadn’t gotten involved he would have felt guilty for hitting her and left the beer. I chased him off so he took it with him. It was my fault. All I’d ever done was ruin things… you get the idea.” I look up and he nods. He pulls one of my hands up to his face, brushing his lips across my knuckles.

  “I went to the gas station, bought her a case of beer, left it on her kitchen table, and walked out. I started couch hopping, but I couldn’t stay anywhere for more than a couple of days because as soon as Travis and his family found out the threats would start. I couldn’t get a job, and I couldn’t get an apartment. The downside of a tiny town,” I say with a laugh. “I was running out of money, but I still thought he’d get bored and stop soon. I really did.”

  “I was hanging out in front of a gas station, drinking a soda, and trying to think where I
could go next when he grabbed me. I never even saw him. He dragged me backwards behind the building and shoved me in the trunk. It was closed before I could even react.” He’s breathing heavily, his hands squeezing mine, then letting go, then squeezing again, as though he realizes he’s doing it and stops, then starts over.

  “Who was it?” he asks. His voice so low I hardly recognize it.

  “It was Travis, but I didn’t know that until we got to his house. He opened the trunk and grabbed me by my hair, ripping it out of my head as he dragged me out of the trunk. I fell, hard, and he kicked me in the ribs a couple of times before dragging me back up.” I can see it all playing out in my mind, and I’m surprised that my voice is so calm. I can feel his hands, holding mine tight, grounding me in the present while I watch the past.

  “Eventually, he dragged me into the bedroom. I fought as hard as I could, terrified he was going to rape me, but he just cuffed me to the headboard and walked away. I tried to pull my hand out until it was a bloody mess, tried to break the headboard, screamed until my voice was gone. No response.” He flips my hand over, running his thumb across the scar on the side of my hand, bending to kiss it lightly, and my breath catches in my throat.

  “After a while I fell asleep, sitting on the floor, my arm up in the air, where it was cuffed. There was no way in hell I was laying on that bed.” I glance up, and he nods. His face is a mask, his eyes overflowing with the turmoil missing from his face.

  “I woke up when he slapped me across the face. I could taste blood where my lip split, smell it. He grabbed me and hauled me up, shoving me onto the bed. I kicked at him, screamed more, but he just laughed and hit me again. It left me dazed and then my other hand was cuffed. I couldn’t get up. I kicked him a couple of times and then he pulled out a knife and told me that every time I kicked him, he was going to leave me with something to remember him by. I stopped kicking him.” I look down, shamed. I know I didn’t have much in the way of choices, but I still hate that I did what he said.

  “He asked me where Alex was. I told him I didn’t know. He asked again, I told him again. He started cutting chunks of my hair off every time I said I didn’t know. My hair was to about here then,” I gesture to my waist. “He knew I loved my hair, so that’s where he started. I didn’t love it as much as he thought. I didn’t care. It grows back.”

  “At that point, I was kind of happy, as stupid as it sounds. I kept thinking ‘If this is his idea of torture, I’m going to be fine’. Sure, it hurt when he sawed off chunks, and he nicked me with the knife a couple of times, but it was just hair. I was wrong, of course.” I want to look up, but I can’t. He just squeezes my hands, as though he knows I need reassurance.

  “He didn’t really seem to get angry, just calmer and calmer. He lit a cigarette, and asked me again where she was. I said I didn’t know and he burned my ankle with it. He asked again, I said no, he burned my other ankle. It went on like that for a long time. Moving his way up, pushing my shirt up and concentrating most of them on my ribs and breasts,” tears are running down my face, but I want to keep going. “They hurt more, and I think he liked hearing me scream.”

  He reaches out and wipes my tears away. “You’re safe,” he says, his voice soft and urgent at the same time, “You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay. You can stop.”

  “I can’t. I’m okay. Unless you don’t want to hear anymore?” I ask, unsure of myself.

  “I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’m right here.” I believe him.

  “I can’t really describe it. I mean, the first few hurt, everyone has been burned at some point, but they just kept coming. One after the other. I could smell my skin burning. My own skin.” I pause to breathe for a minute, panic rising. I force it back down with deep, measured breaths until the pressure in my chest eases. He waits, so calm, I try to draw it in for myself.

  “When he finished a cigarette, he’d put it out on me, that’s what the bigger ones are from, like this one,” I point to a scar on my thigh. He lays his hand over it, just holding it there, as though attempting to absorb the pain.

  “He’d take a break, give me a drink, a couple of pretzels or something, and then he’d start again. I don’t know how long it was. Eventually he figured out that wasn’t going to break me, so he raped me. While he was doing it he’d say ‘you love it, don’t you? You want this’ I’d tell him no, beg him to stop, and he’d say ‘yes, you do, if you didn’t, you’d tell me where she is. If you tell me where she is, I’ll stop’” I wipe the tears from my cheeks.

  “I wanted to tell him. I really did, Jace, and I hated myself. I wanted it to stop. I didn’t know what he’d do to her and Cadan, though, and I knew I couldn’t tell him, but I wanted to. I started to a couple of times, but I couldn’t make the words come out.”

  “It was a long time. I have no idea how long. He’d leave, to go to work, or wherever, and I’d sleep. He’d leave one hand cuffed, a bottle of water, and a bucket for me to go to the bathroom. When he came back he’d ask if I was ready for it to be over yet. I’d say yes and he’d ask where she was. I’d refuse, and he’d laugh and say things like ‘I didn’t know you wanted me so much. I should have started fucking you a long time ago.’”

  I look up. His eyes close and he takes a long, deep breath. When he opens them again, they’re watery with pain and anger. I should stop, he’s never going to look at me the same way again, I think, but he gestures for me to keep going. “I can handle it,” he says.

  I nod and look back down. It’s so much easier when I’m not looking at him. “I think I lost myself somewhere along the way. There was this stain on the ceiling, it was kind of splattered, like a star. At first, I thought maybe water damage, it was brown like that, you know? But then, later, it occurred to me that water damage wouldn’t splatter, at least I don’t think it would. I decided it was blood, and I’d just stare at it while he did what he did. I think it was Alex’s blood, from when he used to beat her, and I would focus on it, promising myself I wouldn’t let him do that to her again.”

  “Eventually, I couldn’t really feel it anymore. I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t scared or sad, it didn’t hurt anymore. The smell was the worst part. I can’t even describe it” – bile rises just thinking about it, but I force it down again -- “Then one day he came in and he was angrier than anyone I’ve ever seen. He walked straight to me and punched me in the face. Then he did it again, and again. I knew he was going to kill me. He kicked me when I fell. Then he yanked me up and pinned me to the wall, pushing my face into it so it was hard to breathe, his hand on the back of my neck.”

  “My left arm was still cuffed to the bed, and the angle he had me at was excruciating. He raped me from behind, screaming at me to tell him where they were. I was terrified. He wasn’t controlled at all. He was so angry, I don’t think there was anything human left in him, and he hurt me more than he ever had before. When he finished, he threw me on the bed. He put his hands around my throat, squeezing so I couldn’t breathe. I kicked and hit him with my free hand, but he wouldn’t budge. I was sure I was dying. I could actually feel myself fading out. He let go of my throat and asked me again. I took a few painful breaths, desperate to fill my lungs again before I answered. I told him no, and he said ‘I’m done with this. You tell me where she is, right now, or I’ll kill you right here’ and he held a knife to my throat while he choked me again. He choked me until I was fading again, and I could feel the blade pressing into my neck.” I raise my hand to touch the little scar on the side of my neck.

  I look up to see if he’s still with me, and his eyes are on mine. The set of his mouth is a tight, hard line, in contrast with the halo around him; the morning light streaming through the window behind him. I look at the clock, shocked to see that it’s almost seven ‘o clock.

  “I don’t care what time it is. Keep going. You’re doing great, Sweetheart,” he says, voice raspy and shaking.

  I take a deep breath, reassuring myself that I can fill my lungs as
much as I wish. “He was going to kill me, and I told him where they were.” –my voice cracks in a sob I can’t control and the panic rises again-- “I told him, Jace. I told him where they were and he almost killed her. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I hurt her, and I’m so sorry.”

  He puts a single finger under my chin and lifts it, until I meet his eyes. “You didn’t hurt her. You saved your own life and he hurt her. Not you. Him. Only him.” I nod, desperately wanting to believe him. He waits for my breathing to level out again. “What did he do next?” he asks. I can see he doesn’t really want to know. He almost flinches as he says it and gratitude washes over me. He hates this, but he’s listening for me.

  “I don’t have to keep going, Jace.”

  “You have to let it go, and the only way to do that is to get it out,” he says.

  “I feel…. Like I’ve changed the way you see me. The way you think of me,” I say. “I don’t want you to hate me.” It’s the truth, however humiliating it is.

  “You’re right, you have changed the way I see you,” he says. Tears well up in my eyes, unbidden and unwanted. “Wait. Let me finish?” he asks, waiting until I nod.

  “I see that you’re… amazing. Breathtaking. Beautiful, inside and out. I still don’t know everything, but what I do know tells me that you’re loyal, brave, and unbreakable.”