by Kaye Blue
“Lake, say what you need to,” I said.
She looked at me, hesitant, but I saw the instant she made the decision.
“When does it stop, Aras?” she asked.
“When Vlad is dead,” I responded without pause.
I knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was the truth.
“You could have killed him by now. You’re toying with him.”
“He has to suffer, and then he has to die. After that, it can stop.”
“It could stop now,” she whispered.
“No, it can’t.”
“You’re doing this for your parents, your mother?”
I nodded.
“She wouldn’t want that,” Lake said.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I pushed out around the ball of emotion in my throat.
Anger, hurt, a jumble of feelings that left me confused, unfocused, feelings that I despised.
“I didn’t know her, but she wouldn’t want this for you. She wouldn’t want you to waste your life on Vlad.”
“Waste my life? I’m making it so that she didn’t die in vain.”
Lake lowered her lids, tilted her head. “I know you believe that. But it’s not true. Vlad will suffer for what he’s done, in this life or the next. You want to see that happen, but risking yourself, giving yourself up to see that he does, is far too high a cost.”
“How can you of all people say that?”
Lake went quiet then, reflecting, and I thought I might have offended her.
But when she met my eyes again, I still saw that patience, the acceptance.
“You probably think you hate Vlad more than I do. But you don’t. The hate I feel for him is bone-deep. It lives in my soul. It’s as real as my breath, as permanent as a mountain.”
“So you understand.”
She nodded. “I understand, but I know he’s not worth it. Back at the beginning, back when I still had hope, I told myself if I ever got away from him I wouldn’t waste another moment on him. That he didn’t deserve it. He’s taken so much from me, I refuse to give more,” she said.
She stared at me, quiet, but I could see there was something else she wanted to say.
“And?” I asked, somewhat impatient, though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I was eager to hear what she had to say.
“He’s taken so much from you. And you’ve given him even more. Stop, Aras. It’s not worth it. And you’re worth so much more.”
She added the last quickly, almost like it was an afterthought, but I could see from the intensity of her expression that it wasn’t.
I didn’t know what to say, was quiet so long that it was Lake who finally spoke.
“You think I’m bullshitting you?” she whispered.
Lake
I let my question hang there, not sure that he would answer it.
Not sure that there was an answer.
I hurt so deeply for him. Even without knowing the specifics, I had known that the pain Vlad had caused him went deep.
But to imagine him having lost his family, lost the life he could have had… It was enough to take my breath away.
I had lost so much too, but I had my memories, had the foundation that had been denied him.
And I would do everything in my power to see that he didn’t give away more.
He was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer, but he finally shook his head.
“No. I don’t think you’re bullshitting me,” he finally said.
“But nothing’s changed,” I said, holding out hope that his answer would be something other than what I knew it would be.
“Nothing’s changed.”
I wanted to push, wanted to fight, but knew it would be to no avail.
So I did the next best thing.
I wrapped my arms around his chest, buried my face in the crook of his neck.
And held him.
It was a small gesture, meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it was all I had, all I could give him.
I hoped it was something.
Hoped it was enough.
Seven
Lake
There was so much that I had said, yet I still felt there was more left unsaid.
But though I felt that way, I didn’t push the issue.
I knew my words had no influence over Aras, and that was reason enough not to waste them, though that wasn’t why I ultimately decided not to raise the issue again.
Instead, I was too enamored of the time we were spending together, the world that we had created over the last week.
After the immediacy of the attack had worn off, the intensity of that conversation we’d had that night, we had again fallen into our pattern, one that was completely normal domesticity.
I took care of Aras to the extent that he would allow it, preparing meals, keeping the place tidy, and we spent time together. Chatting about this or that, reading together, watching TV, or just spending time in quiet.
And as that emotional connection deepened, the physical spark between us also grew, took on a depth and dimension that was almost scary.
It was the happiest I’d been in as long as I could remember, although, in those quiet moments when I allowed my mind to think of it, I feared for him. But I wouldn’t do anything that might disrupt what we had here. Besides, I suspected the world would intrude soon enough.
But until it did, I would take this time, enjoy it.
“We have omelets for breakfast today,” I said when Aras emerged from the bathroom.
His skin was still damp from his shower, the tips of his hair darker, and as always, that visceral reaction of desire almost overcame me.
I looked away, mostly to keep hold of myself, and kept busy preparing plates.
“Your tag—”
At the brush of Aras’s fingers against my neck, I screamed and dropped the plates.
I was momentarily frozen, fear so intense that it made it impossible for me to do anything, including breathe, paralyzing me.
I fought back against that feeling and instead focused on the mess on the floor.
“Oh God! I’m so clumsy.”
I dropped to my knees, frantically beginning to clean up the mess, or at least trying to.
But Aras’s hands on my wrists stopped me.
He’d knelt down next to me, his gaze intense, knowing but also curious.
“Go sit in the living room. I’ll clean this up.”
“Nonsense. I made a mess, and I’ll clean it up,” I said, again reaching for the broken plate.
“Go, Lake.”
His hold on my wrist was firm but not confining. I could have easily broken his grip, cleaned up the mess.
But at the look in his eyes, the expression on his face, I did as he said.
As I walked toward living room on shaky legs, my mind was racing, my heart pounding, the leftover adrenaline making me feel sick.
My reaction was probably making me feel sick too.
I didn’t know what had come over me.
No, that wasn’t true.
I knew exactly what had come over me, and I hated it.
But that didn’t change my reaction. Left me to wonder if there would ever be a time when I was free of Vlad and all he had done to me.
Thinking of him sapped what little strength I had, and I collapsed on the sofa, my back toward the kitchen, not wanting to look at Aras, not wanting him to see me.
I listened as he moved about the kitchen, imagined he cleaned up the mess with the same competent efficiency as he did everything else.
A little while later, I wasn’t sure how long, I heard his approach.
I took a deep breath and then forced myself to turn to look at him.
“Some breakfast,” I said, ending on a little giggle that sounded hollow even to my ears.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I tilted my head, looking at him confused.
“You’re sorry that I’m clumsy?”
“You’re not clumsy. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I know you don’t like people touching your neck. But the tag on your shirt was out.”
Automatically I reached toward the back of my shirt, and quickly pushed the tag in.
“What makes you think I don’t like people touching my neck?”
It was probably a dumb question.
I knew Aras was perceptive enough to see through almost any front I put up. But still, I was surprised.
I thought I did a good job of keeping that to myself.
Apparently not.
“I’ve noticed. I kiss you there sometimes, and that seems okay, but other times I see the way you freeze. The panic in your eyes. I should have remembered that,” he said.
I was simultaneously impressed and horrified.
Horrified at the thought of him really seeing me but warmed by the fact that he cared enough to even look.
“Stupid,” I said. “Nothing to worry about. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s not stupid. There’s clearly a reason,” he said.
“Are you asking?”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“We’ve really let that no-questions rule fall by the wayside, huh?”
I laughed, but Aras didn’t so much as crack a smile.
But I looked away from him again, not wanting my judgment to be clouded.
I didn’t want to talk about this with him, with anyone, but another part of me did.
I tried to figure out why.
Could it be because I trusted him?
Because I knew he would never judge me?
I didn’t know, but for some reason, the thought of opening up to him was something I wanted to do.
It wouldn’t be good. Pushing those memories down, pretending Vlad had never existed was the best idea.
But for reasons I didn’t understand, and didn’t have the time or space to try to puzzle out, I wanted to share with Aras.
Maybe some twisted part of me hoped that once I told my story, he would send me away.
That would hurt, would destroy me, but it would put an end to the uncertainty, the question of when everything was going to be over.
But somehow, I knew Aras wouldn’t do that, knew that as much as I knew anything.
And so, as I had so many times before with him, I trusted my instincts and started to speak.
“I told you about Vlad, but you didn’t ask the obvious question.”
“There’s an obvious question?” he responded.
“There is, at least to me.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Well, I wasn’t always the docile, broken, defeated person you came across in the townhouse,” I said.
He frowned, and I could see he wanted to argue with me, but he said nothing.
“When he first took me, I fought.”
I closed my eyes against the pain of those early memories, but then allowed myself to sink into them.
“Looking back on it now, I realize he was just toying with me. He’d come in. I would attack him, trying to scratch his eyes out, rip his ears off, do something, anything, to hurt him, to get out of the door.”
Aras looked at me, the expression on his face a mix of shock and what looked like anger.
“You hit Vlad?”
Whatever emotions he was feeling, whatever showed on his face, his voice revealed nothing.
“It’s kind of hilarious when you think about it now, right? But what did I know? I didn’t know who he was, just knew he was some twisted fuck and that he was the thing standing between me and out. Nothing else mattered.”
I trailed off. Sighed. Then met Aras’s eyes.
“Until it did.”
I went quiet again, rethinking my decision to go down this road. But I had come this far, and as painful as it was, there was something cathartic about saying this out loud.
“I have no idea how long it was. Probably less than a week. Vlad had treated me well enough, all things considered. But that didn’t matter. Every time he showed up, I tried to fight him. But one day he walked in, and there was something different about him.”
I shivered, began to rub my hands up and down my arms. Aras didn’t make a move to try to comfort me, something that only made me respect him that much more.
“I had been afraid before, I mean obviously, I had been afraid. But seeing him that day was something different. It sounds kind of silly, but I felt like I was in the presence of evil.”
“It doesn’t sound silly at all,” Aras whispered.
I’d heard him, but didn’t respond.
“He came in, didn’t even bother to close the door. Ordinarily, I would have been on him before he made it two steps, but that day, I didn’t move.
“Something about the way he looked at me made it impossible, and I felt fear, fear unlike anything I had ever felt before or since. I really don’t have the words for it, but that moment, the way he looked at me, it’s the dividing line of my life. Not even when he took me from my home marked me as much as that.”
I went quiet, again lost in the moment, but still determined to see this through.
“I remember I was standing next to a coffee table. I can still feel the cool glass against my leg. I remember the way the light reflected off the table. Vlad came in, and he stood in front of me and just stared. Just stared. Didn’t say a word, which was rare for him.”
I looked at Aras, saw that he still had no reaction.
“It was like he was waiting for something, and I thought I would be sick from the tension of it.
“I don’t know how long we stood like that, him considering, me staring, but about half a second too late I recognized that he had snapped. I didn’t even have a chance to react.
“His hands were around my throat, squeezing the life out of me.”
I reached for my neck, the phantom feeling of Vlad’s hands there something I didn’t think I would never forget.
“I know now that he could have crushed my trachea, snapped my neck. But he didn’t. He just squeezed, squeezed tighter, taunting me. He asked why I wasn’t fighting now. Asked if I thought he was the kind of man who let something like that go. Told me he had been keeping count, that each of my slaps and punches and scratches had earned me a reward.”
I jumped up from the couch quickly, but just as quickly settled back down.
“I barely heard him, too busy trying to breathe. But I couldn’t. It was agonizing, my chest heavy, feeling like it was going to explode. The need for air, the adrenaline, the fear, all of it overwhelming. I start to lose consciousness, faded, but he didn’t let up. Everything went black, and I just remember thinking that this was how I was going to die.”
My voice had risen, but I forced myself to exhale, kept my eyes on Aras.
“Turns out I wasn’t dead,” I said with a shrug.
Probably not an appropriate thing to say, but I couldn’t think of an appropriate way to tell the story, didn’t know that quaint little concepts like “appropriate” had any place in my world anymore.
“When I came to, his hands were still around my neck, and he was inside me. The look on his face, in his eyes… I just…”
I trailed off, thinking of the words that could explain, knowing there weren’t really any.
“He was never going to let me go. In that moment, I knew. No matter how hard I fought, it would only end when he wanted it to end. The only thing I could do was try not to make it worse.”
My voice got stronger at the end, but that was only a front.
Thinking of it now, I was so angry with myself, disgusted, at how easily I had given in him.
“So I guess that’s one way of saying that when someone touches my neck, especially when I’m not expecting it, I can’t help but think of Vlad.”
I waited for some reaction, something, but Aras said nothing.
That was probably worst of all.
Scorn would have been best, would have at least given me something to rai
l against. Pity and platitudes also would have worked. His silence, what I suspected was his acceptance, was too much to bear.
“Pathetic…”
My voice was brimming with bitterness, but it wasn’t a fraction of what I felt.
“I didn’t even try to fight. Just accepted it. Pathetic,” I muttered.
“Not pathetic. You did what you needed to do to live,” he said.
His voice was matter-of-fact, stating something so complex as though there was a simple and easy truth.
“Yeah. What I needed to do to live. Because living is so great.”
“Don’t say that, Lake. Don’t even think.”
There was an edge in his voice that made me look at him.
“I wasn’t serious,” I said.
Which, while not entirely true, seemed like the right thing to say to him.
“I don’t care. Don’t ever say that again,” he said.
“Fine,” I responded, deciding to change the subject. “So that’s my reason. Happy?”
“That you trusted me enough to share something like that? Yes. That you had to go through it? No. Not at all.”
Again, his voice held no inflection, but as I looked at him, I could practically see the direction of his thoughts.
Determined to put a stop to it.
“No, Aras.”
“No what?”
“Don’t you dare think you have even more reason to go through with this. That you’re going to avenge me.”
“I don’t think it,” he responded. “I know. He will feel your pain and mine tenfold.”
“Don’t you get it? He won’t because he can’t. Vlad’s not like other people. You can’t make him suffer.”
“But I can try.”
“You won’t listen to reason. But please don’t do this, especially if it’s supposed to be for me.”
“It’s for both of us. For my mother. My father. For every other person Vlad has hurt,” he said.
Were I being honest, I would admit that his conviction, his promise to see me avenged, made me something like happy. After all, the idea of Vlad getting to act with impunity was one that sickened me.
But to lose Aras because of it…
“Just promise you’ll take care of yourself,” I finally whispered.
