Love Me for Me (19 page)

My hand was already on the railing when the smell hit my nose. I paused, sure I’d imagined it, but no... it was real.

Lavender. Lavender like the flowers I would always find on my dresser after he’d paid me one of his visits.

I turned, my heart in my throat, just as Bob came through the door from the garage. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me there.

In his arms was a bouquet wrapped in cellophane, tied with a big pink ribbon. A bouquet of lavender.

“Hello, Serena.” I stood where I was, the sudden rapid firing of blood in my veins burning with heat. I watched warily, flattening myself against the wall, as Bob closed the door that led to the garage behind him, then toed off his shoes.

He wasn’t doing anything overtly threatening, and yet I still didn’t feel safe.

“Got these for your mom.” He gestured with the bouquet, and I was hit with another wave of the scent. “Lavender’s your favorite, isn’t it?”

His smile was bland, but I could see the hint of malicious glee in his eyes. My fingers curled, digging at the paint on the wall.

“Nothing to say?” He took a step closer, and I flinched. When I again looked through the loose strands of my hair, I found a satisfied smile on his face.

“Be a good girl then, and fetch a vase for these.” Warily, I backed away, doing as he asked because it put space between the two of us.

The vases were kept in the cabinet under the sink, in the downstairs bathroom. I grabbed one blindly, the glass clinking against the porcelain of the sink as I sloshed water inside of it.

I kept my eyes on the door the entire time.

Because my eyes were there, I saw Bob follow me in before the lavender again hit me with its scent.

Stupid. Stupid
. I hadn’t thought he would try to do this here, now, while Felicity was asleep upstairs.

Stupid
. I’d let myself be cornered by the man whose abuse had changed my life.

“You are a stupid girl, Serena.” I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud until Bob chuckled and grabbed for me. I tried to push past him, to the door and to freedom, but he caught my arm and yanked me back. “Always putting yourself in these situations. Always offering up that tight little body to me, asking me for it.”

“No.” I shook my head frantically and pushed against him again. “I never asked for it.”

“You did.” His grip on my arm tightened. I wanted to scream, but fear had stolen my voice. “And it’s all your fault.”

This is all your fault
. As he moved in closer, as the scent of his breath hit my skin, I was suddenly fifteen again. I trembled, my muscles paralyzed, wanting to be a good girl, yet knowing it was wrong.

His hand covered my breast, squeezed roughly, and I was yanked back into the present.

I wasn’t fifteen anymore. I wasn’t helpless.

“Why did you want me to come back here so badly?” Though the feel of his hand on my body was almost more than I could take, I let myself relax, hoping he would let his guard down. “Surely it’s not for this.”

“It’s absolutely for this.” Bob’s voice was a hiss, and when I looked into his face I saw the demon that haunted my nightmares, the serpent that hid in the body of a man.

“You thought you’d outsmarted me, getting those scholarships, moving away. Telling your mama on me.” The hand holding my breast squeezed, and his lips brushed over mine in a gross parody of a kiss. “She always wondered, you know, ever since you told her. And for that you owe me one. But more than that, I wanted you back to remind you.”

“Remind me of what?” I felt bile rising up in my throat, and forced myself to stay still, even as panic coursed through me, sending my fight or flight instinct into high gear.

I needed him to step back, just one step.

He leaned back, sliding the hand that had been on my breast up to cup my jaw.

“To remind you that you don’t have the power between us. I do. I always will.”

One more inch...

I fixed my eyes over Bob’s shoulder and feigned surprise. “Felicity?”

Bob reared back at the sound of his wife’s name, but my mother wasn’t there. The second I had enough room, I pulled back my arm, pushed the force of my entire body behind it, and let it fly.

My naked fist caught him on the jaw with surprising force. His head snapped back, and he howled.

“You little bitch!” He howled. His hand clasped to his jaw, he spun and leapt on me, pinning me to the bathroom counter. “You’ll pay for that!”

I had no more time to plot, to plan where the blows would go. I simply rained my fists down upon him, hitting wherever I could, grateful for the extra strength that my boxing sessions had given me.

Somewhere along the way I found my voice and screamed. My voice sounded with every scream that I’d ever silenced.

He didn’t have the power anymore. He never would again.

As if through a fog I heard voices, shouting. Bob was pulled off of me, but I pummelled the hands that reached for me, backing away with my fists raised.

“If you touch her, I’ll fucking kill you.” I stared up, my teeth bared, as Alex slowly backed into the bathroom toward me. He held out a hand for me, not taking his eyes off Bob, who hovered in the hallway, a portrait of confusion and rage.

“It’s not what you think.” He held a hand to the jaw that I’d landed my first punch on. As I took Alex’s hand, let him pull me close, I noted with satisfaction that Bob’s jaw was rapidly swelling and turning blue.

“The little slut came on to me. I was trying to get her off.” Rage was a red haze that descended in front of my eyes. I jerked my hand from Alex’s, ready to fly at Bob again.

Alex got there first. He landed a solid blow with those strong, athletic hands, hitting Bob hard enough that he staggered backward into the wall. I heard a feminine cry from the hallway over the moans.

Wrapping me in his arms, Alex lifted me right off of my feet, holding me tightly against his body. He carried me into the hallway, where Bob slumped against the wall, and Felicity stood, frozen, disbelief and horror written over her face.

I looked at my mother, my eyes stone cold.

Then I looked at Bob. He was still sputtering, still angry, but through it all I saw a trickle of fear.

“I’m a lot bigger than you.” Alex spoke quietly, but his words reverberated through the air nonetheless. “And younger. Stronger. I’ve got abuse in my past too, so you might say I have an axe to grind. So understand this.”

He leaned in to Bob, swiftly enough that I flinched along with my stepfather. As I uncoiled, I grimly noted that the other man looked scared enough to pee his pants.

“If you touch Serena again, if you call her, text her, or even think about her, I will kill you.” My mouth might have fallen open with surprise at the brutal promise that I heard, had my body not chosen that moment to begin to shake uncontrollably.

Arms tightening around me, Alex pulled my head into his chest so that all I could see was the grey of his sweatshirt.

He carried me from the house, from the smell of lavender, from the memories.

I didn’t look back.

Chapter Fourteen

The ride back to New Haven was brutal.

I sat in the passenger’s seat, stiff and stunned. Alex had stopped at a service station on the edge of town and purchased a bag of ice that he’d tersely commanded me to hold against my hand—the hand I’d used to punch—but the ice did little to stop the throbbing.

To make it worse, I could see the swelling and bruising of Alex’s own knuckles. He’d done that for me.

He’d done that for me, and now he knew. He knew every little shadow inside of me, everything I’d kept locked away for so long.

I felt raw. I felt exposed. I wanted to scream.

“Will you come back to my apartment with me?” Alex asked as we neared the campus. I wanted to—wanted to thank him for what he’d done—but I felt as though a giant scab had been ripped off of a wound that had never healed.

I couldn’t I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t do anything at all.

Mutely, I shook my head. Alex grunted, the sound full of frustration, and I winced, which made him curse. I knew he wasn’t mad at me, but I was sensitive enough that his emotions felt like battering rams, beating me black and blue.

He pulled the car to a stop in front of my dorm, then was out and getting my bag before I could even undo my seat belt. Once I’d finally climbed out, he silently handed me the bag, knowing, I assumed, that I’d refuse to be helped inside.

What I saw in his eyes when I dared to look up made me want to crawl into a ball and hide. How could he be so kind, so understanding, after all of
this
?

I was a mess. I had come from a disaster.

I did not want to bring that darkness into his life on a permanent basis. He’d had enough of his own.

“Thanks.” I picked up my duffel, swung it over my shoulder, wincing as the strap brushed my swollen knuckles.

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then tucked his hands into the pouch of his hoodie.

“I know better than most why you want to push me away right now.” I wanted to scream at the words. Why couldn’t he be mad, or disgusted—something that I could understand and deal with?

“Nothing I’ve seen today makes me love you any less.” He looked like he wanted to pull me into his arms, but he didn’t, and I was grateful.

If he had, I would have shattered.

I had no words. I looked up at him helplessly, my feelings seeping from the wound in my chest.

“I’ll give you some time.” I could tell from the tightness in his voice that this was the last thing he wanted to do.

It was the last thing I wanted, too, but it was what I needed. Tears began to fall, hot and heavy, and I felt a sob rip through my chest.

“Go.” I shook my head, my hair falling into my face until I was hidden in a curtain of yellow. “Please, just go.”

***

It had been two weeks.

Alex had given me two days, and then he’d started to call. Once a day, before bed, just to let me know he was thinking of me.

Though I yearned for his touch, I also shuddered at the thought of intimacy, physical or otherwise, with anyone.

I’d finally been forced to come face to face with my own personal demon. I’d won, but I know had five years of baggage to work through.

I had to do it on my own.

His calls dwindled to every two days, and then every three. And then he left me one final message.

I played it, alone in my dorm room in the dark.

“
I won’t say that this is okay, because it’s not. We were made for each other, and you know it.”
Every frustration that I felt was in his voice.
“I won’t keep bothering you, but I just want you to know. You don’t have to be alone.”

I listened to the message sixteen times, deleted it, and then cried for hours because I’d fucked up so badly.

A month after we’d gotten back from Lodenville, Felicity showed up at the dorm again. Kaylee looked at me with alarm when she answered—she’d watched me go through enough trauma in the previous weeks, she was probably wondering what calamity would fall if she let Felicity in the door.

“It’s okay.” Standing, I shrugged into a plaid shirt, for the sake of warmth, not because I wanted to hide my scars.

I didn’t care who saw them anymore.

“Can we talk?” Felicity waited until we were outside the building to ask. I stopped, turned, and took a hard look at my mother.

She was dressed in jeans and a camp shirt, rather than her usual fancy clothes. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and instead of contacts she wore her glasses, which sat heavily on her face.

“Here is fine.” I looked out across the quad, looked at all the twenty-somethings scurrying about, seemingly without a care in the world.

I had been so close to being that way myself. I wondered if I would ever be that way again.

To my surprise, instead of speaking, Felicity folded me into a fierce hug. I was stiff in her arms, having no idea what to do with the embrace. She wasn’t discouraged by my lack of response; if anything, she held on even tighter.

When she pulled away, there were tears streaming down her face. I blinked at the sight, certain that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

“I’m so sorry,” she finally managed. Pulling a tissue from her sleeve, she noisily blew her nose, seemingly oblivious to the students giving her funny looks and a wide berth.

I had no idea what to say, and so I stayed silent.

Felicity looked me in the eyes then, and I was struck again by how much I resembled her with that feature. Setting her face, she tucked the used Kleenex into her purse and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Bob is gone.” She nodded decisively.

“I see.” My words were flat, monotone.

“I can’t... I can’t ever make it up to you.” The wound that had just begun knitting itself back together tugged, trying to separate.

It held.

“I should have believed you. I just... I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that someone I loved, someone I trusted, could do such a thing.” She seemed to need a response, so I nodded, jerkily.

“All I can say is I’m sorry.” She held out a hand, then snatched it back. I felt that same strange sensation that I’d felt in the hospital, that hint of warmth, trickling back over my skin.

“That’s a start.” The wound stopped trying to tear itself apart again.

We stood in silence for a moment, each of us lost in our thoughts. When Felicity again spoke, I was surprised by her question.

“How’s that boy? The one who...” Her words trailed off. I thought of Alex, thought of how I’d made such a mess of things.

“It... it wasn’t serious.” At least, it wasn’t anymore. And as I went back inside, the truth of that hurt most of all.

***

Time marched on, as time does. And things got... better. I stopped hiding behind my hair, stopped feel nauseous when someone used lavender shampoo in the bathroom, and stopped flinching when people got in my space.

I tried not to think of Alex. It hurt too much.

One night, not quite two months after that day in Lodenville, I went to the campus pub with Maddy.