Not moving is good right now.
My legs are weak and shaking and my heart is still racing inside its confines, despite having been just laying here in Max’s arms for the past ten minutes.
His own body lifts and falls with exertion.
I’m waiting for the disgrace, the shame to slam into me, but it hasn’t yet, and I beg my soul to not allow it in if it does come knocking.
“I’m starving,” I announce, and we both chuckle, his body lifting mine with the force of it.
“That’s because you run every time I try to feed you.”
Lifting me from his body, he helps me to my feet and keeps hold of my hand.
My heart flutters like the trapped wings of a bird in a cage that’s too small.
I know the wings will get damaged, but the fight to be free is worth the bruises.
With each step we take towards our clothes, I feel like I’ve boarded a rollercoaster, the teasing climb to the top, the flurry of excitement and that exhilarating fall, twisting, turning not knowing what’s coming.
I don’t want to get off yet.
He looks back at me over his shoulder and I see a thousand questions in his eyes. I’m at the mercy of them.
Don’t ask me.
I don’t know the right answer to give you.
His probing gaze caresses every inch of my being.
He knows my fragility and he tells me with every look, every touch, that if I was to turn into dust in a strong breeze, he would seek out the pieces and make me whole again. Try at least.
Can he be real?
Slipping his legs into his jeans, he leans down to fetch my clothes and his nostrils flare when he slips my top over my head and accidently brushes my nipple.
It’s endearing that only minutes after being inside of me, he can react to a simple touch.
Giving me a lopsided grin as he drops to a knee and helps me into my bottoms, he places a delicate kiss on my mound before covering me with the fabric of my clothes.
My skin is sticky and my hair drips down my shirt creating a wet patch to form.
My stomach grumbles with hunger and I want to go back to his place and eat in bed, then hide beneath the covers and pretend we’re just two fools falling hopelessly in love.
I would never have believed anyone telling me something like this happens so fast, but the facts, the way I feel can’t be argued with.
Trying to tell myself it’s just sex, just a fling, is incomprehensible.
I found him when I so desperately needed something to anchor me.
“Let’s feed you.” He breaks into my thoughts and pulls me into the now.
The sky is a dark blanket sprinkled in stardust.
The breeze whistles, gentle and soothing, picking up leaves from falling trees and swirling them around our legs.
Creatures sing to each other and the dirty shame still hasn’t invaded my mind. My skin.
“Shit.” Max growls, dropping my hand. “I must have dropped the keys from my pocket.” He jogs back towards the pool house and I find myself walking along the main building towards where we came in.
Ghost voices appear and fade in my mind; broken pieces of memory.
Like an apparition, I see Miss Bloom, younger, with a smile plastered on her face.
This was my school.
“Come on, Evi. It will be good for you to catch up. We have a test next week.”
“My parents won’t allow it.”
“I’ll call them.”
The images and voices dissipate as fast as they appeared and a crying sounds out; it’s a baby.
“Found them,” Max announces, holding them up in the air like they’re a prize.
“Can you hear that?”
His happiness fades and he looks around, his body stretching to his full height and grabbing hold of me, placing me behind him.
“Hear what?” he asks, his tone deep and menacing. He’s searching the trees and every darkened corner.
“The crying, Max.”
Sadness clouds his features as he turns to face me. “It’s just animals or something in the brush.”
I know it’s not out there but inside my head.
I’m losing my mind and grappling for normalcy with him is futile because there’s so much still locked away that I can’t access and there’s so much he’s still not telling me.
“I want to go back to the house.”
“You mean the apartment?”
Shaking my head, I turn from him and walk towards his truck. “No. My old house, Max.”
I sense his wince and hear his sigh.
Jogging to keep up with me, he slips his hand into mine, entwining our fingers.
“Tomorrow, I promise. Let me take you back to the apartment, and get some food in your tummy.”
Grinding my jaw, I cave, hungry and tired. “Tomorrow then.”
His mouth sets in a hard line and he tilts his head to signal our agreement.
The drive back is filled with a comfortable silence, the throb between my thighs a pleasant reminder of everything that transpired earlier.
His words were so beautiful and heartfelt.
No one has ever said things like that to me before.
He makes me feel like I’m thirty feet tall and nothing can touch me.
Garret fades farther and farther from my thoughts, and as much as I try to pry into the time we’ve spent together in moments like that with Max, I keep coming up empty.
The night we spoke about the box at the lake house explodes into my mind like a bubble being blown and then popped.
Just like that, the picture fades.
I’m going to have to tell him more. About Max. About me and Max.
Garret has always been there to talk me through things, but like Max, it’s becoming clear he has been keeping things from me too.
My mother, for one. I met her.
The box containing the letter from her isn’t the first time I learned about her.
Is it the first time I read it?
Why would I suppress those memories? Urgh. Nothing makes sense.
It’s so murky inside my head and so frightening being lost inside my own chaotic mind.
I’m adrift, the balance of sanity and insanity is slipping farther from me.
I can’t grip hold and keep myself from slipping under and being dragged deeper.
“Did Luke’s family ever mourn him?” I suddenly ask from nowhere.
I wasn’t even thinking about him.
Gritting his teeth, Max shrugs his broad shoulders. “I suppose.”
“Where is he buried?”
“Christ, Evi. What does it matter?”
It doesn’t.
Sensing I’m not going to drop the subject, he speaks again.
“His mother worked two jobs to keep that family afloat. She had three daughters and him. His dad got injured at the plant and couldn’t take care of himself, and that woman was strong. She took care of it all.
Luke was a little bastard. Treated her like a maid and an ATM.”
“Did I kill him?” I utter the words, already fearing I know the answer.
His neck snaps so fast to look at me, I almost get whiplash for him.
“No, Evi.”
Thoughts of Daniel pitter-patter into my mind.
“There’s this boy at the lake house. He was the neighbors’ kid. Nineteen. He drowned in the lake.”
His brow knits together. “Did you know him well?”
Did I?
“I don’t think so.” Weariness seeps inside me and my eyelids feel heavy.
Resting my head on the window, I let the vibrations of the wheels on the asphalt lull me.
That sneaky creep is out there again; I can feel him everywhere in here.
My skin prickles with awareness of my audience. Why can’t he watch porn like most boys his age?
If I go and tell his father what a peeping tom he has, he will deal with it, but it doesn’t stop him creeping around my windows.
He’s only a couple of years younger than me. I don’t even know why he still comes up here with his family.
I’ve seen them together. All they do is argue and separate into single activities. Dr. Edward likes to golf, while his wife gives his credit cards a workout.
Daniel and his brother sometimes fish, but Leroy mainly plays his video games while Daniel comes slithering around my place.
“I see you!” I bark, as I pull a t-shirt over my freshly cleansed skin.
The hot shower had soothed the ache Garret had left after not giving into my offer of phone sex.
He’s a selfish prick when it comes to sating my eager sex drive.
Lifting the window latch and shunting the panel up, breaking twigs sound from beneath it, and I know if I stick my head out, he will be right beneath the glass.
“I know you’re out there, Daniel. Why don’t you come inside?”
I offer, with an inviting tone lacing my words.
Not really sure why I’m letting him inside, I decide to play cat, and he’s the mouse.
The room is hot and the AC needs replacing; another job Garret promised to do and still hasn’t.
Walking towards the bed, I sit, and smirk when I hear the front door squeak open.
His black hair falls like melting ink off his head, covering his entire forehead.
He’s bigger than his waif-like brother.
He plays lacrosse and it shows in his shoulders and arms.
Maybe this won’t be such a waste after all.
“Don’t just stand there. Your greedy eyes can’t stop watching me through the panes of glass. What is it that summons you to spy on me, Daniel?”
His brows rise and a rosy glow highlights his cheeks under the florescent lights in the corridor to my bedroom.
The t-shirt he’s wearing pulls taut over his chest muscles, a soccer slogan emblazoned across the center.
A red hoodie hangs, draping on his arms. Shorts sit loose on his narrow hips and the zipper is low.
I know his grubby little fingers have been tugging and tossing over his fat stump of a penis.
He must barely be legal. I can’t quite remember his actual age.
Do I want to know? No.
I slide up the bed so my feet point towards him and my elbows rest just on the pillows at my head.
Heavy breathing carries across the room and his chest heaves, giving away his excitement.
He will no doubt come in his pants before getting closer.
Flicking his hair to the side, he wipes a hand over his head and fists them, letting them drop back to his sides.
The protruding bulge is pronounced in his shorts and I take back my stubby thought.
Dropping my knees, I let my legs part to expose my clean-shaven pink slit to his greedy eyes.
I can almost taste his desperate urge to get closer.
“Do you want to touch me?” I torment, letting the words slide over my tongue like satin sheets on virgin skin.
He moves into the room, bold for a heartbeat, but then his feet falter at the edge of the bed.
All those times watching isn’t the same when I’m laid out in reaching distance.
“Daniel, do you want to touch me?” I ask again, scolding him with my lips. I’m crossing a line, and seeing his father on the lake maybe awkward after this, but he had it coming, and boredom and insomnia can play tricks with morals.
“Yes. More than anything.” His jaw goes slack when I move my hand to the plump mound.
“Then do it,” I dare, unsure if he even has the balls to back up his perversions.
His mouth opens but words fail him. He takes a step towards the bed, reaching out with inexperienced fingers.
Amateur, unworthy brat.
I kick his hand away, and he startles, his eyes expanding, making his features appear much larger than I thought.
I shake my head. “Not with your dirty little fingers. Use your tongue.”
The smell of bacon creeps into my nostrils and my bedroom fades.
The aroma invades my subconscious and I jar awake.
I’m in water. What the hell?
The lake. I’m still at the lake house in the middle of the lake, too far from shore.
I’ve swum past the marker.
My body tires and my legs kick more softly until they stop and I begin sinking.
It’s so cold, my skin feels like ice; I’m freezing. Fighting to reach the top and drag air into my lungs, I can’t swim.
My arms betray me and stop trying.
My mouth opens to scream and cold lake water floods in, drowning me. I’m dropping faster and deeper and everything is getting darker and darker.
I brace for one last effort to fight to the surface, but something twists around my foot.
Tugging and yanking to free myself, the grip around my ankle firms and I drop my head to see what it is.
“NO!” I scream, and sound thunders out of me and my body launches forward.
I’m falling, and with a thud, I hit hard floor and light explodes into my eyes as they shoot open.
Warm air radiates around me and I’m not wet or drowning.
I’m not at the lake house, but in Max’s apartment on the floor, having fallen from the couch.
His feet pound towards me from across the room, cautious, worried eyes assessing me as he bends to help me up.
“What the hell happened?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Evi?”
Cradling myself, I rub down my arms. “A bad dream.”
His expression transforms his face from delicate perfection to rugged excellence.
Pity shines from his eyes as he asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I don’t need pity. God, if he knew the things I did.
Those moments in the dream with Daniel are vivid and solid in my brain.
That happened, the sexual act, and the disgrace caused the drowning dream to penetrate my memory.
“No.” I answer him bluntly when I realize he’s still crouched next to me, waiting for a response.
“I made some bacon sandwiches.”
I did smell bacon.
He takes my hands and helps me stand. My ass smarts from falling hard on it from the couch.
“Your phone has been lighting up,” he tells me with a cautious tone.
He hasn’t broached the topic of Garret; not that we’ve had any time to.
The dream lingers in my head and acid burns in my gut.
I let him touch me so intimately like it was nothing. Like it was playing cards, catching a movie.
What night was that?
Max places a plate in front of me and pulls a chair for me to sit in at the table. “Thank you.”
“Wine or milk?”
“Is that the only options?”
“Tap water.” He grimaces.
Placing my hand over his, I give him a reassuring tilt of my lips.
“Milk will be perfect. Thank you.”
After going to the kitchen to fetch the milk and a plate stacked with bacon sandwiches on for himself, he takes a seat next to mine and pours the white liquid into my glass.
“Thank you.”
“Do you want to talk about your dream?” he asks before taking a huge bite of his sandwich, demolishing half of it in the single bite.
I finger the bread on my plate and linger my stare on the condensation dripping down the glass.
“Do you think you can dream your memories?”
His jaw flexes with each chew and I become mesmerized with the way his throat bounces as he swallows.
“Some memories never fade and instead hide so deep that it takes separating yourself from reality in order to seek them out,” he answers, watching me.
That kind of makes sense.
“Do you think someone can be evil just because of the blood in their veins?”
Placing his hand over mine, he squeezes so tight the bones crack underneath and he almost chokes on his food, lifting my hand and kissing it.
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
Why? It didn’t break anything.
“Do you not believe that there’s only so much evil you can live with before you stop living with it and it begins to live inside you?”
I turn my chair so it faces his, and he cups my cheeks, boring his dark orbs into me.
“You’re a victim, Evi.” He breathes the words, believing them.
“I’m no-one’s victim, Max.”
I’m here, I’m breathing, I’m alive.
Where are they? Dead and gone.
Shaking his head, sorrow torments those beautiful eyes.
“You’re a victim. A victim of your own tormented thoughts. You’re a good person who had bad things happen to her.”
A tear leaks from my eye and I want so badly to swipe it away, but Max is moving towards me, his lips press down kissing away the watery tear in its tracks, taking it inside himself to take some of the damage for me.
“Even the purest of us still create a dark shadow,” I whisper.
His grip tightens. “Then let’s live in the shadows together.”
He pulls me into his lap and I snuggle into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. He must have showered when he brought us back here because he smells of the citrus shampoo that I know is in his bathroom.
“Please eat something.”
He picks up my sandwich and hands it to me.
I’m aware that his cock is growing in length beneath my ass and my appetite changes from one hunger to the next in a blink of his chocolate-colored eyes.
Biting my lip, he smirks and shakes his head.
“Eat your sandwich, and then if you finish it all, I’ll eat you,” he teases, slapping his palm across my thigh.
It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever felt.
So simple. So fucking hot.
I want him to slap my ass, my thighs. Spread me open and slap my pussy.
I stuff the sandwich into my mouth, biting off a chunk and pushing the stray rasher of bacon poking out into my mouth.
“Yum.”
His chuckle only ignites my need more.