48
ATTICUS
Apparently, Tuesday was the next day and the day after that, because Jeffrey was at the cabin, knocking on the back door bright and early both mornings.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I complained when Jeffrey’s knuckles rapped heavily on the wood; I groaned and rolled over onto my side, tossing my arm over Thais.
“Let me get up,” she said, and tried to wriggle herself free.
I pulled her closer, nuzzled my face into her neck. “Don’t answer it,” I said, my eyes closed. “He’ll come back later.”
“Let me go talk to him; he probably won’t leave easily.”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Come swim with me, Thais!”
I groaned louder, and then released her.
Thais got dressed and went outside to a delighted Jeffrey dressed in a pair of shorts, red with yellow stripes that dropped to his manly knees; he wore a pair of worn-out running shoes with no socks.
I sat on the bank of the pond watching them swim; Thais in her cotton pants and T-shirt. She shrieked when Jeffrey splashed her with great gushes of water; and when he’d swim underneath the water and grab her legs.
Jeffrey followed Thais everywhere. And she enjoyed his company.
When she was tired of swimming, she sat down next to me on the bank. Jeffrey sat down on her other side.
“Are you having a good time?” I asked Jeffrey.
“I love swimming!”
Four hours later, and Jeffrey still very much loved swimming.
Then came lunch. Fish and blackberries and pecans were the only things on the menu most days. Even with the MRE’s we’d brought back from June and Esra, I thought it better to save them and continue living the way we had been, adopting Esra’s philosophy.
Five hours.
Six hours later, Jeffrey—with Thais’ persuading—finally decided it was time for him to go home.
“Your grandma and grandpa need you,” she encouraged. “They shouldn’t be left alone for so long, Jeffrey. They’ll worry about you. And they might need your help.”
“Okay, I go home. Can I come back tomorrow? Can I swim tomorrow?”
Thais glanced at me, seeking my approval.
I thought about how she didn’t need my approval, but I nodded anyway.
“Of course you can,” she told Jeffrey, and then took him into a hug. “Now hurry before it starts getting dark.”
“See you Tuesday,” Jeffrey told her.
“Bye, Jeffrey,” I said, waving.
“Bye-bye! See you Tuesday!”
And then Jeffrey was off with his shovel in-hand, running like a gold medalist sprinter through the backyard; a blur of red and yellow stripes and pasty-white skin vanished into the thick green.
THAIS
It was early evening, before dark, and Atticus had just come from bathing in the pond. His hair was getting longer, now shaggy around the ears. He was dressed in khaki pants, the bottoms rolled up above his ankles, the waist dipped farther down his rigid hips, revealing the V-shape of his pelvic muscles. And while although I wanted to focus on how sexy he was, it didn’t go unnoticed how skinny he was getting—we both were.
“Why did you shave? How did you shave?” I asked, noticing the absence of facial hair.
Atticus sat down on the rocking chair.
“Baby oil and my knife,” he answered.
I sat down sideways on his lap; my left hand cupped his chin in examination. No cuts? Oh wait, there’s one. Two.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I like it,” I said. “But I like it either way.”
His fingers moved delicately over one corner of my lip; our eyes met, and I felt Atticus grow hard beneath me.
ATTICUS & (THAIS)
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I pulled her closer, wrapping my arms around her, and slipped my tongue into her mouth; her hands wound tightly within the back of my wet hair.
“Take me inside,” she said breathily.
I kissed her again; squeezed her tighter against my body.
“Please,” she gasped, “take me inside.”
I got up quickly, her legs straddling my waist; her bottom filled the palms of my hands beneath her short dress, and I carried her inside.
“You have to promise me you’re not sore,” I said, and kissed her hungrily.
“No,” she said with a gasp, and her hands dug into my hair, her fingers pulling it. “I’m not sore and I’m not bleeding—is that why you haven’t touched me since that night?”—(another kiss, hungry and fiery)—“because I was sore and bleeding?”
I was on top of her before I knew I was even in the room.
“Yes,” I said, my mouth opening against hers; a hand moved up her dress.
Thais broke the kiss, and she gazed into my eyes.
“Did it bother you?” she asked, worried. “The blood, I mean?”
“No, love”—I dipped my head and kissed her again, and again—“it didn’t bother me at all”—I kissed her lips and her cheeks and her eyelids and her chin—“I don’t care about that stuff.”
(My breath was quick and eager; the tug between my legs made my eyes tingle and close.)
She looked so angelic with her head against the mattress, her long hair splayed out in waves around her. And God, I wanted her.
“I haven’t been bleeding at all since that night,” she said then. “It was the strangest thing.”
Something clicked inside my brain, and my body froze on top of her.
“What’s wrong?” Thais looked up at me askance, tilting her head against the mattress, her hands on the sides of my neck. “Atticus—”
What did she just say?
“What did you just say?”
My breath became heavier, suffocating me; I stopped blinking; my heart felt like a fist was collapsing around it, crushing the beat out of it slowly.
(Confused, I wasn’t sure of his question. Why is he being so strange? Did I say something wrong?)
“Atticus, I…I’m not sure what you mean.”
Her hands fell away from my neck; she moved them down my arms as they held my weight up above her. “Are you okay?”
I moved off of her and sat upright on the bed.
She sat up, too. She reached out and touched my shoulder.
“You said you only bled that night?”
“Yes.”
I looked over at her.
“I take it bleeding for one night isn’t normal for you?”
THAIS
The question was biting, and I felt it. I just didn’t understand it.
My eyebrows drew together; I kissed his shoulder—maybe that would calm him down? Why did I feel the need to calm him down?
“No, it’s not normal for me,” I said. “I mean sometimes I go months without bleeding, but that’s perfectly normal, and I’m used to it. I don’t understand what you’re—”
“Thais—.”
I startled when he turned toward me sharply, forcing my hand from his shoulder; there was something dark, unforgiving in his eyes and it frightened me.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” he said, “and you’re going to answer me honestly. Do you understand?” It was a fierce demand, spoken in composed words I sensed were anything but.
I nodded with reluctance. I felt a growing sickness in my belly; my shot nerves sent waves of panic firing up my spine.
ATTICUS
I looked Thais in the eyes with such severity, but I hesitated, thinking carefully about my coming words, preparing myself to study every twitch in her face, every pause, every possible lie—just like I did with Mark Porter and Esra and June and Emily and David and Rachel and Shannon and Edgar. I’ll know it if you lie to me, Thais. The only difference was that I could never kill her for it.
“Do you know what a cherry is?” I asked.
THAIS
I drew back my chin; my pinched eyebrows tightened a little more; a bewildered smile crept onto my lips.
“Well, of course I do,” I said. “What kind of question is that?” I chuckled.
But Atticus did not laugh, nor was he smiling—the opposite crept over his features.
“What is it then?” he pressured.
I just looked at him. Is this a joke?
But he was not joking, and when that became apparent, my nervous smile dropped right off my face.
Finally, I answered, “It’s a dark red fruit with a long stem.” I thought it the strangest question I’d ever been asked, and the way he was acting about it, even stranger.
Atticus let out a deep breath.
He shot up into a stand, startling me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He glared down at me, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “Why did you keep it from me?”
“Keep what from you? What are you talking about?” The panic rose up in my voice.
I shot up into a stand, too, and went toward him.
He stepped back, refusing me, held up his hands in front of me.
I looked at them, shocked, and then at Atticus, hurt. I felt my bottom lip quivering, so I bit it to keep it still.
“Atticus—”
“You were a virgin,” he said. “You were a virgin up until the other night, and you didn’t tell me.” He clenched his teeth, even bared them a little; the white peeking through the veil of his angry lips.
I lost my breath; I lost my voice; I couldn’t look at him anymore. I looked down at my feet pressed into the mattress instead. How did he know?
ATTICUS
Her silence, and finally her understanding of everything was all the proof I needed. My fisted hands shook uncontrollably; I could feel the blood rising into my head, rushing hotly through every vein.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Why didn’t you tell me?!”
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
His voice boomed in my ears.
Without even thinking about it, I heaved myself toward him, reaching for him, but he put out a hand and stopped me.
“Don’t touch me,” he barked. “You should’ve fucking told me!”
“Why?” I cried, my small hands compressing into fists with emotion even bigger than he was. “What does it matter?! Why are you acting this way?!”
He stepped toward me, pointing his finger in my face. “Because just as it is your choice to give it away, it should’ve been my fucking choice whether or not to take it! YOU SHOULD’VE TOLD ME!”
The intensity of his voice stole the breath from my lungs and the beat from my heart.
I stepped back.
He kept moving toward me.
“I had a right to know,” he said. “Why did you not give me that choice? Tell me why, Thais—tell me the fucking truth!”
I would have kept walking away from him but the wall behind me stopped me cold. I was trapped between it, and a raging Atticus in front of me. But still, I was not afraid of him; I was only afraid of losing him; and I knew he would never hurt me no matter how loudly he yelled or how scary he looked.
“TELL ME!” he roared, sending shockwaves through me; I pressed the back of my head against the wall in reaction.
And as he stood there in front of me, as his eyes and his anger bore down on me, something inside of me changed.
Instead of cowering, I rounded my chin, wiped the tear tickling over the bottom, and pushed myself away from the wall and toward him boldly.
Atticus did not move.
“I’ll ask you again,” I said with courage. “Why does it matter? I gave it to you because it was mine to give—shouldn’t that be all that matters?” I reached out again with both hands.
(I didn’t push her away this time; my mind was off somewhere else. I took it from her…I took it from her…)
“I wanted you to have it,” I said with desperation.
He brought up both hands and pushed mine away as they went toward his face.
“It was your choice to give it away,” he exclaimed, “but if I had known, I never in a thousand fucking years would’ve taken it from you, freely or not!”
“But why? Tell me why!”
“BECAUSE IT WAS YOUR INNOCENCE!” he bellowed; angry tears rushed to the corners of his eyes. “The very core of your innocence, Thais; the thread that keeps you tethered to what’s left of the light!”—his eyes were ferocious, pain-filled—“There are two things”—two fingers shot upward—“just two threads that keep you tethered: your virginity and your hands—YOU HAD NO RIGHT!”
I blinked. My hands?
ATTICUS
“The moment you take a life with your hands,” I said, holding out my murderous hands in front of me, “you lose what’s left of yourself. And like your virginity, you can never get it back.” I laughed darkly, without humor.
“It all makes sense now,” I said, not looking at her. “The darkness is drawn to the light, the light to darkness,” I thought out loud. “I thought I was crazy falling for you, but now I know I why—the darkness is drawn to the light. It’s the natural fucking order of things!”
I looked at her with harsh, accusing eyes. “Why would you let me take that from you? Why would you put that on my shoulders?”
Without letting her answer, I stormed from the bedroom.
THAIS
I could hear his heavy footsteps moving down the hallway. I went out after him, and with each hurried step I felt myself panicking more. Where is he going? Why is he so angry? I knew there was more to this than what he’d told me.
“Atticus stop, please!”
He turned to me in the middle of the living room; fading sunlight poured in through the windows casting his furious, heartbroken face in a sheen gray; his fists were clenched.
ATTICUS
I just stared at her, waiting, though for what I didn’t know and no longer even knew what I might want from her anymore: My question answered that would make no difference? Her apologies I could not accept? Her assurances I could not acknowledge? I didn’t know!
Thais looked into my tortured face.
“Atticus,” she said, her voice desperate, soft like powder, “from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry for not telling you”—(apologies I could not accept)—“But you have to understand that I wanted you to have my most precious gift”—(assurances I could not acknowledge).
She stepped closer, reached out to me. I didn’t stop her, or push her away, because one-half of me wanted to forgive and acknowledge, and I was at war with myself.
“But you wanted to know why,” she said, her eyes brimmed with moisture, “and I’ll tell you.”
She paused, inhaled deeply. “At first, I was afraid that if you knew I was a virgin you’d become someone different, that you’d turn on me and wouldn’t want to help me anymore; rape me even. Or…I was afraid you’d want to sell me.”
It was an answer that did make a difference—a world of difference!
I sucked a sharp breath into my starved lungs, stepped backward once, nearly stumbled, and then I stopped. My eyes were on her, but I wasn’t seeing her, my mind held hostage by a part of me I couldn’t control.
I couldn’t control…
THAIS
Atticus reached out, and my breath caught. Is he choking me? No, his hands are too careful to be choking me.
“Is that what you think of me?” he said through clenched teeth.
My hands came up and grabbed his wrists, but I did not struggle—I wanted to help him, to make him see and understand. I wanted to be where he was—because the light was drawn to the darkness.
His hands tightened with emphasis. “THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK OF ME?” he roared, veins pronounced around his temples, his nostrils flaring.
I stumbled backward as Atticus moved me toward the sofa; he pushed me onto it on my back and hitched up my dress, tore my panties down my legs with one swift hand. My heart raced, pounded behind my ribs to a frightened rhythm. But I didn’t want to get away; I wasn’t afraid of him—I wanted him. Oh, in the name of God and all things good, I needed him: his anger, his hatred, his sins, his darkness. I wept, and wept, down inside my core. Let me absolve you, Atticus! Please take my light! Please don’t let your darkness consume all that I know you are!
He lowered himself on me, and I did not struggle. I cried quietly, but I would not tell him no. I wanted this. I wanted Atticus.
“So that’s what you think of me,” he repeated, the same words heavy with the same pain. “This monster on top of you, a coldhearted rapist who could force himself on you? A man who could sell you?” Acid laced every word. Resentment laced every word.
He reached down and slid open the zipper on his pants; his eyes bore into me, never flinching, never blinking, never letting go—he was trembling, too, trembling with anger and heartbreak I had caused.
“After everything I’ve done to protect you, after all we’ve been through together? I want to hear you fucking say it, Thais!”
I gasped when I felt him near me; there was a tightness in my belly, the same I felt in my heart. He touched me, but he wouldn’t enter me. I wanted him to!
“Tell me,” he demanded, pressing himself against me but not with the teasing I was used to. “Tell me what you think of the man I am, the man you thought you knew, the monster on top of you right now, ready to force himself inside of you right now, to take what’s not his to take!”
But it is yours to take!
“Look into my eyes,” he roared, his face mere inches from mine, his body crowding me, suffocating me, filling me, loving me. “Look into these fucking eyes, Thais, and tell me what you see! I want to hear you say it!” He pressed harder against me; I could feel it, un-swollen, unforgiving, between my legs.
My fingernails dug into his arms as I held onto him; the tightness and pulling in my belly, and lower, too much to bear. I stared up into his fierce eyes, my mouth parted—I wanted him to kiss me.
“SAY IT!” he bellowed; a tear slipped down the bridge of his nose and dripped onto my face, tumbled down my cheek, and to see him cry, it changed everything, it made sex the last thing I wanted. “FUCKING SAY IT!”
“I SEE MY SAVIOR!” I cried out and Atticus flinched. “I see a man—not a fucking monster!—who risks his life every day for mine! A man who I can’t live without in this world!” Tears poured from my eyes; I could hardly see him clearly anymore for them. “I see a man who I love and cherish and who loves and cherishes me even though he doesn’t say it. And I don’t regret giving myself to you! I WILL NEVER REGRET IT!”
Silence.
For a moment that felt like eternity, neither of us spoke. For eternity, we did not blink; we did not move; we did not think.
But eternity was too short, and Atticus got up.
Seconds later, the front door slammed against the wood frame and he was gone.