I don’t want to push her. I know I need to let her talk to me on her own, when she’s sober and aware of what she’s saying to me. I can’t take away her scars and I can’t erase her memories from her past, but I can kiss the pain away and promise her a better future. One filled with family and love and happiness. One where she doesn’t have to be afraid to trust and lean on other people. I want her to know that not everyone in her life will let her down. I don’t know how to even begin helping her when there’s still the threat of her father out there somewhere, trying to bring all of that pain back into her life. I want to end that motherfucker, to ruin him for what he did to her as a little girl and I want to make him pay for what he continues to do to her as an adult.

Reaching across the console, I wrap my hand around hers, resting on her thigh. With her face still turned to look out of her window, she threads her fingers through mine and squeezes.

At least we’re making progress. She smiled and she laughed just for me today. I’ll take that one tiny step forward for now, but soon enough, I’m going to make her give me an entire leap in the right direction.

I don’t know how long I can keep this up. I’m not this person who is in a loving, committed relationship and who’s happy all the time. It feels right, and every day I spend with DJ is better than the one before it, but how much longer will he put up with my strange requests in the bedroom?

Okay, technically not in the bedroom, since we never seem to be able to make it further than the front door of his house before he’s bending me over some piece of furniture to fuck me, but still. A few times in the last week he’s tried to move us down the hall and I’ve always stopped him. I tell him I just can’t wait that long and that I need him inside of me right that minute. While it’s true for the most part, I also know that there’s a whole shitload of intimacy that comes from having sex in a bedroom that I’m just not ready for yet. Every time he’s inside me, he complains that I have too many clothes on and that he wants to see all of me. It doesn’t stop him from fucking me like an animal on the kitchen counter, against the wall of the living room or on the hood of his car in the garage, though. I know what we do isn’t normal. I know that at some point this carnal fucking is going to slow down and he’s going to want to take his time, remove all of my clothes and just stare at me, because it’s exactly what I want to do to him. My insides twist with that thought, though, and my hands itch to run to my house, grab the lighter and cigarettes from my bedroom and let the searing pain of burning flesh ease this anxiety. I’ve transferred that old, familiar need to DJ, letting the slap of his hips against mine and the pounding of his cock inside of me take the edge off my need for pain. My addiction to branding myself has turned into an addiction for a man, one who loves me, takes care of me and makes me laugh. I know it’s all going to disappear as soon as he finds out the truth about me. I spend each day thinking how that inevitable conversation will go, imagining the look on his face when he finally sees all of me and realizes what I’ve done to myself. He’ll never understand. He thinks he knows who I am. He believes I’m standoffish and bitchy because of the things my father did to me. What will he do when he finds out I’ve continued with my father’s sick brand of punishment because it’s the only way I know how to live? It’s all I’ve ever known and even though his body is enough to calm my nerves for now, it’s not going to last forever. Soon enough, I’m going to dream about pressing a cigarette to my hip to slow my rapid heartbeat and stop my cold sweats. Soon enough, feeling him inside of me and letting him bruise my body with rough sex isn’t going to cut it. I’m an addict and this insane twelve-step program of DJ Taylor isn’t going to cure me, it’s just another addiction I’m piling on top of the first one.

“I just don’t understand how no one has been able to find the fucker yet,” DJ complains to Dax on the phone as I load our dishes from dinner into the dishwasher.

One quiet night in front of the television a few days ago, he admitted he was an asshole with Dax and needed to do some groveling. I didn’t tell him just how much it excited me to know he was jealous of my friendship with the guy. I grabbed his phone from the coffee table and handed it over, telling him to just apologize. He called Dax right in front of me and, even though the conversion that night was only filled with grunts, stammering and no real apology, at least the two men called a truce and were back to speaking to each other.

“We’ve got your cop following our asses every damn place we go. How is this piece of shit getting around him to keep leaving these damn notes?” DJ argues.

Eighteen notes in total so far, each one placed in their own individual zip lock bag and handed over to the police as evidence. Just like with the first couple we received, none of them had any fingerprints or any real way to tie them to my father. Every time we left DJ’s house, a new one would appear on the front door. After that, we tried staying home, figuring there was no way he’d be able to get by Jackson, but he still managed to do it. Notes showed up tucked inside the mail in the mailbox, they were stuck under the windshield wiper of DJ’s car and they were even delivered via certified mail. They all contained some sort of threat, escalating with each one, and Dax believes he’s getting angry because I’m never alone and he can’t get to me. I don’t care about what he says to me, but he’s still including DJ in this shit and that pisses me off. All of his damn notes mention something that happened privately between DJ and I, and they almost always call me a whore.