thirty
rutledge
All the nights I stood at the cliff’s edge, staring out into the distance, were dark, but you still had that glimpse of a ship in the distance or even the moon’s reflection cast along the water. Tonight hadn’t held any of that. So when I gazed out into the water that held no end, I had nothing to draw my attention.
The only focus were the thoughts swirling in my head.
Dinner with Kinsley and Max had started off great. The way they looked at each other, I knew my boy and Kinsley were feeling something. Because I’m sure it had been the same look that I held that day Peyton folded out of the car. The way I had eye fucked her until I had almost been coming in my damn jeans. He drove her home, so there was that. But I knew Max had a lot of shit on his plate. I also knew he deserved to be happy too.
Happy.
Just a simple five letter word that held so much meaning to everyone that walked the fucking earth. People spent days, sometimes years just trying to find it. Objects or people weren’t supposed to be the cause of your own happiness. That’s not how it was believed to be, or so they say. You were expected to find happy within yourself or you really couldn’t ever be happy.
I was finding this out the hard way.
I thought I found my happy. Peyton. Did she make me happy? Fuck yes. But she wasn’t my happy. Not the happy I searched for within myself. She couldn’t provide that. I needed to fucking do that for myself.
A small light in the distance caught my attention. A star. One fucking star lighting up the miles of dark that lay in front of me. I thought about wishing on that damn star, making all the demons disappear. But it didn’t fucking work that way.
I didn’t have to turn to know she was approaching. I could feel her. I wasn’t sure of the time, but I knew I’d been standing at the cliff’s edge for a while. I asked her if I could have a few minutes to myself when we got home. But by the extreme chill in the air, she’d given me more than a few minutes.
Peaches. The scent hit my nose. I inhaled.
She stopped, but not at my side. She was just there, being there for me. I took a deep breath.
“I lied to you,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
“I know,” she whispered.
“The day I told you I was going—”
“Rut.” She stopped me mid-sentence. “Kinsley saw you going into the cemetery.”
I didn’t say anything. What the fuck was I supposed to say? We both knew we needed to be honest with each other. We’d been over this shit. And here I was falling back on what I preached.
Honesty.
Another word people searched for in others, but not many in today’s world were willing to give it so easily. Most held secrets deep inside, not willing to share them. Not showing their true colors except to those close to them. Even then some still held those secrets like a sacred treasure. But was it healthy to hold that to one’s self? Keep those secrets inside, eating away at the flesh like a damn parasite. No it wasn’t.
And now it was time to give my honesty and if she ran, she ran. I needed to do it. And I needed to find my happy within.
“It was the summer I had just turned nine,” I started, heard her inhaled breath, but I kept my focus out into the vast darkness and continued. “It’d been years since my grandfather had passed. My grandmother was finally happy and it had to do with a new man in her life.” I paused, took a breath, settling the nervousness that began to crawl through my veins. “It made me happy to see her happy. He suggested...” I stopped. Not knowing how to say what I wanted to say. Fuck. What I needed to say.
Peyton put a hand on my back, so simple a gesture, but it brought a warmth that coated the chill that ran down my spine. “He helped me build a shelf for grandmother ʼcause she talked about having one where she could place her pies to cool, and out of my reach.” The lump formed in my throat, eyes stinging from the emotions building inside. “Her new friend and I had just finished it.” I choked on my words, “I…” I stumbled. “I was so fucking happy, Peyton.” The next words came out in a rasp. “But it didn’t last long ʼcause...” A sob caught in my throat, I took a deep breath, hoping it’d pass but it only caused tears to fall from my burning eyes. “He raped me.”
The sound that ripped from her mouth matched the agony I was feeling, but once the words spilled from my mouth, finally confessing to her what haunted me, the demons I’d held inside were freed, and with their release, the words just kept coming. “Only in my dreams do I see that day vividly, ʼcause I won’t allow it in my waking hours. But I was only nine fucking years old.” I choked on a sob. “Jesus, I was just a little fucking boy.” I paused, trying to keep the rage that was building inside at bay. “I should have spent that summer playing ball at the park with my friends, but instead I kept close to my grandmother’s house, afraid to fucking breathe.” I rolled my shoulders, gripped my fists, but kept on going. “I never told my grandmother, didn’t have the heart to do it, ruin her happy. But shortly after what the man had done to me, he stopped coming around so much, but when he did, I would hide up in the widow’s walk.” I wanted to turn when I felt her hand slip down my back, and I lost her touch, but I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to see the look on her face, so I kept my eyes to the darkness, looking ahead because it was time I stopped looking behind. “It wasn’t until we put my grandmother in the ground that I told my father.” I let out a sarcastic huff. “I got no fucking reaction from him. He looked at me like it was my fault, and...” I paused, closed my eyes, letting my head fall back. “It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I found out my dad took hush money from this guy. The business was falling the fuck apart and all he cared about was the money.” I took a ragged breath before I finished, “My own father confronted the rapist of his nine-year-old son for the sole purpose of squeezing money from him so he could live the good life.” I turned then.
Fury building inside of me because I was filth. Disgusting. And I didn’t care because it was who I was, my story, my life. If she looked at me the way I felt, I understood, because I looked at myself the same way every morning in the reflection of the mirror.
Even looking at her, I didn’t see her. Too enraged, too absorbed in the cleansing that had been a long time coming. “Do you know what that does to someone?” I shouted. “Do you?” I didn’t let her answer, just kept yelling. “Being raped at any age, but when you are nine fucking years old. Not knowing if you brought it on yourself, not fully understanding what the hell happened. Holding that shit inside, hoping one day you’d wake up and it’d all just be a fucking nightmare? Do you?” I reached my hands out to grab her, but stopped because the state I was in, I was afraid I’d hurt her. It was then I saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, her expression of horror.
“Jesus!” I screamed, tears falling from my eyes, feeling like I wasn’t even myself.
I needed to hit something. Punch something. Fuck. I walked past Peyton like she wasn’t even there and right into the trailer. When I came back out, she hadn’t moved, rooted to the spot she stood. I lifted the hammer I had in one hand and stalked to the shed.
“See this!” I yelled to her. “This is where he fucking raped me,” I shouted and lifted the hammer over my head and started swinging it, connecting with the old weathered wood, it crumbling in pieces with every strike. “Nine fucking years old,” I bellowed. “Raped at nine fucking years old.” I kept pounding the hammer at the shed. The wood splintering with every strike. “Me.” I stopped, looked back at Peyton and said, “Me, Peyton, me! I was raped at nine years old! How does it feel?” I kept up my shouting at her. “Huh,” I grated out. “Dating a guy that was raped when he was just a little boy.”
And with that, I dropped the hammer, falling to my knees, sobs wracking my body. The weight of it all too much as I held my head in my hands and let out twenty-eight years of turmoil that lived inside of me.
I didn’t hear her move, but she appeared in front of me, dropping to her knees, wrapping me in her arms. I felt her body shaking from her own tears, but all she said, like a benediction, softly, over and over again until it registered, until it sank in was, “I love you.”
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but I fucking missed her warmth when she moved. Glancing up, she had the hammer in hand and without prompting, she started hitting the shed. With each stroke, her fucking swing grew harder, like she was exorcising her own demons and it was then I realized she wasn’t disgusted with me, she was furious for me, the nine-year-old I had been and the man my nightmare forged.
I started to get up, but fell back onto my ass and just watched her. I should have stopped her but just like for me, it was a cleansing of sorts. When her arm grew tired, her swings not as accurate as when she began, she dropped the hammer. She took the few steps that parted us and plopped down next to me. We both stared at the mangled shed.
“I love you.” My voice was raspy and hoarse from the sobbing.
She didn’t say anything, just climbed into my lap, her arms went around me, so did her legs and she just held on, like she needed the contact as much as I did.
My arms tightened around her waist, face in her neck, I whispered, “I need you.”
In answer, her mouth came to mine. It started off gently but quickly turned frenzied and wild. Within seconds, I had her on her back, her skirt at her waist. In one swift move, I hooked my finger in the side of her panties and ripped them off. The burn of the material shredding, briefly stung my fingers. I moved my mouth to her neck where I nipped her with my teeth, harder than normal causing her to yelp. Hovering above her, I unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, pulling them down enough to free my hard cock, all the while keeping my heated eyes on hers. And then I felt them, the cold rubber of her boots on my lower back, as she locked her legs around me.
I hated those fucking boots. How funny was life when it put something so miniscule, meaningless, in your life that you absolutely fucking hated, but every time you saw it, you smiled.
And in the midst of needing to get lost in my girl, to cleanse myself of my past, I grinned down at her. She knew why too when she flexed her legs causing the boot heels to dig into my back.
One hand beside her head, holding me up, one on my dick, I entered her. The heat of her pussy wrapping around me, the only place I wanted to be. The only place I needed to be. I didn’t hold back, and by the look in her eyes, the pale green turning dark, she didn’t want me too. I eased out then pounded back into her. Thrust after thrust I got lost in her. The sound of the waves crashing along the cliff’s edge mixing with our moans and groans.
“I love you,” I breathed out on a heavy groan as I drove deep into her.
She pushed her heels into my back, lifting her hips, meeting me thrust for thrust.
“I love you,” she whimpered as her pussy convulsed around my dick.
Passion mixing with fury, hard deep plunges, we pulled the anger from one another, using it to fuel our need for each other. It wasn’t about sex or fucking, it was about giving up the past so we could have a future together. It was leaving the rawness behind me and moving on.
With the tip of her hips, my deep drives, she hadn’t needed to touch herself when she screamed out my name into the night air as she came. Her pussy clutching my cock so tight, I could barely move. I found mine shortly after hers, coming harder than I ever had before.
“Fuck,” I groaned, falling on top her, leaning to the side, trying not to give her all my weight.
She had other plans when she pushed me to my back and straddled me, my cock still inside her. Her hands framed my face and she lowered her head so that her hair curtained us. I saw the tears filling her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She said nothing, just studied me, taking in every line and curve, before she pressed her lips to mine and in a vow, whispered against my lips. “I love you, now and forever.”
***
I stretched, my body feeling like a Mack truck had hit it. Reaching for her side of the bed, I found nothing but cold sheets. There were mornings she got up early and went to sit out on the porch. I knew there were days she still struggled with Willy’s death. So even though I hated the mornings waking up without her by my side, I let her have them. I let her heal the way she needed to.
Tossing my legs to the side of the bed, I groaned, rubbing my face. Who knew confessing your deepest secrets could take so fucking much out of you. After we fucked on the grass, we came inside and took a long hot shower. Let me just say, trailer showers were fucking small. Too small. But all we did was stand there holding each other letting the water roll down our bodies, cleansing the past. After that we ate ice cream, naked, in the kitchen. When we finished the container, we went to bed and made love. Slowly, gently and it lasted a long time. But not long enough.
On that thought, I rose, tugged on my jeans, then my thermal. On the way to the kitchen, I stopped in the bathroom, pissed, splashed water on my face, and brushed my teeth before grabbing a cup of coffee and headed outside to find my girl.
The icy morning dew on my bare feet caused a chill to run up my body. I looked to the porch on the main house. She wasn’t there.
“Peaches!” I yelled before taking a sip of the hot coffee. The warmth sliding down my throat and into my gut.
She didn’t answer.
I walked across the lawn to the front of the house. The ground hard, the grass crunchy as I made my way around to the drive.
“Babe!” I shouted.
A chill slithered down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold morning air. Frantically, I started to move. Looking all over the yard. I didn’t see her. I went back in the trailer.
“Peyton!” I bellowed in the small place only to hear my own voice bounce off the walls.
There was nothing.
I went into the kitchen and stood there, staring at the Keurig. It was then it hit me that I didn’t have to take a little cup out of the machine to put mine in like I usually did on days she woke before me. My head swung right to look into the bedroom. Then it swung left to look into the tiny living area. I took a deep breath, I didn’t smell her.
Panic caused me to stumble back into the cabinets. My mug slipped from my numb fingers, crashing to the floor. The sound of ceramic shattering resonated through the trailer. My chest felt tight. My lungs began to seize as I gasped for air. I slid down, my ass hitting the floor.
She ran.
She told me she wouldn’t.
I told her she would.
She did.
I bent my knees, put my elbows to them and gripped my hair, tightly. The pain etching the insides of my body. It was one word that ripped from me, over and over again, “No!”