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Conor
I didn’t go riding. I just sat out on the curb, head buried between my legs, toes tapping incessantly against the pavement. What the fuck was I doing? What the fuck had I done?
When I returned to the apartment, she wasn’t in the living room. I checked in the room. My chest clenched at the sight of the empty bedsheets. I went a hundred different places in my head: she returned to that damned place. Those men followed her into her room in that damned place. They were doing things to her, to her all alone in that cursed place.
If I had ever known fear, it was what I felt in that moment before I noticed a tiny foot in a sock far too big poking out from the far side of the bed.
I leaned in farther into the room. It was, of course, my room. I shouldn’t have felt any apprehension about entering. With Aurnia inside, it made me tense, nervous. It was irrational.
I was scared to get close to her. Scared not of what she might do to me, my tiny little thief, but scared of what I would to do her.
I leaned in farther into the room, but didn’t dare to risk a single step inside. I craned my neck to see Aurnia lying on the floor just beside the bed. She had taken a single blanket, the one that had been thrown along the end of my bed, and had arranged it on the floor. The frayed edges she had drawn up as best she could over herself. I could see from the way she shivered that they weren’t enough.
I hesitated.
The radiator was turned up as high as it would go. There was no solution there. The only answer was to walk inside and pull the big duvet onto her.
I dragged a hand over my face. Even from the threshold of the door I could see the way my sweatshirt had ridden up on her bare legs. The moonlight was cast upon them, upon their smooth flesh. I could make out the underside of her ass, the worn hem of her panties. I looked away quickly. My gaze had already lingered too long. Just like it had when I had happened to glance up from the kitchen counter to see through the tiniest of slits in the bathroom door, the sight of Aurnia just out of the shower.
She had looked away immediately, as I should have. It wasn’t, after all, right that I should gaze upon someone of her age. She had caught me by surprise. Just like she had from the very start.
The steam from her long shower had lingered around her body, twisting about her like swatches of silk. Her wet hair fell down her shoulders, catching the light like the feathers of a raven. God, how small she was.
And yet I saw, too, that there was a shape hidden beneath those baggy jackets and torn jeans. She was forbidden fruit. I had already failed once the test of temptation.
If I couldn’t turn away my gaze when I was a room away with a door between her and me, how was I to expect myself to get close enough to cover her with a blanket?
It remained: she was cold. I could do something about it. This alone was the truth that I had to hold onto.
With a swiftness that scared me because it showed how little I trusted myself still, I hurried into the room, dragged the blanket off the bed, and tossed it onto Aurnia’s sleeping form. I didn’t even bother to see if it landed on her entirely. Or whether it had fallen over her head. In her dreams she would push the cloud that had brushed against her cheek aside. Maybe with a bit of her sweet little laughter.
I closed the door behind me. Was it because I wanted to keep the room as quiet as possible for her to sleep? Or was it because I saw it as another barrier for my growing lust?
* * *
My dusty garage was dim, the only light coming from a low naked bulb. I didn’t bother with gloves. I didn’t bother even with a few quick wraps of tape. I wanted to feel the splitting of my knuckles. I wanted to see a smear or two of red in the yellow of the street lamp light.
As I circled the bag, focusing on my form, focusing on the strength of my attack, I considered the situation. On the one hand, I felt enough for Aurnia to want her to have a better life than I was dealt. I knew the struggles of her childhood, because they had been the struggles of mine.
I understood being in a shite situation. I even understood the indignation when someone tried to point it out. The helplessness. Because what else were you to do? I knew fear. I knew searching for a way out, any way out.
Aurnia at seventeen was me at seventeen. That could not be changed. But I could ensure that Aurnia at eighteen was not me at eighteen. I could not give her family Christmases at five or birthdays at the roller rink at eleven or pictures on the staircase before the big dance at sixteen. It was the great cruelty of life that no one could.
I could make sure that she did not fall into the trap that I fell into.
I had been vulnerable like she was. Stupid as she was stupid. Desperate, too, like her. If I didn’t do something, she would make the exact same mistake as I did: falling for someone older. Falling for someone who was going to ruin her life. Giving up everything for nothing at all in return.
To save Aurnia I had to stay away from her.
The situation seemed as impossible as warming her with the blanket without getting near her. I was salvation. I was her curse. I was a warm bed. I was the storm that always came. I was a brush against the cheek. I was a goddamn black eye.
I circled the bag and my fists flew with less and less control. A sweat broke out across my forehead, beads dripping into my eyes. The windows began to fog from my ragged pants for air.
I was going to have to deny myself.
I wanted Aurnia.
I could not have her. I was going to have to be strong, stronger than I had ever been. I was going to have to push her away with all I had.
