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He was always gone by morning though.
And I pretended my body didn't miss his warmth.
I still couldn't believe what Uncle John had so brazenly taken from me. He’d taken everything. All of it. And left nothing but the crumbs of a lifetime of work. My art ripped so brutally from my hands it left scars on my heart.
I didn't know how to react. I know we had a deal. I made art for him and in turn, he left me and my mother alone. But somewhere along the way, those lines had been blurred. Crossed. And now I was bleeding out at the end of his hands.
The artist in me dying from his brutality.
I hadn't painted in fourteen days. Everytime I reached for a brush the memories attacked me. Hands gripping me, knocking me out, but not after I bore witness to every unused canvas being destroyed. Every paint jar being smashed. They even snapped my brushes in half. Leaving me with broken stubs playing at paint tools.
The artist in me felt the loss acutely. And damn it all to hell but I was stupidly grateful for the blind comfort Kalebs presence gave me in the night. I only wished I wasn’t foolish enough to get attached to blades that could cut me.
And Kaleb was a blade.
A tool sharp enough to cut up my heart with a single pinned glance.
I was a fool for letting him anywhere near me. But I was addicted now, and like any good addict, I couldn't get enough. Not of his skin, not of his smell, not of his dirty mouth complimenting my body.
He made me feel sexy.
Hell, my skin lit up like a goddess pulled from Olympus when Kaleb touched me, when he told me my body turned him on. Made him ache. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. That the weak flower in me could bring such a powerful boy to his knees. I’d never considered myself sexy before but Kaleb was starting to make me feel like I could be, at least in his eyes, and that stupidly made my heart flush with pleasure as well as other much lower parts of me.
I don't know what it was about Kaleb but he turned me on.
Made me want more.
Made me want to get down on my knees and show him how much I melted for him. This ice king that broke through all my defenses like they were butter.
Distracted, I reposition my pose on the bar and shove my dirty thoughts of Kaleb aside.
The teacher scolds me and I fix my second position and adjust my arms so they match the practiced poses of the dancers in front of me.
It was times like these I was grateful for the hole-in-the-wall dance studio two blocks down from me. Dancing helped me to escape. It helped me to forget and it helped me to express myself. Something I needed desperately now that it seemed I could no longer paint without my heart freezing in fear.
Moving into fifth position I stretch my arms above me and hold them there. Dance helped center me. It helped me feel strong, in control. Something I wish I felt a lot more lately. My mom's face flashes before me and my heart stutters.
The hospital had called me only a couple of times since the unexpected Uncle John “threat” at the hospital. Both times they told me her status was steady and that there was little to no change. She wasn't doing great, but she wasn't getting worse. I felt like I was standing still waiting for the shoe dangling above me to drop. Like I was stuck in traffic and just wanted the damn car to crash already. To get it over with.
The other part of me drowned in sheer fear at the thought of it. Of the shoe dropping. And with it my whole world smashing into a million unfixable pieces.
I needed her to be ok. I just needed her to be.
But things were so far from the normal I needed them to be. Not that things had ever been “normal” between my mom and I, but I needed them to be our normal. Hell, I’d even run away to another state with her, another country, if it meant having her back in my life. The real her. Not this hollow egg shell she's become in the past two months.
The thought of her rotting away in that mental hospital made me want to rip Uncle John's head from his shoulders like the vampires on my show. He’d gone too far this time. First with that little visit a couple weeks ago and now with the destruction of my apartment. I didn't know how to escape him and despite the protection Kaleb's bodyguards provided me, I still didn't feel safe. I feared I’d never feel safe with him watching over me.
Haunting me.
Waiting for me to mess up so he could destroy me and my life for good.
My dreams have been a mess of him and a certain dark-eyed god ever since that night. Two dark-eyed powerful men that had the power to destroy me. One set my heart on fire, while the other sought to put out my flames.
Dance was the only thing that made me feel remotely sane. I’d been to twice the amount of classes I usually attended these past two weeks. A vain attempt to quiet the voices in my head. The ones telling me I couldn't go on like this. That I couldn't keep running in circles. I was like a chicken with its head cut off, running around in search of a semblance of sense to grasp in my mad world.
Lucky for me, dance was there when no one else was. It was there to tell me to keep moving but to never stop feeling. It helped me to own those feelings, to fuel them into something good. Something constructive. And I thanked the stars that I was able to attend classes after everything that had been taken from me.
Bend.
