AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fucked up reasons and fucked up reasonsonly.” He shrugged. “Me, and everybody like me, we were… programmed, for lack of a better way to put it. Forced to do shit we otherwise never would. And there wasn’tshityou could do about it; you just have to live with it after.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it is. And I’m…” He chuckled, shaking his head as he pushed his food away from him. “I’m not even sure it’s the worst thing.”
“What could be worse?” I asked.
“The training,” he immediately answered. “To be what I was, you had to be exceptionally well-trained and I’m not just talking about fighting. You had to be able to hold a conversation with anybody in any room, blend into any lifestyle. You had to be charming, fascinating, seductive. And you had to be able to follow through.Create an experience for your mark.”
When he didn’t finish, I straight up asked him, “What doesthatmean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means, Tati.” He confirmed my worst suspicions, shaking his head. “I know you don’t want it to mean that, but it does. And training doesn’t suddenly start when you’re eighteen, it starts withpuberty. And then they wonder why you’re so fucking angry and try to tamp it down,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I was a special case, because of a specific dislike the person who ran the place had for my mother. What they couldn’t take out on her, they took it out on me. So... my ‘childhood’ was pretty fun.”
“Onyx…”
“Don’t besorry,” he interrupted, somehow already knowing what I was about to say. “You don’t have to be sorry; it wasn’t you. But just know if you’re ever over here feeling like you’re by yourself... you’re not. And this isn’t any of thatsomebody had it worsetype shit, and it’s not aboutme. I’m just...” He pushed out a sigh. “Like I said… you’re not alone.”
For a long moment I was quiet, and then, “Is that how you thought to change the sheets? And clean? Because of what happened to you?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Because of what I saw happen to my mother. I was the one who took care of her after it happened. I helped her clean up. She was… scared and all that in the moment, but she handled it in her own way I guess. She seemed fine. But I actually think that shit triggered her ’cause then she gotwayworse.”
The tears I was trying to hold back stung my eyes, but I blinked them back, not wanting to make it any more of an awkward moment. “Do you mean she… hurt you?”
“Physically?” He shrugged.
He was always fucking shrugging, trying to play everything off, make it seem like no big deal.
But it was.
“Nah not really,” he continued. “Everything with her was psychological. Mental.”
I pushed out a sigh. “I know you said not to tell you I’m sorry—”
“So don’t.”
“But I am,” I said, moving to wrap him in my arms before he could protest, pulling him against me in a hug. “I don’t care if you’re a grown, scary motherfucker now, you weren’t then. And that shouldn’t have happened to you.”
“I appreciate that.” He chuckled, pulling back enough to look me in the face. That intensity was back, like he was looking into my soul, and I hated it. But I didn’t shy away, not even when he asked, “Do you feel better?”
Instead of giving a shallow answer, I really considered it, thinking about it before I responded. “I think maybe a little. Not because of what you’ve told me, but just… getting some of it out.”
“Good.”
I kept my eyes locked with his, and asked, “Do you?”
“Nah.” He laughed. “But my shit is cauterized at this point. I’m not sweating it anymore, because what good would it do?Anyway, have you thought about moving?”
I frowned over his sudden change of subject and shook my head. “No, not really,” I told him, and then explained my reasoning for staying.
“I thought you said you wanted to be okay though?” was his response once I was done, and I raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You said youjust want to be okay, and yet you’re staying here when you don’t feel safe…because you want to prove a point. Because you want to make the space be something it’s not anymore, based on what it was before.”
“Who asked you all that?” I asked, sucking my teeth.
He laughed. “Nobody, but I’m saying. We’re putting it all out there, so let’s put it out there. Staying here as some way to avoid letting Kev ‘win’ is silly. That shit issilly,Tati,” he repeated. “If it doesn’t feel good for you, what’s the damn point? He’s in a basement somewhere, rotting untilyoudecide what happens to him. So you look at this situation, and you’re telling me that moving somewhere that makes you feel happy and safe, that feels likehewon?”
