AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Holy ship!
I’m stuck in place, awestruck. With all the touching and kissing, I knew Zander was fit. But this is crazy. It looks like someone chiseled him into perfection. I wonder how much time he spends in the gym to maintain this body.
“How often do you work out?” I whisper in amazement.
“Quite a lot. Like what you see?” He smirks, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Hmm.” I think I’ll go brain dead. For someone who had no male attention, this much masculinity in one day feels like a drug overdose.
“Which one you like the most?” He raises an eyebrow, turning around.
Crab, he’s talking about the tattoos. I was so busy crushing over his body that I forgot to pay any attention to the art.
“Can I get another look?” I ask sheepishly.
“Sure, but this time, make sure to see some art and do less of the eye-fucking.”
His back is a myriad of drawings, some vibrant and colorful but some just black. It looks like a picture book, where each image has its own story. There are three boys holding hands. Then a boy is hiding behind a door. In the next, a boy is kneeling on the ground, his head toward the sky. Is he praying or crying? But what shatters my heart are the rose thorns and stems drawn on his shoulder blades. Wherever the prickles end, there is red blood. It’s so vivid, and for a moment, I believe it’s real blood oozing out of his skin. Below the thorns is a word in block letters.
ALEXZANDER.
24
ZANDER
I hear her sobs as her fingers trail remnants of the most vile memories of my childhood. Her hands rest over the scars buried beneath the ink. Turning around, I find her misty blue eyes fixed on the rose thorns. “It’s okay, Marr.”
“No, it’s not. It’s…just not fair.” She throws her arms around me as all her emotions unleash and she weeps into my chest.
“Why does it have to be like this?” she asks in between her heavy sobs.
I know she’s thinking and wishing against reality. I’ve been doing the same since the night she told me her story.
Why is this so fucked up? Why can’t I say the name of this girl, who in such a short time has become so important to me? Why can’t I laugh and joke rather than be hysterical when she shows me her silly jewelry?
I hold her tight, mustering the courage to say words I haven’t spoken out loud in a long time.
“My father died in a car accident soon after Zane was born. He was a middle-class man who sought happiness in the smaller things in life, until he met this young theater actress who only dreamt of Broadway and Hollywood.” I sift through the broken memories my father has shared with me.
“After a few months of courtship, they got married and welcomed their first child before their first wedding anniversary. Middle-class life and a newborn threw all the glamorous dreams out the window. What remained were continuous arguments, petty quarrels, heavy drinking, and constant smoking.” I smell the smoke, just as I do whenever I think of those days. I don’t know if these sensations are real memories or just my imagination. I shake my head, clearing my thoughts as Marr clutches my forearms.
“Add another child to this shit, and the occasional drinking and smoking turned into alcoholism and drug abuse. But children don’t understand; they think it’s affection, even when reprimanded.” How dumb and stupid kids can be? “After my father died, his wife did what any other twenty-eight-year-old girl who had to sustain three kids under the age of six along with her addiction would do. She moved in with a man who gave shelter to her three boys, which included a six-month-old baby, and tended to her craving. Her supplier.”
“Zander.” Marr pulls away from me, and I’m pained by her puffy bloodshot eyes. I hate to hurt her, but I also want to share my life, my secrets, with her. She said she would be there for me if I ever wanted to talk. And I want to take her up on that. Averting my gaze from her, I continue, about to unravel the most horrifying years of my life.
“We left our house and moved to a devil’s den. The woman was always high, and a six-year-old had to fend for his baby brothers.”
“Oh my god.” She gasps as tears roll down her cheeks. My throat dries as I revisit my horrifying past.
“It killed me to see the woman, whom I once loved the most, decaying every day. But it was not her that changed our life. It was the demon who got three weak preys. He was a pervert, a sadist, a pedo—”
“Stop. Please stop,” she cries, and I take her in my arms.
“I’m so sorry, Marr.” Sweat trickles down my back.
“I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I hate this life. I hate it Zander, so much. What did… we do to deserve this? Why did people do this to us? Why did no one love us? Why did they not fight for us?” she cries, and I have no answer to her questions. “Did he—” Heavy sobs cut down her words.
“He whipped me every night, every fucking night. If I resisted, he would lock me out of the house, naked on chilly winter and sultry summer nights, but he never touched me. I was”—my mouth is suddenly dry—“too old for his taste. My age became my immunity, but not so much for the others.” Tears threaten to spill from my eyes, remembering the dreadful night when I was a witness of the gruesome incident. That night changed everything for us. The next dawn was as black as the earlier night, taking away the life of the woman I loved the most then.
