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I just want something we shared to have been real.
* * *
Gentle knocking on my door wakes me from a disturbing dream. I don’t want to think about it but even rubbing my eyes doesn’t clear the images that have been seared into my brain.
What’s real? Memory? A dream?
I know my brain subdued many of the atrocities I was exposed to while I was taken, but last night’s nightmares make me wonder if I’ve been subconsciously ‘forgetting’ things for a hell of a lot longer.
“Are you okay, cariño? We’re getting ready to go. Would you like breakfast before we leave? I made you a tea to go.”
“No thank you,” I call back through the closed door, wondering why Tex hasn’t come in like usually does. In fact, I wonder why he didn’t sleep next to me last night. Was he giving me space to process everything I learnt? Really, all I need is normality right now, because nothing’s really changed.
The boys have always been killers. Last night I just learned that. I’ve been sleeping in the arms of a killer for months, I’ve loved three killers for years, and I have to live with that knowledge because it hasn’t changed how I feel about them. I still love them. Now I have to learn to accept them for who they are.
I climb out of bed and stretch. It’s barely starting to get light outside, even though it’s June, which means it must be crazy-early. Checking the coast is clear, I make a dash for the bathroom with my clothes for the day in hand. I’m relieved when I don’t bump into the guys. In the bathroom I actually fully close the door. I wash my face and brush my teeth, then get dressed in black leggings and a hoodie because it’s still cold. Done, I stand with my back to the mirror and brush my hair. I wonder if I should tie it back. Should I make more of an effort to look okay? I haven’t seen my mother in so long.
Turning, I face the mirror and stare at my reflection. I look tired, but not as haunted as I used to. Did that happen gradually or overnight?
I wonder if I’ve fucked everything up. Maybe I should have told them the truth about what happened after I was abducted from the pavement right outside our flat. Maybe I need to get everything off my chest. Maybe after that, things can be different between us.
Devon said he loved me. Did he mean it? Is it the right kind of love? Would he still love me if he knew the truth about me?
Or would he see me the way I view myself, as a fractured, twisted, dark monster who doesn’t deserve love after the things I’ve done and enjoyed.
“Callie? You good?” East knocks on the bathroom door, startling me.
“Coming,” I call.
I flick my gaze back to the mirror and catch my monster staring at me out of the corner of her eye. She’s not sickened by the thought of what might happen today.
No, she’s excited.
I lock her back in her box and exit the bathroom. The guys are all waiting for me.
Wordlessly, I follow them down the stairs to the lobby. We never take the lift anymore. I can’t bear the memories it evokes.
We wait while Devon goes to fetch the car. Strangely, since the guys’ revelation my fear of leaving the flat has lessened. We all pile in, me climbing into the back beside Tex, and I can’t think of a safer place for me than with the three of them. Tex takes my hand in his but doesn’t speak or look at me.
Cold dread trickles down my spine at what’s to come. This is it. It’s happening.
Who will we be after this is done?
The drive over to my mama’s house is both scarily short and terrifyingly long. She lives so close but a world away. With every mile closer to my childhood home that we get, the more I start to silently freak out.
I hate this place. The memories of my shitty childhood engulf the entire block in a black cloud of misery as we drive through. Devon pulls into the street of my earliest nightmares and my palms are so slick with anxiety that my hand slips from Tex’s. He places his on my leg instead but I’m stone under his comforting touch.
I don’t think I can do this. There’s a reason why I never come here, why my mama only calls once a month, why the people who took me were able to bend and shape me so easily. This was the birthplace of my monster. It was always locked inside of me, because the horrors of the facility weren’t the first I ever encountered.
The run-down shack of a house we pull up in front of is more terrifying to me than anything I endured while I was gone. I exit the car and stare at my childhood home. The word is a joke. Home connotes feelings of warmth and safety; within those walls I’ll find neither. I never did.
“You don’t have to do this,” Tex tells me sweetly. He’s always trying to shelter and protect me from harm, but he can’t hide me from this.
“I do. I know that I have to, I just don’t know how I can.” Perhaps the guys think I’m reluctant to go inside and face my mother’s truth, to witness her death. But it’s not that which holds me captive on the pavement, it’s memories.
“You deserve to know, firecracker. You need answers.”
I nod, knowing Devon is right but still feeling the toxicity from the house leaching out onto the road and choking me.
