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Her wet hair tickled my neck and jaw when she pulled away. “I’m sorry,” she said, her hand on my face. “I’m sorry.”
When I opened my eyes, I felt tears fall, and I hoped she couldn’t see them, though I knew better. “Just let me touch you. I want to touch you,” I said.
Everything was still fresh, my wounds and my scars. She carried her own, but I would learn how hard hers were, scarred over and over again, deeper than mine. She was hard, and I was soft in so many ways.
That night it was my hands.
She rolled over, and when her beautiful mouth opened in sighs, I wanted to kiss her teeth and red tongue. I wanted to know everything I did for her was bliss.
I wanted to know that the dark part of me that wanted to tie her up so she couldn’t touch me was quiet.
As I nipped her nipples, bit her rib cage, and sucked at her wet heat, the voice quieted. All I could hear was her; and all I could see was what the moon showed me.
EIGHTEEN
My frame of reference for what a normal household would look like back then was the television shows I’d been watching after school since we moved to Hart Hollow, and Kyrie’s house. So when I walked into Billy’s trailer, I knew their home did not fit the mold.
There was a couch in the living area with a bed pulled out. No coffee table. No end tables. Instead, there was a dresser and some metal structure where identical work shirts were hung.
Kyrie walked in behind me, an unsure look on her face as she reached for my hand. I gave it a squeeze, quickly letting go.
From the kitchen area, Billy grinned at me. “It’s a real house of horrors, isn’t it?”
I walked into the kitchen, Kyrie close behind. “The one on Archer, yeah.”
“No, I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” I recognized it then, though I didn’t quite understand it. Billy’s shame couldn’t get him if he made a joke first, if he owned who he was.
He didn’t have to make excuses for me; what did I know about class and everyday life? Nothing.
But maybe the show was for Kyrie.
Billy motioned to the living room. “My dad made the living room his bedroom so my sisters could each have their own room. He works at the Barrel Mill in Lenore. Night shift.”
It explained the bed, the dresser, and the quilts adhered to the wall with what I would later learn was a staple gun. The staples were embedded haphazardly in the wood-paneled walls.
Billy’s sisters came down the opposite hall. Jessica had a bag of Cheetos in one hand, and Nicole had her arms crossed. I didn’t know her well yet; she’d barely spoken at the Nest, and they didn’t look like twins, not identical. Nicole looked shrunken in herself. Like she wanted to hide from the room.
Jessica walked into the kitchen, offering the snack to Kyrie. She shook her head.
“Okay, Princess,” Jessica said, hopping onto the kitchen counter. “Where do we do this? Not the living room. Dad hates it when you even look at his stuff.”
“Well, he’d be here more to watch his stuff if he wasn’t stuffing that widow behind the Mill after work every day,” Billy said.
“God, Billy, don’t go there. We have guests,” Jessica said.
It would always be like that; Billy would say something disparaging about their trailer, their life, and their father. And Jessica would fight back while Nicole watched on.
I would grow to feel at home in this family’s presence.
“If you would move out and get a real life, dad could have his bedroom back,” Jessica snapped.
Billy walked over to this sister, putting her in a headlock. “And if you two freaks would get a life out of this damn trailer, maybe sharing a room wouldn’t seem so bad, and then dad could have his room back. But you two losers have no friends and spend every waking hour in those rooms watchingAmerica’s Funniest Home Videos. So spoiled, I say.” He laughed, letting go of Jessica. “I never had a TV when I was in high school.”
“Maybe you should have stolen one like dad did then,” Nicole said.
“I would have gladly taken a stolen TV, Nicole,” Billy replied. “But I was too busy watching your bratty asses when I was in high school, so when would I have had the time to lounge around and watchRen and Stimpyor readSweet Valley High?”
