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“You can’t,” I say softly, nestling my cheeks in our joint hands. I smile at him through my tears. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
Pocus looks away from me. “You shouldn’t be here alone with me. Go away.”
He sounded small…ashamed.
I stand up from the bedside chair and lay beside him on the narrow clinic bed. I wrap an arm around his waist and flash him a satisfied grin. “Now, that’s better.”
Pocus blinks at me in surprise. “Wh…what are you doing?”
I prop my head on one hand and smile down at him. “I’m not going anywhere, Pocus. You asked me to trust you, right? I do…not only with my body but my heart, too.”
I hope he understands the meaning behind my words. This is me offering my heart up to him on a silver platter… Or maybe I had already given it to him, from the very moment I stopped fighting him.
Pocus shakes his head. “You don’t understand, chérie. I’m damaged,” he says those words like he’s believed them for the longest time. He looks so tortured that I want to reach into his soul and somehow soothe his pain. “I’m a monster that nobody wants, even my Mama.”
I shake my head at him. “That’s not true, Pocus.”
He scoffs and sighs raggedly. “Of course, it is. She tried to strangle me to death in one of her fits of rage.”
I feel my stomach wrench with anger and disgust toward the woman who would do such a thing to her own child. I trail a finger over the jagged, angry-looking scar around his neck. “Did she do this?”
I wondered why he always had a bandana around his neck. This was it…his own mother had done such horrible things to him.
Pocus scoffs. “It’s a badge, of sorts. An everlasting reminder of what I am.”
“How could a mother do this to her child?” I ask quietly. “It’s so wrong.”
“Oh, she did so much more,” Pocus says tonelessly. “You know, after my Papa died, Mama was quick to change from the sweet loving mother we knew. She blamed Evanesce and me for our father’s death. She said we killed him with our demonic gifts. And then she started to monetize those very gifts. She’d dress me up like a shaman and make me lie to people about their future. She made Evanesce steal things because people didn’t notice her, and then volunteer to help find their things. She’d bring me out and make me lie against others. It didn’t matter if innocent people were burned at the stake because of her as long as she got paid. She brought strange men into our home and bought drugs with the money she made off of us. She was shot to death on our doorstep one morning by a dealer whose shit she stole.
“I stood right there, gaping through the hole in her skull. Do you know the worst part? A part of me felt relieved. I thought the torture had finally ended. But our Aunt Celia hated my guts just the same. She put up with us because she desperately needed the benefits that came with having us under her roof. Then one day I saw a vision that her only child, Henry, would die in a home accident, and I made the mistake of telling her. Aunt Celia never forgave me for that. She cursed me and dumped us at an orphanage. You’d think it would get better in an orphanage, but it didn’t matter where I went…I was always the person no one wanted.”
“What you are is a kind, wonderful man who fiercely protects the ones he loves,” I argue. I hate the shame that lurks in those beautiful green eyes; it doesn’t belong there.
“You don’t know me, mon coeur,” Pocus says quietly. “You don’t know the things I’ve done. You know, I’ve always been labeled as evil, a pariah. My own mother said she saw the evil in me the moment I was born. And so, at some point, I decided to prove them right.”
I take his hand in mine and smile reassuringly into his eyes. “You can’t judge yourself based on what people say or think about you. Besides, we have all done things we aren’t proud of. That doesn’t make us bad…just human.”
Pocus snickers humorlessly. “I’m far from human, cherie. My first kill was at fifteen. A boy at the orphanage where my aunt abandoned Nesce and me. He was just twelve. He attacked Nesce, and like earlier, I lost control of my anger. He never made it to the hospital. I took Nesce and ran away from the orphanage. But no matter how hard I run, my past always seems to catch up with me. His ghost lingered around me for a very long time. I could almost feel his thirst for revenge on my tongue. And that’s just one of the many ghosts that haunt my dreams. I thought I left it all behind me...the anger. The fear.” He lowers his head and takes in a long shaky breath. When he raised his eyes to mine again, his eyes were filled with heart-wrenching sadness. I tighten my hold on him, hoping to reassure him of my presence… my promise.
“I’m … I’m scared, chérie,” Pocus stutters. “I’m terrified of being that person, that bitter and evil boy that nobody wants.”
The emotions in his eyes are so raw that I can almost feel his terror. How can someone be so strong yet so soft? Pocus is a combination of such intriguing contrast that draws me deeper into the complicated web of whatever it is we share.
“It doesn’t matter, Pocus,” I whisper to him, hoping that my feelings reach his heart and stay there. “Because I want you. All of you.”
Pocus chuckles softly, despite the tears sliding down the corners of his eyes. “Nobody has ever said that to me.” He sniffs and chuckles. “It feels so strange hearing it. It feels…good.”
Something about seeing him so vulnerable pulls at my heartstrings. I place my left palm over his heart and wrap my free arm around his waist once more in a warm embrace. “Those people,” I whisper softly, looking deeply into his eyes. “They don’t know how good and special you are, Pocus.”
He leans forward and places a lingering kiss on my forehead. “I don’t deserve you, ma chérie,” he says softly.
“Neither do I,” I reply, pressing further into him. “And maybe that’s exactly why we are perfect for each other.”
“I’m glad I found you, Abigail,” Pocus says. “You see the good in me.”
I chuckle at the irony of his words. “You have so much good it’s hard not to see, Pocus. If I see it, a lot of people do, too. Your men…they see it too.”
His face falls, and shame slips into his eye again. “I hurt a lot of them, Abby. How can I ever make this right?”
