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I just wanted to run.
Rubbing at the wounds on my wrists, I swung my legs over the bed, smoothed down my dress—my hated, awful dress. A dress that no longer looked like a pretty sunset but like evil suffocating light. I wanted it off me. I wanted his sweat off me. I wanted his kisses and touch and defilement off me.
My nostrils flared as he ruffled my tangle-thrashed hair.
“Obviously, we don’t need to have the chat not to tell anyone, huh? I mean...we had a good time. I let you go. You’re free.”
Marching to the door, he zipped up his jeans and rethreaded his belt through the loops. “See ya ’round, baby girl.”
My hands trembled as I pulled on the accelerator, slowing our cruise.
Stars twinkled a little brighter as silhouettes of palm trees and the golden glitter of sand welcomed me home.
Low Isles.
A place where I’d dreamed of as a child, wishing it could become my home. I had visions of sleeping on the beach, living off coconuts, and swimming with Sapphire and her pod every day.
I begrudged having a bed. Having a table and food and family.
A part of me felt so solitary when I was young. As if I was being called back to somewhere I used to belong but no longer did. Of course, it was nothing more than a wild imagination. I’d always lived in stories when I was young. Always fantasised about living underwater and having a pet turtle. Of running away and being stranded on an atoll where I turned into a fish and never breathed air again.
I needed those wishes to be real tonight.
I needed a fantasy because I could no longer survive in reality.
Aslan twisted to look at me as I slowed The Fluke even more. I followed the picture of the reef, bouncing from echolocation waves into tangible pictures, steering the boat carefully through the channels in the reef.
When I’d sailed as shallow as The Fluke could go, I cut the engine, dropped the anchor, and...cried.
I pressed my forehead against the helm and let go of the filthy mess inside me. All those neat little boxes that my mind had compartmentalized threatened to tumble and spill. The implosion would be impossible to clean up...so I fortified their stacks. I let my light glow from one and allowed my newly formed shadows to churn in another.
One day, I could unpack and be free.
But not tonight.
Raising my head, I swiped at my tears and turned to face the love of my life as Aslan padded into the captain’s cabin and gathered me in his strong arms.
I didn’t break down again.
I didn’t cling.
I merely soaked up the comforting energy and tingling hum of home.
Had Ethan survived the fall into the sea?
Was he swimming, even now, to shore?
Or was he already dead? Floating to the bottom of the ocean where crabs would crawl, starfish would smother, and sharks would tear into his skin.
I waited for guilt.
I paused for the awful feeling of wrong.
But...nothing.
Ethan had made a choice to rape me.
I’d made the choice to tell Aslan.
