AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before Ethan, she’d squeal and fight back. Happily entering into a splashing war and clambering all over her father’s slippery shoulders.
After Ethan, she forced a laugh and swam away. Her splashes were half-hearted and she blamed the stress of exams on her lack of willingness to play.
Jack had caught my eyes as he clambered sadly out of the pool. The pain etching his familiar face had almost had me blurting out what’d happened. If I couldn’t help Neri, perhaps he could. I wanted to tell him that his little girl had been abused, and I’d done all I could to make it right. I’d fucking shot the bastard. I’d hit him until he’d cried. I’d cut off his fingers and thrown him overboard.
But I couldn’t tell.
It wasn’t my secret to spill.
So I kept watching as Neri slowly became afraid of loud noises and innocent touches. I kept silent as she learned to school her reaction so she didn’t twitch as badly, smothering her pain ever deeper. Any deeper and it would slice through the very same heart I was trying to protect. It would make her bleed far worse than she already did. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait. How much more I could take before I dragged her to a fucking therapist and forced her to talk to someone.
Before it was too late.
I bit my tongue for as long as I could. I used that tongue to kiss her, terrified that she kept demanding me to be rougher, crueller, wilder, all because she was seeking an outlet, an escapism. The days I let her goad me into being ruthlessly hard, I’d choke on shame for leaving bruises on her gorgeous skin, always where her parents wouldn’t see.
She’d drive me to breaking point, not leaving me alone until I sucked her nipples so deeply her breasts bloomed red beneath my mouth. Teeth marks would mar her delicate flesh, and I’d die a little inside for causing them.
The nights I marked her were the nights she actually looked relaxed and free from the memories haunting her.
And I fucking hated it.
I hated it because I knew what she was doing.
I’d done the same thing for years.
Her inner pain was manifesting outwardly.
My pain had been losing my family. I’d eased that pain by throwing myself at the servitude of the Taylors, forcing myself to fall for another family, all while abandoning my own.
But Neri hadn’t lost loved ones, she’d lost herself.
She’d lost the girl she’d been before.
And she used pain to find her.
Pain to make herself come alive again. Pain to fortify the suppressed memories from ever breaking free and swarming her.
I didn’t want her to let Ethan win by refusing to let herself heal.
But what could I do?
She started getting angry with me when I pushed. She shut down when I got tetchy. Tension sprang between us that wasn’t there before, and I backed down. I bid my time. I obeyed my girl, and did my best to bite my tongue.
But that all stopped the day she flinched from me.
A week before Christmas, she flinched.
Fucking flinched.
She tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. She reached to kiss me in the kitchen, safe to touch me without fear of being caught because her parents were down the street visiting the neighbours.
I’d caught her doing the dishes.
I’d planted my hands on her hips to act out her fantasy of being fucked against the sink. I’d already unzipped. Ready to slip inside her while her hands clutched at bubbles and glasses.
But she jumped a mile when I touched her.
She spun in my arms with wide, worried eyes.
