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Starry started dancing around again, likely sensing either the tension in the room or Elic’s pain.
“What about Starry?” Elic asked. “I’m not going to be able to walk or clean her. I need to be able to use my foot.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled my phone out, sending a quick text to Mom. I asked if she could get Starry to have someone bathe her and introduce her to the other dogs. My phone vibrated with a quick reply. I glanced at it and said, “Mom’s coming to get her.”
“I don’t know if she’ll go with her. She’s been with me for a while.”
“We can wait until she gets here, so you’ll know Starry’s good.”
Elic nodded and kept his hand in mine.
My mom showed up a few minutes later with one of the farm pickups. Starry’s butt waggled with excitement when she saw her.
“I think she’s going to be just fine.”
5
ELIC
My foot hurt. I wasn’t going to lie. After Nora had cleaned and stitched it, she gave me a shot of something and a prescription for a strong antibiotic. Casper left to fill the medication before I could object. She had gone over to the farm to visit with the rest of the family when she was done.
“I’ll pay him back,” I told Reed. His hand was in mine, this comfort I couldn’t seem to let go of, as we sat on the couch. It also didn’t hurt he was ridiculously attractive. He and Casper were complete opposites in looks and personalities, but I found I was drawn to both.
I shouldn’t be. There was nothing I offered that either of them could want. I had no home, no car, and four dollars to my name. Without insurance, my prescription was going to cost much more than that.
“You don’t have to,” Reed said with a smile. He did that a lot—smiled. Except when he looked at Casper. He would waffle between uncertainty and sadness. I wasn’t sure he realized he did it. “Casper can afford it. He hardly buys anything for himself. He has his place in the city and his SUV. Outside of that…” He shrugged.
Reed’s phone lit up on the coffee table where he’d placed it. He picked it up, then turned it toward me. A photo of Starry was on the screen. She was in a raised tiled tub. Her fur stuck up every which way, and soap covered her body. She was anything but miserable. Her tongue hung out the side of her mouth and it appeared like she was smiling.
“She’s okay,” Reed said. “Happy by the look of it. Mom said she’s getting along with the others.”
“She didn’t have to do that for me.”
“You’ve met her. She’ll probably be here daily, checking on you until your foot feels good enough to walk on. You’re lucky the cut was on the side and not the bottom.” If it had been on the bottom, I probably wouldn’t have been able to walk. As it was, I limped because of the throbbing pain.
“I’m glad you found me when you did.” Nora said if I would have waited longer, the infection would have gotten much worse. I shifted in my seat to get more comfortable. They propped my foot on the coffee table with a pillow under my heel.
“Me too, Elic.” He grabbed the remote for the TV that was entirely too big and reminded me of a movie theater screen. I was exaggerating, but it was huge. “Is there anything you’d like to watch?”
I chuckled, unable to help it.
Reed gave me a confused look.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “It’s just… I haven’t watched TV in years.”
“I’m here if you want to talk.” Reed literally took me—a complete stranger—into his home. He knew nothing about me outside of the fact I lived on the streets, my foot was injured, and I had a dog. There was this deep part of me that knew I could trust him. The last time I’d felt that was with my mom.
“My name is Elic Thatcher. I’m twenty-two and I’ve been on the streets since I was sixteen. My dad died when I was two, and my mom died in a car accident when I was fifteen, leaving me with my stepfather, who until that point had been civil to me. I knew he didn’t like me, but he tried for her sake. With her gone, he gave into… into his cravings.”
Those were the words he’d said to me when he snuck into my room the night of her funeral. When he pulled my blankets back and told me it was my fault for making him want me like he did.
I couldn’t understand where this need came from to spill my secrets—my trauma—to Reed. It was like a disease inside me, eating away more and more of my soul every day. I had to get it out, release it from my soul.
“He didn’t just touch me,” I whispered. Tears threatened to spill over as the memory of that night assaulted me. I’d cried so much over the years. It did nothing to help. I didn’t feel better for shedding those tears. “He bruised me. Held my head down with my face in the pillow. He always had a switchblade on him, like carrying it around made him more of a man or something. He used to cut me with it.” I could still feel it, the burning trail the knife left as it sliced into the fleshy skin of my ass. He’d smear the blood around and forced himself inside me while telling me I asked for it. That I made him cut me, made him give in to his cravings. The scent of stale cigarettes and cheap vodka always hung on him, something I still smelled in my nightmares.
Reed squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to tell me.”
I shook my head, needing to purge this. Needing Reed to know why I was the way I was. If he was going to have me in his house, he should understand I might have nightmares and why. They didn’t happen often anymore, but there were still nights when I woke shaking with tears running down my face and drenched in sweat.
