AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t you remember?” The air thickened. “Barbie, Barbie in your castle, tall. You’re the princess, the belle of the ball.”
“With Fin by your side, you’ll both have it all,” we said in sync, the words leaving a sweet, yet bitter taste on my tongue.
He knew who I was.
I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. “How did you?—"
“Because you’re tethered to my dying soul. An everlasting bond.”
The air around me felt heavy and suffocating, like a foggy day in an asylum. I slipped my bottom lip between my teeth and let it slowly slip out. Words piled on the edge of my tongue, but I swallowed them back down when he inhaled.
“And I like the way Barbie rolls off my tongue. So easy, so innocent.”
I thought about his tongue then, imagining how it might feel against my skin, between my legs. I whiffed the thoughts out of my mind and cleared my throat.
“I missed you.”
“Me too,” he said, hesitantly.
“Well, it’s nice to see you again, even if there is a door between us.”
I hoped that would make him laugh again, but he remained quiet.
“As it will be for the next two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” I gasped.
“That’s the sentence for slicing a man’s throat.”
“He wasn’t a man. He was more of a monster.”
“If he was a monster, then what am I?”
I didn’t have to think about my answer. I knew who he was. “My savior,” I said.
There was a long pause. I tried to imagine his expression from behind the door. Would he be upset that I thought of him this way? Would he be shocked? As the silence stretched, I felt my throat swell from worry.
“Again, thinking that I did that for you?” He exhaled.
“No matter your reasons, you still saved me, so to me, you’re my savior.”
He fell silent once more, forcing me to scramble for a new subject to discuss.
“Why are you here?” My words dripped with curiosity.
“In this room?” he asked dryly.
“No, Murdoch Home. Why are you staying here?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t blame him. Fin was always stronger than me. Even when our mother killed herself in front of us both, he shielded me from the image right away, pulling me into his grasp, his warmth like a soft blanket, protecting me from the horror engulfing us. He let her body rot in the kitchen for a week, but someone from the church came by unexpectedly and they took my safety blanket from me. My Fin.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me.” I exhaled. “My foster parents brought here me for masturbating. They have a strict Christian household and touching yourself is deemed wrong?—”
“Just like Mommy, I see. A dirty slut,” he said, his sudden outburst startling me.
I bit the inside of my cheek, remembering the memories of our mother with her bedroom door wide open as she let a man who wasn’t our father do unholy things to her. I brought my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms under my legs as the clock on the wall continued to tick.
“They told me that until I was cured, I wasn’t allowed back home, ashamed of their daughter for succumbing to the devil.”
