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“I’m already there!” he fired back.
I couldn’t do anything else but be a prisoner in his gaze that looks like a black hole. Our breaths were fast and mixing with each other’s. We were so much closer than we should have been, and my mouth went dry with the warmth radiating from his body. He now had a better cologne, probably more expensive but I could still smell the man I knew. I could see the scar he had under his ear. The scar he got to protect me from hurting when I tried to ride a bike. I would have fallen and hit my head on the pavement if he didn’t throw himself under me. I didn’t realize I was reaching for his scar until he tensed beneath my touch. Our lips were just a breath away, and I couldn’t think of anything else but to feel his lips over mine again, just one more time.
He cursed under his breath and stood up quickly, causing my hand to fall to the bed like a lifeless branch. And the only thing I saw in his face was disgust before he left the room in a hurry, slamming the door behind him.
“Well done, Maya. You scared him away again.”
CHAPTER 16
MAYA
It’d been five days since he brought me to this castle where he lived. We were like two inmates in the luxury of this loft. We always had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. Zeke tried to make conversation as we ate our meals, but we’d become stranger to each other, there was nothing we could talk about. Except for the sketchbook and pencils, he bought for me as a gift, it was hard to prove that once upon a time we were the closest people to each other.
As soon as we were done eating, I always went back to my room of nothingness. I thought I would’ve gone mad in this place when I first saw it, but strangely the room calmed me, made it easy for me to push back every emotion that tried to reach the surface. In this room, I only drew and drew. I let my sketches tell everything I’d felt but couldn’t express. This place became my hiding spot, but I could feel his eyes on me all the time, that hard gaze of his never left me day or night. At night, when he was in his own room, I could feel him stare at me through the wall. It was unnerving, I wished for him to go to work. But he didn’t go to work, though I still didn’t know what he did for a living. He must’ve been earning a lot since he could afford a life like this. Now, he had everything, but we weren’t the way we used to be. I would’ve given everything to be back to the way we once were, even though it meant we would turn back to have nothing.
We were the happiest then. At least, I was.
I didn’t know when I fell in love with him, but I knew I’d been loving him since I knew the meaning of love. I was irrevocably, without a doubt, head over heels in love with him. And my 15th birthday was the turning point. He was my first date. Though I knew he didn’t mean it like a date, but in my pathetic heart, it was.
I was grinning like an idiot when we reached the restaurant. We’d been walking for an hour. Zeke offered to take the bus, but I didn’t want him to waste more money than he was already going to. I saw the glances people sent our way. I knew we looked like a couple, and I wished we were. While walking hand in hand with Zeke, I let myself enjoy the fantasy. My feet ached as we stepped into the restaurant, but I was at my happiest as Zeke held my chair like I was a princess.
We ordered our meals, something we could afford - two tuna sandwiches and two sodas. Waiters looked at us silly because of our orders, but I didn’t care at all. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
The next destination was a cinema in Zeke’s plan for my birthday celebration, and as we sat in the dark room side by side. I felt the buzzing tension and strange vibration in my skin. The air was charged with something I couldn’t quite name. I kept stealing glances at Zeke instead of watching the movie. We shared a small package of popcorn and this night was more than anything I would dare to dream.
Around the middle of the movie, the tension between Zeke and I got palpable. My arm touched his muscular one that was covered with goosebumps. I heard Zeke mutter a curse under his breath before placing his arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer to his body. My breath hitched with the contact, but as soon as I was enveloped in his warmth, I sighed contently. In his arms, with his steady heartbeat in my ears, this was my happy place.
I bit my cheek with the emotional pain I felt. It was silly how good memories hurt us the worst. The loss of something we once had was now haunting me, making me long to feel the same kind of happiness even though there was no chance of going back to who we once were.
I ruined us. I ruined the magical thing we shared. I ruined us by falling in love with him.
As the emotions I tried to suppress stormed inside me, I dug my nails on my leg, replacing the pain in my heart with the pain on my skin. While my leg throbbed in agony, my mind stopped showing me the things that hurt my heart. So, I dug harder.
And harder.
Until the only thing I felt became the angry throb on my leg.
CHAPTER 17
ZEKE
My hand hovered over the doorknob of her room while her heart-shattering cries kept coming from the other side. I knew these voices so well. She’d finally fallen asleep, but like every time she slept alone, she was having nightmares. I think this was what happened when you’d grown up with a drunk father and druggie mother who loved to overdose every chance she got.
I turned my hand into a fist and slid down to the floor, resting my back against her door. I wanted to go inside, take her in my arms like I used to, and hold her close until she found peace, at least in her sleep, but I knew this wasn’t a good idea.
“No. Please, no!”
I was on my feet the moment I heard her scream. I cursed when I entered her room. I was trying to put some distance between us since my mind was playing tricks on me with inappropriate thoughts featuring her, but I would’ve never left her alone as she suffered.
“Shh, I’ve got you, Maya. I’m here,” I whispered until she opened her eyes. Her gaze was full of panic until it focused on me.
“Zeke,” she breathed out. The way she said my name was like a prayer. It was like the sweetest praise.
I pushed away the thoughts how I could make her whisper, moan, and scream my name over and over again. My stomach rolled with the self-disgust I felt for the thoughts that ran through my sick mind.
She’s fucking fifteen. She’s fucking fifteen.
And she’s your niece, you psycho bastard.
