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“Jesus.”
“I wanted to stop playing the piano, and he basically told me I wasn’t stopping. It’s why I haven’t played since he died. It’s why playing here has meant so much.”
I drop into the seat behind me and rake my hand through my hair. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Kneeling between my legs, she puts her hands on my knees and looks up at me. Fuck. She’s so hopeful. So vulnerable.
“Now you tell me why you won’t marry.” I watch her little face and brush hair back from her forehead. How could he have done it? But isn’t that what my grandfather did to my mother? She wasn’t ten, though. Still. What he was capable of. What I know I’m capable of. Violence runs in our family. “That’s how trust works, Judge. It’s how it grows.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She won’t understand the meaning of these words and how deeply I mean them.
Mistrust hardens her eyes. Wipes away any trace of the vulnerable girl.
I get up, grab the pajama set she must have taken off and left on the foot of the bed, and drop it on the chair I just vacated.
“Get dressed and go to your room, Mercedes.”
“What?”
I can’t look at her. Jesus. I won’t be able to do this if I have to see her.
“Judge.” She’s behind me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “No one has ever seen me the way you do. And I trusted you. Trust you. Shit. I don’t know what tense that should be. Just please don’t make that be a mistake. Don’t make telling you a mistake.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I turn to face her, taking my shirt from the back of the chair and draping it over her shoulders since she won’t put on her pajamas.
“Do you want to know why I’m so late, Mercedes?” My voice sounds foreign to me. The lie so clear. The wound I’m about to deal so final. So vile.
She shakes her head, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her as sad as I do at this moment.
I draw in a deep breath. “I was at the Cat House. It’s where I’ve been practically every night since you got here.”
For a moment, she looks like I’ve slapped her. “That’s not true.” She backs away a step. “You told me it wasn’t true.” Her voice sounds different too. Broken.
“I lied to you. You’re very sweet. And lovely. And so very inexperienced.” I go to her, touching her cheek.
She slaps my hand away. “I don’t believe you!”
“It’s true.”
“I don’t fucking believe you, you asshole!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want you.”
Hurt turns to something else. Something dark. Her lips curl in disgust, and the way she looks at me then is with pure hatred. She pushes my shirt off her shoulders as if she can’t stand having it touch her, having any part of me touch her, and stalks toward me. She raises her arm and slaps me so hard my head snaps to the right. My cheek stings, and the sound of it is still reverberating in my head when I slowly turn back to her. The vulnerable girl is gone, and a broken thing in her place.
“I hate you. I hate you so much. And I will make you pay for humiliating me. Mark my fucking words. I. Will. Make. You. Pay.”
With that, she spins on her heel and leaves my room, exactly like I wanted. Exactly.
34
Mercedes
People like to say time heals all wounds, but it's a lie. Wounds don't heal. They fester inside you, turning everything rotten. I should know. Because I must be pretty fucking rotten to deserve the never-ending parade of betrayal that colors the landscape of my life.
It's been two weeks since Judge uttered his confession so callously and opened my eyes to the truth. I was foolish before. Naïve enough to believe we could have something. Stupid enough to believe I actually meant something to him. I clung to that desperate want in a hopeless situation. But I'm not the same woman now that I was then.
