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The tears fall down my cheeks before I even realise that I am crying again. “Yes. I do.”
Rhys slips the ring on my ring finger and then it’s my turn.
“I’d rather die than let anything happen to you. You’re my every breath, Rhys. Without you, there’s no meaning to life. Do you accept me?”
“I do.”
His eyes are warm and fierce, but I don’t look away from them even as I slide the ring on his ring finger.
“I love you,” Rhys says the words first and even though we’ve said it to each other in the past this seems to have new meaning now. A powerful, deeper meaning that strengthens our bond even more.
“I love you, Rhys.”
He moves to get off the bed and I grab his arm, but Rhys turns around and brushes his index finger across my nose.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here, Pi.”
Swallowing hard, I let go of his arm and watch as he wanders over to my bathroom.
I hear the sound of water and wait patiently. Rhys comes back into the room and in his hands is a small white washcloth.
He climbs back onto the bed and places his palm against my bare thigh. “Relax,” he whispers.
I’m not what he’s about to do and he doesn’t say anything as he gently spreads my legs apart. Rhys settles himself a few inches away and takes the washcloth and presses it very gently against my right inner thigh. He must have dampened the cloth under hot water because it feels so good and warm as he starts to clean me up.
He watches me from time to time, glancing up now and then to stare directly into my eyes as he moves the tip of the cloth in between my pussy. It’s the first most intimate act between us that is not sexual that I have ever received in all of my nineteen years.
I’ve never known true intimacy and love other than when I was with my brother. My mother never cared for me and neither did my father. One preferred me dead or forgotten perhaps and the other just needed to use me as an outlet for all their disturbing sexual fantasies. With Rhys on the other hand, everything is gentle in contrast to how he was behaving a few days ago and I don’t blame him for judging me. But now that he knows the truth, I can’t help feeling an intense warmth in my chest every time he touches me. I might have assumed a few days ago that the bond we once shared was severed forever, but now I know for certain that it’s still there. It always was. When he’s done, he heads back into the bathroom to leave the washcloth and steps out seconds later before climbing back into my bed.
Neither of us says another word. Rhys wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his warm body and I feel safer than I’ve felt in years. Sleep comes easily to me tonight now that I feel some of the weight on my shoulders has faded away.
19
RHYS: CHAPTER XIX
Then
When I open my eyes the first thing I register is that I am in a terrible place. And it is terrible. It’s a place I never thought I’d ever see again but here I am laying on the settee staring at the static of the small box television set.
Water drips somewhere in the dark hallway. Drip. Drip. Drip. I won’t be shocked if there’s another leak in the roof. My stomach growls as I stare up at the dirty low ceiling. Patches of black rot make some places in the ceiling heavier than others. I’m starving to the point where I don’t have a lot of energy to move around much. The first month that we spent in Hemlock Hollows was good. I thought it would be manageable, but four years later my mother and I are living day to day with hardly anything to eat. The only piece of humanity I can cling to now is my place in Hemlock High. It’s the one thing our parents did right before fucking up our lives even more.
I get up from the settee and throw my hockey stick on the floor. I won’t be playing on the ice much if I can’t get anything to eat. I’m always hungry and the cold doesn’t ease our suffering. It’s no use turning to my mother for help. I’m not even sure if she knows who I am these days. I suppose that’s what a daily dose of heroin will do to your brain anyway.
This shithole of a house that we live in has one bedroom and one bathroom. It was the only thing that the bastard was willing to help us out with at the time. He just wanted us gone. Pi’s father. That fucking cunt.
Mother has the room and I have two choices. Some days it’s the hard, cold floor and some days it’s the old tattered settee. And sometimes, I just can’t fucking sleep at all.
I step into the bedroom and I have to ignore the harsh, dirty stench that hits my nostrils almost immediately. I’m used to it now.
My mother is huddled in the corner of the room like an insolent child. She looks dirty and worn out as usual with just a filthy slip dress on. She hasn’t been at home for days and when she doesn’t come home, she’s in the slums with her group of heroin addict mates. She has a long cord of black plastic tied so tightly around her right arm that I can see the colour slowly start to leave her body.
Rushing over to her, I grab a pair of small scissors from inside her bedside drawer. My mother reaches up with her other arm and attempts to push me away, but I’m much stronger than her, so I hold her down with my left hand on her shoulder, keeping her at arm’s length before I move the scissors up her arm and the piece of plastic slips in between the blades.
I cut it open and immediately drop the scissors to the floor before grabbing my mother’s face and prying her eyelids open with my thumbs.
“Mum!” I slap her cheek a few times in an attempt to make her wake up.
“Rhys.” Her eyes snap open and then close a little until they’re half-mast. Her gaunt, greyish-pale face lights up with a weak smile as she stretches out her arm and tries to caress my cheek.
