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“We were in a restaurant. He was so calm and understanding, and I figured that was the safest place to break things off. You know, because we were in public surrounded by people. Martin said he understood, and offered to give me a ride home.” I suck in a slow, deep breath. “I should have waited until he left. Called a taxi. Something other than take him up on his offer and trust him.”
Demyen remains calm, but it’s that same dangerous calm as before. “What did he do?”
I’ve spent the last six, seven years or so trying to forget it ever happened. Trying to convince myself it was all just a bad dream. “He drove toward my house, then turned off down some alley. Kept driving and wouldn’t tell me where we were going or what he was doing. And when he finally parked, it was in some abandoned area he knew about where no one would be at that time of night. He dragged me out of the car… and that was the first time he ever hit me like that. So hard I fell into the hood ofthe car. I was just so surprised. Even then, I didn’t think he had that in him. That kind of evil, you know?”
If it weren’t for Demyen’s sunkissed body beneath me, I swear I could feel that cold metal bumping into me over and over again. The sting of his hand on my cheek.
“Then he yanked my hair again, told me it was time to ‘grow the fuck up’ and learn my place once and for all. He shoved me back in his car, drove me to his house, and dragged me inside. He just kept saying this was my home now, and I was his woman.”
Demyen is completely silent. Completely still. I’m almost afraid to look up at his face; I can feel the tension in his body. His fists curl at his sides, but he doesn’t try to touch me. I actually appreciate that. I don’t know how I’d respond to anyone’s touch right now.
I let one tear fall, but no more than that. “Mom died a week later. Dad said she was in a horrible accident. I didn’t get to see her face because it was a closed casket. Martin paid his respects and allowed me a few days to grieve. But by the following week, he had all my things moved out of Dad’s house and into his. It was like I just woke up one day and it was official. I belonged to him, period.”
Demyen remains silent once again. So I keep talking. Keep reliving the worst days of my life.
“From that point on, I was Martin’s live-in servant. We didn’t go out anymore because he didn’t like the way men looked at me. He stopped working out because why did he need to? He already had me. During the day, I cleaned his house, did his laundry, cooked his food. And at night…”
Stars begin to appear overhead. Out here, far away from the city lights, they scatter across the sky like a blanket of glitter. I don’t want to leave here, ever.
“I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later. And then, what choice did I have? I couldn’t leave for college with a baby in my belly. I couldn’t even leave the house without Martin breathing down my neck and supervising my every move. I was trapped, in every way that mattered.”
Demyen cracks his knuckles as he lays there with me, staring up at the heavens as well. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“Dem—”
“I’m serious, Clara. I am going to fucking kill him. Slowly.”
“He’s a cop.”
“Never stopped me before.”
I am going to completely gloss pastthatstatement and pretend I didn’t hear it. I’m also not going to run through the unsolved deaths of Dad’s colleagues he’s mentioned and wonder…
Nope, I’m not gonna go there, either.
“After Willow was born, she became his bargaining chip with me. I couldn’t take her and run because what kind of mother takes a child from her father? Or he’d remind me that I had no money, no job, no resources, no way of taking care of her on my own. I was poor and pathetic, and lucky I had him to take care of us. But when I fought back—like,reallyfought back and tried to leave—he would…”
I stop. I don’t think I should finish that story. Demyen’s worked up as it is.
He sits up a bit, just enough to get a good look at me. “What did he do?”
I shake my head. “Just forget it?—”
“Clara.” He tips my chin up to look me in the eyes. He’s pissed, but not at me. He’s pissedforme. “What. Did. He. Do.”
After all this baring myself and my past to him, it’s this that makes me break. The way he’s ready to go to war for me over something he can’t change. Tears spill down my cheeks as the memory comes back all too fresh.
“He picked our baby up from her crib—she was so young and so small and frail—and he reminded me that I could run, but Willow couldn’t. She was vulnerable. And no matter what, he’d never let me take her from him.”
Now, Demyen sits up all the way. It’s almost as if he was ready to go murder Martin right now and suddenly remembered the distance between us and him. The vein in his jaw ticks as he studies my face. His own is a mask of fury. He’s so pissed, he can’t even speak.
I press a soft hand to his chest. “Maybe I deserved it, Dem. After everything I did, maybe it was karma coming for me. Punishing me for being so stupid, so naive, so easily manipulated into destroying the lives around me. Maybe?—”
He suddenly cups my face in his hands. One thumb presses to my lips as the other brushes my tears away. “Clara, I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen to it very closely: shut the fuck up.”
The words are so gentle, I’m almost confused.
“Look at me. Look at me and listen to me.” When I meet his gaze, he moves one hand from my face to stroke my hair back. “You were young. You were so fucking young, and the people who were supposed to love you and protect you fucked shit up for you. Your father used your trust and obedience to make you do terrible things because he knew you would do anything to make your daddy happy. He conditioned you for the abuse, Clara. He trained you to learn that pain is love. And I promise you, he knew exactly what Martin was doing because he probably did it to your mother.”
