48. Make Love to Me

“Yo! What’s up, ugly? How have you been?”
Ethan’s voice rings through the speaker and a drop falls down my lashes, followed by an onslaught of salty tears down my cheeks.
The sound of my brother’s voice only intensifies the ache in my chest and my throat chokes up with tears. “I-I..” A lump forms in my throat and I couldn’t even frame a sentence as my heart continues to bleed out.
“Hey, hey! Are you alright, Emara? What happened?” Ethan’s concerned voice manages to offer a silver lining to my dark clouds. It stirs the depth of my sorrow, causing fresh tears to spill uncontrollably from my eyes.
“I-I... missed yo-ou all.” I stutter out. My voice barely recognisable as I whisper in a heartbroken voice.
“Is that why you are crying? Or something happened?” He asks me worriedly.
His question pierces through my chest like sharp needles as the brutal memories of the past five days flashes in front of me, reopening the wounds I tried to bury.
I cannot believe that I am the same girl who once possessed a courageous spirit, ready to conquer mountains and used to stare down at lions without any fear.
Because right now, I find that brave girl has been reduced to pitiful tears, and hiding in a blanket to cover herself from the cruel world.
There is an unbelievable stark contrast between the heroic girl I was and a stripped down whore I am now.
He was right, *I am pathetic.*
“Do you want me to come pick you up?” Ethan’s voice resonates in my ear with genuine concern. His words hang in the air, waiting for my reply, but all I could offer to reply are my tearful sobs.
“I can come get you if you want to go home, Emara. Just send me your live location and I’ll be there before midnight.” He tells me with an unwavering sternness and I know he is 100% serious.
His one-minute big brother voice tugs my heart, but a tiny voice in me reminds me of my nakedness and I gasp out loud. “No!”
I can’t let Ethan witness me stripped off and in a vulnerable state, where I hardly recognise myself. Besides, I am currently at Dakota’s home, not his office, all alone, naked and living with a man in a questionable way.
I could never explain to my brother, if he ever saw me this way. I feel my heart choking at the thought of all the pain and humiliation I went through, the way he broke me down and used me over again and again.. *I can’t.*
I can’t run away. After enduring five days of pure hell, I cannot quit now.
*I can’t let all my tears go to waste.*
“I-I’ll be fine.” I wipe another tear, trying to steady my breath as I whisper softly.
“Are you sure? You have been crying non-stop, and you don’t sound well. Is everything okay there?” The octaves in voice grow thin, as if sensing something wrong here.
“Yes. It’s jus-st.. I miss you an-nd home. So much-h.” My voice gets interrupted by hiccups as I try to form a sentence to assure him and myself.
Just two more days, then I will be back to my safe haven.
“Yeah, it’s quite a shift! You have never been away and suddenly you are miles away all by yourself. But you are intelligent, and strong, even stronger than me, so I know you will deal with it.” His positive voice is filled with unwavering reassurance, that surprises me.
“I am in-telligent?” I ask, blinking in confusion. *Really?*
“Absolutely!” He replies instantly without hesitation. “You have always been the one to figure things out, and find weird solutions when no one else could. So don’t doubt yourself now.”
Unknowingly, his words comfort me, but a rational part of me resists, calling me unworthy to consider his praises.
“You are just saying, right?” I question him in uncertainty.
Ethan sighs. “Remember, in our Geography class you surprised everyone by making a funky song consisting of all 195 countries, just so you could remember them?” He reminds me of an embarrassing memory from our childhood that doesn’t even make any sense.
“What it has to do with intelligence?” I ask him depressingly.
“Geniuses are creative people, and they inherit intelligence naturally. As creativity is an ability to create something unique, innovative and for that, a certain level of intelligence is required to think out of the box. That’s why it is rare.”
“So, I am creative?” My hazy mind question him like a curious child.
“Yeah! And creativity is often associated with exceptional intelligence, which cannot occur without an ability to solve-problems, filter information, brainstorming, and a sharp memory to amalgamate all the data. It takes a highly imaginative mind to produce an original content, like your sense of humour. A normal person can’t pull that off, unless it is genius.”
His conceptual words strike a chord deep within me, and I could feel a little sunlight cracking through the dense clouds hovering over my mind.
“So I am creative and intelligent, not just a whore?” I question my own sanity, feeling a spark of confidence flickering inside the darkness that surrounds me.
“Huh? What did you say?” Ethan asks me, a bit confusedly.
“Huh? What did you hear?” I ask him in return, a bit shadily.
“I asked, what did you say?” He repeats, the sound of him munching on chips gets audible in the background.
At this moment, I couldn’t think of anything other than my overwhelmed feelings for my brother. “Ethan.. I love you.” I whisper the three magical words as they spill from the depths of my heart.
“Ewww.” Ethan yecchs cringingly at my confession and a chuckle pulls out of me at his over dramatic performance.
In a second, we both burst out in a cheerful laugh, and in that moment, a sense of relief washes over my stiff body. The feeling of tightness in my chest slowly fades away, like a massive rock has been uplifted up and I can finally breathe freely.
My tears slowly dry up and I feel a light taking over the darkness that had engulfed me in its tentacles. I let the smile stay on my lips, feeling its delightful presence after a long hellish day.