Thirty-Nine

Something moved inside me when I heard the loving tone in his question, without a hint of judgment in it, only a deep concern on his face. It was like the floodgates of a dam broke, and finally, my tears were free to flow away. I couldn’t hold all the pain accumulated in my heart and soul all these years. He got agitated, not knowing the reasons for my meltdown, and for some time I wasn’t able to talk. I needed to cry all my misery. So, he resorted to the only thing he could. He embraced me tight and let me weep in his arms.
“Please, Liz. Tell me what’s going on, don’t leave me here in the dark. I feel your excruciating pain.” We were there in the middle of the bed, holding each other, almost melded together, and I’ve never felt so secure in my life.
“I will,” I said with my face in the crook of his neck. Suddenly, peace invaded me, and I calmed down.
His fingers fondling my hair, attempting to soothe me, worked a miracle. It was like heaven. I sniffled a few times and noticed I bathed him in my tears. He was right, I couldn’t leave him in the dark, I had to tell him everything.
“Cutting my story short, besides dad, I have no relatives left. My father disappeared right after my sister was born, my mother was an addict, and a few months later she died of an overdose.” I didn’t face him, and cowardly hid myself in his warm embrace.
“What do you mean by addicted and overdose?”
“She was a doctor, and she used some heavy medicines to help her sleep, and one day she didn’t wake up. Today we have horrible illegal substances that people take for fun, cope with problems, hide from life, you name it. These craps harm your body, and when people get carried away by them, when it’s too much, they die. And my mom didn’t think about us, she didn’t care, and left us alone to fend for ourselves…” A new flood of my fresh tears drenched his chest. “Oh gosh, I need tissues.”
“It’s frustrating to see you so distressed and not being able to take this pain away, Liz!” There was so much anguish in his voice. He tightened his hold on me, and it was so comforting. I wished life was easier, and we could stay like this forever.
“Hell started after she passed. My sister and I got separated, taken to unfamiliar houses, and we lost contact. By then my nightmares fully settled in, and my aunt thought I was some sort of demon child. The dreams were so intense I’d move things with my mind, and she got terrified of me. Every time it happened she would spank me so much, leaving me full of marks and battered. I’ve cried so many times, begging God to end my suffering.” I let go of him for a few seconds to reach for the tissues on my nightstand. My face was a mess, but it uplifted a weight from my soul to let it all out. I had all this burning inside me for such a long time already.
“Sorry I wasn’t there for you!”
“It was not your fault, Vlad. The turning point came when she hit me so hard, she broke my arm. I was seven years old, and she decided she had enough and released me to the system. She didn’t want to keep me around, and she sent me to an orphanage, a place where you keep children without a family.”
I had calmed down a bit already, because from now on things would get ugly. “I felt so alone and worthless, but for a few months I could have some semblance of peace in my life, until the day they sent me to a foster home. If I thought living with my aunt was hell, I discovered I had tasted heaven and didn’t know it.”
He kissed all over my swollen face and red-rimmed eyes, finishing taking the remnants of tears still staining my face. The gentleness of his action touched me beyond words, and when he faced me, I saw the pain and guilt in his eyes. Why? I didn’t understand. Why the guilt in those forest greens? I rested my forehead against his chest and sighed. The worst was about to come, and I had to gather my courage to do so.
“Tell me, beautiful. Please, hide nothing from me.” His voice choked with emotion. He was as much affected as me. “I feel your sorrow so deep in my heart, even breathing is difficult, Liz. Tell me what happened after.”
“Not all foster homes are bad, most of the kids are happy there, and some others find their actual family within those homes, but not in my case. They placed me with a couple. I thought maybe then I’d have a chance of a normal family, just to have it crushed the next minute. My foster father wasn’t a good person. In the beginning, he wanted to take care of me, giving all the excuses why his wife wasn’t there. He helped me bathe, get dressed, and he was always touching me in a way I didn’t feel comfortable.”
I had to stop and inhale. My emotions were getting in a hype again remembering all that. “A few months later, he visited my room in the middle of the night, and the touchings got worse. During the day he took me on rides, for whatever reason he could come up to. Every time he’d tell me we were going out, I cried and begged for him to leave me alone. It was then the beatings and threatening started.” Rage built upon me, boiling and angry, and I knew I was also channeling his own rage.
“Where had the wife been when all of this crap was happening?” he growled low, trying to contain his fury.
“I’ve tried so many times to tell her, but she didn’t believe me, calling me a liar, making me feel worthless. I was trapped there with them and I had nowhere to run to. The day he forced himself on me, it was the day I died in this world. I’ve never imagined one could endure so much pain.” I didn’t realise how raw all these emotions were still inside me. My words were coming out strangled, and my breathing got ragged. “I felt dirty, disgusting. The thing would go on almost daily, and my ordeal had been so excruciating I harmed myself as I needed something to dull my pain. Something to take my mind out of that shitty life God put me through. I cut myself over and over until the day I couldn’t bear any more.”
I got so distressed, my body vibrated and sparks flashed all around us. My belongings in the room were all suspended in the air, awaiting the blast to come. I peeked at his face, and I didn’t see Vlad there, but his demon stared back at me with those scintillating golden eyes baring his fangs. He understood my pain and called from me. He wanted to soothe me somehow. Neither of us paid attention to our surroundings and the surge of energy caressing our bodies. My sobs intensified when he got to my wrists and took to his mouth, his soft and gentle lips kissing those horrible marks that reminded me of so much pain I had to endure, and all the hatred I felt for myself.
“I’m so, so sorry, you had to go through these alone.”
His feelings of rage and guilt mingled with my own, amplifying my power to a dangerous level. If I didn’t calm myself, I was about to blow up the house, just like what I did to that bastard who dared to touch me. The tension seemed to make the walls expand. Bloody tears ran down his cheeks, disappearing into his beard. I traced them with my fingertips. They mesmerized me, and I couldn’t help myself but to kiss them dry. The salty coppery taste burst on my tongue. He was beautiful, and he stared at me with such intensity. So I did the only thing I could. I left myself sag on his chest, exhausted.
“My only solace was my dreams. They were gruesome and tormented me, but I had pictured you as a noble knight, fighting for an ideal, for some sort of freedom, and I wished so many times you were real and would come to my rescue, just like you did in my dreams.”
“It’s all my fault. I’m sorry!” He repeated several times, kissing my entire face and hugging me.
“No, it’s not, Vlad. How could you know?” I asked between sobs.
“If I had listened to you back in my days, I wouldn’t have put us through all these torments. We wouldn’t be in this damn loop, dragă.” When he averted his gaze and lowered his head, I saw how badly he carried the weight of his actions on his shoulders. Then all the things suspended in the air fell to the floor, and the tension in the room dissipated.
“Do you understand me now? I hate that piece of shit. I hate my father. He’s responsible for my misery, and there’s nothing and no one in this world that will make me stop looking for him!”