Roar (14 page)

I know I shouldn’t follow her, but I want to make sure she’s okay. So when I park four houses up as she pulls to a stop in the middle of the road, I know I’m in for some trouble.

Her stuff is all over the place, boxes and clothes it seems. Her movements as she gets out of her car are slow and seem calculated, like she is ready to retreat, which only says one thing―he’s there.

I don’t want to make things worse, even though everything in me wants to go to her side. Instead, I turn the engine off and crack the window so I can hear better. I can jump to her aid if I need to; I’m hoping I won’t need to.

She keeps looking at the house as she fills her arms with clothing. She isn’t going for the boxes, which I guess is smart. If she needs to get away quick, a box makes it hard. Maybe later I can put them in the truck and leave them at Nona’s.

It’s hotter than hell right now and we are on the downturn to summer; sweat is soaking through my tee, and I see the waves of heat off the asphalt. Maybe I’m feeling hotter because I’m on edge, which I make my fingers loosen from the wheel and wipe the sweat on my shorts as I keep my eyes on her, and the yard for him. She’s rifling through boxes now, her things spreading around her on the ground. I don’t understand why she isn’t loading it in the back seat with the other things she took. Something isn’t right.

She gingerly picks up something out of the bottom of the trash, like it’s covered in something undesirable, before dropping it.
What a fucking asshole!
He’s probably in there watching her retrieve her things from the trash, enjoying his blow to her esteem. I wanna fuck him up so bad, but that won’t help her, and certainly not me. I have a parole officer who wouldn’t be too happy about that at all.

Charlie opens her boot and looks back at the house before she takes one of the boxes and loads it in her trunk. She won’t get all five boxes in there. I wonder how that asshole packed her shit up so fucking fast anyway, and why she only gets five boxes of their life together when she deserves everything. Going for the second box, she drops it, and my heart jumps as she backs up and stumbles off the curb. It’s then I see Paul has come out from lurking in the house and jumps from the small front deck onto the grass, holding a small brown box in his hand.
Fuck!

There is nothing in my mind that resembles motion or structured thoughts, nothing but the fear on her face and the smugness on his. I can’t afford to do what I want to do to him; instead I run to her and he sees me. Oh, he fucking sees me all right; his face contorts into something pure ugly and evil as he quickens his step toward her. I’m a house away; he is halfway across their yard―it doesn’t take a genius to know who is going to reach her first.

Calling out to her is only going to take her eyes off him, and she needs to keep them there so she can run or duck, or whatever she needs to do. My throat burns to call her name when I yell the only thing that may help her, “Run.”

It’s all too late, and what I fear, happens. She doesn’t react like I want, she doesn’t run to my command; she turns in shock and takes her eyes from the one place she shouldn’t, and now he has her. Though he doesn’t hit her, or ram her, or grab and drag her away like I thought he would; the fucker pushes her against the car and kisses her. I don’t know why my feet stagger to a halt, why my heart stammers and why the rage is hotter than if he had hit her.
I’m
the asshole here. Which is probably what he wants me to feel. I don’t give Paul the credit he obviously deserves. He knows how to play the game and push your buttons so you feel like you are nothing in his presence. In those seconds, I lose.

He kisses her, holding that stupid box I wish I could smash his head in with. He then takes a step back and looks her up and down, shaking his head. “It was fun fucking every piece of you, Charlotte.”

“Give it back to me,” she stutters. I can’t believe she isn’t running from him. Instead, she has her hand reached out. What in flying fuck is she doing?

“Remember, love, you may leave me for this guy, but I will always own you.” He shakes the box in his hand, and I realize then, that is the item that she wants. The jerk then winks at me, “As for you… you may have fucked her all the way to jail, but she will always think of my cock inside her instead of yours.”

I lose it. There is nothing but rage and the need to hurt.

I have no idea how I got to him so fast, but he was below me and under my fist. Blood sprayed, and I had a hunger for it. The pen taught me many things, and one of them was how to fight for your life or show you weren’t to be messed with. I was showing him both and I wasn’t holding back. I’m not weak anymore, and he will know this when he tries to mess with what’s mine again.

I only get a fifth punch in before I’m knocked from the side and tackled to the ground. My shoulder burns like nothing else, and I vaguely hear the ringing of screams and shouts before I can see past the blue shirt packed with muscle holding me down. I see Paul holding his face as blood streams steadily from under his hand, while the other hand is pointing at Charlie and then me.

“I will ruin him and you. You both will pay for this!”

“Where is it?” she’s screaming above him while an elderly woman and a man is holding her back. She has the box in her hand; it’s hanging open and empty. “
Where is it?!
”

Paul laughs, laughs like a lunatic who has won.

A sickness and anger brews within me and I no longer care about Paul. I just want to get to Charlie who’s bawling and shaking while the elderly woman tries to hold her in her supporting arms. The man heads to the bleeding Paul, asking if he needs help. Who cares about him?

I try again and again to push the big guy off me. I need to be with her, but he won’t relent. I can’t even see who he is, to see if I know him. But he knows me, my name, I can hear him use it and worse. He is trying to calm me down, but I don’t hear much past the other thing I can hear… the distinct sound of a siren getting stronger.

Someone called the cops.
Fuck.

AGAIN, I WATCH BEHIND
a blur of tears as a sheriff of Beaver Dam hauls Nate into the back of his squad car because of me, from protecting me.

When the fuck will this all stop? When will I stop hurting the ones I love? Even if I stopped breathing, I would hurt someone.

There was nothing I could say that Sheriff Noel would listen to, or more to the point, change his pigheaded mind. He said he had been waiting for Nate to slip up, and this was his chance to finally extract the justice he believed Nate deserved. Noel never did believe us when we told him all those years ago, when he was a fresh deputy, that his mentor was a paedophile; he just couldn’t deal. Now that he is sheriff, he’s taking his revenge out on Nate.

Daddy had everyone fooled; being the sheriff once brought a lot of trust from a community that prided them on such things. He was a law-enforcing, churchgoing man, who tragically lost his wife and was left heartbroken. To then bring up a disturbed daughter who had a way-too-close relationship with her poor neighbor boy, the son by a drug deal. It was a moot point to try to explain the truth; no one believed us, or Nona.

Again, Nona was going to be going through the pain of seeing her grandson possibly going to prison. The only way I can keep him from going, is to tell some ugly truths that I never wanted anyone to know, not even Nate. I just hope his parole officer can help me, that he will believe me and my sins.

Soon enough the town will be talking about our past all over again, and if Paul has anything to do with it, he would have shared my diary with everyone; pages filled with my secrets, and Nate’s.

I don’t use it much anymore; I haven’t been able to since I moved in with Paul. You can’t keep a constant diary around someone like him. So I hid it in an old timber box I found at a flea market, The Vintage Bazaar. It has stayed locked away in the bottom of my drawer ever since, only to come out when I was in desperate need to survive.
Stupid!

I came here with the past behind me. Most in town don’t recognize me, and those who do avoid me, or have forgotten the spotlight Nate and I brought upon everyone we loved. We were lucky in a way to be under age, red tape hid most from the world, leaving gossip to take hold.

Now they would know. If Paul didn’t tell, I was going to have to—it was the only way to save Nate.

NONA, OF COURSE, WELCOMED
me into her home. She didn’t ask too many questions, but she knew it was serious. I think she believes I’ll tell her in time―she’s wrong. I will never tell.

Her only rule is that we don’t sleep together. I get it; I do, but Nate doesn’t. He argued with her about the difference in allowing me to sleep in his bed almost every morning, to now sharing a bed all night. Her argument was, if he couldn’t see the difference, he was too dumb to have a girl stay in his bed all night.

I love her. She is never afraid, and we both need that, Nate and me. He pretends to never be afraid, but he is. Maybe if Nona knew the truth, she would be afraid, too. Maybe she would ship them all away from me, leaving me all alone. No, I won’t tell. I won’t tell because I’m so very afraid of so very much.

Nate is setting up a makeshift bed for the night, even though Nona would prefer he took the sofa until she got a spare bed here. I think she would put the boys together, and I hate that I’m driving Nate from his room, though I do suspect he won’t stay in that makeshift anyway. As soon as we hear her bedroom door close, Nate will be by my side and holding me tightly. She has never come in his room; she believes a young man deserves his privacy, but I wonder if it will change now I’m here.

“Your shirt could fit three of me,” I say holding my improvised nightgown out to show my point. He drops his pillow and turns to look at me and I can’t help my eyes from grazing over his lean hips and the twin line that beg me to look lower, but I dare not.

Nate chuckles and saunters toward me. Man, that boy can saunter, and in his trunks, he begs for more than just a look.

Nate is almost a man, and something about that makes me shudder all the way to my core.

He pulls at my shirt, or his shirt. “Maybe, you could fit me in there.” His brow rises, and I giggle. Freaking giggle and he grins like he has won. Smug ass. “Maybe”―he steps closer, but keeps the tee stretched out. I have nothing underneath; I left it behind and won’t retrieve until it’s safe. So when he steps closer and looks down, he sees everything. “Maybe we could just get rid of it. You don’t need it.”

“I think Nona would disagree with that.”

He chuckles and drops the material; it floats back against my skin, sending goose pimples across my flesh.

“I think Nona would disagree with almost all my thoughts and suggestions right now. In fact, I know she would disagree, and yet I don’t give a shit.”

I laugh once before he is crushing me to the bed and kissing me the way I like, hungry and loving. I want to always be his, and he mine. When we are like this, I feel the power in our feelings, the power in what we give up for one another.

For the first time, I see a real beautiful future for Nate and I, and it’s amazing how much that can change a way I will take him tonight. Despite my lack of belongings, despite the betrayal to Nona’s rules, tonight is the beginning of our lives, and I couldn’t be happier.