“I’m serious, East. You act all high and mighty, immune to whatever anyone says about you. But one word from him, and you throw a tantrum. Why?”
My throat begins to close, and I roll over, pulling one arm over my eyes.
“I told you. He’s a dick. Question answered.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t block me out,” she insists, cradling her soft, naked body against mine as if she knows it’s my kryptonite, making me powerless to deny her anything. “I’ll tell you how I got these burns. I’ll tell you everything. All you have to do is be honest with me. That’s all I ask.”
I already know how she got them, but her willingness to share such a painful past does something to me. And to my horror, the words that I haven’t spoken out loud in years begin to choke me, desperate to spill out.
I pull myself up and lean against the headboard, while Scarlett sits up cross-legged on the center of the bed, her long, brown hair covering her bare breasts, making me wish I could go back to drawing her instead of what I’m about to do.
“The truth? I don’t hate my stepdad. I hate that he sees me for what I really am—a mistake that should have never happened.”
“You’re not a mistake, East.”
“Oh, but I am. I’m the product of something so vile that I should have been erased from this world before I ever took my first breath. He knows it, and I know it.”
“Don’t say that. Not ever,” she begs, leaving her spot to slide up against me, placing her head on my chest as she holds me tightly.
“It’s true,” I whisper, pulling her chin up, just so I can stare into her beautiful face.
The love ingrained in her flawless features takes my breath away. Two of the most pure-hearted women look at me like I’m the best thing that ever happened to them when, in reality, I do nothing but destroy them.
“Once you know the truth, you won’t look at me like you are now.”
“And how do I look at you?”
Like you love me.
I swallow dryly, my chest tightening to the point of making it hard for me to breathe.
“Nothing you say will change how I see you, East. I promise.”
“Don’t, Scar. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
She places a kiss on my chest, right where the heart that has her name engraved on it beats erratically.
“Give me your monsters, East, and I’ll give you mine.”
Fuck.
“It’s just you and me, remember?” she continues, using my own words against me.
I close my eyes, unable to look at her while I disclose the abhorrent nature of my existence.
“My mom was a sophomore in high school when it happened. She was walking home from school one day when she got jumped by three guys from her neighborhood. At first, she thought it was just your average run-of-the-mill mugging. Just some thugs looking to score a few bucks. So when she threw at them every dollar bill she had in her backpack, she thought that would be the end of it. But it was far from it. They laughed as they pushed her into a dark alley, money being the furthest thing from their minds. They beat her, sodomized her, and took turns raping her, laughing all the while as if stealing her innocence away so grotesquely was some sort of entertainment to them. Help only arrived hours later, after someone found her bruised and bloody body all hunched up next to a dumpster. My mom was fifteen.”
“Oh, my God, East. Did the police ever catch them?”
I shake my head, my lids remaining closed shut.
“She was too traumatized to remember their faces. She told me she had her eyes closed throughout the gruesome ordeal and that she wouldn’t be able to point them out from a lineup even if she wanted to. But I never believed her. I think the reason my mom never brought those rapist bastards to justice was because she didn’t want to go to court and relive the ordeal all over again, just so they could get a slap on the wrist.”
I take a long inhale of breath, harnessing the fortitude to continue. My lungs ache for a cigarette, but if I stop now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to go on.
“Mom got really depressed after that. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t talk, and couldn’t sleep. With every day that passed by, she was withering away, slowly giving up on life. She knew that, sooner or later, she’d take the next step and end it completely. It was just a matter of time.”
“Oh, East.”
“Then one fine day, her parents took her to the emergency room after she fainted head-first into a kitchen cabinet. She had been a virgin before the incident, so imagine her surprise, and everyone else’s, when the doctor on-call ran some tests, only to tell her she was pregnant.”
I push the bile down my throat, holding onto Scar’s hand for comfort as I relive the early years of my life.
“Shit got even more complicated after that. Mom dropped out of school because she couldn’t take the constant teasing and harassment from the other kids. They called her a slut and every other name under the sun when she was the victim. Her parents also didn’t understand why my mom insisted on having me. They pushed her to have an abortion, but she put her foot down and told them no. When I was born, they tried to convince her to put me up for adoption, yet she refused again. Her parents couldn’t deal with having me in their home and looking at me every day, so they eventually kicked her out. They went as far as saying that my mom must have made the whole thing up. Said that she must have willingly fucked those three bastards since no woman would ever keep her rapist’s child.”
When I hear Scarlett begin to cry, I open my eyes.
“I can stop,” I whisper softly, wiping her tears with my thumbs.
“No, please don’t.”
I let out a long exhale and keep going.
“It was tough for her those first few years. No one really wanted her to crash at their house with a crying baby in tow. Most nights, we had to stay in homeless shelters. Mom doesn’t talk about that time of our lives a lot. I think it brings up too many bad memories for her. But she was young, pretty, and willing to work, so one day she got lucky. A woman who volunteered at one of the soup kitchens that we used to go to took pity on her. She worked at a fancy hotel in Park Avenue and got my mom a job cleaning rooms. It wasn’t glamorous or anything, but for a girl who barely got her GED, it was a godsend. The job gave her steady income, plus tips, and soon she was able to rent out a little apartment in Queens. The hotel also offered daycare, so Mom gave it all she had to make sure she never lost that job.”
“You love her so much,” Scarlett whispers with tears in her eyes.
“Of course I do. She could have gotten rid of me at any point in her life, yet she destroyed hers to keep me. She gave up her family, her friends, her whole way of life, and even her future, just to guarantee I had one. Even if I didn’t deserve it.”
“You think you don’t deserve to have a future?”
“I’m not a good man, Scarlett. My parentage is proof of that fact.”
I throw her a meek smile as she cradles her head against my chest. She hugs me with such intensity that it feels like she wants to absorb all my suffering until there isn’t a drop left inside me. Just like my mother, Scarlett wants to see the good in me, even when there isn’t any to find. I tap my knuckle on the tip of her nose to bring her attention back up to me.