That stung. Tears clouded my eyes. “More than me?”
“Equally, but in very different ways.”
I wanted to collapse to the ground and sob. I wanted to hit him and scream. So many emotions roared inside me. I didn’t know which route to take. All I knew was this fucking hurt. A lot. And he didn’t look sympathetic to my emotions at all.
He cocked his head to the side, staring at me intently. “How does your heart feel, Vixen?”
“Fuck you,” I snarled at him. “I don’t even care.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
I wasn’t.
No, I wasn’t.
I didn’t fucking care. I didn’t.
I just wanted my freedom. I just wanted to be let go.
WHY WOULDN’T HE LET ME GO?
Fuelled by pain and anger, I let go of the bedsheet because I couldn’t storm off in it without tripping over it. I hurried into the softly lit bedroom and grabbed the random crap off the night stand. I threw the box of tissues at the doorway where he stood, followed by the comb and box of Q-tips. He didn’t flinch as they hit his chest.
I hated him.
I hated him because he made my heart pound and my skin burn.
He made me search for him in the night.
He made me need him like he was the air I breathed.
He made me miss him when he was gone.
And I just wanted to go.
I really did.
I wanted my old life back.
Desperate, I grabbed the new lamp on the nightstand. This would be attempt number 74453432. I pulled it out of the wall and threw it against the window again. I watched it smash into a thousand little pieces, and still, the window remained intact, not a single bit of it cracked or scratched or anything. What the fuck was this glass made of? What kind of fucking sorcery was this?
Angered, I went to the window and pounded on it with my fists. It didn’t even rattle. I screamed, tears falling down my face as I bruised my palms with the force of my strikes.
I felt him come up from behind me. I heard him shushing me like he always did, that calm tone of his striking at my heart, at my anger, at the centre of my being.
The second I felt his arms begin to wrap around me, I spun around and pounded into him. I was screaming all kinds of things.
You made me this way.
You won’t let me go.
You want me to fight you.
You like this.
You want me miserable and trapped.
I wailed at him, and he took the full brunt of it, staring at me with an expression I’d never seen before. One that looked equally distressed and pained and miserable.
“How did we get here?” I asked him, panting now, so tired my legs were shuddering. My body wavered against him, this time allowing him to wrap his arms around me to steady me. “I used to be so scared of you. I used to think you were going to kill me. Tell me, Nixon, in that cabin, did you think about it? Just a little bit?”
He looked anguished, watching me for a long moment. “You worry me, Vixen.”
Confusion filled me. “Why?”
“Because you already know everything. You already know who was before you. You already know what my intentions were in that cabin. You just choose not to remember.”
I blinked slowly, considering his words. “I can’t think about it, Nixon, without falling apart.”
“Ever think you might fall together instead?”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what he meant. It was the worst time of my life. I’d never been so petrified. I couldn’t unbury that trauma. I resisted.
“You’re really never going to let me go, are you?” I whispered shakily, staring into his solemn blue eyes.
“Never,” he said, resolutely.
My shoulders sagged. The fight disappeared from me. I felt myself beginning to accept that this was it – this was how my life was going to be.
“You’re not enough, Nixon,” I croaked. “I need more of a reason to live, you know.”
Nixon’s gaze shifted to a spot on the ground. “Careful, baby. You feel that way now, but if you lost me, you might not think so.”
I didn’t think that was true. He wasn’t the reason I was living. No way.
“A person should never hold that much power,” I said, feeling more tears fall.
“Shame,” he replied, equally tormented. “I never got to make that choice when you came into my world.”
As I watched him, the way his shoulders slumped, the way he looked at me with such desperate pining, I suddenly wondered.
Maybe Nixon was just as trapped as me.
Maybe he had no way out.
Maybe, while I fought to be let go, he fought to keep me because he needed to.
Maybe… the one held captive was the captor all along.
These thoughts stunned me in my place. I stared at him like it was the first time, like…I could see the cracks in him, though I knew they were there all along.
“Take me to bed,” I whispered, my voice scratchy, the fight in me depleted.
He picked me up with zero effort, pressing his forehead to mine, breathing me in with closed eyes. He took me to bed and held me in his lap, stroking my hair and back with a tenderness that made me want to cry all over again. He shushed me, whispering baby, baby. I relaxed, buried my head into his chest, closing my eyes.
After I’d settled down, the room filled with silence. I heard his heart beating in my ear, heard his long, steady breaths.
Then he whispered gently, “I let you out, and it went against everything in me. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, if given the chance, you’d leave me. Still, I let you out. Can’t you see I’m trying?” Fresh tears fell from my sore eyes as I listened. “My day begins and ends with you. You’re mine, Vixen, wherever you are, wherever you go, your home is with me.”
After a while of his stroking and tender words, I felt the pain leech from my body. He always did that – made the hurt go away. I used to fight against it, resist believing he was responsible for making me feel better, but I was wrong. So very wrong.
“What happened to you today?” I whispered in a peaceful lull. “Your hand is busted up and you’re not yourself.”
“Today,” he whispered back, his voice tightening, “I had to feel myself rot, had to be my old self again, and I didn’t like it.”
I tried to interpret what he meant. “Why did you have to be your old self again?”
“Because sometimes it’s necessary. Because it protects us – protects you.”
“Is this about that homeless man?”
“Yes.”
“You found out who sent him?”
“I found out who let him through the door.”
And that man was probably dead.
His men were probably covering it up as we spoke.
This would have been disturbing to me two years ago. Now? Not so much.
“Is that why you needed my mouth?” I asked.
“I needed to take the edge off.”
Reflecting on my wig out, I murmured, “I don’t think I helped out much.”
“I think you did just fine, kitten.”
I traced my finger along his vast chest, running over scars I’d always known were there, but now they intrigued me. I thought of what Dr Sullivan said, about him being stabbed, about her nursing him back to health. I tried to think of Nixon disadvantaged and bleeding, and it was so hard to envision because I’d never seen him that way.