* * *
I open the door to my room and find it dark. Kate is already out, probably with the guy who works at the library she told me about. I turn the light on and suck in my breath loudly. On my bed, relaxed and with a wicked smile on his face, Sean is waiting for me.
“Who let you in?” I ask, panic rising inside me. I don’t close the door behind me but I don’t walk away either. I’m stuck to the spot.
“Your cute roommate. She wasn’t very cooperative at first, but I told her that I needed to talk to you about something related to your parents,” he answers calmly, but his cold eyes are sending another message altogether. He stands and swaggers toward me; grabbing my arm he pulls me into the room and slams the door shut.
I try to escape his hold, but he tightens his grip, making me whimper. What can I do? Even if I try to fight back I know I’m not going to win. It’s just going to be more painful in the end. He doesn’t have any boundaries and I don’t want to make him angrier than he already is. The muscle in his jaw jumps and my eyes stay focused there, unable to look away.
“Your parents met your new boyfriend. You’re into tattooed guys now? After all, who else would want you other than that low life?” he whispers in my ear.
I don’t deny anything. In fact, I don’t say a word. I know I can’t fight back, but I have a weapon. Silence. Usually I’d deny Duke being my boyfriend, I’d try to diffuse his anger or at least plead something, but not today. First, it’s useless and second, I won’t put myself in the position of being the fragile, broken girl.
I force my eyes to lock with his, a challenge visible. He shakes me violently, making me dizzy, and jerks me roughly on my bed. I bump my shoulder against the wall but say nothing. He jumps on the bed and straddles me.
“You think you’re stronger than me? You think I can’t break you again? You’re nothing but a shiny new toy for this guy and soon he’ll leave you like I did because you’re nothing, you’re boring and useless.”
Then he starts punching me in the stomach. I whimper. Several tears escape my eyes from the pain. He stands up and smirks at me when I roll over onto my side, crossing my arms over my stomach, my breathing coming in gasps, loud and hard.
“Don’t think I don’t know what happens in your life. Don’t ever think you can be someone else’s. You’re mine.”
And just like that he walks out. Slowly, my breathing becomes easier, but still loud. I don’t know how long I was lying like that on my bed, tears falling from my closed eyes, but at some point Kate is on my bed, her hand on my painful shoulder. I’m shaking and I can’t open my eyes or answer her when she asks me what’s going on. Even when her panic crashes over me I can’t move or open my mouth. I’m just crying and shaking with Sean’s words echoing in my head.
You’re mine.
“Duke!” she stands up and paces the room. I hear her on the phone. I want to tell her that it’s okay, that I’m fine, that she shouldn’t call Duke but I can’t move or speak. I’m mute. “Please come here. Something happened to Skye.” She stops next to her bed and I hear her dumping something like her jacket on her bed. “I don’t know, but before I went out I let her ex wait for her inside.”
She sits down beside me again and brushes my damp hair away from my cheek. I’m so numb that I barely feel her touch. I’m disconnected.
“Fuck!” Duke’s voice stops my shaking immediately. Kate stands up and walks to her bed but I still don’t open my eyes. My bed caves again. It’s him. I can smell the cigarette smoke lingering on his clothes. He puts a cold hand over my hot cheek. “Open your eyes for me, Skye. Please.”
I want to, but I can’t. I shake my head.
“What’s wrong, Duke? Tell me!” Kate pleads, tears in her voice. God, I’m really ruining everything. They should walk away from me. I can’t bring them anything good. I’ve got nothing for them.
“Shut up!” he replies angrily before I feel his breath against my face. It’s hot, sweet, and smells of toothpaste. “Come on, Skye. Open your eyes for me. Trust me,” he murmurs ever so softly, his cold hand tracing circles over my damp cheek from the tears still flowing from my closed eyes. “Skye, please.” His voice breaks when he says my name.
Ever so slowly, I open my eyes but close them immediately. The lights are painful. A sob shakes me again. Duke’s hand brushes more of my hair away from my face. Feeling him so close to me anchors me. I take a deep breath, cringing at the pain in my stomach and open my eyes again. I first look at Kate’s anguished face all blotchy from her tears and then I lock my eyes on Duke’s face.
He’s so pale, but the emotions flickering in the furnace of his gaze are an entirely different story. His hand is still softly tracing invisible patterns on my cheek. I grit my teeth, clench my jaw and just like that, I switch off my emotions, and stop crying.
“Do you feel better?” he asks me in a whisper, like he’s afraid he’ll lose me to my pain without any way to reach me.
I nod but don’t say a word. I don’t feel strong enough yet. First, I need the ghostly feel of Sean’s body over mine to disappear. I feel my eyes fill again, but I inhale deeply, taking in Duke’s reassuring smell to calm down and stay in control.
“What happened? Skye, you scared me to death,” Kate says, walking briskly to my bed. She’s standing behind Duke who, and I just realize it, is kneeling next to my bed. She dries her face, not caring about her mascara that has run down her once beautifully made up face. Her green eyes are glassy. She’s truly afraid for me and she’s not at all contemplating the option of running away from me because I’m a mess.
Duke nods at me, encouraging me to talk. My heart is still beating too fast and too loudly, but now panic is settling in, too. I don’t want to talk about it, not in front of Kate. I trust her, I know I can, but I can’t expose myself again, not how Duke reacted just after I did. Even if I know and understand his reasons, I’m still hurt and scarred by his rejection. I shake my head and close my eyes again, shutting off everything else that is too painful, too complicated, and too unpredictable.
“Don’t do this, Skye,” Duke says close to my face with his soothing deep voice. “We’re your friends and you need us like we need you to get better. I need you to get better.” Then, taking me by surprise, he kisses my forehead. His lips linger a little too long against my skin. His goatee, raspy against my soft skin, makes me shiver.
My eyes flutter open when he pulls away, his eyes looking at every inch of my face before stopping on my eyes. He smiles encouragingly but his eyes stay dark. “It’s Sean,” I say in a hushed voice, broken from all my sobbing. I clear my throat and don’t look away from the dark chocolate eyes that give me the strength I need to divulge my secret to someone else. “He ... he ...” I can’t form even a simple sentence. I’m pathetic, and in this moment, right now, I feel like shit. It’s like everything Sean said to me is the truth because I’m nothing. I’m weak and I’ll always be like that no matter what I thought and hoped for.
“Take your time,” Kate says, her voice barely above a whisper when she kneels beside Duke to take one of my hands closed in a tight fist. Gently, she helps me to relax and open my hand for her to take between both of hers. Her eyes are sad, almost like she knows what I’m about to tell her when a couple of hours earlier she had no idea who Sean really is.
“He beat me again,” I say in a breath before looking up at the ceiling, unable to see her face as she’s processing my words. It’s too much. All I want is to be alone, away from all eyes. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to sleep and forget. Put this away.
“Where?” Duke is not on the same page as me. His fingers thread through my untamed hair and grab softly the back of my head. I look back at him and with my free hand put it on my stomach. His dark eyes travel down my body and stop at my flat stomach and he nods. “I’m going to kill this son of a bitch.”
Kate and I look at him with astonishment at the deadly calm tone of his voice. It’s way worse than someone yelling and screaming. He stands up, letting the cold back into my body. I begin to shake again.
“Stay here,” Kate pleads with him when he walks toward the door. “You’ll get in trouble.”
“You think I give a fuck about getting in to trouble?” He begins to pace our room between my bed and Kate’s. “This asshole has done enough. I won’t see Skye hurt ever again because of him.”
Suddenly, I understand why he’s so dead set on being the guard of my well-being and my security, and I don’t like it. I sit up too fast, making me a little dizzy after staying so long in the same position.
“I’m not Juliet,” I say coldly, my voice odd even to my own ears. Duke freezes next to my desk and Kate looks between us. She’s definitely out of the loop. “I’m not your dead girlfriend. I don’t need to be saved by you.”
He’s never looked at me like that, not even at the cemetery. Kate’s intake of breath is loud in the silence that falls on the room. Duke’s face is not soft and appealing anymore. His face is all hard lines, anger and full-blooded pain. I should be ashamed of what I said, but I’m not. I’m too angry, too caught up in my emotions to analyze what I just said to this guy who is always here to help me.
“Because you do a fantastic job by yourself?” he replies with venom, his deep voice holding an edge that almost makes me recoil against the wall.
“At least I’m not trying to help someone else because I couldn’t do anything for my girlfriend.”
Kate’s hand in mine squeezes with force, probably to make me shut up, but Duke and I are on a roll. We’ve passed the point of no return. It’s easier to deal with it like this; it’s easier to drive him away because he’s got some kind of ill-placed regret about Juliet.
“Well, apparently it’s so much easier to be beaten and say nothing instead of taking the matter in your hands and actually do something instead of waiting for the next time. But never mind. After all, I’m just an idiot who’s still grieving his girlfriend and who thought that helping you was a good idea to stop being a self-centered bastard. I guess I was wrong.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and pray for my voice to not shake or show how shaken I truly feel. My anger is deserting me. “Just go.”
He nods at me, his eyes overwhelmed by the darkness that was at bay just minutes before. God, what did I do? Then he opens the door, walks out, and slam it loudly. Even the walls shake from his outburst.
I force my gaze to look at Kate instead of the door and meet sad eyes, but there is no judgment there. I don’t deserve this. She tries to smile, but it’s not her broad smile I’m used to. It’s a pale copy of it and it saddens me more.
“I’m so sorry, Skye,” she says, her voice shaking and choked up. She’s barely containing her tears.
“Why?”
“Because I let Sean in. I didn’t want to, but when he talked about your parents I—”
“Hey,” I cut her off with a shaky smile, my free hand waving at our room. “You couldn’t imagine what he’d do. I should have warned you. It’s not your fault.”
She nods but I see the light in her eyes diminishing more and more, leaving in its wake only regret and pain. Sean’s behavior is not only ruining me, but it’s also ruining everything and everybody in my life. And what he’s not ruining, I’m the one doing a pretty good job of it.
Chapter Nine
No matter what I tried to do to hide my red eyes, nothing helped. One look at me and my parents will know I’ve been crying. I wanted to cancel tonight, but they’ll be back on a plane tomorrow evening and I won’t see them again for months, so I don’t cancel.
Now I’m hiding behind the menu, eagerly waiting for our waitress to take our order and get the night over with so I can go back to my room and finally sleep. My stomach is still painful whenever I take a deep breath or when I move too briskly. Unfortunately, the damn menu can’t shield me from my parents’ eyes roaming over me as if they could see through my façade, nor can it ease my nerves. I dry my right hand on my pants without daring to look away from the dishes’ list.
Suddenly, my father closes his menu and throws it on his empty placemat. Startled, I look up at him over my menu and cringe at his hard and determined look. I feel all the air leave my lungs. When will this day be over? I don’t think I’ve ever lived a day this long. Ever.
“Why have you been crying?” my father asks, not caring if it’s too abrupt. He’s on a mission. He’s a no-nonsense kind of man after all and right now I hate it. And I hate to feel trapped.
“Michael!” my mother whisper-yells at him, her thin fingers clawing at his firm forearms.
I know I don’t have enough time to think of something to cover the truth, but I can’t tell them this here, in a restaurant. I clear my throat, praying my voice will not shake like my hands are under the table.
“I saw Sean when I went back to my room,” I answer, without showing how nervous I am or how I want to talk about anything but this, not when what Duke said is still echoing in my mind. Because it’s true. I’m just waiting for the next time Sean will hit me again. I’m just expecting it and it’s pathetic.
My mother begins to play with her knife, turning it over and over between her slender fingers. She hates it when there’s tension and there’s obviously a good amount of it around our table.
My father nods stiffly, apparently satisfied that I’ve answered truthfully, but I can see he’s sad even if he’s hiding it. My mother puts down the knife and crosses her thin arms over her chest. “You can’t be pining for him, Skye. I know you had a long relationship with him, but you should forget him, honey,” she says with a serious expression, ready to side with my father in this little talk I really don’t need right now.