Authors: Shelby Rebecca
Now, I guess I’m about to find out.
Chapter Fourteen—To Me, You Are
I’m relieved as I open the front door that Missy isn’t waiting up for me. It feels like I have a shadow in the dark as we walk down the hallway toward my childhood room. I know I’m a grown woman, but this feels absolutely forbidden.
What in the heck am I doing?
I turn on the light and there he stands in my room. He hasn’t been in here since he was about twelve. Daddy hadn’t let him come in here anymore after that. It wasn’t proper. The room looks like it’s too small for him, kind of like an ill-fitting shirt on a super model.
“What are you going to sleep in?” I ask.
“Um, is it okay if I sleep in just my boxers or would you rather I kept my shirt on, too?”
“You should keep your shirt on, I think.” I nod my head.
Yep. That’s a smart choice.
“I’m going to go change in the bathroom,” I say, grabbing my cotton nightgown from the chair I’d laid it on this morning at too early of an hour. This has been one of the longest days of my life.
I yawn as I walk down the short hallway. The bathroom light buzzes on, searing my corneas with its too bright threads behind the clear glass bulb.
I grab the phone out of my purse and swipe it on. The app is still up. My hands are shaking and the knot in my throat is back—big time. I’m fumbling the buttons on the shiny glass touch screen, touching too hard, or too soft, or in the wrong spot.
How do I know if it’s got something in there?
A few taps and then I see there’s a recording. I push play. I hear whispering. A rustling sound. That must be when I pushed the mouthpiece out a bit. And I hear my voice calling Donnie a pig. There’s Donnie’s voice. Clear. As. Day. “You wanted me. Look at you. You’re so turned on right now...” I shut it off.
I’ve done it!
I hop around the bathroom like a child on a pogo stick, holding my breath so I don’t squeal. I’ve got to get this somewhere permanent.
I push another button that says ‘share’. I decide to text it to my assistant back in California. I tap the screen.
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ME: Jenny, I need you to upload this recording to my blog but do not, I repeat, DO NOT make the post live unless you don’t hear from me at least once per day by 2:00 pm Mountain time. I want this done tonight. DO NOT LISTEN TO IT. Text me back ASAP.
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I take off the tan dress and decide to leave my bra on before I slip on a modest cotton nightgown. It’s long enough to be decent. I pull the toothbrush out of my travel bag and squeeze some white TOMS of Maine on my recycled fiber brush. My phone buzzes. I almost knock it off the sink but grab it just in time.
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JENNY: Understood. I will text when it’s complete. R U OK?
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ME: Yes. I am now. Thank you.
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My toothbrush is shaking in my hand. What am I going to do with this recording? Do I tell him I’ve got it? I think that’s the only way. If he knows, he’ll have to leave me alone. If I don’t text my assistant because he’s done something to me, the blog goes live and all of my fans will be listening to my rapist admit to almost killing me, letting me drown, and threatening to kill Dillon and me.
My phone buzzes.
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JENNY: Done. Did you want to add some copy?
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ME: It should say: “This was recorded at the Ansted Middle School Auditorium in Ansted, West Virginia, on September 21st, 2012. The voices are those of Sadie Sparks and Donnie McGraw, Ansted’s Chief of Police.” That’s it.
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JENNY: Got it.
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ME: Thank you.
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I brush my hair out.
What am I going to do?
I scrub my face too hard with my beige face wash. I’m going to sleep in the same bed with the only man I’ve ever loved. The only man I haven’t been able to keep my hands off for an entire day. I’m not ready for this. I’m just going to tell him he’s being ridiculous and needs to go home. Besides, I’m safe in here.
What was that?
Outside the bathroom window, I just saw something move by the tree. Is it Donnie? He knows Dillon is in here with me. I turn off the light. Staring at that same spot for what seems like ages, I see nothing.
No. I’m just imagining things. There’s no one out there. I’m just paranoid.
I tiptoe toward my room but walk past the light shining on the floor from the bottom of the door and turn the lock on the front door. I walk to the kitchen and lock the back door. No sense in making it easy on him to get in if he is out there. Daddy had a gun, didn’t he? I bet it’s up in the closet of Momma’s room.
Here goes nothing
. I open the door to my room and find Dillon lying on the bed on top of the covers. He’s wearing some snug, grey boxer briefs and a white sleeveless T-shirt.
Whoa
He is a man now.
His arms and chest are so powerfully built—not bulky, just defined and full of vigor. Through the thin fabric of his shirt on his stomach I can see ripples of muscles tucked under the upside down V of his chest. I don’t want to look below his waistband. I’m still too afraid. My mouth goes dry.
“Is that a wife beater?” I ask, remembering Jake calling it that yesterday.
He laughs, “Yeah, that’s another name for it, I guess.” His deep laugh makes my nerves fizzle away like bubbles in a lukewarm bath. He pats the unoccupied side of the bed. “Come here,” he says. The nerves come right back.
I drop my dress on the chair and plug my phone into the charger on the desk.
That’s when I notice on his left bicep is a huge tattoo that stretches all the way down, almost to his elbow. Part flower, part print. My name is on the top in dark black, cursive ink. Below it is a flower that has always grown wild in our yard each year. It’s a ‘great laurel,’ as Momma always called them, a long-petaled, pink-tipped flower with slight green accents. It has long tendrils that reach out to find a bee for pollination. It’s quite beautiful and makes me realize that it must remind him of me. Below the great laurel is a poem or a verse. It says,
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
“It’s pretty,” I say, rubbing my left arm and giving him a slight smile.
“It’s nothing like the original,” he says, unfaltering. I feel like swooning.
How does he do this to me?
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“It means, it means that I belong to you,” he says, staring into my eyes. I look at the corner of the room to escape the overwhelming sincerity in his eyes. My heart beats like a little scared bunny.
“The poem is kind of gloomy.”
“It’s from the Bible,” he says. “Do you remember it?”
As I’m trying to remember the verse, he pats the bed again. I rub the annoying lump in my throat, and turn off the room light. The moon casts a blue hue over everything. There are little shadows flitting around coming from the wind blowing through the trees outside my room. My heartbeat staggers, then it feels as though it cannot stay in my body as fast as it is beating.
I cross my wrists in front of my body and look back to the corner of the room. He’s going to have to help me. I can’t go to him right now. I feel stuck to the ground.
“I think we need to talk about the rules again,” I admonish and peek at him through my lashes.
“Sadie, you have nothing to worry about.”
I raise an eyebrow. How can he be so sure? “After all that’s happened today,” I say under my breath.
“I want you, more than you know. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to show you how I feel about you. That’s not what I’m saying. But I want to wait to make love to you until we’re married,” he says, resolute.
“Who says I’m ever getting married?”
“Well, if you’re not, then I guess I’m going to be celibate the rest of my life,” he jokes as he swings his legs over the side of the bed and leans his forearms on his knees.
“I doubt it,” I pout and cross my arms across my chest. I look away.
Ms. Robbins is probably ready to help him out in that department.
“I’m not going to mess this up like I did last time, Sadie,” he says, sitting upright.
“Like last time?”
“When I kissed you, touched you. You were too young. It was an accident, but you ran off because of me.”
“Dillon,” I try.
“And, if I understand this right, you’ve never been with a man,” he says, cautiously and I think for a moment.
“Technically...” I shake my head no.
“And what I want,” he says, cutting me off, “what I need, is for your first real experience to be done right. I want it to be pure and real, just like you—like us.”
“I’m hardly a virgin, Dillon. You know that only so well.”
“To me, you are.” It’s like the wind just got knocked out of me. I put my head down and bite my thumbnail so he can’t see the ugly cry face. I turn and walk toward the corner of the room. I hear the bed squeak as he gets up and walks over to stand behind me. “Sadie?”
I shake my head no.
“What happened to you is not the same thing as what’s going to happen between us, darlin’.” His voice is soft like warm butter.
That hole in my chest is throbbing. I want him to fill it up. But I’m scared as hell. If he touches me I might crumble into dust.
“I believe you,” I say, through my knotted throat.
I feel his warmth as he moves closer to me. I shakily reach behind and find his arm, pull on his tender strong hand and wrap it around my stomach. His other arm moves my hair away from my left shoulder before it meets with the first. He leans in and moves down to kiss me gently on my neck.
“I will never let you get hurt again,” he whispers into my ear. Oh, that’s it. I can’t control the profound guttural cry that comes up from the deepest part of my spirit, the most wounded part. The part where maybe a bit of the old Sadie has still lived all these years. He holds me as I lean back into him. He takes the tremors coming from my body, absorbs them like shocks.
Holding onto his hand, I turn around to face him. I take his hand and place it over my heart just at the top of my breast. He closes his eyes, his lips purse together in an expression that looks like both pain and pleasure.
God, I love this man.
Before I know I’m going to say it, I do, “I want you to make love to me right now.”
He shudders, closes his eyes and tilts his head up to the ceiling. He shakes his head from side to side, softly as if he’s thinking of the right thing to do. He looks down, his jaw squared and strained and leans into me. My heart staggers and I gasp slightly.
This is it!
He wraps me up in his arms, picks me up off the floor so we’re eye to eye. He moves his left arm under my knees so that he’s holding me like his bride over the threshold. I wrap my arms around his neck as he kisses me softly. It’s a pure kiss—enduring, worshiping, cherishing. Gingerly, he places me on the bed as if I’m a fine piece of silk. He pulls away, standing at the edge of the bed and looks down at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time.
“You’re more beautiful than I ever imagined you’d be all grown up,” he whispers, leans down to me and runs his long thin finger along my jaw line before he lies down along my left side. My body starts to quiver beside him as I turn to my side and wrap my arm around his waist pulling him toward me. He feels so right.
“Oh, what I could do to you right now,” he says, putting his arms on either side of my face. I feel as though I’m being cradled by him. The feeling of his body touching the full length of mine is intoxicating. He cannot hide the fact that he wants me, too.
A man’s body gives everything away
, I think, as I push up against his developing arousal. I’m aching for him to touch back. It hurts for him not to.
Shutting his eyes, he pulls away from me slightly, his face pained. “It’s very difficult to say no to you, baby.” His warm breath heats my cheek. “But now’s not the time. Do you understand why?”
No. Yes.
He opens his eyes. “I’ve always imagined our first time being after taking off your white wedding gown in our room in our big white house.” I smile, remembering his promise to buy me that house. He smiles back, “I’ve seen it that way since we were kids. You deserve that, Sadie—we do,” he says, looking into my eyes. His face is half in the light, half in the dark, but he’s all good.
He’s right
. I only said that because I just want him to make me feel better, take the other memory—the bad one—and replace it with him; but that’s not how it really works. I’m not ready. He knows me better than I know myself.
This should happen when we’re both in a clear state of mind and I know nothing right now except that I love him and I always have. I don’t know about marriage, about staying here. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or two weeks from now. So, now’s not the time. He’s teaching me, again. I don’t think it’ll ever get old. I nod my head yes and he smiles, amorously.
“I can’t believe you’re here feeling so perfect,” he says, as he pushes his body even more snuggly into mine, “wanting me back,” he says, putting his right leg over top of mine, as his eyes move around my face and back to my gaze. He grasps my chin, runs his nose the full length of mine, and takes my lips between his, gracefully, gently, asking for nothing. Just showing how he feels for me. “I want it to be perfect for you,” he whispers up to my lips, tickling them.
He has incredible self-control not to just seize what I was willing to give. It, literally, takes my breath away for a moment. He kisses my forehead and wipes the tears from my cheeks with his thumb.
He pulls the covers over us and draws me up so that my back is molded into his chest. Our legs cross over one another’s. His arms cradle me and our hands become one over my heart. “Sleep, baby,” he says, as he breathes me in.
And I do.
Chapter Fifteen—Between Awake and Asleep