But honestly, I shouldn’t fucking care. Jesus, I don’t even know the girl. What the fuck is she going to do for me? What the hell am I going to gain if I fuck around and get involved? Not a goddamn thing, that’s what. She sure as hell doesn’t look like the type to give up her pussy without tacking on some emotional baggage to it. I have all this running through my head, and I know getting involved is one of the stupidest things I could possibly do, but trying to convince myself to do otherwise is pointless right now.
I come up to the front curb of her house, park the truck, and jump out. From here on, I’m running on autopilot, because if I let myself think about this anymore, it’s more than likely I’ll say ‘fuck it,’ and leave. I get to the porch. I’m standing in front of her door when I hear the crash. I’m not dumb enough to make excuses for what that sound could be. I already know. I raise my fisted hand and pound at the door.
Chapter 12
Aylee
I forget all about Maddox and his touch and my furtive sexual awakening when I’m shoved inside the foyer. The door slamming shut coincides with my stumble over the blue-and-brown, patterned carpet in the entryway. Losing my grip on the bags, I catch myself before I fall, but Tim is there, wrenching my arm back so hard that it feels like he pulled it out of its socket. I cry out, tears forming in my eyes as he shoves me against the wall.
“You fucking lying to us now?” He’s pressed up against me, a large mass of rage and evil intent stuffed into a man’s body. His hand is at my throat, fingers curling around my neck as he forces me to look at him. His gin-soaked breath wafts across my face like fumes from an exhaust pipe, while black, glazed eyes spear right through me. “Where the fuck were you?”
A small whimper escapes my mouth as my mind scrambles to come up with an answer. “With…with Mallory…”
The back of his hand smashes across my cheek even before I can finish the lie. The impact of the blow is hard enough that the side of my head whips to the other side and smacks into the wall. Dizziness washes over me, but it’s nothing compared to the scorching blaze firing up and down my cheek.
“Are you fucking guys now? Letting their disgusting dicks in you? You still a fucking virgin?” This he asks very close and very quietly to my ear. He wouldn’t dare say it above a furious whisper. He reaches for the collar of my shirt and yanks it down hard enough to tear.
“Tim?” It’s Rachel’s distressed and quiet call that stops him.
“Lie to me again and I’ll rip your tongue out of your filthy lying mouth!” His spittle splashes against the side of my face as he beats me down with his fury.
“I’m not lying…” I don’t know why I insist with the lie. Maybe it’s a perverse sense to see how far I can push him. How much damage will he do? Will he beat me if I tell him I want Maddox to do to me all the sick and perverted things he’s been wanting to do to me since they adopted me? Will he kill me if I say I’d give up my virginity to a boy I hardly know than ever allow him to forcibly take it from me? He thinks he owns me. He thinks I’m his property. In his disgusting, deluded mind, I belong to him. To him, my vagina belongs to him because he touched it first, long before I even knew it was there. Long before I knew ‘secret touches’ weren’t supposed to be something that happened between a man and a child.
“Mallory’s car broke down after school. Luckily your father was able to drop her off at home. She told him she was waiting for you at the field after track practice, and you weren’t there,” Rachel explains, her voice still quiet, like raising it higher would anger the monster standing right between us. “Where were you, sweetheart? We’re not trying to make you feel bad, but your father and I were worried sick.” If she’d witnessed the slap and everything shortly after, she makes no mention of it. Why would she when she’s a victim herself? Why make herself a target of the monster’s wrath? I guess it’s easier burying your head in the sand and pretending nothing is happening.
In the seconds of silence that falls on us like a thick shroud, I try to find an answer to her question. An answer that’s not going to incur more of Tim’s wrath. It’s one thing to think about antagonizing him, and another thing completely different to actually do it. I’m saved from saying anything by the unexpected pounding at the door. There’s a brief pause in which Rachel and Tim share a look before Rachel, being closest to the front entrance, walks the three steps it takes to open the door.
My heart thuds against my breastbone in both elation and fear at the sight of his intensely handsome face. Maddox stands at the door like some archetypal bad boy, with his tattoos and gauges. He wears that same blasé expression that seems to be his signature, along with his half-cocked grin.
“Yes?” Her voice isn’t the least bit warm or welcoming, and I’m sure there’s a deep frown line of disdain knitting her brows together.
“Hey, sorry to bother you. I’m a classmate of Aylee’s. We were working on a project together in the library earlier. Anyway, I gave her a ride and I guess she dropped this on her way out of my truck. I was wondering if I could give it back to her?” While he holds something up in Rachel’s line of sight that I can’t see from this distance, he takes advantage of his immense height to look over her head. Our eyes meet but only for a few fleeting seconds before Tim steps in my line of sight, effectively blocking my view.
“Get upstairs.” So much of me wants to ignore his order and sidestep him, but I don’t. I only jump into action when he barks, “Now!” in my direction.
It takes forever for me to climb the stairs, not because I’m in any great pain but because I don’t want to leave. Tim trudges to the entryway, and I want to hear what he’ll say to Maddox. Will he warn him away? Tell him I’m unstable, go into excruciating detail how I’ve attempted to kill myself three times over the last year alone? Will he tell Maddox of my nightmares, the ones where I wake up screaming because in them Tim is holding me down to eviscerate what’s left of my innocence? I wouldn’t put it past Tim to say all this. To tell Maddox the extent of my mental illness just to make him stay away from me. And he will, I’m sure. Not only did I follow him to his home, but if Tim tells him all these things about me, it’ll only drive home for Maddox just how truly crazy I am. And no one wants to be associated with crazy.
It hurts my heart to think that Maddox will see me like that. Painted in the light of a mental patient. I hate that I even care, that his opinion of me matters. At the top of the stairs, their conversation is too muffled for me to hear or understand anything. But it’s brief and soon enough I hear the front door close and Tim’s heavy footsteps. I run to my room, close the door, and turn the lock in place. With my heart in my throat, I wait. Five…ten minutes pass, and then…
“Aylee?” The inquiry that follows the soft knock on my bedroom door has my body sagging in relief.
I open it to find Sarah’s sad face staring back at me through the dimly lit hallway. “Hey,” I greet with a small, pained smile, my cheek still throbbing. “What’s up?”
“Are you okay? Daddy didn’t hurt you...right?” There’s a plea in her voice, a glint of hope in her blue eyes that my next words will be exactly what she wants to hear rather than the brutal words of honesty. She wants me to lie to her. Rachel wants me to lie to her. Like mother, like daughter. They can’t face the truth. Tim is a great dad to Sarah. He’s never struck her. And I want to believe so badly that he’s never inappropriately touched her. Sarah worships her father. Rachel worships her husband. He hits her but the fact that he shows her affection outweighs that tragedy. Tim is beloved in this house by two very deluded people.