But I did hear it. Cassia’s side of the basement is directly beneath my room, precisely where I’m standing.
Suddenly, I feel more of an urge to check the video feed from her room on my cell phone, than to continue what I was doing.
“A condom,” I say, pretending.
She turns her neck at an angle so that she can see me. “No, I thought I heard something…like crying.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I say. “Might’ve been the TV in the basement.”
Gwen accepts my answer and presses her cheek against the bed again.
I try to ignore my thoughts of Cassia, grabbing Gwen’s thighs firmly in my hands and pressing myself against her. But I can’t ignore her and I become irate with myself, digging my fingertips into Gwen’s flesh.
“Oww! Jesus! That fucking hurt…,” She sounds angry. But just a little.
Was that defiance?
Suddenly, I feel like I might get the violent sex that I need, after all.
Then I hear Cassia screaming my name and although faint and muffled through the floor, it rips through me like a hot poker burning a hole through my chest.
I don’t think Gwen heard it that time because when she looks back at me again, it seems only out of curiosity. She wonders why I’ve stepped away from her, why I’m not already inside of her by now.
She’s as confused as I am.
I look at the hidden camera again, wishing that I could see her through it just as she can see me.
“Are we gonna’ do this, or—“
“You need to leave,” I cut in.
She blinks, stunned, and then turns around on the bed.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
She blinks several more times as if trying to reset her brain because maybe she didn’t hear me right, and presses the palms of her hands against the edge of the mattress. Her arms and shoulders become rigid as she lets her body slouch in-between them.
She cocks her head to one side and grins.
“Is this part of your game?” she asks teasingly and then cocks her head to the other side. “I’ll play whatever game you want me to play, baby.”
Concerned for Cassia, I’m growing more impatient and intolerant by the second. Reaching out, I take Gwen by the elbow and pull her from the bed.
“Just fucking leave, all right?”
She’s speechless. And pissed. And humiliated. Her mouth falls open partway, her eyes draw inward harshly and it looks like I just slapped her across the face.
“I’ll call you a cab,” I say, but she puts her hand up in front of her, indicating she doesn’t need or want my help.
“No thanks, asshole,” she snaps, stomping naked across the room toward the bedroom door. “I’ll call myself one and wait for it at the gas station on the corner.” A few minutes later, after Gwen has gotten dressed in the living room and found her purse, the house shakes as the front door slams shut.
I’m numb. Completely numb inside and out. I haven’t moved from the spot in my bedroom since Gwen stormed out of the house. My chest aches for Cassia.
What is happening to me?
Shuffling around inside my pants pocket for my cell phone, I grab it and pull it free, dropping my pants back on the floor. I open the feed to Cassia’s room to see her curled up in the fetal position on her bed—not in the corner—crying softly into her delicate hands. And I watch her for a moment, still trying to sort through the disarray that my mind has become.
My heart aches. Everything aches. But this time I don’t fight it because I don’t have it in me anymore.
I toss the condom in the trash beside the dresser and step into my black boxers before rushing into the basement to fix what I broke.
Chapter Sixteen
Fredrik
Taking the steps one at a time, I make my way slowly into the basement with a boulder sitting in the pit of my stomach. The concrete is cold against the bottoms of my bare feet, the air getting cooler as a winter storm begins to bear down on the East coast. I make a mental note to be sure to turn the heat up significantly when I go back upstairs so that Cassia stays comfortable down here.
But all of these random thoughts are just my way of shoving the inevitable moment I know is sure to leave me reeling into the back of my mind for as long as I can before I’m forced to confront it.
When I step off the last step, I can’t help but glance over at the television behind the protective glass to see the view from my bedroom. That boulder in my stomach starts to burn painfully when I picture what Cassia just saw. When I picture what I almost did. When I realize how much of a bastard I really am that I was going to make her watch.
I turn the television off.
“Cassia?” I speak up softly.
She doesn’t respond right away. She lays on her side with her back to me, her body covered only by the thin material of her nightgown. I feel a desperate urge to go over and cover her with the blanket so that she doesn’t get cold. But I don’t. Not yet. I’m unsure if she even wants me there. And I’m unsure why that even matters to me. What she wants. When did what Cassia wants first become my priority? I want to say ‘just moments ago’, but that would be a form of denial and I think I’ve been in denial for far too long. Cassia has been my priority for a very long time, since shortly after I brought her here. And I’m only just now allowing myself to believe it.
“Stay away from me,” I hear her say in a small, wounded voice.
Compelled by her rejection, I move toward her instead of away.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, stepping up closer to her bed. “I never wanted to—”
Cassia rolls over and springs to her feet so quickly that I barely have time to react.
“I said stay away from me!” she shrieks, tears shooting from her anguished eyes. “I hate you! Bastard, I hate you!” I’m directly in front of her in a flash with her small fists pummeling my chest.
I let her hit me as hard and for as long as she wants, taking blow after stinging blow deservingly. Sobs rattle her entire body, her eyes are clenched shut so tightly that I wonder how tears can continue to seep through her lids at all. She screams at me, so vociferously and strained that I know it must be shredding her throat.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly behind her screams, still trying to understand why I’ve even apologized. And it’s in this moment that I realize the shackle isn’t locked around her ankle.
Confused and panicking a little inside, I want to ask her how she got it unlocked, but I can’t as it isn’t the right time.
Her fists pound my chest some more, until finally I seize her small frame in my arms and crush her against my heart.
My hands are shaking.
Why are my hands shaking?
The backs of my eyes sting and burn. It feels like a fist has collapsed around my heart restricting the blood flow, and that hot boulder in my stomach has grown to encompass all of my chest, robbing me of my breath.
Sobbing into my body, at first Cassia tries to push me away, but I refuse to let her go. I want her here, now more than ever. Because it’s where she belongs. Her fingernails dig into my chest muscles. Her cries break my heart over and over again. But I just hold onto her tighter until she relents and her body collapses into mine.
“I hate you,” she cries, slowly letting go of anger and surrendering only to pain. “I hate you…”
I shut my eyes softly and press my lips into the top of her feather-soft blonde hair.