Page 74 of Sin of Love
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When I close my eyes,I feel them. Maggie’s jealousy and derision, her begrudging camaraderie. Julep’s sinister gaze tracking me across the room, murmured taunts, grunts, and peppermint breath. His hands, rough on my body. The snick of a knife. Blood in my hair.
I sink farther into the claw-foot tub—the one luxurious item in the cottage—and stare at the wavering line of my body. Water obscures my new layer of scars, some of them still puffy and tender, and softens the bones that still protrude, the collection of fading bruises.
I wonder if maybe, when I’m physically healed, the flashbacks won’t be as frequent, the reminders not as gruesome and glaring. But I doubt it. I’m afraid I’ll always see them. Feel them. Wake up with phantom hands on my throat and a phantom knife pressed between my—
It wasn’t this hard when I was nineteen. The resilience of youth, perhaps, though I know that’s not the whole truth. At nineteen, with Nate to look after, I didn’t allow myself time to process what we’d left behind. I had bigger issues to deal with, like getting us through school, finding a job, keeping Nate from killing himself with drugs…
By the time he came out of his destructive phase, got clean and started attending PTSD support groups, met Dominic and Charlie and found his tribe in the BDSM community, I was an expert at compartmentalizing.
For nearly a decade, I ignored everything that had happened to me. My childhood, my abduction, my torture. Julep/Marco. Dozens of clients, all the abuses, demands, degradations. Being drugged. Raped. Beaten. Victimized.
I put everything aside, ignored it, denied it, all of it, to survive. And with the help of sleeping pills and the occasional three-day wine binge, I was doing okay.
Then… Gideon.
Arrogant, entitled, talented, wild. Content with his ruleless life, his solitude and superiority. As infuriating as he was alluring. Harsh yet kind, grave but also playful. He was more than my brittle self could withstand.
Gideon cracked me open and dipped himself inside to see what colors I hid. I was paint, he the brush, and with every stroke, more of me was revealed.
Ten years ago, I held off the avalanche of my past with sheer will. This time, I have nothing to protect myself with. I’m sharp edges and a broken mind full of darkness. They broke me. Infected me. I’m poison.
A soft knock on the bathroom door is followed by a murmur of, “Check-in time.”
He won’t let me take a bath unless I allow him to check on me every five minutes. Although it sets my teeth on edge, I’m not a big enough asshole to deny him. Not after his mother.
I feel him outside the door. The pressure of his worry. The need to know I’m okay. And I’m sick enough to wonder what the difference is between how Gideon feels and how Julep felt. Is love just a tamer word for obsession? What if love and hate grow from the same, corrupt seed?
“Deirdre?”
His voice scatters my thoughts.
Instead of replying, I kick out the stopper in the tub. The water drains noisily; I imagine his relief. He’ll be gone from the bedroom when I open the door.
Soon enough, he’ll be gone for good. Very few are built to withstand this kind of emotional purgatory. The constant, answerless questions, the fears and triggers. Walking on eggshells around my mercurial moods.
The statistics for relationships that last after one partner suffers a life-altering traumatic event aren’t good. At all. PTSD is a motherfucker. It may not kill you like a cancer, but it destroys lives just the same. Day by day, minute by minute, it’s destroying mine.
Ten years ago, it wasn’t this hard. I’m paying for that reprieve now, as the weight of thirty years of unresolved life crashes into me.
My father.
Be a good girl, Deirdre-Anne. Smile at the man. Here’s some candy. Daddy will be back in a few. Get off her! Where’d he touch you, girl? Don’t look. Turn away now. He only got what was coming to him. It’s not your fault. Get the shovel, now. We’ll take care of this together.
My mother.
Your daddy was a murderer. Killed my innocence and left you behind. That man? He ain’t your daddy. When you’re old enough, he’s gonna sell your soul to the Devil just like he did his own. We all pay for our sins, don’t we? You’re my restitution. The Lord understands and will reward me.
Marco.
I promise I’ll take care of you. You and Nate are all that matters. I’ll stop him. Kill him if I have to. I just need a little more time. Come here, let me brush your hair. I’ve made you hot chocolate. I’m sorry, Deirdre. I don’t know how to help you—how to help either of us. You should have let him burn.
All lies—all Julep.
No one knows you like I do. No one loves you like I do. No one belongs to you like I do. We are made for each other. Perfect halves of a perfect whole. Now, on your knees. That’s right, mi muñequita—scream for me.
My aggressors aren’t the only ones who haunt me, flickering like old fluorescents in the back of my mind. There’s Carrie, Marian, Lisa, Francine, Joanne, Selena, and Lily—seven names I’ll never forget, seven faces I’ll never see again. Women who may or may not have found freedom; who may or may not be alive. Loose ends that will never form bows.
