“Who’s out there missing you, Lysa?” he lowers his voice to a whisper.
His words hurt, worse than anything he’s ever said or done to me up to now.
“How do you expect anyone to care about you, when you don’t even give a fuck about yourself?”
He might as well tear out my heart and dance on my chest to celebrate his accuracy.
“Come on, Lysetta. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that you think you’re worth something. Tell me you think you’re pretty without me having to fuck you while you say it.”
I can’t tell him anything because my lips are trembling and my throat is raw. I want so much to hurt him back, to ask where everyone who cares about him are, but the truth is, I care, I fucking care about him. After all he’s done to me, and despite all the hurtful things he’s saying, he still has one person more than I do.
He has me.
“You’re petrified, Lysetta. And you can’t walk out that door, because then you’d have to face up to the emptiness on the other side.” His hands clamps around my shoulders.
“You’re scared that I don’t think you’re pretty,” he lowers his voice to just a whisper.
“You’re petrified that I’ll stop wanting to fuck you, because I’m all you’ve got.” His eyes fall into the space between us and he snarls.
“And this is what gets you off?” I ask him, finally finding my voice.
“Degrading me, making me feel worthless...You may live like a gentleman Ethan, but you exist as a monster. You cradle hate like it’s the only thing that keeps you breathing. And you need me!” I shout.
“You need to make me suffer, just so that cold, hollow shell of a body feels something.”
“Yeah,” he whispers, unashamed.
“And while we’re taking a stab at honesty, you should admit that you like it, because it makes you feel something too. Maybe you were right, you and me, Lysetta,” he flicks his finger between us. “We ain’t so fucking different.”
My hand reacts before my brain can forbid it, raising and striking the side of his cheek. Feeling the sting in my palm, I immediately regret the action.
He doesn’t react, his head lowering to stare at the floor, while his chest heaves heavily.
I don’t fear that he’ll strike me back, that isn’t his style.
Ethan will fuck me as a punishment. And worse of all, I’ll let him, despite knowing that it means nothing to him.
That is how Ethan Shaw hurts.
He finally pulls his eyes back up to mine, his handsome face vacant of a single emotion, and I start to back away from him. I’m speechless, disturbed by how the home truths I’ve laid in front of him haven’t had any effect on him. While his feel like they’ve ruined me. I keep moving away from him until my heels touch the bottom step, and then I quickly turn around, and I run.
Sixteen
ETHAN
I consider doing something that I haven’t done in a really long time.
Then I think that maybe it’s best to give her some space. Lysetta, obviously wanted to get away from me. The way she’d tripped her way up the stairs had proven that.
I’m never in a good place after one of my flashbacks. They haunt me like demons, capture me from the real world and hold me prisoner in my memories until eventually I fight hard enough to wake myself up into a different kind of hell.
They are no excuse for my behavior, some of the things I’ve said to Lysa were way off the mark, even by my standards.
Her slapping my face is nothing less than I deserve. I provoked a reaction, but even making her angry enough to strike out, hadn’t made her cry. She still isn’t broken.
The girl is tougher than I ever gave her credit for.
Climbing the stairs I stand in front of her door, I even give her the courtesy of knocking. Maybe I’ll find her crying, she might have held back her tears because she wanted to deny me the sick satisfaction I’d find in them.
