Lust Is the Thorn (23 page)

In the darkness of night, I watch her from the alley beside my old building like a predator watches its prey. The girl who wouldn't press charges or leave her abusive father's shit hole. The girl who doesn't leave that roach-infested scum hole or the man I witnessed giving out his savage, drunken abuse. The man might not have stopped hitting her. He might have even killed her that day if I hadn't busted through the door.

It makes my blood boil. She deserves better. All human beings deserve better. Some just don't know it, and Tatiana is one of those people.

I can hear the drunken, vulgar way he speaks to her. I also hear the way she apologizes over and over. What I don't hear is the crack of his fist, the slap of a belt, or the cries of pain that sometimes wake me in the dead of night after I've worked at Caldwell's bar or drunk enough to pass the fuck out so I won't be as tempted to swoop up the girl and carry her away, take her somewhere safe.

Coming here at nighttime was a bad idea. I am usually pumped up from an underground fight or from a day of pounding the bags at Chaps. Many times I have to hit something to stop myself from busting into that hellhole.

It started immediately—my obsession with the tiny, pale dark-haired girl. She is my morning coffee at Sips, my morning run, my morning trip to the nutrition store.

I watch her hang laundry on the dilapidated balcony of her second-floor apartment. Every day like clockwork at seven in the morning, she hangs out stark-white men's briefs, T-shirts, Dickies pants—the green ones the school janitor used to wear—and her tiny, thin, faded clothes.

I wait while she goes back inside, knowing she will bring out the first of four rugs and beat them on the cracked back stairs with a broom. They are bigger than her. Hell, everything is. Regardless, every day, she lugs them out and in.

I have tried to gauge when her father leaves, to guesstimate his schedule. However, the fucking piece of shit she calls
otetz
—“father” in Russian—doesn't have a schedule.

He isn't hard to figure out, though. I can tell by the way she cowers when he speaks to her what kind of night she had. When she cringes or jumps at his voice, my blood boils. It's late morning on those days. I can only imagine how he hit her, beat her, hurt her.

I went to Johnny, demanding he do something. He told me to leave it alone. He said he'd done what he could, but she refused to cooperate. He also said she doesn't speak or understand much English. Social Services will follow up, but we have to be realistic with their caseload. She might be legal before they get to her.

During the afternoons, I watch from the diner across the road, and, well, that's when I knew she was lying to Johnny. How did I know? She spoke perfectly good English to me that night. Also, she read books, old books, the same ones over and over. I tried to figure out why she wouldn't just get new ones from the library, why she reads them over and over, but I quickly realized that she doesn't attend school.

I want to know what books they are, yet I'm pressing my luck simply by being around this part of town every day, and binoculars or walking close enough to see would be a bad call.

I went to Johnny about that, too. He told me she was homeschooled. She took tests and shit through the mail and always aced them.

I pissed him off when I questioned his cop skills. How the fuck is he unaware she can speak English if she is acing tests? He merely told me if the old man sees me, if I get caught, I will be violating the restraining order, and he will have no choice except to haul me in—again.

Once, I watched her while she sat and read on the stoop, my plan in place. An older woman who lives in one of the downstairs apartments walked up the steps and handed her a bag. Tatiana held her hand up and shook her head, giving her a sweet smile. The woman took her hand and clasped it around the bag, then walked through the door.

I watched as Tatiana opened the bag cautiously. Then her face nearly spilt in two when she saw the contents.

Pastries. It was pastries.

She looked around as if she would be in trouble if someone saw her. When she felt secure, she took them out and devoured them, one after another. Once she was finished, she stood, crumpled the bag, and put it in the garbage can in the alley.

After that, I brought back more. When the old lady isn't around, I sneak them to the balcony myself and wait, hoping her old man won't find the secret stash. It took me a couple times seeing it to realize she doesn't want her father to know. It also made me realize she must be half-starved.

Five months, five fucking months I have been dropping off a bag every week—sometimes two. A box of donuts, some fresh fruit, books, a bottle of vitamins, a first-aid kit, and even some cash once in a while.

Once, I wrapped a fucking light-green ribbon around a bag, and from that day on, she wears it in her hair, wrapped around her wrist, or looped in her belt. Then I left a second ribbon, and she uses that one as a shoestring.

Then I bought her some tennis shoes. I never see her wear them, though. I guess she doesn't like them. As a result, the next week I left her slippers, the kind you can wear indoors and out. I suppose I have bad taste in shoes because she never wears those, either. She continues to wear the busted-up tennis shoes with the light-green ribbon…every…single…day.

What she has liked are the books. The smile that forms on her face when she gets one does something to me. She may not know where the books come from, but I do. Those smiles are undoubtedly about the little escape she gets by reading, but they are caused by me; therefore, they are all mine.

When I was younger, Momma read to us. We didn't travel much—hell, we didn't travel at all—but we escaped the hardest times through the books and the stories Momma shared, stories of gallant knights, dragon slayers, pirates, thieves who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, and princes who saved princesses from the towers they were being held in.

Tatiana is a princess; there is no doubt in my mind. She is smart. Apparently, she even has test scores to prove it. After all, there's no way in hell that fucker who is her father is doing her correspondence courses for her. The piece of shit can't even form a complete sentence. She is hardworking and takes pride in the little she has. She is beautiful in the most natural way a woman can be. No painted face, no surgical enhancements could rival the beauty God above gave her. She wears her scars like jewelry. As sick as it sounds, to me, those are even more beautiful. They are so damn beautiful I have to remind myself over and over that she is only seventeen, not even legal. My cock obviously gives less than a fuck about that.

Tatiana has something in her, the one thing pirates, thieves, and abusive fuckers can never take away: hope. I see it in her every day. It's an unmistakable look. You have to have been hopeless at one time or another in your life in order to recognize it. I do, and it's fucking with me. It is fucking with me badly.

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