Fear Me (16 page)

“I want you to remember this moment,” he said in a controlled tone while I struggled against him for air. “How I am now, how you are now.” He took his cock out of my mouth and shoved me back. “I want you to remember that there is
nothing
good about me and there never will be.”

I believed him. God help me, I believed him.

“You really enjoyed that didn’t you?” he snickered. “You thought you were pleasing me? Controlling me even?”

He was playing me the whole time.
“Why are you doing this?” I could hear the bitterness in my own voice. He ignored my question and fixed his jeans. I swallowed nervously and tasted the remnants of him and felt a moment of disgust, keeping my gaze rooted to the floor. “You wanted this so why are you so angry?” I asked again.

“I’m not angry. That would mean I cared.” He moved for the door, intending to leave me tied apparently,
but he turned back and asked, “Did you really think you could manipulate me?”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s not why you’re angry.” My gaze lifted to meet his dead-on. “You’re angry because it was working and I did please you.”

“Well then that would be stupid of you.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Because then I would be forced to keep you. And you don’t want that,” he replied, ominously. A loud crash and the sound of running footsteps and screams filtered through the door and then a guy’s voice could be heard on the other side.

“Keiran man, get out here. Dash and Keenan are fighting some guys who crashed the party. Shit is trashed.”

He stalked toward the door, shirtless and left as quietly as he came. To someone who didn’t recognize the signs he seemed calm but I glimpsed the rage simmering in his eyes. I was left on the floor still bound by his belt and helpless. Moments later the loud noise and screaming ended and the house grew eerily quiet and then all at once I could hear the sound of running footsteps again followed by screeching tires and cars departing.

I pushed myself up until I was standing. My legs were sleep from being stuck in one position. I licked my lips and immediately recognized the taste of him lingering on my lips and curious, I licked them again, before I realized what I was doing.

Some sick part of me liked the taste of him despite being manipulated. I tried to tell myself that I had no choice, that I didn’t enjoy being violated by him. But I didn’t fight him either. If I fought Keiran, I would lose one way or the other.

I thought about my journal. I
needed
my journal. It was where I kept all my pain and told all my secrets and it spoke of only two things—my parents and him.

I haven’t thought about that journal since last year when he went away and I no longer had anything to write about. The journal was old and something I kept to deal with the pain of losing my parents. I started it a year after they disappeared and Keiran’s bullying got worse.

The first entry about him was in the fourth grade after he got some girls to stick used gum in my hair and had everyone call me spit head at lunch. I locked myself inside the bathroom and immediately pulled out my journal to write. It was mistake but it soon became my salvation and way of coping.

Starting out, whenever a memory of my parents surfaced I would write that memory down and how I felt about them. It was something my aunt suggested I do when she couldn’t get me to talk about it. She said she would rather I tell a piece a paper than no one at all. I think that was the writer in her speaking.

Keiran had given me a new pain to focus on. So when I begin to write only about Keiran, the journal became a vessel and now holds every thought and emotion that I ever had for Keiran inside of it. It even expressed the confusion I often would feel from being attracted to him as we got older. I finally admitted to my journal of having a crush on him a couple of days before I turned sixteen.

The school year had just begun and I saw him for the first time in three months. He’d gone to some basketball camp that was sponsored by the NBA and NCAA for the best talent. The look he gave me as he swaggered down the hallway toward me was hot. I remember his grey eyes trailing slowly up and down my body as we grew closer from opposite ends of the hallway. Our gazes were locked the entire time and I couldn’t help but to admire the light stubble he’d grown. It made him look older and sexier, if that was even possible and just as I was passing by him, thinking he would spare me his normal dose of public humiliation, he knocked my books out of my hand and sent them flying along with the few sheets of paper I had laying on top. I didn’t react. I never did. I picked up my books and continued to my first class with my head held high and the anguish my heart felt buried in secret.

Keiran’s torments came more frequently and grew crueler that year. For whatever reason he seemed to despise me even more. I remember always being confused about the strange looks he would give me followed by a vicious, verbal attack. But we were on an entirely different playing field now. Keiran was menacing enough when unprovoked but now he actually has a reason to hate me.

I tried to look at it from his point of view. He lost a year of his life to the system. It was a year he would never get back, while the drug conviction threatened his future because nothing stayed completely buried. Add in the humiliation of a public arrest it would be enough to piss off a nun. I understood why he wanted revenge, but threatening the life of my aunt was unforgivable. She was innocent in all this.

When his car stopped, it snapped me out of my thoughts and I realized that we were in my driveway. He didn’t shut off the engine and I was relieved. I couldn’t handle anymore of Keiran today. After his party came to a screeching, violent halt, he had come back upstairs and untied me. He then ordered me to “get the fuck out” and I would have went running for the door but I had to remind him that he drove me here and I couldn’t call Willow because he sabotaged our friendship. So here we were.

I touched the door handle to get out but stopped and stared out the windshield instead. I took a deep breath and made a decision.

“It was wrong,” I began. He turned to face me, with his eyebrows raised. “You had a good thing going. You just made captain of the basketball team – rumor was that scouts were already looking at you pretty heavy. It was the end of junior year, and you were supposed to graduate last year. You should be in college now surrounded by an endless supply of hot girls. You wanted a future. You
hoped
for a future.”

I looked at him finally – he looked like he was contemplating something as he rubbed his bottom lip with his finger. I couldn’t help but to track the motion, watching his finger sweep across. His lips were plump and kissable and I was suddenly jealous of his finger.

“You were innocent. I know that but not because you believe I framed you, but because if you had done it, then this –,” I gestured between the two of us, “wouldn't be happening. You would have accepted the consequences even if someone did tip the police.”

I felt the weight of his stare as silence filled the air in the close confines of the car. It became almost unbearable after a few minutes of waiting for him to say something so I gave up and reached for the door handle again, having said my piece.

“What makes you so sure?”

I turned back to him confused. “Sure about what?”
Was he trying to say he was guilty?

“That we wouldn't have happened.”

His question immediately pissed me off. I knew it was just another tactic to get into my head. “Are you suggesting otherwise, because the past ten years says different.”

“
You aren't as blind as you pretend to be, Monroe so cut the bullshit. You come apart when I touch you without hesitation…naturally…as if the
past ten years says different
.” He emphasized the last part and I flushed thinking about the classroom and the memory of his mouth devouring me.

“Exactly. Naturally. It’s pure biology.”

“You mean biology made you like me fucking your mouth like that?”

“No, but desire has nothing to do with hate.”

“Doesn't it? You forget – I was there that day in the hallway when that limp dick kissed you.” I remembered that day. Keiran had effectively ruined my first kiss and chance at a love interest.

“What does that have to do with anything? How do you know I didn't kiss him?”

“You didn't kiss him back.”

I didn’t say anything because he was right. I hated that. I didn’t kiss Peter back. I consented to it but lost the desire to once his lips were on mine. I even remember counting the seconds until it was over and even feeling grateful that Keiran had found us and ran him off.

“So?”

“So you would have felt desire for him. Desire isn't based on biology and I think you know that. It starts here,” he tapped my temple before trailing his fingers down my body slowly, “before it reaches your sweet spot.” I was sure I was flaming red by now.

“I don’t hate you,” I whispered rubbing my sore, red wrists. Bruising was already forming and I wondered how I could hide it from my aunt.

“Not even after what I did to you tonight?”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“But you are afraid of me.”

“And so you believe my fear sparked sexual desire for you?”

“Something tells me you came to this conclusion already.” I shook my head in denial not wanting to admit how right he was. “Monroe, you don’t desire me because you fear me. You desired me long before I gave you a reason to be afraid.”

I shook my head again abruptly. "Impossible –”

He blew out a breath in frustration. “How? You've been eye fucking me since puberty. I've noticed you Monroe – beyond the taunts and the rumors I spread, I've noticed you. You wanted me. You still do.”

“It's impossible because I've been afraid of you since I was seven years old.”

* * *

It was just after midnight when I finally walked inside my house. I thought about the last thing I said to him before he said good night, abruptly ending our talk. I must say that I didn't expect his reaction. He all but kicked me out of his car and sped off before I even reached the door.

So much for chaste kisses on the doorstep
.
Not that I wanted to kiss him or anything.

After a hot shower, I was turning down my blankets for bed, cursing Keiran the whole time, when I heard a noise. It sounded muffled and far away so I quietly moved to the bedroom door and peeked around the frame.

My door was the closest to the stairs so I saw a light that I didn’t remember turning on. I creeped down the stairs slowly, praying there wasn't a creepy burglar in the house. My aunt was too much of a pacifist to keep a gun in the house, not that I knew how to use one. How hard could it be, though? You just point, shoot, and hope the wrong end isn’t facing you.

I was halfway down and finally convinced myself it was nothing, when the light suddenly turned off. The only thing that could be heard after that was the wild beating of my heart as it dropped to the pit of my stomach.
Calm down, Lake. The power must have gone out.

I looked back up the stairs to see light still shining from my bedroom and my body went cold. I’m talking Arctic cold, people. I knew I needed to call for help but was too afraid to move, fearing that I would alert whoever was in the house by some small noise.

I knew Aunt Carissa wouldn't be back this soon without telling me first, so this had to be a break-in. I tried to recall if I locked the door but I couldn’t remember a single thing past that light turning off. Finally it came. The sound that confirmed someone was in the house with me. It sounded like footsteps, hard and heavy. There were only two and then it stopped.

The foyer? The Kitchen?

They were the only two places in the house besides the bathroom that would produce the sound of footsteps that loud. I grabbed some balls by the skin and slowly began backing up the stairs, careful not to make a sound. I almost made it too but the sudden sound of my cell phone ringing from my open bedroom door broke the silence. Keiran had given it back to me when he kicked me out of his car.

Shit.

I broke out into a run, not caring about keeping silent any longer. I made it to my bedroom and locked the door just as the ringing stopped. I ran over to my nightstand and snatched my cellphone up. It was a missed call from Willow. I hit the phone icon to dial the

police and a second later there was a thump on my bedroom door. Followed by a series of thumps that became more forceful. Someone was trying to break down the door.

The operator finally came over the line. "Please, somebody is in my house," I cried. Suddenly the thumping stop and I could hear the sound of footsteps again. I gave the operator my address and sunk to the floor in relief when the door rattled and I felt my heart stop altogether.

"Go away, I called the police!"

“You did what? Open the door!” I heard a familiar angry voice boom from the other side of the door. I was too terrified to move so I sat there on my knees, clutching my phone and wishing the police would hurry.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked in a gut-wrenching sob.

“Doing what? Open the door!” He continued pounding on the door until a crack split the wood. I jumped and began screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Leave me alone, please!” Keiran had almost succeeded breaking the door down when I heard additional footsteps running up the stairs.

“Police!” I heard the voices on the other side of the door instructing Keiran to place his hands up.

“Ma'am, it's Officer Reynolds and my partner, Officer Burkes. You can open the door now. We have him restrained.”

I sat there numb for a
minute before I finally stood to my feet and opened the door. An officer was standing on the other side. He looked familiar somehow but I couldn't place him. The other officer was leading away a handcuffed Keiran, who was silent as he was taken downstairs.

“Are you okay, did he hurt you?” Officer Reynolds asked.