Hussy (11 page)

It was like he couldn’t make any more words. She gave a strangled little laugh that sounded more like a sob to her ears.
“Didn’t I?”

“
No,” he murmured, pulling the sheet aside, exposing her back to the air. “Oh my god, no, sweetheart, no… ” His lips moved over her back, kissing the wounds there. The deeper ones he had carefully bandaged before they’d gone to bed, but there were too many to cover completely, and it was the shallow ones he kissed now, over and over. It reminded her of those few memories she had of her father, of falling down and him putting on the Band-Aid, kissing it and making it all better. “Please don’t believe it. Not for a minute. You didn’t ask for this. It’s not your fault.”

She didn’t believe it—couldn’t—and she cringed away, rolling to her belly and clutching the pillow. He didn’t stop touching her, his fingers grazing lightly,
cautious, as if he were petting a shy animal, his lips murmuring words against her back, and he kept on whispering those awful, painful words.

“
I know you’re hurting.” His breath was too warm, too human, too comforting. It made her want to cry and she fought it—hard. “God, baby, I could tell from the first minute I saw you. It shouldn’t be possible for a girl your size to be carrying around so much pain.”

“
No,” she choked, begging him to stop, knowing he wouldn’t. This was worse, his tenderness, his kind words, worse than the rape, worse than anything.

“
I just want to love you.” His forehead pressed against her lower back, and the sting she felt there was the salt of his tears. That realization broke her—Zach, crying, in pain—and all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and die.

“
I don’t deserve you.” She sobbed against the pillow, the dam breaking, her body shaking with it. “I don’t deserve this.”

“
Oh, baby.” Zach moved in beside her, taking her, fighting, into his arms. She tried to resist, shaking her head, pushing back, but he was too strong for her. “Please,” he murmured into her hair as she began to give, letting him hold her. “Let me love you. Just let me love you.”

“
I can’t.” Her strangled cry muffled itself against his chest, and he rocked her, back and forth, into a bed covers cocoon in the dark. “You don’t understand.”

“
I don’t care.” He tucked her head under his chin, as if he could get her even closer. “Lindsey, I know more than you think I do. And I don’t care. Baby, I don’t care what you’ve done, how many other guys you’ve been with, the lengths you’ve gone to...just to hurt yourself.” She tried to make herself smaller against him, as if she could hide from his words.

“
God, baby, you’re so full of that spite.” His words made her feel cold, achy, as if she had the flu. “Watching you do this to yourself… it’s like seeing you eat rat poison, but you think you’re hurting someone else, don’t you? You’ll show them, right?” He squeezed her tighter when she snorted and nodded through her tears. “And all the while you’re just killing
yourself
…”

“
I know.” She drew a shuddering breath. “But I don’t care.”

He sighed, kissing the top of her head.
“Because if no one else cares… why should you?”

She nodded, holding back a full-blown sob, her throat closing off any words.

“
I
care, Linds.” He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her wet cheeks. “I love you. Do you hear me?
I love you
.”

Burying her face against his chest, she gave a deep, shuddering sigh, sliding her hand down over the hard, flat surface of his belly, reaching under the sheet to find his cock, soft in a nest of dark, kinky hair.

“Lindsey!” Zach jumped, startled, at her touch. “Oh, baby, no, no… ” He took her hand, pulling it up to his waist, wrapping it around him. “It’s so not about that.”

“
It’s always about that!” she choked, trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he held on, rocking, until sobs racked her body, trembling them both. It was a while—to Lindsey, it felt like forever—before they subsided into little hitching noises, the same kind she used to get when she was very small and had been crying a long, long time. Zach kissed the top of her head, using the sheet to wipe the tears from her face, his chest.

“
He raped me,” she whispered, the words lifting a weight in her chest like an anvil.

“
I know, baby, I know,” he crooned, stroking her. “I’m so sorry… ”

“
My stepfather. When I was twelve.”

His silence stretched until he managed a breathy, strangled,
“Oh… god… ” in response, his arms tightening around her.

“
I had never even kissed a boy before.” The words, once begun, seemed to form themselves.

“
Oh Christ.”

“
There was blood everywhere.” She shuddered. “And I tried to clean it—he told me to, before my mother got home. I tried… ” She sighed, remembering. The memory wasn’t far away, like it usually was—the circle-face of the moon through a pane of glass—instead it was close, bright, painful. She wanted to push it away and found she couldn’t. “He was always like that. I couldn’t ever do anything right with him. It never mattered what it was. I wasn’t ever good enough.”

“
Oh my god, Lindsey,” Zach’s voice cracked and she could feel how tense his muscles were, felt his jaw clench as he tucked her head under his chin. The words came and came, spilling out of her mouth, a fountain of pain, and he listened, mostly quiet, his jaw working, as she told him everything.

“
I remembered… ” She tried to swallow the memory, but she couldn’t. It hurt more than any of the others. “When I was little-little and I’d fall down and skin my knee… I remembered my father, putting on that spray stuff that hurt and telling me to go to the moon… ”

“
The moon?”

“
It was something we did… ” She smiled through her tears, remembering her chubby little girl finger, pointing at the glass. “At night, he would show me the moon out my window before he put me to bed… so whenever I was hurt, he’d try to distract me, tell me to remember the moon… think about the moon… ”

Zach nodded, just holding her.

“I think I got to the point where I became the moon,” she whispered, closing her eyes. She could see it, tucked neatly into one square pane of glass. “I went to the moon whenever he touched me, Zach. I went away. Whenever anyone touches me, that’s where I go. And tonight… I went there, too. I felt like I swallowed the moon tonight, and it burned… ”

“
Oh baby… ” He gave a deep, shaky sigh, swallowing hard. “Can I ask… what about your mother?”

“
I tried… once.” Lindsey shook her head. “She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to know.” Her lip trembled and she pulled the comforter tighter around her. “She always loved him more than she ever loved me.”

“
Oh no… ” His denial didn’t make it not true, and she blinked back more tears.

“
And after that… I just wanted someone to pick me up and tell me it was going to be okay, you know?” She felt him nodding. “But there was never… anyone. And it felt like… like I just kept falling down… over and over… and there was no one there… ”

“
To catch you?”

She nodded her assent, her throat closed tight.

“I promise you… ” Zach’s voice was hard, but his hands, cupping her face, were tender. “No one is ever going to hurt you again. And I will always, always be there to catch you, Lindsey.”

She wanted to deny his words, to tell him she didn’t need him—she didn’t need anyone—but that part of her was far away now. He’d managed to find a way into the biggest, most secret part of herself, and she couldn’t push him away anymore.

“I don’t care how hard or how far you fall,” he murmured, kissing her wet eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. “I promise I will be there to catch you.”

“
I’m sorry,” she choked, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing against him. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much, and I am so, so… ”

His kiss stopped her, his mouth hard, too hard, and she cried out. He stopped, panting, and she felt the anger in him.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” He sighed, his fingers moving over her sore, tender lips. “I’m sorry all of that happened to you. I’m sorry you think it was your fault, that you deserved… ” He shook his head, swallowing the words. “Lindsey, if I could take it back… if I could get my hands on him in a dark alley somewhere… ”

“
It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, throwing a leg over his and snuggling in closer. “None of it matters anymore. I have you now… I have someone, a place to be, to feel safe.”

“
Oh damnit… ” His arms tightened again. “This is so not the right time to tell you this…”

Her head came up sharply, her heart thudding.
“Tell me what?”

“
… I’m leaving.” He winced when she gasped, sounding as if she’d been punched. “I’m being deployed to Iraq.”

“
Again?” She frowned, feeling indignant.
Just how much time can one man serve for his country?
she thought selfishly.

He sighed.
“I go when they tell me to go, baby.”

“
I don’t want you to go.” She pouted, trying to imagine her life without him, and found it more than a little difficult.

“
And I don’t want to go.” He leaned back on his pillow, throwing an arm over his head, and stared up at the ceiling.

She approached him cautiously.
“You can’t get out of it?”

“
You can’t tell the U.S. Navy no, sweetheart.” The flash of his smile gleamed in the dark. “But here’s the thing… ” He sat up on his elbow, earnest now. “I want you to stay here. Stay here and wait for me.”

“
Wait?” The word felt weighted in her mouth.

“
You’re graduating in a few weeks. I’ll probably be gone through the summer, no more… ”

The whole summer?
She sighed. “When are you going?”

“
June twenty-sixth.”

“
So soon?” She heard the whine in her voice and tried to curb it. That was only a few weeks after graduation.

“
I’m sorry.” He leaned back again, this time throwing his arm over his eyes. “It’s terrible timing.”

They were quiet for a while. Lindsey watched him, his chest rising and falling, and wondered what he was thinking.
“I don’t want to stay here without you,” she said finally. “This is… this is your home, not mine. I don’t belong here.”

“
Yes you do,” he insisted, up on his elbow again. His eyes flashed in the dimness. “Want me to prove it? We’ll go the justice of the peace tomorrow.”

She laughed, incredulous.
“Was that a proposal?”

“
Yeah,” he said, serious, reaching out for her hand. His swallowed hers as he squeezed and then pressed her palm to his lips. “Yeah, it was. Lindsey, will you marry me?”

Her heart soared, but she tried to make light of it, still. She snorted and gave him a shove.
“A shotgun wedding?”

She heard him grinning.
“Well, for it to be a
real
shotgun wedding, you’d have to be pregnant… not that I’d object.” His hand moved over the smooth, flat expanse of her belly, but she pushed him away, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“
Where are you going?” His hand moved to encircle her wrist.

“
I don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Zach… I can’t get pregnant. Not anymore.”

He sat up then, too, moving in behind her. She leaned her head back against his chest and told him her last, biggest secret.
“He made me get an abortion after that first time.” She felt him stiffen, but she went on anyway, needing to tell someone, needing to tell
him
. “And then, you know, he got me the pill. But I stopped taking them.” She laughed in the dark, remembering how angry, how defiant, how ridiculously naive she had been. “I thought maybe, if I had a baby, my mom would have to… ”

“
Oh Jesus.” He rested his forehead against her hair.

“
But it’s never happened.” She shrugged. She had stopped worrying about it a long time ago. What kind of mother would she ever be, after all, she reasoned. Her own mother had been a terrible mother. And her grandmother—she was the only one who had ever defended her. Her intentions were good—but her sentiments misguided. Her grandmother had hit the tree but missed the target, not quite understanding the motivation behind her granddaughter’s acting out. When Lindsey’s mother had complained about her daughter’s behavior, the way she dressed, Lindsey’s grandmother had turned to her granddaughter, patted her hand, and whispered so only she could hear, “Don’t worry, dear—a hussy is just a woman with the morals of a man.” But she’d died two years ago and now Lindsey had no one at all.