Naked (5 page)

Caelyn waved in return, wondering if that man assumed the two of them were boyfriend and girlfriend like everyone else seemed to be doing.

Of course he assumes that—it would be strange to think otherwise.

And what if I actually wanted something to happened between us tonight? Caelyn wondered. Would Elijah still want to sleep on the floor? Does he think of me as just a silly young girl—a kid—or a friend, or something more?

As usual, she had no answers, only questions and butterflies.

They were on the second floor of the hotel. He pulled out the keycard for the door, and the little light on the door handle went from red to green and flashed. The door clicked and Elijah opened it, revealing a decent-sized room with two queen beds. “Guess I won’t have to sleep on the floor after all,” he winked, flipping on the lights as he went into the room ahead of her.

It was cool inside, with the air freshened scent common to a new room that had just been cleaned recently.

The moment she’d gotten inside, Caelyn dropped her purse and bag to the floor.

She felt like she’d just come home from war. The bed was already calling her name, but first she needed a nice hot shower.

Elijah turned on the television and began flipping channels. Now that they were in the hotel room together, alone, it felt suddenly very intimate and real.

It felt like they were really together.

She looked at Elijah as the light from the television illuminated his face. He was focused on the TV screen, not noticing her for the time being, and she was able to just look at him.

Okay, so he’s fucking hot.

She’d known he was good-looking, clearly, but now that they had stepped out of the car and into a hotel room, something in her awareness had shifted. Elijah was the type of guy that girls would fight to make their boyfriend, compete and scratch and claw to sleep with. He was seriously that hot.

She was alone in a room with him. And there was a bed in this room. They could lie on the bed together and nobody would ever know.

Suddenly, she was imagining them on the bed together—his hard body pushed close to her, his strong, muscular arms encircling her, as he leaned in and began softly kissing her.

She forced herself to break out of the ridiculous fantasy and stop staring.

How can you even think about kissing Elijah after what Jayson did to you last
night? Are you insane?

Now, the butterflies were going and she felt anxious, like her heart was racing.

“I’m taking a shower,” she announced, her voice a little too loud.

He took his gaze off the TV and looked at her quizzically. “Okay. Have fun.”

She went into the bathroom, shut the door behind her and turned the water on full blast in the tub. Her heart was still beating too fast and she could hardly catch her breath.

Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, her face was too pale and she looked like a tired old clown with all the dried makeup and the mascara that had run down her cheeks when she’d been crying.

She felt a strong need to tear off her clothes. They stink, she thought. She’d been wearing them for a day and a half and she’d gone over Jayson’s wearing the outfit. She’d been dumb enough to want to dress sexy for him, never realizing what that might mean.

Never considering that it might lead where it led.

Caelyn pulled off her top and then stepped out of her skirt as the steam started to fill the room. The heat was good. The heat was cleansing. She wasn’t wearing panties because Jayson had ripped them off during the struggle.

Now, looking at her own naked body, she was forced to see the bruises on her upper arm from where he’d grabbed her, the scratch on her belly, another large yellowing bruise on her thigh, the rawness on her knee.

There were other bruises and scrapes, too. Some smaller, some larger.

He beat me up,
she realized.
He beat me up and raped me.

The thought was loud in her head—almost a scream. Caelyn felt her self-control slipping away. Images from last night were flooding back in now, as if stripping off her clothes had also stripped away the final layers of armor that had protected her from the worst of the memories.

She saw Jason’s face close up, leering at her as he forced her down on the couch.

“Don’t fight it,” he warned, his voice hot in her ear.

Caelyn stepped into the scalding shower and began furiously lathering a washcloth with soap, and then scrubbing her body from head to toe. She spent a lot of time on her face because of the makeup, but she spent even more time on her breasts and between her legs.

It only occurred to her that she was sobbing when she came out of the fog of memory and heard herself, as if from a distance.

I’m crying,
she thought, and stopped instantly.

The memories faded, like a signal going dead. Somehow, she pushed it back.

Pushed everything down again.

The water had begun cooling, as she’d been standing in the shower scrubbing for quite awhile. She wasn’t even sure how long she’d been in there, but it must have been long enough to concern Elijah.

There was a knock on the bathroom door and then his voice, muffled, speaking.

“…okay in there…?”

She turned away from the cooling spray of water from the showerhead. “I’m fine, I’ll be out in a sec!”

“…making sure…”

She couldn’t hear the rest of what he said.

Smiling a little at his concern, Caelyn turned off the shower and stood dripping into the tub. Some of the worst of the anxiety and panic had passed. She felt a little better now that she had cleaned her body entirely. Her skin was red and raw, as though she’d scraped the top layer off.

She liked that idea. Shedding her old skin.

It was only when she put the towel around her torso and stepped out of the tub that she realized, in her haste, she’d forgotten to bring her little travel bag with her clothes into the bathroom.

“Elijah?” she called. He didn’t respond. The television was on out there, and he’d turned up the volume loud enough to not be able to hear her very easily.

Screw it, she thought. I’ll just run out there in my towel, grab my bag really quickly, and run back in.

Somehow, the idea of running out in her towel in front of Elijah didn’t really scare her the way it should have. After what had happened with Jayson, she’d have assumed that the mere idea of showing a flash of skin to Elijah would have totally freaked her out. But it didn’t.

Elijah could be trusted. Somehow, he was safe. Of course, she knew that he wasn’t really safe at all—in fact, she sensed that in many ways Elijah was more dangerous than Jayson—just not to her. Elijah wouldn’t ever hurt her. She knew it in a deep way, a sense that she couldn’t even begin to explain.

So she opened the bathroom door and ran to get her bag—and bumped directly into Elijah, and her towel started to fall off, so she grabbed it to keep it from exposing everything.

Elijah caught her as she stumbled forward, his strong hands around her waist as she held up the top of her towel.

“Hey, hey, easy there,” he laughed. “It’s not the Indie 500. Chill.”

“I just needed to get my bag,” she said, her cheeks aflame.

“Why didn’t you just open the door and ask me to get it for you?”

“Will you just let me go so I can get it already?” she asked, flustered by his nearness and his questions.

He was still looking at her though, not moving away. His expression had changed from good-natured and amused to one of worry. “What the hell…” he said, as he looked down at her legs and then her arms and shoulders. “You’re all fucking bruised and shit.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. Her voice was raspy and choked. She pushed past him and quickly grabbed her bag.

“Caelyn—” he started.

“Stop looking at me!” she said, and then ran into the bathroom, shutting the door.

She was breathing heavily. Why hadn’t she realized that he might see her and the bruises and scrapes? Of course he would wonder what had happened to her.

She opened her bag and looked for the most non-revealing outfit she could find.

Granted, there wasn’t much to choose from, because she’d been frantic at the time that she’d packed it.

There were mostly shorts, some panties and bras, t-shirts, one sweatshirt and one pair of jeans. She really didn’t want to have to wear jeans right then, so Caelyn put on a pair of shorts a t-shirt and then the sweatshirt on top of it. Most of the bruises and scrapes on her body were now covered up.

After another few seconds trying to compose herself, Caelyn walked out of the bathroom again.

Elijah was sitting on the edge of one of the beds, watching TV. He glanced at her.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, not really feeling fine at all. She climbed into the opposite bed and got under the covers. She was too hot in her sweatshirt but didn’t feel comfortable taking it off.

“Listen, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” he said softly.

“I’m aware of that.”

“What’s your problem?” he said. “Why are you treating me like the enemy?”

“Because, you should mind your own business.”

Elijah looked straight at her. “Hey, I’m not the guy who gave you those bruises.

And if I ever meet that guy, I’m going to rip his fucking head off.”

Caelyn stared back at him, feeling a surge of conflicting emotions. She was angry at him for making assumptions and talking so bluntly about what had happened to her.

But she was also grateful to him. He actually cared enough to be enraged on her behalf.

And then, without warning, the tears came.

Once they came, she couldn’t stop them so she buried her face in her hands and just let herself cry. She was totally embarrassed, feeling like a complete psycho.

She wondered if Elijah was starting to regret his decision to travel with her after all the hysterics and dramatics.

He wasn’t saying a word. He was probably just sitting there and wondering what the hell he did to deserve this crazy girl in his life.

But then, surprisingly, she felt his hand on her back. “It’s all right,” he said, and she felt the weight of his body sinking into the mattress next to her. His hand slowly rubbed her back, and she was amazed that Elijah’s touch wasn’t threatening.

Instead, he was soothing. The warmth from his hand as he softly rubbed her back seemed to relax all the muscles in her shoulders. Caelyn slowly lifted her face from her hands.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, right next to her. He was looking at her with softness and caring. His eyes, she realized, were incredibly kind. How was it that she’d never noticed that before?

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to take care of me,” she told him. “I’m going to be fine.”

“I know that,” he said.

“I just need time to figure out what the hell happened to me.”

“You don’t know?” Elijah said.

She sighed. “I do know. But…it’s confusing. You’re not a girl so you can’t possibly understand what I mean.”

“You think because I’m not a girl, I can’t imagine being confused about my life?”

he laughed. “Shit, I’m confused every fucking day, Caelyn.”

“This is different, though.”

“How so?”

And then, for some reason, she just blurted it out. The truth.

“Because I was raped by my boyfriend, okay?”

Elijah was staring at her as if she’d slapped him. He licked his lips. “Okay,” he said, slowly. “What part of it’s confusing?”

She ran her hands through her still wet, tangled hair. “All of it. Jayson—that’s his name…he was so nice to me the whole time up until last night.” She thought about everything and shook her head, still completely stunned at how quickly it had all changed. “I was a freshman and Jayson is a junior. He approached me in the cafeteria on my second day of school and was just…nice. A total gentleman. He was sweet and funny and totally mature, and I was kind of in awe of him.”

Elijah looked sick. “Yeah, I know the type.”

“I know, I know—you think he’s that typical rich kid that you hate.”

“That’s not what I meant, Caelyn.”

“Well, maybe that’s what I meant. Because, looking back on it, I suppose I’m mad at myself for falling for his act. And it was an act. He was from a good family, a rich family and people on campus knew their names. When I was seen with him, I have to admit that I liked feeling important. I got off on feeling special, like I’d gotten into some exclusive club.”

Elijah smiled a little. “There’s nothing wrong with that. We all want to be special.”

“Maybe.” She sighed. “He took everything slow. We didn’t go out on our first real date for a couple of weeks, and then he asked me to dinner. And he took me to a really nice restaurant in the South End of Boston, and I felt like a princess. At the end of the night, he just dropped me back at the dorms with a little kiss. Nothing crazy, he didn’t even ask me to go back to his place—although I would have if he had.”

“The guy knew what he was doing, Caelyn. He was grooming you.”

“Grooming me?”

Elijah’s eyes turned hard and flinty. She could tell he wasn’t angry with her, though. But she could feel his rage, could feel the tension coming off him in waves as he sat there, looking into the distance. “This is a pattern that he set up, and he was just playing out the script with you. I’m sorry to say it, but there’s no way this is the first time he did this to a girl.”