Pray for Darkness (4 page)

Then he puts his hands around her neck, shoving her up on the truck while the other hand pushes up her skirt, and suddenly I don’t give a fuck why I’m here or whether I have a right to be or not ‘cause I’m sure as shit not gonna sit and watch this.

Fucker doesn’t even notice as I stomp forward. His tongue’s slides across Sasha’s perfect cheek, leaving a trail of saliva that shines in the moonlight. She looks forward, her eyes dead, her expression blank as he rubs his body up against her, too fucking intoxicated by the feel of her to notice she’s not into it.

“So you want it rough, baby?” he groans, slamming his pelvis into hers. There’s a jingle as he fiddles with the belt.

Her glazed over eyes wander over the distance. She looks lost, like she’s not there but someplace else. Like everything that’s happening is happening to some other girl and she’s just watching. “Yes. I want it rough.”

That’s it
. I rush forward.

The second she locks her gaze to mine, she comes back to life. Her eyes sharpen. They’re shocked at first, and then, seconds later, ashamed. I hate seeing that there. I hate that she should feel, for even one second, ashamed. And I know that whatever happens I have to stop this now.

I grab his shirt and yank him off her. The guy babbles something as I swing him around and clock him in the face. He’s a big guy, but he goes down fast. They always do.

“What the fuck?” he growls, holding his jaw. It doesn’t take him long to recover. As I start forward for the second hit, he barrels forward, slamming me into his truck.

Pain shoots through my back, and then my sides as he lands a kidney punch. I bring up my knee, slamming it into his jaw and kicking his head back. His grip on my sides loosens. It’s all I need. I bring my heel down hard on his incept and punch him, again, on the other side of his face.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he hells. “What the fuck?”

“You get the fuck away from her.” I can barely think. All I want to do is keep hitting. My fingers twitch. Anger courses through me, making my vision blur, and the distant sounds of frogs echoes in my mind above the static sound of white noise.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sasha’s holding her arms across her chest, protectively. “Why are you here?”

I’m so angry that I’d forgotten, for a second, why I was here in the first place. And then I lock in on her wet lips. Her dress is still partially pushed up her thigh. Her eyes are filled with fear and something else I don’t want to recognize Then I remember why I’d forgotten; I didn’t want to remember because if I’d remembered for just one second I would have fucking killed him.

“Let’s go, Sasha.”

Her bottom lip trembles but her voice is firm. “No.”

“I’m not asking again.”

“Hey asshole.” The asshole below me shouts. He holds his busted lip in his hand. Blood leaks between his fingers. “She said she didn’t want to fucking go with you.”

What, now
I’m
the bad guy here? There’s a lot I want to say to that, but I don’t. I’m tired and angry and I want to go home and forget this day ever happened.

“Sasha,” I warn.

“No.”

“Don’t make me ask again,” I tell her through clenched teeth.

“I hate you, Trev.”

“Great. That makes two of us.”

“I fucking hate you.”

I turn to face her. “You think after everything that’s happened today that I care about something like that?”

She flinches.

A sick, self-righteous satisfaction fills me. Good. She should be disgusted with herself. She should be angry. And then I remember what she told me—what happened to her—every single fucked-up thing she’s been through—and I just want someone to fucking shoot me.

Well the guy on the ground doesn’t have a gun, but he does have a mean left hook. I hear a rustle in the grass and turn just in time for him to clock me in my left temple.

I stagger and throw up my arm, blocking the next strike. God
damn
this redneck hits hard.

Sasha starts screaming god knows what as I leap forward, pummeling his stomach.

He must be super pissed. I don’t blame him. I would have been too if I’d been interrupted just as I was about to fuck a girl as hot as Sasha. But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna ruin him.

He hits harder than me. He’s beefier. Probably stronger. But the guy doesn’t protect his face. He rushes forward as if pure mass will smother any attempt to block him.

I’ll admit it, I got into fights occasionally when I was younger. Haven’t for a while and I’m definitely not a professional, but I don’t have to be to counter his attacks. Soon he’s back on the ground with my elbow pressed to his throat.

“You gonna stop now?” I ask as he squirms beneath me.

“Leave her alone,” he spits blood on my cheek. “She said no.”

For a second my grip on him falters, and I’m rewarded with a knee to my lower back. Fuck this. I’m not gonna hurt her. I’d never hurt her. I push my elbow into his neck, harder.

“Stop, Trev.” The soothing, feminine voice cuts through my thoughts. “It’s alright. Just stop.”

I feel her hands on my shoulders rubbing me softly. I smell her jasmine perfume. “Let him go. He’s done nothing wrong.”

I allow her to pull me to my feet. The guy sits up and kicks himself back across the gravel to his truck. “You her boyfriend or something?”

I glare at him.

He spits blood, wipes his mouth, then glares right back. “Stupid cheating bitch.”

I jolt forward, fists clenched, but Sasha stops me. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

The guy wipes his mouth with his hand. “Well fuck me,” he mutters as he opens the door to his truck. Sasha and I step back as he speeds off.

Sasha turns to me. “I guess this means you’re my ride home.”

Chapter 4

Sasha

Trevor grips the wheel and grinds his teeth. It’s an old habit, and one I wish he didn’t have. It can’t be good for his enamel.

I glance at the tape player. “Still don’t have a CD or mp3 player?”

He sighs. Readjusts his grip on the wheel. “Not in the car.”

After five minutes of not talking I get tired of listening to him breathe slowly through his nose, so I press down on one of the big, black buttons on the old tape player.

Smooth, beautiful singing fills the car for a few moments before Trevor reaches over and slams it off.

The silence startles me, as well as the subtle, barely controlled violence he used to preform such a mundane task. I press my knees together, squeezing my hands between my thighs.

That familiar, uncanny silence slips between us once again.

“Was that
Anggun
?” I ask softly.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk about music?”

“No.”

“Well, alright.” I drum my fingers on the door. “Let’s talk about what just went down back there, then.”

He works his jaw a moment before answering. “Don’t.”

I open my mouth but I can’t think of a damn thing to say. Not one goddamn thing.

His eyes are on the road. He seems to be breathing louder. What I just did got under his skin.

I hadn’t meant to do that.

As we get back into the suburbs, the trees thin out. Every few blocks we pass a lone car—people who work the night shift; teens trying to make their curfew; philandering husbands; people who had to stay late at work.

You can’t see the wooden sign for my building at night. It’s a pretty shitty place. I wouldn’t have looked at twice when I was with Brian, but it’s cheap, relatively clean, and quiet. Right now I value those things more than I ever thought I would.

He pulls into an empty space between a little blue bug and a beige suburban that has seen better days and kills the engine. Says nothing.

I wait. It seems like something is about to happen. Like something should happen. But I can’t think of what. Silence stretches between us, tense and anxious, kind of like the feeling you get when you’re blowing the biggest bubble gum bubble of your life and you just know it’s gonna pop soon. But there’s no pop. No explosion. He stares ahead at the starving bushes. They’d transplanted them too late in the summer in an effort to make the building look more homey. It didn’t exactly work.

I undo my seatbelt and open the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

He’s still staring straight ahead at the pitiful bushes, angry. No, not angry. Anguished. Like the world around him is breaking.

I run my fingers down the side of the door. I don’t close it. With my back turned away from him, I wait for that anger to spill out—for him to yank me back into the car and start screaming and screaming. I wait for him to break like I’ve broken.

It doesn’t happen.

“You can come in if you want.” I shiver, startled by the fact I offered. All of this was a mistake. I even knew it when I first asked him.

It’s better to trust your heart with a stranger when it’s broken. Their uncaring mirrors the numbness you want to feel for yourself. They can’t hurt you because they don’t know you and therefore can’t really touch you. You don’t go to someone you care about, especially when you want to break, because they’ll try to put you back together and that hurts too much. It hurts the most when you try to protect something only to fail.

Trevor doesn’t respond to my offer. I guess I should have expected that. I’m probably the last person he wants to see right now. I turn to shut the door.

As I do, his eyes catch mine. I tighten my grip to hide the fact my fingers are trembling.

He looks like everything I wanted him to look like. Like everything I’m afraid of. For a moment I think he’s going to grab me, that we’re both going to fight and tear at each other until nothing’s left of us but blood and pain.

I shut my eyes, count to three, wait for him to do it.

He doesn’t.

“Goodnight,” I whisper.

I see the muscles beneath his shirt flexing. Everything about him is either barely contained violence or just barely contained. And all that silent anger is directed at me though he does not act on it.

I shut the door and walk up the stairs. I feel his eyes behind me, making my skin crawl and grow hot, but I don’t look back. I unleashed something in him. Something I hadn’t meant to unleash. I was so selfish for asking him to do this for me. And I still am selfish, because I still want it.

***

Trevor

This is a bad idea.

I shouldn’t be getting out of my car. I shouldn’t be stepping through the flower bed or shrub bed or whatever you call it onto the cracked sidewalk. I shouldn’t be going up these stairs. I’m mad as hell and I hate it. The anger makes me feel more powerful than I really am. And
indignant
. And
justified
. I have no right to be these things—to even feel like I can be these things. I should leave before I forget that. Anger solves nothing, and up there all I’ll find is more anger over the things I can’t fix. So why am I doing it?

Sasha
.

I stop. I have to grip the railing to keep from falling down the stairs.

Sasha
.

She’s alone, and she’s hurting.

I shut my eyes. Like a bird that was once free and then built it’s own cage, she’s up there in that small, dark room all by herself. How can I turn my back on her when she reached out to me?

Because she wants to lock you in that cage with her. She wants you to destroy her and yourself
.

My grip on the railing tightens.

I don’t care if she thinks she’s broken. I don’t care if she’s lost her sanity. I don’t want her going back out into some bar alone, looking for some random asshole to hurt her because…I don’t even fucking understand it. Why would someone want to do that? Why won’t she just let me help her? Hold her…

Yeah. Why doesn’t she just want you to help in the way you want to help? Why doesn’t she just do what you want?

I feel like I’m swaying, like the stairs beneath are made of wood and rope instead of steel and concrete. I’m trying to make her into something she’s not, aren’t I? Can I really say I love her if I try to do that? She won’t let me hold her, kiss her, love her. She doesn’t want those things from me and she probably doesn’t want them from anybody. What right do I have to tell her what she needs or what’s good for her? Especially when…

I move forward. I can’t think of the reason. I’ll fall apart of I think of the reason. It makes me want to break everything irregardless of my feelings for it or whether or not it’s right. I’m afraid of myself right now—of these angry, antsy hands—of the mindless, aimless rage inside me—of the fact that I’m still moving closer to her when I’m like this instead of further away.

I stop in front of her door. 203. The outside light is so dim, the shadow the door-frame casts is so long, and the numbers themselves are so crooked and grimy, that I almost can’t read it.

I knock twice, then listen. There’s startled silence followed by frantic a scurrying inside. She wasn’t expecting me, but she wants me—or at least she’s hurrying like she wants me. I’ll have to be content with that.

She yanks the door open, pulling the safety chain tight. “Trevor.”

I plant my hand on the door frame. It’s completely dark inside. I can barely see her face—just a pale line of light running down her nose, lips and chin. “You gonna let me in?”

Her eyes go wide. I hear her adjust her grip on the handle.

Am I really that scary? Wasn’t that what she wanted, anyways? “Sasha.”

She sways against the door, almost shutting it.

I fucked up. She doesn’t want me near her. I’m too obviously, intolerably angry. How can I blame her when I can’t even stand being trapped in my own skin?

“One second,” she whispers as she fumbles with the chain. It slides off and she steps back.

My heart races. She let me in. I can’t fucking believe it, but she did. I push the door open before either of us have a chance to change our minds.

Inside, the same dreariness greets me. Light from the streetlights barely penetrate the drawn blinds. The bare walls are an off-white, that eggshell creamy color that tries to look sophisticated but to me just looks dusty. In the dark, it reminds me of puke.

She shuts the door. “I didn’t think you were going to come.”

“Neither did I.”

She slides the safety lock back into place, then pushes past me. “I don’t have much. Some, I don’t know, yogurt. More tea.”

“Are you hungry?”

She shakes her head.

“Why are you offering, then?”

“I just thought…” she swallows. “I didn’t think you’d had anything.”

“Did you eat tonight?”

She looks down. “No.”

“You should eat something, then.”

“I don’t anymore—I mean, I’m not hungry. I can’t keep it down.”

Oh fuck me. Are you serious? She can’t bring herself to eat? “One moment,” I run an open palm over the wall, searching for a light. It takes a moment to find it. Finally, something flickers on above the oven.

There’s one of those 100 value pack silverware boxes on the stainless steel counter. It’s almost completely full. The top looks looks like it was mauled by a small animal; she opened it badly. I grab two plastic spoons and open the fridge. She wasn’t kidding when she said she only had yogurt and tea.

Well, Key Lime’s her favorite. I take one of those. “Come on.” I rip back the foil. “We’ll split it.”

“Trev…”

“For me,” I tell her. I dip the spoon in the yogurt, then stick it in her face. “Take a bite.”

The ugly, yellow light behind us lends some color to her skin. She wets her lips. Her eyes widen, then lose focus as she shuts them. I see a flash of pink as her tongue touches the tip of the spoon before slipping under the bottom. Her mouth follows, lips curling against it, and she lets out a small, satisfied sound, as if she’s shocked she’s hungry—shocked she wants it.

She steps back, her entire body trembling as she swallows. “Thank you,” she whispers, eyes still closed. It sounds like she wasn’t expecting kindness, like she doesn’t know what to do with it.

My hand is still midair. I clench the handle of the spoon. It’s everything I can do to keep myself from taking her in my arms and slipping my own tongue into her perfect mouth. That’s the last thing she needs right now. I’m an asshole for even thinking it.

“Well, there’s more,” I respond, hoping my voice doesn’t reveal my nerves. It’s hard to talk, to keep my mind off the sudden discomfort in my pants and…goddamn I’m such a pig.

She steps forward again. Opens her mouth. I keep feeding her as her eyes grow softer. She takes each bite slower than the last. Her tongue moves more sensually around the spoon, as if she’s pleasing it. I know it’s
wrong wrong wrong
, but my cock is abnormally interested in that last bit.

She enjoys her last bite, then turns her back to me. “I think you should leave.”

I think I should leave too. I think that’s an amazingly good idea. But instead of leaving, I ask, “Why?”

Her shoulders shudder as she exhales. “Because.”

I wait for her to continue. She doesn’t.

“Tell me Sasha.”

“No.”

“Come on. I’m dying here. Let me in.”

“It’s not a good idea. You were right the first time. You shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be asking you this.”

I smash the yogurt container with my fist. I’m not even aware I’m doing it, but the sound makes her jump. She stares at the container, frantic, as if I’d just raised my hand against her. She fills the seconds with panicked, desperate breaths.

“You still want that?” I whisper.

She doesn’t pretend to not know what I’m talking about. She nods before looking at the floor.

“You still want to get fucked rough?”

She cringes. “Stop. Please.”

I almost do. The sound in her voice rips me apart and makes me hate myself even more than I ever thought I could. I want to punch my head to make it stop, to smother all these conflicting feelings of hate and anger and sadness beneath a dull throb that drowns out everything else. “No.”

She looks up at me. Startled. Fear etched into her features, making her seem more fragile. Younger. “What do you mean?”

“Tell me.” I throw the yogurt and the spoon on the floor and stalk forward.

She cranes her neck back. Her wide, dark eyes move back and forth, meeting mine and then looking away as if it hurts her to look at me. Her body shakes as I grip her shoulders, pushing her back until she’s pinned against that ugly, eggshell-painted wall.

“Is this what you want? What you really want?” I ask, lowering my head until my lips are right next to her ear. “You really want to go through all that again? You think that’s going to fucking help? Me brutalizing you? Hurting you and myself?”

Her body twists against mine but she’s not pushing me away. “I know it won’t help.”

“Then why do you want it?”

“I already told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“Trev—”

“Tell me again!”

I pull my head back. Her mascara is running. It was running earlier this evening, too, but not when I arrived. She must have cleaned up after I drove her home.

“It never stops,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter what I do, it doesn’t stop. Every time I see a man, every time someone gets close to me, I feel it again, like my body is being crushed beneath this gigantic weight no one else can see even though it cripples me.”

My hands start to shake. Futile anger wells up inside me. There’s no one here to take it out on but her and myself.

“I don’t want to be afraid of the pain anymore.” Her voice breaks. “Or, if I can’t stop myself from being afraid, I at least want to get used to it. I don’t want to keep thinking that my body is beautiful because it’s ugly, it’s so fucking ugly. I want you to break me because I want to survive Trev. I just want to survive.”

My ears ring.

It’s ugly. It’s so fucking ugly.