She pinched her lips together, and I could tell she was about to sob again. It made me feel like fucking Bambi. I didn’t need anyone’s pity. I rushed through the next part.
“At some point, I figured I could just break into the room and grab Ramen or a bag of chips or something. And I did. Often. But Cat had the tendency to come in at the most inconvenient time. When I didn’t have time to run away from her room, I had to hide under the bed, buried beneath the junk food.”
I smiled bitterly at the bare concrete wall in front of me, feeling Aisling’s eyes clinging to my profile, eager to hear more.
“Cat was a whore, so more often than not, when she came home, she wasn’t alone. I stopped counting after the fourth time I had to sneak under her bed and felt the springs of the mattress digging into my back as someone fucked her above me.”
Aisling looked away, hissing, like my pain bled into her body.
“No,” she croaked.
“Yes.” I changed direction, walking toward her. “I felt the weight of my mother’s sins, figuratively and literally. They fucked her over my back. Again and again and again. While I shivered, dizzy with hunger, every muscle in my body strained so I wouldn’t make a sudden move and make myself known. My most distinct childhood memory is that stupid painting. Every time the headboard hit the opposite wall, it would drop, but not facedown, so I could always see the cabin and the lake staring right back at me, as if they caught me red-handed. We had a relationship, this painting and I. I felt like it was taunting me. Reminding me of my shitty life, and every time I looked at it, I could feel the blue and purple dents on my back from the rusty bedsprings digging into my skin.”
“You don’t have any paintings,” she said slowly, looking around the room.
I tapped the bottom of my cigarette pack over my bicep, and one cigarette popped out.
I fished it between my teeth. “Nope.”
“My house must be very triggering for you.”
I chuckled, lighting up the cigarette. I sprawled beside her on the couch, careful not to touch her, exhaling a trail of smoke to the ceiling.
“I don’t have triggers.”
“Everyone has triggers,” she argued.
“Not me. I let hate fester and redirect it into ambition. I welcome my weaknesses and don’t shy away from them.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder, pressing her palm to my heart. I froze.
This was new.
And unsolicited.
Still, I didn’t move. Her hand on me felt good. Right.
“Is this why you hate women?” she whispered. “Because Cat wronged you so much?”
“I don’t hate them. I just don’t want much to do with them,” I groaned.
“Well, I want something to do with you.” She looked up, blinking at me with owlish eyes. Our gazes met. The thick humming of our pulses filled the air. I drew away from her, pressing my thumb to her lip.
“No.” I smiled viciously, standing up. “Here. You got it off of your chest, and even got a little bonus with my sob story. Now get the fuck out, Nix. And don’t come back.”
“But I—”
She started, but I turned away, taking a drag from my cigarette and looking in the other direction.
Through the floor-to-ceiling window, I could see her standing up, dignified. She made her way to the door, her chin held high, her back straight. The minute she closed the door behind her, I let out a breath, dropping the cigarette into the half-empty whiskey bottle.
Charging to the bathroom, I all but kicked my slacks down my knees, turning on the shower spray and stumbling inside before the water turned from cold to hot.
I braced one arm over the tiles, let the water pound over my body, and started jerking off—with my dress shirt still on.
“Shit …” I hissed as I rubbed my cock mercilessly, pumping fast. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Her mere presence in my apartment made my balls tighten.
I came and I came and I came inside my fist. Liquid, white gel coated my fingers, and I wondered when was the last time I masturbated.
Probably when I was sixteen.
No, maybe fifteen.
Fuck you, Aisling.
I plastered my forehead against the tiles, groaning as the red-hot needles of water kept lashing my face and hair. I wasn’t her savior, I was her monster. These late-night calls, me following her, her seeking me out … they had to stop.
Before I did to her what I did to that painting.
Because I didn’t tell her the whole story.
Years after I’d moved out of Cat’s apartment, I came back. Paid the owner a large sum of money to get a tour around the place. I found the painting. The new tenants hadn’t gotten rid of it. I stole it, burned it, and tossed the ashes in the Charles River.