“I kept it a really good secret, Aunt Celeste, but I can’t do it anymore.”
I thought about Dylan the entire way home that night. What he said, how he touched me, how his hands and words affected me, all of it. I hadn’t been touched like that in years. The last man to ever give me an orgasm had been Dylan. Jeremy never took his time with me. Not once was it ever about my needs or me.
In every aspect of our relationship.
Everything Dylan said was right and knowing that he blamed himself for what tore my life apart was too much to take. I didn’t know why I was hurting myself anymore. Nothing made sense.
Everyone had moved on.
Including Dylan.
The fact that he was moving on without me shook me to the core. I guess I always thought he would be there, waiting. Knowing that he was done with me was a thought I couldn’t even bear. Dylan was right I needed to get help. When I woke up the next morning in a pool of my own blood, it was the wake up call I needed. Jeremy was nowhere in sight the next four days.
He was going to kill me.
And I was going to let him.
It took weeks for me to heal from the beating I received that night. It had been a little over six months since I started seeing a therapist behind his back. I finally found the courage to start sticking up for myself. I’d been taking some self-defense classes, and tonight when he went to slap me I instinctively blocked it, almost knocking him on his ass. He didn’t say one word to me. It was like I had slapped him across the face for once and I waited for the attack that never came.
He just left.
“Aubrey, I’m flying out right now,” my Aunt Celeste stated.
I don’t know why I told her. I was scared and I just wanted to talk to someone. Have them listen to me for a change.
“No,” I sternly stated. “I don’t want you or Giselle around Jeremy. I’m fine. I have this taken care of. I promise.”
“Honey, you can’t just expect me to sit here and wait not knowing if you’re ok.”
“I’ll call you first thing tomorrow. Let me just figure things out, okay? Try to set something up.”
“Aubrey, you can come here. You could go home to your mom, too.”
“I know. I just need to do this for myself, okay? Can you please understand?”
“Yes. I don’t like it though. I don’t like this one bit. If you don’t call me first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll call the cops. Do you understand me?”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me.
“Aubrey.”
“Yes.”
“I love you. I’m here. I don’t care what time it is.”
“I know.”
She took a deep breath and hung up.
I paced around the living room with an eerie feeling in my stomach. I decided to make myself some tea to try to calm down, debating on whether to call Dylan or not. I knew he would come for me, but I was being honest when I said I wanted to do this on my own. I was sick of feeling weak and out of control. I needed to help myself, save myself, and stop expecting everyone to do it for me.
I sipped my tea, debating on whether or not to lock myself in the guest bedroom. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have already done it when he had the chance. He wouldn’t have just left like he did. It made no sense. I contemplated what to do for what seemed like forever until I couldn’t take it anymore and decided it was best to go lock myself in the room.
I was safer that way.
I made my way into the guest bedroom and gasped, when I felt his arms come around me. I didn’t even hear him come in through the front door.
So many bad memories came rushing back to me. To this day I hated being snuck up on.
“Jeremy,” I coaxed, my heart racing. The smell of whiskey instantly assaulted my senses as if he bathed in it. I resisted the urge to throw up.
“‘Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,’” he sang against my ear, swaying his hips behind me. I could feel his erection digging into my back.
My heart stopped.
“Jeremy, what are you—”
“Shhh… shhh…” he whispered, my body locking up. “No more talking. I’m done hearing your goddamn mouth. So, you think you can leave me?” He spun me around to face him, and continued to sway his hips to the non-existent music.
“I never said that. I’m not—”
“Shut the fuck up!” he roared too close to my face, making me jump. “It’s okay, baby, I’m not going to hurt you. ‘Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone. It’s not warm when she’s away.’” He spun me out then roughly pulled me back into his chest, our bodies colliding together like we were slow dancing. I had never seen him so fucking drunk before.
He suddenly let me go.
"Turn around, I can't stand the sight of your fucking face right now."
I slowly moved on shaking legs. He watched my every move. I felt his hands go to my thighs, slowly working their way up my sides. Singing the words of the song to me. He abruptly stopped, removing them from my body. Standing there, I could still feel his stare on the back of my head. I don't know how much time went by before I looked behind me only to find predatory eyes on me. I instantly turned and started running up the stairs as fast as I could go.
“Where are you going? The fun’s just getting started!” he laughed, grabbing my ankle.
I fell face first onto the steps, but I didn’t falter. I couldn’t. I flipped over and kicked him in the stomach.
He barely wavered, making my escape nearly impossible. His eyes lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree. He gripped my ankle once again, tugging me toward him, slamming my body down the stairs. I kicked and screamed bloody murder.
“Well, lookie, lookie here, someone’s been a busy little cunt!” he shouted, slapping me across the face and tearing open my robe.
“No! No! No!” I violently shook my head
“Baby, I want you to fucking beg,” he gritted out, gripping onto my chin, making me look at him. Eye to eye with nothing but evil in his and fear in mine.
He spit in my face and smeared it all over like he was branding me.
“You’re mine! You’re fucking mine! Do you hear me, you little whore? No one leaves me, get that through your fucking head.”
He grabbed my shoulders, lifted me up and connected my head with the stairs. My vision blurred.
When he roughly placed his hand over my throat, my eyes widened. Pure panic coursed through my body as he ripped my shirt open and then tore off my panties, squeezing my throat harder when I tried to resist.
Jeremy had always been a bastard, but he never tried to rape me.
I closed my eyes. I was reliving the first time I thought I died. I couldn’t go through that again. I wouldn’t survive it this time. As if reading my mind, he took his hand off my throat. I took a few steady breaths, trying to regain any composure I could muster.
“Open your eyes. Open your goddamn eyes.”
I did, my teeth chattering and my body shaking.
He deliberately roamed his hands from my neck down my stomach.
“You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded in a tone I didn’t recognize.
It was like I was there, but I wasn’t. I watched everything unfold in front of me as if I was having an out-of-body experience.
He cocked his head to the side and narrowed his glossy eyes at me.
“I don’t?”
I shook my head, trying to form words. “No. You don’t.”
“And, why is that?”
“Because you love me,” I reminded, hoping that it would grant me some mercy.
“Mmm…” he groaned, causing me to internally cringe.
“What about you, Aubrey, do you love me? Or are you just using me like a fucking whore would do?”
I choked back the tears. “Of course I love you.”
He smiled and for a second I thought everything was going to be okay, for a moment I thought this nightmare might be over.
I was wrong.
&
nbsp; It had only just begun.
He leaned over, his entire body hovering above me. I heard him lower his zipper and that’s when I mentally checked out. My mind protecting me from what he was about to do. My face fell to the side, as my tears started flowing. My body jerked forward when he thrust into my dry opening. The edge of the stairs dug into my back. Causing me even more pain.
“Fuck, you feel better than I thought you would,” he growled against my face. I breathed through the throbbing.
He drove in and out a few times, each movement worse than the last. When I didn’t fight back, he started to fuck me harder. The stinging becoming almost unbearable, but I wasn’t going to give into him.
Not this time.
“Fucking scream!” he demanded through a clenched jaw.
I didn’t say anything, I didn’t even move.
“I want to hear you fucking cry! Fucking beg me to stop.”
Silence.
He slapped me and I instantly tasted blood.
“What the fuck?” he snarled, backhanding me across the face again.
When I didn’t make a sound, he mercilessly pounded into me with much more strength and determination.
“You’re good for nothing, you piece of shit!”
He thrusted in a few more times and unexpectedly pulled out. Standing to look down at me with disgust spread across his face.
He jerked off instead.
“You’re mine. I won’t ever let you leave me! Do you understand? MINE!”
He came all over my chest and face, laughing the entire time as he buttoned up his pants.
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t like it, you dirty whore. I know you like it rough. Now get the fuck out of my sight.”
He roughly pulled my body off the stairs, throwing me into the wall. I stumbled to my feet, my legs felt numb and my pussy raw.
I didn’t have to be told twice.
I ran all the way up the stairs, blocking out what I already knew in my heart.
They say when you love someone you can feel them even if you’re miles apart.
I woke up from a dead sleep that night, sitting straight up in my bed, gasping for my next breath. I immediately grabbed my phone off the nightstand. No missed calls. I tore the covers off of me. My skin burned and my heart pounded. I went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water and tried to calm the fuck down.
I took a few swigs when the keychain on the key rack got my attention. Trying like hell to shake off the unease that I felt in the pit of my stomach. I lay back down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling for what felt like a lifetime. I must have passed out sometime during the night. I woke up the next morning with the keychain held tightly in my grasp and I couldn’t remember bringing it back with me.
I spent the entire morning in my office, pretending like I was fucking working when all I was thinking about was Aubrey. I counted down the hours until Lily’s twenty-fifth birthday party that evening, needing the distraction from the feeling I just couldn’t shake.
I was on my way home to change and head over to Alex’s restaurant for the party.
When my cell phone rang, I swear that I just knew. I knew that something horrible had happened.
“Aubrey,” I answered, taking a sharp U-turn and obstructing traffic to detour back to her house.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Dylan…” she sobbed into the phone.
“Calm down, darlin’. Where are you?”
“Home,” she wept, barely getting the words out.
“I’m on my way. I will be there in five minutes. Just hold on, suga’, okay?”
“Okay,” she bawled.
“Aubrey, darlin’, don’t cry. I’m coming for you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Dylan, I’m so sorry, you have to know that. Please, please, forgive me.”
“Suga’, there’s nothin’ to forgive. I love you. I will always love you.”
“I love you, too. I never stopped. I swear to you I never fucking stopped,” she cried.
My heart soared. I had waited almost eleven goddamn years to hear her say that to me again.
“Please forgive me. Please… promise… no matter what you’ll forgive me…”
“Always, Aubrey, always.”
She whimpered into the phone as if it caused her pain to hear me say that and I didn’t understand.
“Darlin’, there is no me without you. Don’t you understand that?”
She wept harder.
“Where’s my girl, huh? Where’s my tough girl? I need you to take a few deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth.”
“I don’t know anymore. I have spent the last year trying to find her.”
“It’s okay, we will find her together. Just me and you, just me and you,” I repeated, needing to get through to her.
I pulled into her driveway, opening my door before I had the car in park. I ran up to her door, slamming it open with her still on the phone.
“Aubrey!” I yelled out into the foyer. “Aubrey, where are you?” I asked into the phone.
“In the guestroom closet.”
I placed my phone in my back pocket and pulled my gun from my holster just in case the motherfucker was still in the house. I ran to the first door that was closed that could have been a bedroom. She wasn’t in there.
“Aubrey?” I shouted, running up the stairs, taking three of them at a time. “Aubrey! Answer me, darlin’!”
I heard sobs coming from one of the bedrooms and when I went to open the door it was locked. She cried louder and harder, I didn’t think twice about it. I stepped back and kicked the door open.
I sprinted toward the closet, slamming the sliders open. What I saw nearly brought me to my knees.
She was sitting in the back corner with her knees pressed against her chest, her arms tightly wrapped around them. The jewelry box that I had given her was clutched securely in her lap, with the music playing. She held a filet knife so fucking tight in her hand that her knuckles turned white.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed out, taking in the bruises all over her face, her busted lip and her left eye almost swollen shut.
She hadn’t looked at me once, hysterically crying. I holstered my gun and placed my arms out in front of me, scared shitless that I would frighten her.
She was in shock.
“Darlin’, it’s me. It’s Dylan. Can you hear me?” I crouched down beside her, immediately grabbing her hand and to my surprise, she let me.
I placed it over my heart. “Feel me, Aubrey. Feel my heart. Feel it beating for you.”
She sucked in air and turned to look at me as if she just realized I was in there with her.
“Dylan?” she frowned, her lip trembling and it took everything inside me not to cry right along with her.
“Yes, suga’, it’s me.”
“You’re really here?”
“Where else would I be?” I shook my head.
“I’m so sorry… I’m so fucking sorry…”
“Shhh… shhh…” I soothed, prying the knife out of her hand, and setting it beside me.
“You’re my girl. You’ll always be my girl,” I coaxed, tugging on the ends of her hair and down her cheek.
She leaned into my hand and it was then that I noticed she was wearing the necklace I left in the jewelry box for her years ago. I beamed even though my heart was torn in two seeing her in the state of distress she was in.
“Darlin’, I’m going to pick you up, okay? We’re going to get you washed up and pack some clothes. I’m taking you home.”
“Home?” She peered into my eyes, lost and desolate.
I nodded. “My home. It’s where you belong. Just me and you. I’ll protect you, darlin’.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
I picked her up like a baby and sat her on the counter of the bathroom, turning on the faucet to wet a rag. I gently pressed it against her face and she hissed upon contact. Her hand never left my heart and for the first time in
my life I actually had to concentrate on keeping it steady for her.
The rage and adrenaline that pumped through my veins was searing to the point of pain.
“I’m here now. I’ll take care of everything, don’t you worry.”
She nodded like she believed me. I picked her up again, carrying her in my arms. I took her into her bedroom, sitting her on the bed and she instantly stood up.
I didn’t have to wonder why.
“Darlin’.”
I brought her attention back to me.
“Can you help me grab some things for you? We could get out of here a lot faster if you helped me.”
She shook her head no. “I have everything I need,” she stated, clutching the jewelry box closer to her chest and holding the charm on the necklace tighter.
I smiled for the first time that day, stepping toward her when the front door crashed open.
She froze.
“Aubrey, look into my eyes right now. I’m not going to let him hurt you.” I placed her behind me, as he trampled up the stairs.
He shook his head when he walked into the room not fazed in the least that I was standing there.
“You, fucking whore! I knew you were fucking him behind my back.”
He charged me and Aubrey screamed, moving out of the way as he slammed me against her vanity. Glass shattered everywhere. He punched me in the face and then in the stomach. I growled, shoving him with so much force into the wall that he tore threw the drywall.
“I’m not Aubrey, motherfucker!” I hit him in the face a few times and then in the stomach. “Not so fucking tough when it’s not a woman you’re beating on, are you?” I snarled, kneeing him in the ribs when he hunched over in pain.
I pushed him on the ground, kicking him a few times before finally stepping away. I wiped the blood off my mouth with the back of my hand. I looked back toward Aubrey who was standing in the corner of the room with her eyes so dark and dilated I couldn’t see the familiar green in them anymore.
“Darlin’.” I stepped toward her.
Jeremy laughed, sitting up against the wall, getting ready to stand up. Holding onto his stomach.
“You’re with this piece of shit.” He spit blood onto the floor. “The man that didn’t protect you. The very man that let you go out all by yourself.”