“Legal? You care about the law? Really?”
He winked, “Selectively. Lick, baby. Your ice cream is melting.”
“It’s not, you perv. But…” I turned serious, “about all that. The thing with my father, I…”
He waited for me to finish but his jaw tightened.
“I don’t know why all this happened and he promised me an explanation. I called him from that mall that day and he said he would give me answers. I’d like to hear what he has to say. Does he know I’m okay? Does he know all about Mexico and everything? He was supposed to meet me at that food court in the mall when I took off and then you found me first, and…”
“No,” he interrupted me. He got up and tossed his ice cream into the trash bin about 5 feet away. I was pretty much done, too. I passed mine to him and he threw it in the bin. He came back over and crouched in front of me. He put his palms on my face and rubbed my cheeks with his thumbs, then said, “Your father told me where you were.” he stopped talking, maybe letting it sink in, and then continued, “That’s how I found you. He had no intentions of coming to meet you and give you answers. None, Tia. You should have zero guilt where he’s concerned. He should not be at our wedding. He doesn’t deserve to be in your life. Your father is a fucking douchebag.”
I winced. I hadn’t even considered how Tommy had found me that day. The whole Mexico thing sort of made all of that evaporate.
He raised his hands, “Sorry but it’s true. I called him when you took off and he called me a few minutes later to tell me you’d called and then he gave me your location. He sold you out; he’s done it more than once. He’s already given you away. He doesn’t get to hand you to me at our wedding because he already gave you away. You’re already mine. I still don’t know what went down with him and my Pop as women as a debt payment ain’t his thing but I’ve got a PI on it. A good PI. That’s between you and me, Tia. You and me only. My father won’t tell and I need to know.”
I thrust my hands through my hair, the revelation about my dad ratting me out to Tommy sinking in. He picked up on it. I felt totally rattled.
“I didn’t want your father to ruin today.” He got back up and threw a rock across the river. It skipped about 8 or 10 times and the boys across the river were jumping up and down. Tommy held another flat rock up in their direction and then did this wrist flicking thing a few times to show them his technique and the boys mimicked him and then Tommy threw the rock and it skipped about a dozen times. The one boy’s rock skipped 6 times and the other older boy’s rock only skipped twice. The kid whose rock had done better looked thrilled and then flicked another and it skipped quite a few more times. The other kid was jumping up and down.
I turned my attention to Tommy who now had his back to the river and was concentrating on me.
“He’s not worthy of you. He didn’t fight for you. Didn’t try to protect you from my family. Now it’s up to me to protect you. From him, if necessary.”
I was lightheaded, numb, with a sensation of tiny pins and needles rattling around inside my body. I wanted to curl up and close my eyes and hide from the world.
Tommy leaned back down and took my chin into his grasp, “Don’t. Don’t internalize that. This is his fault. He’s the loser. You’re worth way more than the $25K he sold you for. You are precious, priceless. Do you understand me? I’ll find out the truth for you and then we can put this to bed once and for all.”
“I’m supposed to just let you take over my whole life.” my voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yeah,” he answered simply.
Twenty five thousand? Was that all? I knew it was a lot of money to most but was that all I was worth? Anger rose up in me. He saw it.
“You’re mad at your father so you’re going to take it out on me. Go ahead. I can take it.” He waved his fingers at himself, giving me a ‘give me all you’ve got’ gesture.
“Mad at him? Sure, I’m mad at him but why shouldn’t I be mad at you, too? You’re mad at him for letting you have me. But yet you took me. You. Took me. Do you realize how fucked up that is?”
“Lower your voice,” he warned.
I got up and stomped off down a trail. He followed me. I walked for a good five minutes until we were deep in the bush. Finally, I spun around to face him, almost colliding with him; he was so hot on my heels.
“You’ve played numerous mind games with me, you’ve been controlling, abusive, you’ve raped me, you have me under lock, key, and guard to keep me from escaping, you’ve threatened me with a gun, hit me with a belt, shall I go on? You hardly know me. You’re letting your father bribe you, I don’t know, into marrying someone you don’t even love. Someone you hardly know. You’ve never even had a serious relationship and you’re a sexual deviant, by your own admission, and I’ve got the welts to prove it and now I have to … I have to… argh!” I wanted to kick a tree but I had flimsy flip flops on
and it would hurt. He folded his arms over his chest.
The lack of an outlet to take out my frustration made my rage level spike further, “I’ve been dragged into this with not a care for the fact that I had a life. People don’t own people. That’s so fucked.” I started to weep. I started to weep almost uncontrollably. I leaned back against a tree and slid down to the dirty ground. There were mosquitoes swarming my face. I whacked at them haphazardly. Tommy crouched in front of me.
“My life was stolen.” I pointed accusingly at him, “Stolen and given to you. You took it but you’re pissed at the man who let you take it? And now you just want me to agree to marry you. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. All while following your rules, two rules that will keep me on your good side. I think. But I don’t even know because you’re so unpredictable. Now you tell me my father is going to be forbidden from attending our wedding, a wedding I have no choice but to be in, because he had the audacity to be afraid of your family and do what your father demanded? How are you better than him?” I stopped talking and dashed the tears off my cheeks with the backs of my hands.
He put his palms on my knees and leaned close to my face, “I’m not better than anyone. I’m worse than most. Life with me isn’t gonna be a cake walk. Not even close. But here’s the thing. I’m crazy about you. I want that feeling I get, that beautiful feeling when I crawl in bed beside you every night and the feeling I get when I wake up beside you in the morning when you’re wrapped around me like you can’t get close enough to me. I think about you constantly. The happiest I’ve been ever since I can remember has been when I’m inside you, followed closely by waking up with you wrapped around me. I wake up in fucking bliss every morning, Tia. Bliss. This is all new for me. My sleepless nights? Gone since you. I want this.” He touched my face. I flinched. He continued, “Don’t pull away. I know my Pop had no right to give you to me but he did and I know it makes me a bad guy that I agreed to it. But I’m not giving you back. And I’m not sorry that I took you. You’re the best thing in my life, baby. How can I feel bad about that? Try to forget how we got started and just…” He stopped talking for a moment and took a deep breath, “Let me take care of you. I’ll protect you with my own life. You know that’s the truth.”
I shook my head, determined not to let his sweet little speech penetrate my suit of armor, “What choice do I have, right? I have no choice.”
He stood up and reached for my hand, “How about you choose to forget how we started and just give this a chance.”
I shook my head, “Just bury my emotions and forget everything you’ve done? It doesn’t matter as long as I obey you, right? It doesn’t matter how I feel about it as long as I do it, right?”
I got up without taking his hand and started to walk past him but he stopped me by shackling my wrist with his hand and then he pushed me back against a tree and pinned me with his hips, “I care about how you feel, baby. We have something,” he said, “Don’t let your anger at him take away from what you’re feeling for me. Don’t feel bad for wanting to be with me because you think you’re supposed to feel bad.”