Bed of Lies (ON HOLD)

XXXIII

WARNING: CHAPTER CONTENT MAY BE TRIGGERING.

June 2018

PRESENT

A sad snivel comes before a sob and an angry sob before the hoarse cry. There are no tears for me to shed. I've dried up my spring of salty water long ago. But not Tony. His eyes are red-rimmed under the harsh yellow of the car's overhead light as he grieves for the child I once was.

I, on the other hand, feel light and free. There is no mourning for me. I've emptied myself of one of the bitterest, gravest secrets I possess in my treasure chest of horrors. Among all the terrors I bear as deathly gifts, it was the sole one that ruined me, and now, Tony knows it all. He now has received a slice of truth about my dark past. He now is acquainted with a shame I kept so hidden that only two people before him ever heard.

Clara had been one of them.

"I'm sorry I could not protect you." His head is buried in his palms, and my heart rives in half. I harden the accursed thing, forcing myself to stop feeling. "I let you go alone. I should have gone with you. Oh God." He gasps as if the gravity of all I related to him is finally sinking into the lushness of his mind. His hands shake as he peers down at them, disdain and distaste painting a distorted expression on his face.

"I let you walk into that house alone." He says in a small voice that trembles along the lines he forces out. "I'm so sorry, Isi. I'm so sorry. How could I have been so clueless? All those years." The tremors rack him some more, and I watch him suffer. He twists and rolls in the pain I've borne for years, and I do not attempt to summon up pity in myself for him.

While he moans silently, choking on apologies that should not be from his lips, that should be from the mouth of the first being I killed, I don't utter a word. I choose not to. I could grab his hand and relieve him of his agony, tell him it's not his fault that my innocence was ruined and spiked by a foul creature—a monster among men. I could, but I won't.

Maybe it is because I want him to suffer. Just for a bit. I want him to bear my pain, the one I've been carrying for a decade past. I want him to bear a pane of my cross for a while.  It's hunched my shoulders for far too long. No one's ever grasped the depths of my agony before. I want him to at least scratch the surface. I want him to hurt for me. I've hurt enough.

"Will you ever forgive me, Isi?" His hand trips onto mine, stealing, then clutching my fingers hard. I stare down at them, the smaller one in a basket hold, nearly swallowed by his large one, yet I don't make a move to close my digits around his. He holds me. But I have no inclination to return the favour.

"You are not the one who should be asking for my forgiveness, Tony." I say, not as an act of solace but because it's the truth. I never held his absence against him. It wasn't his fault. I was the one who'd told him to not come with me. That I did not want him being an escort. I'd been angry at him, furious that he would be leaving soon. Leaving me behind. He'd wanted to come with me, but I'd vehemently refused. How could I fault him for what I caused with my own hands?

I don't blame him now. I didn't then. I'd been so embarrassed that I'd wanted to kill myself and end everything. It'd been a shot to the head that I never fully recovered from. The cells in my brain were not that savvy. They weren't capable of determining the best method to recover, to repair around the wound. It'd especially been the gravest injury inflicted on me as my virginity had still been intact, and he'd taken it by force.