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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: RAGE OR DESIRE? ( trigger warning: implied sexual references )
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LOVE WAS A PRIVILEGE, or so the poets said. Maybe Helen was a cynic, for the sonnets of love that sang to her heart, damning her like the pomegranate that confined the great Persephone to fearsome Hades' dominion, were a sacrilegious fallacy. They were a shackle around each wrist. A noose around her neck. A rope she could feel pulling tighter with every forsaken breath.
Helen visited God often after the kiss she shared with Tommy. Desperate, she warred with an agony unfortunately familiar in those long days that followed. Tommy disappeared, off somewhere with Johnny Dogs where she couldn't reach him. Almost like he wanted to punish her, to stamp on her olive branch with discontent, he took Charlie along with him. Helen was alone, stuck in the darkest dregs of misery that the taste of him had left behind. The wooden pew felt like stone. Her knees were bruised beneath the skirts of her dress. No amount of prayer satiated the memory of him. God didn't answer from where he stared down at her in judgement, and eventually Helen stopped searching for His justification.
She waited for Tommy to return, knowing that she'd cave the second those blue eyes locked on hers. She wasn't stupid enough to admit it, but she'd do anything to feel his mouth on hers once again, even if he only wanted them to fuck and nothing more. She could do that. She wasn't about to complain if it meant this desire of hers would fade into the background for even a second.
Almost like he could read her mind (or maybe he simply knew she'd need some time to yearn for him), he visited her on the fourth night. James had been put to bed hours ago, and the last Helen had checked in on him, he was fast asleep comfortably with his bear tucked in beside him. There were no signs of a nightmare in the soft crease of his eyebrows. He was content, unlike his mother; she stayed awake long into the night, late enough to be alert when a heavy hand knocked on her door at the stroke of midnight. She didn't have to think before reaching for her gun and marching downstairs. Risking a peek through the curtains, her heart seized, blood roaring in her ears when those wretched blue eyes immediately sought her out.
"You have blood on your shirt," she commented as she stared at the faint red stains on his white-button down. Tommy's gaze never left her own, too busy drinking in her body beneath her nightgown to notice the flash of concern that came and went from her expression. He was smoking a cigarette, idle as the midnight shadows curled around him. "What happened?"
He was silent for a moment. "Just business."
"Business," she mused, voice soft. She took a step back, a silent invitation for him to proceed into the privacy of her living room. The door clicked shut behind him. He watched, shrugging off his coat, as she laid her gun on the mantle. "And what are you doing here?"
The corner of his mouth curved upward in amusement. "Taking a break from business."
Helen swallowed thickly, turning back around in time for him to step closer. There was only a sliver of space between them now, and a question in his eyes. Would she step away?
