In 18 years, Lyra Queen, has yet to:
- Kiss a boy;
- Meet her mother;
- Go through a near-death experience.
In a week, she is going to do all three.
cover by @sereneur
"Don't cry, or do. Whatever makes you comfortable, I'm tired too. There's nothing left to say. Let's call a truce, 'cause I don't really wanna go to bed like this."
Warning: This chapter contains descriptions of sexual harassment.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
She tried to ask a follow-up question but I interrupted her, "My cousin sexually harassed me. My middle name is Maria. My birthday's tomorrow."
"There's no way your birthday's tomorrow," She took a minute to think over my sentences before her eyes widened, "Wait, what? Your cousin sexually harassed you. Please tell me we're having a party tomorrow."
"Nope. No party tomorrow."
As her eyes remained unblinking and focused on me, I wondered if this was the best way to tell her about it. Even if it wasn't, it was done.
"What happened?"
"Is that your question?"
"Just answer me."
I took a deep breath and braced myself to relive the most embarrassing moments of my life for the first time, "You remember I told you my aunt had an abortion?" Her head nodded slowly, strands of hair falling from the bun I had done yesterday, "After that she found out she couldn't have anymore kids so she and her husband decided to adopt. At the time, she had her roots set in Italy so she adopted two kids there when she went back. After that dad decided it was best if she came and moved close to us, so she did."
Her eyes grew even more concerned as the words spilled out of my mouth to the point I couldn't look at them anymore, so I laid stomach up. At least, the ceiling wouldn't look like it needed a hug, "Chelsea's five years older than me and she used to pick me up from school because my father was always busy, so we used to hang out a lot..."
I refrained from looking at her as I told her what happened. How one day Chelsea started touching me and kept doing it and eventually asked me to touch her. How she always did it whenever we were alone in the house. I was ten, at the time, but I knew better. I knew she shouldn't touch me and I shouldn't touch her but I did anyway. And I fucking liked it.
"I only began to realize how wrong it was later and I hated her for it. Then I realized that she only did that because I let her. If I told her to stop, I'm sure she would. I just never did."
"Lucas, that's not your fault-"
I did my best to swallow the incoming tears. I hated crying. Not because it made me feel weak, but because I looked absolutely awful. My face got red and swollen and I started to sweat. It was just gross.
"Yes, it is. I let her do whatever she wanted to me. She eventually stopped, though, after three months. I don't know why. She never brought it up and neither did I. This one day, I went to spend the weekend at aunt Carina's and when I was sleeping, I felt someone touching me. I woke up and she was walking away but I could tell it was her and that she had touched me."
