Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
I let my hand settle on Ethan’s back while I closed the other over the one he had resting over my heart. I loved the feel of his weight on me. I would have thought the sensation of being held down, even by someone as slight as Ethan, would have been too much, but it was oddly comforting.
And kissing Ethan…well, there was just no equal to that. I hadn’t lied when I’d told him that my need for him confused me. I’d already accepted that his gender wasn’t the issue…it was that one person could hold such power over me. Maybe I should have been more freaked out about being attracted to a man, but I suspected my past had a lot to do with that. When everything had gone to hell for me, I’d just started exploring my sexuality. It was true that I hadn’t been attracted to any boys in my class, but there really hadn’t been that many girls either. My fucked-up childhood even before the attack had given me a perception on love and relationships that wasn’t really all that healthy and that I hadn’t wanted to emulate. The attack had just sealed the deal.
“I grew up in a small town about a hundred miles from Lexington in Kentucky. My mom was a bank manager and my dad was a CPA. They met in college and got married after graduation. I came along a few years later. I don’t really remember things getting bad until my sister, Hailey, was born. I was six. I only remember bits and pieces…fighting, my mom with bruises, my dad bringing her flowers. By the time Daniel came along, things were clearer.”
“He was nine years younger than you, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, not surprised that Ethan remembered my siblings’ ages. “My dad was really possessive of my mom and her time. As she started working her way up the corporate ladder at work, he seemed to grow more and more resentful. I never saw him actually hit her until I was ten. I tried to stop it, but my father told me to stay out of it. My mother told me to take my brother and sister to my room. It never made sense to me,” I said softly.
“What didn’t?” Ethan prodded when I got too lost in the past.
“How they could yell and scream at each other like that and then the next day they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Even with my mother covered in bruises, she’d just melt into him. Like she was the happiest woman in the world. And things would be fine again until it all started over again.”
I felt Ethan start to rub small circles into my chest and I wished I’d had the sense to take my shirt off before lying down with him.
“I noticed as I got older that my dad seemed more and more resentful of us kids. But he never took his anger out on any of us. Even if we did something wrong, like if we broke a dish or something. Somehow it was my mother’s fault. It was like he was doing his best to pretend we didn’t exist. I once asked him why he’d even had us if he didn’t want us around.”
“What did he say?” Ethan asked.
“He didn’t answer me. Just told me to ask my mother. I stopped trying to stop him from going after her when she yelled at me one day to mind my own business…that I couldn’t understand how much my father loved her. Something…something changed for me after that. Instead of trying to stay home to referee fights with them and to protect my brothers and sisters from them, I escaped…found any excuse I could not to come home. I felt so guilty for it, but I couldn’t just watch him do that to her…and watch her take it,” I said softly.
I let my hand begin to roam up and down Ethan’s back as the memories cascaded over me. The weight of his hand as he continued to caress me helped keep me grounded.
“A few months after I turned fifteen, my parents had this really bad fight…bad enough that someone called the cops. My dad wasn’t arrested, but the cops made him leave. I knew he wouldn’t be gone for long, but I tried to talk my mom into leaving him. I thought maybe she’d see the truth if he wasn’t around to beg her forgiveness. She looked at me like I was crazy for even suggesting it. My dad came back about a week later, but he was different…really different,” I said.
“How?”
“There was no more yelling, no fights if dinner wasn’t on the table on time, no cursing if a dish got broken or milk got spilled. He started paying attention to me and my brothers and sisters. I was suspicious at first.”