"I love you," she said calmly. "More than my own life, I love you."
I didn't respond, too occupied blinking away tears.
"What did he make you do?" she asked when we'd stepped into our room.
I looked around, avoiding her eyes now. At least it was clean. Mostly.
"It doesn't matter," I told her.
She wasn't innocent. She'd seen too much for that. But she was pure, and I wouldn't corrupt her ears or mind with the filthy thing I'd done to pay for our room the last time we were here.
"Oh Stephan," she uttered softly, her tone undoing me.
I shook my head, swallowing hard. "I'm going to shower."
She let me go.
I didn't hurry, but I didn't linger either. I needed to get clean, but it would take more than hot water and soap for that.
I crawled into bed still damp and waited, trembling, while she took her own shower, and joined me.
I wrapped myself around her, burying my face in her clean wet hair. Just a few deep breaths and I already felt better.
"Did he hurt you?" she finally asked, voice muffled into my chest. "Can you talk about it?"
I couldn't. What could I say? She knew what I'd done, or at least enough. Explaining that letting him suck my dick, instead of the reverse, had made it palatable enough for me to accept was hardly going to make me feel better.
My long silence told her everything. Her voice was clogged with tears when she spoke again. "Don't ever do that again. Please. Promise me. I can't bear the things you put yourself through."
I couldn't refuse her when she pleaded with me like that. "I won't," my voice was thick and full of anguish. "I promise."
We were silent for a very long time, but that was fine. The contact was what I needed.
I did eventually recover enough to talk about it. "I hate that part of me. Hate it. All I want is to keep you safe and never have to hurt anyone again."
Her chest moved against mine as she took a very deep breath. "I know. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry. This isn't on you. It never was. I just . . . wish I wasn't like my dad."
"You're not. This violence is not who you are. It does not define you."
I let that penetrate, let it comfort me, as it was meant to.
"This is all temporary," she told me, her tone wistful. "Remember our little houses."
I smiled. This was a popular fantasy of ours.
"Side by side," I added.
"Neighbors," she agreed.
"I want grass in my yard."
"I want nothing but rocks and maybe a cactus." I could hear the smile in her voice.
"You'll get to keep all of the pictures you make."
"And give some to you."
Eventually I was comforted enough to drift off into sleep, her soothing chant calming me, as it always did—I'm okay, you're okay, we're okay.
We were having breakfast at a diner the next morning (a rare treat, and one courtesy of my fight money) when she became very serious, making me look across the table and directly into her soulful eyes.
"No more," she said, resolve inundating each word until it felt like she was raising her voice, though she spoke softly. "We'll try foster care again, but I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore. Not any of it."
I started shaking my head.
She kept nodding. "It won't be for long. As soon as you turn eighteen, we'll have more options."
"No. It's too risky. He'll find you again. I can do this."
"There are no good choices for us right now, but we need to do our best to take the safest ones."
I nodded in agreement. I knew she was right, but I wasn't sure how to follow through on it.
She knew me too well. She gave me a look.
"This isn't safe," she continued. "Don't you see? We weren't meant to be anything but statistics. We have no safety net. No one cares what happens to us except for us. If we don't make the right decisions, one bad night will be our last. I just know it. We have to get out of this and away from these people."
I knew she was right. We were statistics. Worse than runaways.
Throwaways.
We weren't even the faces you saw on a milk cartons. Those kids had people looking for them. All we had on this earth was each other.
If we wanted to survive this, we had to make it happen ourselves, because no one else would.
CHAPTER TEN
WOULDN'T EVEN BE ME
PRESENT
STEPHAN
A warm, firm hand clutched mine. I swung my eyes to meet watery black ones.
Javier cried my name, looking equal parts terrified and relieved.
I let out a sob, making agony course through my chest. I tried to hold it back, to stop the pain, but it took a long time before I was coherent enough to say again, "Bianca?"
I had to know. She had to be okay.
The alternative was unthinkable.
It was a fact that I would not be okay without her. I wouldn't even be me without her. I'd be someone else, someone with important pieces missing, pieces I couldn't get back.
He seemed to snap out it, leaning closer to me. "She's okay. She's recovering, but okay. She's in better shape than you, actually."
I studied him, wondering if I'd heard him right, wondering if I was dreaming. "She—she survived that?"
What I'd seen had looked like a headshot wound. How had she survived that, and in better shape than me?
He nodded emphatically.
I was so worn out that I was already going back under, but at least I knew she was alive.
She was alive.
I woke up again still remembering that. This time when Javier and I looked at each other, we smiled, though there were plenty more tears, as well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE SAVED MY SOUL
STEPHAN
Growing up, I'd had a cloud of guilt that followed me around. Even before my uncle had started molesting me, I'd been plagued by nightmares. An overzealous Sunday school teacher told my class one week that those of us not paying tithing would burn when the world caught fire, during the imminent second coming, and my young mind had taken it very literally.
I was eight at the time, and over the summer I'd earned a whopping ten dollars of chore money, and blown it all on candy during a trip to the grocery store. I hadn't even thought of paying tithing for it. No one had told me.