Writer's Note: Thank you for your comments! I really thought I'd be down to five readers by now, so I'm pleased to see so many of you are still enjoying it. (Right word?) There are 13 chapters in total. Depending on people's thoughts, it's an idea I might come back to in some form at some point.
Warning: Just to be safe, I'm upping the rating for this chapter to M due to language and themes.
He saw her stripped in March.
The music that blared from the PiKA house was so loud that Henry could feel it throbbing through the soles of his shoes long before he saw the glow of the yellow-white lights that spilled out from the windows and hazed into the night that hung above Rugby Road, and as he strode along the red brick walkway, towards the stones steps and the white columns of the portico, the sound pulsed through the air and hit him in waves. Normally, he would have avoided a frat party—particularly a PiKA frat party—at all costs, and there had been more than a few points on his walk over where he'd considered turning around and heading back home. But there had been no sign of Elizabeth in three and a half weeks, not at the seminars, not strolling around campus, not stooped over her desk in the library, and as much as he'd rather be in the quiet of his apartment, reading a book while sipping from a bottle of ice cold beer, the fact that Josh was a proudly pledged PiKA brother meant the party might be the one place he would actually find her. He just needed to make sure she was okay, he just needed to prove to himself that he didn't have to spend evening after evening staring at his bedroom ceiling, unable to sleep for worrying about her.
Someone had propped open the front door with a ceramic owl, and whoever was supposed to be monitoring said door, making sure that only girls with short enough skirts and ample enough cleavage were allowed in, had already bunked off his duties, leaving the entrance unattended.
Henry strode up the steps and walked straight inside.
The air in the house was thick and muggy, filled with the scent of stale beer, sweat and an array of floral perfumes; with the heat of all the bodies that swarmed through the corridors and crowded the rooms, the air pressed in on him, distinctly claustrophobic.
He weaved through the crush that filled the main hallway and made his way towards the back of the house. He peered above the crowd and into each room that he passed along the way, looking for Elizabeth, and although he saw many blondes—the disproportionate number suggested that hair colour had also been an admission criterion—none of them were her.
What if Josh had dragged her up to his room?
The thought sprang to mind and turned his stomach sour and cold. He didn't want to think about her with anyone else, particularly not someone who would just use her—or worse. But then it struck him, What if she wasn't there at all? In which case, where had she gone? And that thought made him even more concerned.
The room at the back of the house looked like a living room. The couches had been pushed to the sides, the carpet rolled up and propped in the corner next to the patio doors, clearing space for a makeshift dance floor; though, some of the girls had kicked off their heels and were dancing on top of the cushions too. Everyone had a red plastic cup in hand. Dead Or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round' blared through the stereo system in one of the other rooms, and the group of girls on the couches was screaming along with the chorus. They were about three cups of beer out of tune.
Henry stood just inside the doorway. He surveyed the crowd, his gaze darting from one flushed face to the next in a lurching sweep of the room. Fortunately, most of the guys there were too inebriated to notice him, their attention otherwise occupied in the grinding sea of low-cut tops and exposed midriffs, else he got the distinct feeling he would have been chucked out already. On any other occasion, he wouldn't mind being chucked out: the whole place, the people, the atmosphere made a fever dream look positively appealing. If he could just see her, speak to her and make sure she was okay, then he could leave.
But then he heard it. Her voice.
"I don't want any more."
His head whipped around.
Elizabeth and Josh stood at the drinks station in the bay window to his right. By 'drinks station' he meant a foldable camping table with a beer keg; a scattering of red plastic cups, most of which, with lipstick stains on the rims and beads of beer sweating down the insides, looked like they'd already been used; and a see-through vat of Smurf-blue jungle juice, (the vat might once have been a fish tank). Josh was pressing one of the cups into her hand.
"Just drink it."
She pushed it away, shaking her head. "I've had enough."
"God, Lizzie, just loosen up." He dumped the cup on the table, so forcefully that the beer inside leapt up, over the rim, and splattered the surrounding tabletop. He scowled at her. "It's no wonder you don't have any friends."
Elizabeth shied away from him, her expression full of hurt. In that instant, despite her heavy make-up, her teetering heels and the long-sleeve dress that clung to and accentuated her curves, she looked like a little girl. Josh continued to stare at her, his scowl never lessening. Then she picked up the plastic cup and raised it to her lips; it shook with the tremble in her hand.
Josh's expression softened as she swallowed the sip and lowered the drink again. He cupped her cheek and caressed her cheekbone with a sweep of his thumb. "See. That didn't hurt, did it?"
She shook her head, just slightly, so as not to dislodge his touch.
He stepped closer, bringing his hips flush to hers, and he continued to stroke her cheek as he stared into her eyes. "I just want you to have fun. You want to have fun, don't you?"
She nodded.
"Good." He tilted her chin up and kissed her on the lips, his hand on her hip pulling her into him. When he drew away, he chucked her under the chin. "Now, smile." Then he grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her towards the doorway where Henry stood.
Henry turned around, quickly, so that his back was to them, and he tried to merge into the crowd so that they—or Josh, at least—wouldn't notice him. It wasn't just that Josh might throw him out before he had a chance to speak to Elizabeth, but what Josh might do to Elizabeth if he saw Henry there and thought that she had invited him or had spoken to him about the party. He didn't know if Josh was equally possessive of Elizabeth when it came to other guys, but he got the distinct feeling that, for some reason, Josh didn't like Elizabeth being around him in particular.
When Elizabeth and Josh had passed behind him and no one had seized him by the shoulder and frog-marched him out of the front door, he turned around and watched them as the swarm of people parted before them and Josh steered her along the corridor. He couldn't make sense of it, what Elizabeth saw in Josh or why she let him treat her like that. People made mistakes, they chose the wrong partner, but why didn't she just walk away when she learnt what he was really like? Then again, he didn't see the whole of their relationship, just these snapshots. Could Josh really be so kind to her the rest of the time that it was worth tolerating his crap? Even if he were, why couldn't she see that there were other people out there who wanted her, who would treat her how she deserved, not just occasionally, but all of the time? He refused to believe that what she had said was true, that the Elizabeth he knew didn't exist. But then again, the Elizabeth he knew was smart, was strong, was confident. And people like her didn't end up in situations like this.
A wide archway led into one of the rooms at the front of the house. Josh ushered Elizabeth inside. Henry waited for a moment, and then followed. The throng of people in the corridor didn't part for him as it had done for them, so he had to edge and squeeze his way through. He was halfway along when a pretty, blonde girl in Daisy Dukes, a pink plastic cowboy hat and far too much rose-scented perfume grabbed him by the front of his tee and lurched towards him as though to kiss him, and he had no option but to take hold of her shoulders and redirect her towards the guy who stood next to him. Not that either of them seemed to mind.
As the newly-matched couple continued to make out, he pushed his way through the rest of the crowd until he broke free from the other side and reached a spot of calm in between the wall at the far end of the archway and the open front door. If he stuck close to the wall and peered through the archway at an angle, he could see inside the room without drawing attention to himself.
While the rest of the house teemed with guests, there seemed to be some kind of implicit agreement that this room was reserved for PiKA brothers and selected invitees only. Josh had taken a seat in one of the brown leather armchairs and sat with his legs spread wide, his hand on Elizabeth's thigh as she perched on the armrest. His usual band of cronies lounged on the adjacent couch and chairs and were passing a joint along the row.
Before the joint could reach Elizabeth, she turned, dipped down and whispered something in Josh's ear. At Josh's nod, she rose from her perch, tugged down the hem of her dress and slipped away through the narrow archway behind, taking her cup of beer with her. It looked like the archway led to a corridor, perhaps to a staircase or a restroom, but the lights along there were dimmed and, at that angle, Henry couldn't see more than a foot or so beyond the arch. Josh twisted around in his seat and watched after her for a moment, and then turned back to his friends as the squat, brown-haired guy at the end of the couch leant forward and held out the joint.
Henry peered back down the corridor he had just squeezed his way along, trying to see if there was a way to follow Elizabeth without walking through the room. He didn't know what he would say to her if he did get the chance to talk to her, and he got the feeling that no matter what he said, she would insist everything was fine, but part of him hoped that this time she would see sense, that she would choose to walk away, or at the very least he could convince her to start attending the seminars once more. At least that way he could keep an eye on her.
"So, what's she like?" one of Josh's friends said.
Henry's attention snapped back to the room.
"In bed?" Josh said. He held out the joint, and the guy in the armchair opposite eased up from his seat and walked over in a hunch, until he was close enough to stretch for the joint and reach it, pinching it between forefinger and thumb.
The brown-haired guy at the end of the couch nodded.
Josh shrugged.
The brown-haired guy mimicked the shrug, as though to ask what it meant.
Josh lounged back in his armchair. He took a swig from his beer, and then laid his arms along the armrests. "She's all right, I guess. Not the best I've had."
"But she's hot."
"Well, you don't need to put a bag over her head. Not like some of them."
His friends laughed, a raucous sound that grated on Henry, like sandpaper against raw skin.
Josh took another sip. He shrugged again. "She looks okay, but she just lies there and takes it."
"Virgin?"
Josh nodded. "Was. Though that's hardly a surprise given she was a total nerd in high school. I'm doing her a favour, really."
"You planning on keeping her?" the guy sat on the middle seat of the couch asked.
"For now, maybe." Josh watched his hand as he curled his fingers into a loose fist atop the armrest and then uncurled them and flattened his palm against the leather over and over again. "She was fun at first, but she's getting a bit tiring. Thought I might give Jessica a go."
"Well, let me know when you're done," brown-haired guy said.
Middle seat guy shot him a look. "You actually think you have a chance with that?"
"Why not?"
"Have you looked in the mirror?"
"At least I can look in a mirror. If you looked in a mirror, it would crack."
Josh held out one hand, a half-hearted motion that told the two of them to calm themselves, that their bickering wasn't worth his time. "She's easy. Would fuck any of you, or all of you. All you have to do is tell her that you love her and she opens them legs right up."
The lot of them laughed again.
A wave of heat coursed through Henry, like sunburn spreading across the inside of his skin. It wasn't just anger at Josh and his friends for the way that they spoke about Elizabeth, the way that they treated her like she was less than a person, but anger at himself for standing there and doing nothing, for letting them talk about her like that.
Perhaps a little shame, too. Hadn't he dreamt about her? Hadn't he fantasised about her? Was he really any better than the rest of them?
"But I guess that's to be expected," Josh continued. "Dead parents." He hunched forward in his seat and accepted the joint again. "She's so fucked up, she'll do anything for the attention."
At 'dead parents', Henry's gaze leapt to the narrow archway as though it were a substitute for Elizabeth. Dead parents? Her parents couldn't be—. Then again: being sent to boarding school, nowhere to go at Thanksgiving, her almost motherly concern over her brother…?
He had no time to process the mix of shock and realisation that hit him, though: Elizabeth hadn't gone anywhere—she had been waiting in the shadows all along, perhaps just avoiding the joint that Josh would no doubt have forced on her—and at mention of her parents, she stormed into the room.
"Uh oh," Josh's friends chorused.
Josh twisted around in his chair, first to his left, and then to his right as Elizabeth strode past on that side. "Hey, Lizzie. We were just talking."
"Fuck you," Elizabeth said, and she marched towards the archway where Henry stood.
"Hey." Josh jumped up from his seat. He grabbed Elizabeth's arm. "Don't make a scene."
Elizabeth spun around and yanked her wrist free; at the same time she chucked the beer in her hand all over Josh, dousing his carefully coiffed hair, navy polo shirt and beige chinos. "Fuck you, you asshole." Her voice cracked. "Fuck you." Then she continued her march through the archway, straight past Henry, and out of the front door.
Josh stared down at his shirt and chinos, his arms frozen wide in shock, while his friends attempted to stifle their giggles.
Then his jaw tensed, his nostrils flared and he glared towards the door. "Hey," he shouted. "Get back here." He charged after Elizabeth, out the front door and down the steps onto the stretch of red bricks that separated the house from the sidewalk.
Henry followed, as did Josh's friends. A number of the crowd close enough to the door to have heard the commotion followed, too.
"Stop," Josh yelled at Elizabeth.
"No," Elizabeth yelled back as she stalked towards the road, her high heels teetering beneath her.
"I said: Stop." Josh grabbed hold of her, his fingers latching around her wrist, and he tugged her back towards the house, causing her to spin around and face him. He snarled at her, and strings of spittle flew from his mouth. "Don't you dare disrespect me like that."
Elizabeth scrabbled and clawed at his fingers, trying to prise them loose. "You don't deserve my respect. You don't deserve any respect." She wrenched his first two fingers off of her wrist and wrested her arm free, and then she stepped as though to shove past him and walk away. "You're pathetic, you know that."
Out of nowhere, Josh grabbed Elizabeth by the throat and slammed her against front wall of the house.
Elizabeth let out a strangled cry. Her neck tensed as she arched away from his grasp, and the tendons at the front and sides of her throat corded. Her face flushed red and her eyes flared so wide that their whites shone with the yellow light that spilled out from the window above. She scratched at Josh's fingers and her whole body thrashed as she tried both to force his hand off her throat and to kick him away.
But her blows glanced off him, and his grip tightened.
In the struggle, there was a ping of metal as the chain of her necklace snapped, followed by a glint of gold as the chain and pendant sailed down and bounced off the bricks below.
Henry barged through the crowd that surrounded him on the steps. "Hey! Get off her!"
He rushed at Josh and slammed his elbow down on the middle of Josh's arm, causing Josh's arm to give way and his hold on Elizabeth to break. The surprise might have helped, too. Then he shoved Josh back, so hard that Josh tripped and staggered before righting himself, and he placed himself between Josh and Elizabeth.
Behind him, Elizabeth gasped for breath. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that she had slid down the wall and was huddled on the ground, clutching her throat.
Josh stepped towards Henry again, his chest puffed, ready to fight.
Henry pushed him away, both hands to his chest. "Walk away. Now."
"Or what?" A jeering smile crooked Josh's lips. "You'll fight me?"
As much as he would have loved to beat Josh's face to a bloodied pulp, Josh wasn't worth getting arrested over, let alone losing his scholarship and military career for.
"I'll report you," Henry said.
"Report me?" Disbelief darkened Josh's expression. "What for?"
Henry stared at Josh, incredulous. Could he really not see what he had just done?
"You assaulted her." Henry swept his hand towards Elizabeth. "With multiple witnesses." He gestured to the crowd gathered on the porch. "And you can add drug possession and use and forcing alcohol onto a minor to that, too."
Josh eyed Henry for a long moment. Then he drew his chin back with a pfft. "You have no proof. My father's lawyers will have the charges dropped in less than fifteen minutes."
Henry stepped towards Josh and lowered his voice. "I've seen the bruises on her arms. I know how you've been treating her. What with the bruises from tonight, her testimony and mine, it won't matter what your father's lawyers do, that's pretty damning proof."
Josh's gaze darted to Elizabeth, whose gasps for breath had now calmed, or had at least quietened enough not be be heard over the baseline of the music and the murmur of the crowd. Then it returned to Henry. Though he spoke with an air of nonchalance, a hint of uncertainty had crept into his expression. "She won't testify against me."
"I will." Henry took another step closer, crowding Josh and forcing him to shy away. "If you don't walk away right now, if you come anywhere near her ever again, I will report you. To the police, to the dean. And I won't stop until you pay for what you've done to her."
Josh studied Henry, then Elizabeth, then the crowd. It felt like he was calculating, projecting, searching for the optimal move.
Then something in his eyes changed, a darkening, a narrowing. He looked to Elizabeth. He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. "You know he just wants to fuck you. That's the only reason he's interested in you. That's the only reason anyone's interested in you. And you're not even good for that." He turned to Henry. "Well, you can have her. You must be used to getting other people's cast-offs." Then he spat a thick gob of saliva at Elizabeth. "Whore."
He strode away to the front stoop, jostling Henry with his shoulder as he passed. The crowd parted for him, squeezing themselves to the sides so that he could march up the steps and into the house. All the while, he muttered, "Fucking skank. Can't take it that I don't want to waste my time on a slut like her. Deserves everything she gets."
Part of Henry—most of Henry—wanted to go after Josh. Wanted to slam him into a wall. Wanted to throttle him until he begged for mercy and cried like a little girl. Especially seeing as he had no doubt that Josh would twist and distort the truth until Elizabeth was the one in the wrong, until it elevated his own image even more, anything to make it seem like he was the one in control.
But he let it go.
Elizabeth had tucked herself against the wall, her knees gathered to her chest. Her eyes were vacant, and as she stared at the space in front of her, her gaze reaching far beyond the guests on the steps who now straggled back into the house, it looked like she was watching something from another world, a kind of awestricken horror that spoke of aftermath, silence and destruction.
He crouched down next to her.
She didn't notice.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She gave what might have been a nod and continued to stare ahead of her.
Maybe she was in shock.
"Here." He slipped off his bomber jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
She said nothing, just continued to stare, but her fingers curled around the zippered edges of the jacket and she hugged it around her, her fists balled into her chest.
He watched her.
Bon Jovi's 'Livin' On A Prayer' blared in the background. A chorus of voices screamed along. It made the silence that surrounded them feel more absolute, just as the haze of light that reflected in her eyes made the darkness of night feel deeper.
"I'm going to take you to the hospital. You need to be checked out."
She gave what might have been a shake of the head and continued to stare ahead of her.
"Elizabeth…he just tried to strangle you. Someone needs to examine—"
But then she eased to her feet and he trailed off.
She stepped out of her high heels and wandered towards the road, leaving both her shoes and the broken necklace on the red bricks behind her.
"Elizabeth…?" He pivoted in his crouch, his gaze following her. "Where are you going?"
At the border between the bricks and the sidewalk, she stopped. She turned her head to face him. The silence had sunk down and become part of her, and with the hollowness of her eyes and the way his black leather jacket swamped her, it looked like she wasn't just bathed in the shadows which lurked between the pools of amber light that spilled down from the street lamps, but like she belonged to them.
A breeze gyred through the spindling branches of the ash tree and shivered over his skin.
Then she turned away again and drifted off down the road.
"Elizabeth…? Wait!"
He snatched up her high heels and the pieces of her necklace, and he hurried after her.
oOoOo
Henry twisted the key in the lock, the lock clicked free, and he pushed the door open. He reached inside and flicked on the light switch, filling the room with the bright yellow glare, and then stepped to the side, out of Elizabeth's way, and propped the door wide with his arm.
Elizabeth wandered into the apartment. Her feet were still bare. Henry had insisted she needed to wear her shoes, lest she step on a piece of glass or God knows what else could be found on the sidewalks and roads, but just like his assertions that she really ought to see a doctor, his concerns were met with that same soulless silence and vacant forward-stare. At least she had agreed to come back to his apartment—that is, if not walking off could count as 'agreement'. He didn't know how much alcohol Josh had forced her to drink, and he wasn't entirely convinced that Josh wouldn't turn up at her dorm seeking some kind of revenge, so his apartment seemed the safest place for her. But more than anything, he didn't want her to be alone.
He pushed the door to behind him, placed her shoes down next to the wall and toed off his own, and then padded across the carpet to the kitchen area. The glass tumbler he had used before going out still stood upturned on the draining board. He grabbed it, rinsed it out a couple of times, the gush and froth of the water expanding into the silence, and then filled it to the halfway mark.
All the while, Elizabeth waited in the middle of the room.
Part of him was worried that Josh might have given her something. But she had seemed lucid enough before, and her eyes weren't glassy or dilated, just empty.
"Here you go." He handed her the tumbler.
She looked at it, then took it, then held it in front of her chest.
In the darkness outside, he hadn't been able to see her neck where Josh had grabbed her, but beneath the light, even with her chin dipped and her long hair hanging forward over her shoulders, the bright red marks left by Josh's fingers stood out stark against her skin.
The anger inside him surged up again, like a thunderstorm brewing in fast motion, but it wasn't enough to distract from the guilt beneath. He should have stepped in sooner, he should have said something or done something to stop it from going that far. But, as much as it shamed him to think it, maybe what had happened was necessary. Maybe that's what she needed in order to walk away from Josh.
"I'll make up the bed for you," he said.
He waited a moment for a response.
She stared through the surface of the water.
He laid his hand against her elbow, only gently, so as not to spook her, gave a light squeeze, and then retreated to the bedroom.
With the light off, deep blue shadows filled the bedroom and formed a hazy gradient with the yellow glow that flooded through the open doorway. Henry slipped his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and fished out the gold pendant and broken necklace chain he had stuffed inside while he had chased Elizabeth down the road, and he placed them on the bedside table. Then he stripped the bed, lifted down the fresh bed linens from the shelf at the top of the closet, and made up the bed again. No sound came from the living area. That echoing silence made him miss the old Elizabeth, the one he'd cooked dinner for in November, even more.
When the bed was ready, he tugged open the second drawer of the dresser and grabbed one of the t-shirts from inside. He was about to open the next drawer down and find her some jogging bottoms to wear too, when out of the corner of his eye, she drifted into the room. She placed the tumbler of water down on the bedside table with a clunk that knocked through the wood, and then took off his bomber jacket and laid it neatly on the bed.
"Here, I've got a shirt you can—" he began, but then stopped as she grasped the hem of her dress, peeled it up, over her head, and then dropped it onto the bed as well.
He knew he shouldn't stare at her, stood there with her back to him in nothing more than a pink lace bra and matching underwear; really, he ought to apologise, leave the tee on top of the dresser and slip out of the room.
But he saw the bruises. And he froze.
Bruises of every size and hue covered her arms, ribcage and hips: tiny yellow-brown marks like fingerprints dotted the backs of her biceps; patches of pale green dappled the curves of her ribs; a sprawl of deep purple wrapped around her side, just below her right breast. It was no wonder Josh had backed off so easily when he had threatened to report him: if Elizabeth turned up at a hospital or police station looking like that, there was no doubt Josh would have been charged.
Henry's jaw clenched. Part of him was glad that he had already walked away from the PiKA house and that there was a good half hour on foot between him and Josh, because if he saw Josh right now, there was no telling what he would do. The rest of him wanted to seek Josh out, to beat him up so badly that no girl would ever be able to look at him again, not without wincing, let alone want to go out with him and end up in the same position that Elizabeth had, regardless of what repercussions would follow.
"He should never have touched you." He bit out the words. "Not like that."
Elizabeth turned around. She didn't seem fazed by her state of undress, didn't even seem to notice. She studied Henry for a long moment, her gaze skittering back and forth across his expression like she were reading a passage of text. Then she asked, "How should he have touched me?"
Henry didn't reply. He didn't know how to reply. The anger that had surged through him just a moment ago dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. It left behind a sense of unease as he became all too aware of the fact she was currently half-naked and standing in his bedroom.
Elizabeth held his gaze. She waited.
When he said nothing still, she wandered towards him, her footsteps pad, pad, padding against the carpet, drawing closer and closer, until they stood toe to toe and a waft of her perfume laced his every breath.
She stared up at him, her eyes puddles of shadow and blue.
His mouth had turned dry and his pulse throbbed in his ears. He ought to look away, he ought to get out of there, fast, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from her and his legs refused to move.
She reached behind her, unfastened her bra and let it pool to the floor in a whistle of pink lace. Still she looked up at him, her nipples erect with the chill that floated through the room. "How would you touch me?"
His throat bobbed. His palm sweated against the t-shirt he clutched in one hand. His mind felt like it had blown a fuse.
She waited a moment longer, and then she took hold of his fingers, her skin so soft, her touch so gentle, and she guided his hand towards her breast. "Show me how you would touch me."
She's easy, Josh's words played through his mind. Would fuck any of you, or all of you.
He stared down at her, taking all of her in. She was stunning—he didn't think he'd ever seen a girl so beautiful. And she was practically naked, too. For months, she was all he had wanted. He had pictured her in that bed, her body writhing beneath him. He had fantasised about the look on her face, the arch in her spine, the moan that would tear from her lips as she came undone.
And with the way she looked up at him now, he knew he could have her, if he wanted to.
With a trembling hand, he brushed her hair back over her left shoulder. He'd never felt silk before, and now he didn't need to. At his movement, her eyes slipped shut. She braced herself for his touch. She reminded him of a spun glass figurine: exquisite and fragile.
But he didn't touch her breasts, her body, didn't push her back onto the bed, didn't take what he wanted while she lay there and waited for him to be done. Instead, he caressed the marks on her neck left by Josh's hand, ran his fingertips ever so gently over each angry red line as though they were made of chalk and he hoped to soften their hue, grain by grain, and eventually blend them in to her creamy skin, and as he did, she lifted her chin up and away, exposing more of her throat for him to stroke. It felt like submission, like the way a dog would bare its throat to another, making itself utterly vulnerable, surrendering itself to the other's whims.
He could have her, he could touch her, he could make her his own.
So, How would you touch me?
"Not like that," he said, his voice so thick that his throat caught and he had to force himself to swallow. "Never like that."
Then he stepped back and let his hand fall to his side.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
Another one blazed its way towards the line of her jaw.
Her shoulders shuddered and her breath quivered and hitched as she tried to suppress a sob.
Silence.
Then, a second later, she broke.
Sobs racked her body and she crumpled in on herself as she sank to the floor.
"Hey, come here." Henry crouched down beside her. He took the t-shirt in his hand, widened its neck and eased it over her head, careful not to put any pressure on her throat, and then he freed her hair from beneath the cotton before helping to guide her arms through the holes.
He sat with his back rested against the foot of the bed, and she crawled into his lap and clung to him as her body continued to shake with her sobs. Her tears wet the crook of his neck and rolled down to dampen his t-shirt. All the while, he stroked her hair, rubbed her back, made soothing sounds, repeated again and again, It's okay, I'm here, I've got you, as though she were a child. It didn't feel like anywhere near enough after what she had been through, but he didn't know what more he could do.
oOoOo
Hours could have passed by the time her tears dried up and her sobs reduced to quivers of hot breath against his neck. He eased to his feet, pulling her up with him, and then moved his bomber jacket and her dress to the chair in the corner, drew back the covers and held her hand, steadying her, as she climbed into bed. She curled up on her side, her back to him, and he tucked the covers around her and then perched at the edge of the mattress.
The glow from the other room still spilled in through the doorway, and it painted her in shadows and golden light. She stared at the wall straight ahead of her, and he feared she was going to sink back into that silence again, that she would retreat even further into herself.
But then she spoke, her voice croaky and harsh. "You think it's my fault."
A light frown furrowed his brow, and he opened his mouth, ready to say, 'Of course not.'
But then he stopped.
Hadn't he blamed her, back when he first saw the bruises on her arm? Hadn't he suggested that she had let it happen, that she put up with Josh's behaviour rather than walking away, that her silence and lack of action somehow made her complicit? Hadn't he repeated those same thoughts to himself numerous times, even as recently as earlier that evening? She had no friends, no family, and rather than listening to her and supporting her, he had judged her and told her what to do. He hadn't been there for her when she had no one else to turn to.
The realisation sat heavy on his chest. It made everything inside him ache.
He watched over her. She looked so small and fragile, like a shell waiting to be crushed.
"You need to—" He began, and then realised he was telling her what to do again. "I think you should report it. And I promise I'll do everything I can to support you."
"And have the police not believe me or think that I'm exaggerating? Have him tell them I'm a slut and I like it rough? Have him and his lawyers target me and silence me one way or another?" She paused, letting the questions hang in the air and then fade away. "No. I need to learn from my mistake and move on."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
Her eyebrows arched slightly as she continued to stare ahead of her. "I didn't do anything right either, and sometimes that matters just as much."
He didn't know what to say. What could he say? But maybe it wasn't something that could or would be fixed with words. So he stayed silent, while she lay motionless, that stillness only interrupted by the slow blinks of her eyelids and the occasional juddering ruffle of her breath.
His gaze drifted to the necklace that lay in pieces on the bedside table. The round pendant rested reverse-side up, and he caught the glint of the inscription:
Love,
Mom and Dad
xxx
He looked to her again. "Your trust fund…it's inheritance."
"Yes," she said.
He paused. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head, and her hair mussed against the pillow. "You didn't know."
"I didn't think."
"Most people don't."
He opened his mouth, stopped, and then closed it again.
Several moments passed.
Then she shut her eyes and curled tighter into a ball, her chin dipping towards her chest.
He wanted to brush her hair back and press a kiss to her forehead. He wanted to take care of her and make sure nothing bad would happen to her ever again.
But he hadn't earnt that right, and maybe now he never would. He had judged her. He had assumed that he knew her. All the clues about her parents were there, but he had been too blinded by his beliefs about her background to see them. And perhaps he could have forgiven himself for that, did it not feel like if only he had listened to her, if only he had realised the full extent of the situation and that she had no way out, if only she'd known that she could trust him and that his words about Josh came from concern not prejudice, maybe then he could have prevented this.
"I'll let you get some rest," he said. "If you need anything, I'll be on the couch."
He waited a moment, but she didn't respond.
Then he eased up from the edge of the bed and padded towards the door.
Just as he reached the doorway, her voice drifted after him. "G'night."
He stopped, and turned to look at her. Even now, she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. "Night."
He stepped out of the bedroom and pulled the door to, leaving it open just enough that he would be able to hear her if she called for him.
She didn't call, though. And in the morning, when he awoke to a stiff neck and sunlight creeping in through the slats of the blinds, she had gone. As had his t-shirt.
The necklace she left behind.