Chapter 2: The trick is to keep breathing
Lily's POV
The bed stinks of sweat and whiskey.
You ignore it as you have learned to ignore so many things in your life.
He left your bed as soon as he had gotten what he had come for.
You never allow him to stay.
You feel dirty afterwards.
Like one of those rag dolls you played with as a child.
So you take a bath and you scrub your body until your skin burns.
But you can never get clean enough.
It's pointless, really.
You can never wash away that feeling of being dirty and used.
But still you try.
Every night is the same story.
He comes carrying food and drink.
He comes with a promise of a better life than the life that is played out outside your window.
You sit there and listen to his grand plans of a better future for the two of you.
He talks like you belong to him now.
And maybe you do.
You owe him so much.
You know this.
He never say this, of course.
No gentleman would.
And he is a gentleman.
Or at least that's what he claims to be.
So when he kissed you on that night one month earlier you let him.
Then he let you move in to his carriage.
You were free of the mud and the cold.
He gave you food.
He gave you hope for the future.
You were so grateful.
So when he touched your leg you let him.
When he hugged you, you hugged him back.
He had always been kind to you.
And he had saved you.
Then one night he kissed you again.
This time it was different than before.
Demanding.
You could push him away.
You should.
But fear gripped you.
So you surrendered.
And you let him into your bed.
Afterwards, you asked him to leave and he did.
You had never felt so dirty as you did then.
So you scrubbed your skin, trying to remove that feeling.
But you failed.
The next night he came back and the two of you did your little dance once again.
It became a pattern between the two of you.
He never once treated you any different than the lady you were.
But you never felt like that.
That women was far gone.
What was left was a survivor.
You told yourself when you lay alone at night that things would get better.
Maybe you would grow to love this man that took so much from you.
Maybe you could find your fire again.
That thing that made your spirit soar.
You thought that you had found it again one night two months ago when another man held you in his arms and danced with you.
But that had been a lie.
The news of the murder spread through the camp like wildfire the next morning.
The body that had been found by the tracks and the blood that now was on Bohannan's hands.
You refused to believe it at first.
He was a good man.
You knew it.
You had seen it.
You had felt it.
You had looked into this man's eyes and you had seen good in him.
But time and distance made you doubt.
He had fled the camp.
His past was a dark one.
He had blood on his hands from before.
The evidence kept mounting up.
But still you didn't want to believe.
You had trusted this man.
He had saved your life.
You had seen a sorrow in him that mirrored your own.
You had even felt something that time when he first touched you.
When he held you and danced with you on that last night together you had even let yourself imagine what it would be like to let him into that inner part of your heart that you had closed off from the world.
It had been foolish.
You saw that now.
Cullen Bohannan was not the man you thought.
He was gone from your life anyway.
What was left was the railway, the camp and Mr Durant.
Your life now.
You had to accept that.
Maybe one day you would find the strength to let go of the things that was before.
Of a life you had let yourself dream about.
Of a man you had seen glimpses of.
Of happiness that seemed to be in your reach.
And maybe even of love.
But for now you clung to your memories.
Of a life once had.
Of a man you may have even loved.
Your memories were the only things that you had left.
That was truly yours.
That could not be taken away.
So you clung to them.
They brought you peace.
It centered you.
And maybe one day you would find your way back to that life.
To the happiness you had felt.
To the love.