Binding 13 (Boys of Tommen, #1)

by Chloe Walsh

I once read somewhere that we mature with damage, not with age.

I had no interest in kissing, touching, or fondling of any sort. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I suppose watching the shitstorm that was my parents’ relationship unravel had put me off the prospect of teaming up with another human for life. If my parents’ relationship was a representation of love, then I wanted no part of it.

I was of no use to him, what with being a girl and all that.

“I’m always okay, Shan,” was her clipped response.

I wasn’t naive enough to believe that my father’s decision to not break up the house this weekend was because he had decided to turn over a new leaf. No, I had been a member of this family long enough to recognize this quiet period as the calm before the storm. He would erupt soon. He always did.

I relived every argument, cruel comment, and painful memory I’d endured, ranging from taunts on the schoolyard at the age of four to the comments made by my father tonight. It was the ultimate form of masochism, and a ritual I always performed after a bad day.

or at the very least a little reprieve from the hell that was the family I’d been born into. I never wanted to go back into that house. Knowing that I had no choice and would have to go back was a special form of hell. For once in my life, I wanted a safe place to run to instead of from.

“Don’t you ever get tired of it, Mam?” I asked, voice breaking. Blinking back my tears, I choked out,

I hated her. Sometimes more than I hated him.

Trembling, I clung to his body and prayed for him to be my strength in this moment because I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t live like this. I was so alone. All my life. I was so scared.

One of these days, I was going to get out of this house. And when I did, I was never going to come back.

“I don’t trust anyone, Johnny,” I amended quietly, feeling my carefree mood evaporate into thin air, replaced with the familiar heaviness of despair that hung over my head like a constant rain cloud.

“Things that make trusting people impossible.”

“It’s a secret,” I breathed, feeling my body shake. “I won’t tell,” he whispered. Inhaling a trembling breath, I clenched my eyes shut and pressed my lips to his ear. “My father.”

Because my mother had just ended my world. She went to him. He beat us. Terrorized us. Tortured us. And she went to him. She chose him. Our own mother.