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“I would never stop touching you,” he said, his voice almost tired. “And I would touch only you.”
He never gave up.
And he could be kind. And sweet.
“More,” he finally said. “No one ever expects more from me.”
Will and the gazebo… Will and the gazebo…
There was nothing but this.
I was so sorry for all of his pain.
Little shit.
I did do her literature assignment for her.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Grapes of Wrath, or Mrs. Dalloway.”
lack of diversity and relevant topics on our reading list and how the “classics” were only “classic” because novels written for a broader audience weren’t getting published in the old days. The whole system was rigged and damn the man, etc.
“Knock-knock.” “Come in,”
she dropped her defiant little chin and mumbled, “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she told me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
a smile still spread across her mouth that I had a hard time ignoring. I’d seen her in the theater by herself from time to time,
gave her a choice to be nice. I didn’t actually want the Twizzlers.
Ordinary people becoming extraordinary. Being called to do great things.” She rolled a Milk Dud between her fingers, watching the screen. “Hell hones heroes, you know? I feel it when I watch them.”
“Jean-Claude Van Damme,” we both said at the same time.
Just the thought reminded me of you there for a minute.”
“Big guy, super happy, having fun… I don’t know.” She stuck a piece of candy in her mouth. “Just seems like something you would do.”
I closed my eyes, savoring the feeling of finally having her in my arms, and I had to fist my hands to keep them from roaming, or else she’d probably slap me.
“Remember what you said about nightfall?” Her lips grazed over my skin, feeling me. “You don’t have to be nice. Not until the end of the movie.”
Kissing. Only fucking kissing, and I was about to come already.
I hated it when things ended up being exactly how you hoped they’d be.
I was the temperamental one. He was the lover.
He’d put his tie on me after the movies when he’d dropped me at home, and I wasn’t going to wear it, but…
He’d taken another bad day and made it good. I liked wearing something that reminded me of it.
But he came in, taking his tie around my neck and rubbing it between his fingers. “You come to me,” he said, “or I’ll come to you.”
All because I faked one English assignment. That was how neurotic I was.
“Why don’t you scream?”
I don’t scream, because…. “Because screaming doesn’t help,” he murmured. “Does it?”
“Until you can’t remember who you were before you started lying even to yourself,” he added. “Until you can’t remember ever smiling when it didn’t fucking hurt.”
Abuse can feel like love. I remembered his words from lit class. Starving people will eat anything. His eyes fell down my body again, his head cocking and taking the purple and red on one side of my torso and the others on my thighs. He didn’t have any marks that I could see, but there were other kinds of pain. “Will is like that,” he said, his voice softening, somber now. “Isn’t he?” Like a smile that doesn’t hurt. I nodded. “Easy, normal, peaceful…” he told me. “The only thing in my life untouched by anything ugly. Nothing has tainted him. He’s the one thing that’s still beautiful and thinks
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One day of wearing his school tie, because I loved the way he made me feel that I had to have a piece of him with me every moment, was nothing compared to the years Damon had relied on Will to be his little beacon of hope that the world was still a pretty place.
Damon Torrance was gifted at manipulating someone’s mind.
Will liked Em. I’d rather live in that memory of the movie theater forever than ever make another one with anyone else.
“You still have a year to start applying, but I’ll try to help with anywhere you want to go to college,” he said. “Okay?”
These moods were harder to take sometimes than the violence.
“I’m sorry, you know?” he choked out, and I could hear the tears in his throat.
“I do love you, Emmy.” He paused. “That’s why I want you to go. You’ll be the one thing in this family that’s not a fucking failure.”
“As long as I promised not to tell Mom you were running a casino night in the basement while they were in Philadelphia that time.”
“They make the best cops. They know all the tricks.”
And what better place for a criminal to hide?
a large, hardcover book and came over, handing it to me. “It’s used, but it caught my eye today when I walked past the library’s sidewalk sale.” Greatest Deep Sea Dives.
coffee table books,”
One book for every time I stood back up. Again. And again. And again.
presents every time he’d spent his anger and the guilt crept in, and those things were also set about the room.
I hugged myself in my cardigan, only wearing my sleep shorts and tank top underneath, and turned around to close my curtains.
“Please,” I asked, ignoring his teasing. “You can’t be here.” He rose slowly, never taking his eyes off mine. “Or maybe you have a thing for doomed romances.” I stepped back as he stepped forward. “Just leave,” I told him again. But he kept coming. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered.
Why do you always have to think so much until you’ve twisted something that was good into something bad?”
