my knees and beg her for fucking forgiveness. I think about the fact that I’ve never met a more infuriating woman, and that I love her so goddamn much it hurts. And then I think about how angry I am that she won’t give this another chance and that, up until now, I’d never met a woman that’d have me sitting around in my room on a Friday night pining for her like a fuckin’ lost puppy.
I run a hand through my hair and thumb my keys, hoping I don’t look too shitfaced to get laid. It’s 11.30 pm, but there’s still another half hour before the pub calls last drinks—that’s a whole twenty minutes to find someone to fuck.
I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say Ana won’t go back to the pub for a while. I’ve been there every night for the last three weeks and I’ve never seen her so much as set foot in the place. Not that I blame her; it’s not really where I want to be, either, with the memories of that fucked up night etched into the walls of the place. It’s just that Bob hasn’t been real friendly since I broke his daughter’s heart and the pub is really the only other place I can go to hold a conversation with another adult. Plus, anywhere with liquor is my favourite place to be these days.
Just as I’m reaching for the door I hear a soft knock from the other side. I open it and look at the girl standing on my doorstep, but what I’m seeing doesn’t make sense because Ana is standing on my doorstep looking like she got attacked by a fucking zombie horde.
Her blonde hair is dirty, one side of her face is swollen shut and her clothes are bloody and tattered. My heart hurts just looking at her. My head is spinning, trying to put together a puzzle without any of the goddamn pieces.
“What the fuck happened?”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” she whispers looking up at me with big round eyes full of hurt.
I can barely breathe. I’m shaking with rage.
I pull her into the room and she falls into my arms and then she falls apart. She sobs into my chest and all I can do is hold her tighter than I ever have and pray that I’m wrong about what I think happened. I’ve seen her cry before, I’ve been the cause of her tears too many times, but I’ve never seen her broken like this. She sounds like a wounded animal, and it’s killing me that she’s not talking.
“Ana, who did this to you?” I’m having trouble keeping a lid on my rage. I’m not good with tamping down my anger, and right now I wanna rip out someone’s fucking heart. Ana doesn’t answer, she just sobs harder.
I’m going fucking crazy wondering what happened to her, wondering who did this and how far they took it, wondering whose skull I have to beat in as payback.
“You gotta talk to me, baby girl,” I plead. “I’m going outta my mind not knowing what happened to you.”
And then she does. She tells me everything and I begin to wish she hadn’t. Every last detail, except for the name of the scumbag that did this, and my heart hurts so much you’d think I was the one who’d been held down and stripped of my virginity and my dignity.
“No. No. No,” I whisper, and slide down the end of the bed. I land hard on the floor with my back pressed against the ratty ensemble and bury my head in my hands as tears sting my eyes.
I know I should be holding it together better than what I am. I should be strong for her and take her in my arms and tell her that I’ll find a way to fix this, too, but I can’t. I haven’t seen her in weeks, at least not up close, but I quickly come to the realisation that this is my fault. That if I hadn’t fucked up so badly she would have been here with me instead of shitfaced at some party with the fucker who did this.
She must be in shock, because she’s trembling so badly I’m afraid she going to fall down. She doesn’t sit, she just stands alone in my room looking like a broken little girl.
“Give me a name,” I croak through a throat that scrapes like sandpaper.
That snaps her out of her daze. Her gaze slides down to me and her face contorts with panic. “No! You have to promise me you won’t go after him. Promise me. I can’t have anyone know about this, especially not my dad. You can’t—”
“We need to tell the police. You need to go to hospital; you need a rape kit and the morning-after pill.”
She pulls away to look up at me. “No! No one would believe it. People saw me leave with him, willingly. This whole town thinks I’m a slut, Elijah, they’d never believe I didn’t want it.”
“What about the shiner on your face? You ask for that, too? They can get DNA proof, Ana. But only if you do it soon.”
“I’m not going to the police. My dad can never find out about this.”
“This is bullshit! Why are you protecting that little that piece of shit?”
“I’m not!”
“You let him walk, he’s just gonna turn around and do it to another girl. He needs to pay for what he did to you.”
“I’m not protecting him. I’m protecting me!” she screams and backs away from me, heading for the door, but I make it there before her, slamming myself between her and the exit. “Get out of the way, Elijah.”
“No.”
“Move,” she demands, tugging on the handle beside me.
“Where you gonna go? Huh? Can’t go home lookin’ like you do.”
“I’ll go to Holly’s.”
“Holly lives with her parents. You go walking in there like that and the first thing they’ll do is call the cops. And the cops will call your dad.”
She flinches and lets go of the handle. I take her face in my hands, careful not to apply any pressure to her cheekbone.
“Stay here tonight, please? I won’t force you to do anything. I won’t tell anyone. I promise, just don’t leave.” I lean in and press my forehead to hers. I can feel moisture on my cheeks. My throat is all tight and itchy.
I’m sure she can feel me shaking with rage. Right now I wanna tear this room apart. I know she won’t tell me who did this, but she doesn’t have to. I know exactly who that little fucker is and I’m gonna take great delight in castrating him. Ana wipes the moisture from my cheeks. I catch her hand and press it to my lips, “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I should have been there. I should have—”
“Shh.” She tilts her head up to face me and presses her lips to mine. There’s something defiant in the way she kisses me, like she wants me to lay claim to her mouth again. “Help me wash him away.”
I think this is a fucking terrible idea but I can’t let her down again, not now, maybe not ever, so I nod and sweep her into my arms and then carry her into the bathroom. I run the shower and help her peel off her clothes.
When she’s stripped down to her underwear, she hesitates. I gently ease her hands out of the way and unclasp her bra, the scrap of lace falls to the floor. There’s a red mark over her left nipple; the flesh is raised, but not broken. She flinches when I touch it, and I slowly draw my hand away when I realise what’s caused it. The son of a bitch bit her. I close my eyes before I can stomach seeing the rest of the marks he left on her body.
“You don’t have to stay, I can take it from here,” she says and I can see from her expression she’s ashamed of the way she looks.
“Hey.” I tilt her chin up so she can read the sincerity in my eyes. “There’s never been a woman more beautiful than you, Ana.” I press my lips to her forehead and smooth my thumb over her cheek to catch her tears. “There never will be.”
I run my hands over her hips, slip my fingers under the elastic of her knickers and gently pull them down, past the bruises on her thighs and over her dirty feet. They’re soaked with so much blood that it turns my stomach; it’s all I can do not to bolt through the door and tear this town apart to find that little shithead.
He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as Ana, doesn’t deserve what he took from her. No one will ever be deserving enough of Ana Belle, least of all me, and yet here she is, trusting me with her heart, her secret, her safety.
