Page 63 of Vengeful Vows

“Please.”

Rejection hits hard and fast when he murmurs, “I can’t.” The brutal sting is nowhere near as bad when he adds, “I can’t do touch. I don’t like to be touched…It’s… I…”

When he struggles to be honest about the reason he has a phobia of touch, I say, “It’s okay. I d-don’t need to touch you.” The invisible wings I’m attempting to fan out should wilt from the weakness of my reply, but they don’t. They expand to their full girth, meaning my voice is without a quiver when I address my needs for the first time. “I just want you to continue teaching me that fear isn’t the first emotion you should experience when you want someone to touch you.”

“Mar…” He’s so torn he can’t get my full name out, not even with its shortness. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” When his eyes sling back to Tillie’s bedroom door, I murmur, “You won’t hurt either of us.”

“How do you know that?” Sheer bewilderment colors his tone.

“A mother knows these things. They know wh-who to trust with their children and who to steer them clear of. It isn’t intuition, more that a mother knows. Sheknowswho her children are safe with. I can’t put it simpler than that.”

The pain in his eyes triples as he thinks over my words, and then the truth smacks into me.

Oh god. His mother knew he was being hurt, and she did nothing to stop it.

Like all victims of abuse, Ark tries to shift the focus off himself. “Do you think she also knows the body is designed to endure more pain than anyone could comprehend?”

“Probably,” I reply, nodding. When his eyes squeeze tightly shut, like my confession pains him to hear, I push out, “Somesay birth is the equivalent of breaking every bone in your body. If that isn’t proof of what one can endure, I don’t know what is.”

My throat tightens when he asks, “And you did that when you were…?”

“Fifteen,” I fill in, too exposed and raw to lie.

A low sound leaves him as some of his remorse shifts to anger. “Fifteen?”

I don’t want to add to the absolute agony in his eyes, but since I genuinely don’t believe they can harness more hurt, I nod.

“Fuck, Mara. You were just a kid.”

“I was,” I agree, stepping closer. The threads holding him together are as worn as mine. They’re mere seconds from snapping, but I tug on them ruefully instead of leaving the fragile frays untouched. “As were you when you were hurt.”

“Don’t,” Ark snaps out. “This isn’t about me. This is about that fuck”—he points to the door as if Dr. Babkin is on the other side—“and what he did to you that made you so scared you can’t speak without a stutter.”

The thread I mentioned earlier wholly unravels, and in all honesty, it’s freeing not having it flap between us anymore.

“He raped me,” I confess, stealing the air from Ark’s lungs. “The first time was when I was?—”

“First?” He’s enraged with anger, filled with hate, yet there’s something hauntingly beautiful about the protectiveness beaming from him. “He did it more than once?”

I look at my feet and then nod, the memories too hard to bring up without a dip in confidence.

Ark takes a moment to compose himself before asking, “Did you tell anyone? Did you report him to the medical board?”

Again, I nod. This one is weaker than my previous one.

My chest heaves for air when the softest touch lifts my chin. Ark stares at me after aligning our eyes. His spine is rigid and his jaw is tight, but there’s no hate in his eyes. No pity.

Not for me, anyway.

“You told?” His voice is a whisper, full of disbelief.

I nod before brushing away the tear the bob forced from my eye.

“Did it stop?”

I’m torn on how to reply. Speaking up saved me from Dr. Babkin for a couple of weeks, but it also thrust me into a nightmare far darker and more depraved.

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