Page 119 of Liam

A few days after my parents abandoned me, Roman picked me up from school and took me to the playground. I wasn’t really into playgrounds, but I think he thought it’s what kids my age should be doing, so that’s what he wanted me to do. On the way home, we stopped by Main St., and he bought me an ice cream. He didn’t get one for himself. We crossed the road together, my hand in his, and we sat on the little grassy hill right next to the church while I devoured it. When I was done, he showed me pictures of beds on his phone. “Pick one,” he’d said. He’d been working almost non-stop at cleaning the trailer, but we still slept in the living room. He didn’t want me going anywhere near my parents’ bedroom—the only bedroom in the trailer. I chose the cheapest bed, and a few days later, he picked me up from school again, brought me straight home, and covered my eyes before opening the bedroom door.

I think I squealed—this childish, joyous squeal that had him chuckling. I hadn’t slept in a bed in years. But it wasn’tjusta new bed. He’d decorated it for me. Butterfly stickers on the walls and a bright orange canopy hanging from the ceiling, flowing down and around the frame. The bedding had an image of a sun rising or setting over the ocean, and the colors matched the canopy. It was perfect. Everything about it was perfect. And it wasmine.

When Roman tucked me into bed that night, I closed my eyes and imagined that the sun printed on the covers was real, that it covered my flesh with its warmth and cloaked me in rays made of magic.

I don’t think I’ve ever slept as peacefully as I did that night, knowing I was safe and protected.

That’s exactly how it feels to lie beside Liam while he holds me in his arms, my nose pressed to his chest.

We haven’t said a word since we got in here, but I know he’s awake. I can hear his breath catching every few minutes—as if he wants to speak, but stops himself.

I’m sure he has questions—plenty of them. But I can’t give him the answers. Yet. Iwantto, though. And he should know that.

I shift closer, wanting more of the way he’s making me feel. “Roman said he told you about…” I whisper, unable to finish the thought.

“Yeah, he did…” Liam whispers back. “Do you want to talk?—”

I shift closer again, cutting him off. “No.”

I don’t want to talk about it.

Not tonight.

But… maybe tomorrow.

Tonight, I just want him to hold me…

So I don’t have to talk about what it felt like—that instant fear in my chest when my eyes fluttered open to see a strange man standing over me. Or the anger I felt when I’d see my parents standing there, watching. He never touched me—the man—not in that way. And he never said a word to me—not until years later. He removed my clothes until there was nothing left of me, and then flash, flash, flash. Polaroids. All of them. Never digital. And then he’d hand something to my parents and leave. They never helped to re-dress me—my mom and dad. They justscattered to the bedroom and wouldn’t reappear until the next day.

A few times, they would wake me in the middle of the night, force me to walk to the outskirts of town—to a house I now remember. There were always people there. The strange man, too. And a boy my same age.

Flash, flash, flash.

They were only ever pictures.

Never anything more.

And when it was over, I would cry… but only ever to that boy. And he would hold me, like Liam is now. “It’s okay, Addie,” he’d say.

I’d blocked it out—all the memories—but I recognize that boy’s voice now, and I wish I didn’t.

And I recognize the strange man, too. The same man who put me in handcuffs years later.

I found out later that his crimes crossed state lines, went federal, turned RICO. He was sent to a maximum security prison, but an ex-cop in a place like that… he was dead within months. When I found out, a part of me hoped that his death was slow, painful, humiliating… the same way he treated us.

I wish I’d never remembered this.

Any of it.

I wish the accident took these memories away for good.

But then my parents had to die, and I had to think about them, and it all came flooding back…

I wish I never knew they’d died. I wish the cops didn’t have to notify me. But I don’t wish they weren’t dead at all. They deserved to die. To be buried six feet under with nothing to mark their existence.

Still, if I could, I’d find their graves, bury these memories with them, so they have to live in eternal hell right next to theircreator, Satan himself, and know they were nothing on this earth but the devil’s spawn.

And yet…

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