Page 72 of Redd

Chapter Fifteen

Redd

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She fits perfectly.

Bijou's body was wrapped around mine, her curves a match to the divot in my arm. Holding her, I ran my fingers through her hair and held her hand that was resting on my chest.

Sitting quietly, she stroked the back of my palm, her thin fingers running and up and down over the veins. “Why wrath?” she asked, tracing the letters on my knuckles. “What does it mean to you?”

Taking in a deep breath, I didn't answer her right away. The letters were for me, a silent reminder of my past. Normally, I'd just refuse to answer that question, and tell whoever was asking to fuck off.

With Bijou, it felt different.

There was this thought in my mind that she would understand. That she'd have the compassion and ability to see it in the same light I did.

We weren't that different when you examined our lives, shrouded in blackness, consumed by suffering and internal battles. But that didn't mean she would accept the truth that was my life and where I came from.

Just tell her.

“It's to remind me of what I never want to become.” Swirling my fingertips across her shoulder, I exhaled a long breath, and repeated what my father used to say. “Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

Even though it was my voice repeating his words, it was his voice saying them inside my head. My stomach coiled up, blood turning hot as lava with the old memory swirling through my ears.

“That explains the bible I found.” Tilting her face up, she shifted her dark brown eyes between mine. “I won't lie, I was curious about it. It didn't seem to fit here.”

“It was my father's.” Saying the word slit my tongue and made it sting like I had just sucked on razor blades. I didn't even want to acknowledge that he existed, he never deserved the title of father. “It's all I have left that was his. And I'm not even sure why I kept it.”

“Was he a minister or something?”

Resting my head on hers, I squeezed her hand. “No, nothing like that. My father wasn't a kind man, Bijou. He would say these lines, ones that weren't meant to be used the way he did. And right before he would do something horrible, his eyes would turn black and he would speak some sort of passage to us. It gave him control, it was his way of turning his justice into some righteous act.” Looking down on her, I frowned.

His voice boomed in my head, and I was tempted to cover my ears to block him out. I hated his voice, I hated who he was. He wasn't a father, he was a monster. And I never wanted to become him.

Her finger ran over the letter W on my thumb as she looked back at my knuckles. “But you have to see it every day, doesn't that make it worse?”

“I have it there so I can remember, so I always know what I'm fighting against.”

It was stupid when I really thought about it. How I took those letters and tagged my skin with them so I wouldn't forget. . . I would never forget. It wasn't possible.

But I would do anything to not let the same rage that flowed through his veins consume me. He was a part of me, and I could feel it. I couldn't remove him, I couldn't smoke him out. Always there, still living inside me, turning me into a control-less freak when I got pissed off.

“And the other one? Is that something he used to say too?”

“No, that one's mine.” Lifting my hand up from her back so I could look at the letters, I wriggled my fingers. “Consider the blameless, observe the upright; a future awaits those who seek peace.”

“So it's like a good verses evil thing?”

“I guess it's like that. He put a lot on us, according to him it was our fault for what he would do. But it was never our fault, it took me years to figure that out. Unfortunately, I realized that way too late, otherwise things would have been very different.”

Studying my face, she pushed up on my chest and curled her leg around mine. “What did he do?”

Crooking my jaw, I weighed how much I would tell her. I was afraid of the judgment she might cast. There were pieces to my life that tore it open and left me bleeding. They all went together hand in hand, but I only regretted one of them every single day.

“It's not just what he did, it's what I did too.” Thinning my lips, I tried to force a smile, but it didn't work. “It's what I'm capable of that scares me. And it's what I couldn't do that hurts.”

Stroking her warm skin, I felt her heart beating against my ribs. The pace quickened and for a second I thought she was going to pull away. Her body lifted higher, nails gripping my chest as her eyes opened wide.

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