Page 11 of Joy Guardian

She sighed. “I guess, I already had doubts. Also, you see, I always wanted to have a big wedding in our small town with all my friends and family there. I used to have so many friends, Kurai. I loved crowds, and music, and laughter. And above all, I saw myself being exceptionally happy on my wedding day, but I feared I might not be if it was with Dylan. The doubt was small and buried deep in my gut, easy enough to dismiss, but I should’ve listened to it because that was when the manipulation really started. He’d wear me out day after day, complaining about how much easier it’d be for him to continue to support me financially if I were his wife, how his family was upset that we weren’t married, how his friends told him that a woman unwilling to commit is just a gold digger. He made me feel like a rotten, ungrateful person. And eventually it started to make sense to ‘just get it out of the way’ and get married.”

Was that how my stepfather convinced my mother to marry him, too? I suddenly wondered. There was no love between them. They weren’t bonded mates. But after my father’s death, she needed help to run the farm, or we risked losing it…

I tightly shut my eyes for a moment, banishing the memories away. But they pounded against my skull, trying to get in. Without realizing it, Ciana had opened something inside me that allowed the memories to invade my mind, and instead of leaving her to preserve my sanity, I shifted closer to her along the bench.

Maybe it was too late for me already? Maybe I’d lost my mind and there was no hope of ever getting it back now.

“I always wanted to have a wedding dress with the longesttrain ever,” she continued her story. “I saw it in a movie once, and I wondered what it’d feel like to walk down the aisle with a train like that behind you. It seemed grand, elegant, and fun.” Her smile seemed happy for a moment but then disappeared completely. “Instead, I got married wearing jeans. Dylan reasoned that since it was a small ceremony with no guests whatsoever, there was no need to spend money on a dress that no one will see.”

“With your parents passing, did you not have any other family?” I asked, pained by the disappointment in her voice.

“I had an aunt, my mother’s sister, and her family, including my two little cousins whom I adored. But they all stayed in my hometown, and Dylan allowed me decreasingly less and less contact with them, until he eventually forbade me to contact them or to speak to them unless he was present.” She gazed at the fading bruise on her forearm. “The beatings started about a year after the wedding. At first, I didn’t even recognize it as physical abuse. He’d shove me out of the way or push me into the wall when he was angry, and I would dismiss it as an accident or even worse—blame myself for getting in his way. He worked from home after classes, and I’d listen carefully for every sound coming from his home office. If there was screaming and furniture shoved around, I knew someone on the phone had made him angry, and I was in trouble because he’d take it out on me.”

“Why?” I fisted my hands so tightly, my knuckles ached.

She shrugged with a wince. “He’d always say that it was my fault, that I somehow failed to read the signs and calm him down, being infuriating instead. He’d shove me to teach me a lesson to stay out of his way. Or he’d throw a dinner plate at me to teach me to cook better. Then he’d say he was teaching me for my own good, and I was a lousy student who needed to be punished constantly. Afterwards, he’d apologize profusely. He’d crawl on his knees begging for my forgiveness. He’d cry real tears, swearing that there is no life for him without me. That we were meant to be together, just he and I against the entire world. He’d pour me abath, he’d ice my bruises, the bruises that he had inflicted. He’d swear on his life that he’d never do it again.”

“But he did, didn’t he? He kept hurting you, again and again.”

She nodded with a long sigh. “For a while, things would calm down, and I would believe that everything may be getting better. And then…”

She bit her lip. I saw how hard it was for her to continue. It was impossibly hard for me to hear it too. I was ready to fall to my knees to beg her to stop. But unlike me, who preferred to keep my memories locked and buried, Ciana seemed to need to purge them.

Maybe letting it all out made her burden lighter?

And if so, who was I to stop her? The best thing I could do for her was to listen.

She swallowed hard before speaking again. “One night, he finished work early. He came into the kitchen, demanding dinner. I told him the water in the pot hadn’t boiled yet, and I couldn’t cook the pasta until it did. He got furious. He knocked the lid off the pot on the stove, grabbed me by my hair, and shoved my face into the pot. The water was hot but not boiling yet. The pot was high and only half filled. My throat hit the edge of it, the steam made my eyes tear up, but my face stayed above the water. I choked and coughed. He threw me to the floor, and I realized that he didn’t know how hot the water was or how much of it was in the pot. It could’ve been full and ready to boil, and he would’ve burned or drowned me. He acted as if he wanted to kill me. And I knew right then and there that one day, he would.”

“What did you do? How did you escape him? Or was it when the queen’s guards took you?”

“This happened a couple of days before they came for me, but I knew I had to get away from him. I also was very sure that if I told him I wanted to leave, he wouldn’t let me. So, the next time I went grocery shopping, I asked a kind old lady to borrow her phone and called my aunt. Then I came home and quietly packedmy suitcase while Dylan was in his office working. I thought I had enough time to sneak out of the apartment without him knowing, but he came out and caught me with my suitcase.” She lifted her hand to her cheek again, gently touching the bruise with the tips of her fingers. “That’s when this happened. He beat me in earnest, not holding back… That’s when the last pieces of me broke and every feeling I ever held for him changed to nothing but hate.”

“Please tell me he was flayed or at least burned alive for what he did,” I gritted through my teeth, wishing I could go to the human world right now and do it myself—slice the flesh off his bones strip by strip while he screamed for mercy.

“Well…” She spread her arms wide. “He got arrested. My aunt and uncle got there just in time. A neighbor helped to tackle Dylan and hold him down until the police arrived.”

“He deserved to have his spine pulled out of his body while alive. Please tell me there is this kind of punishment in your world.”

She stared at me with her eyebrows raised up high.

“Um… I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something like that being done to a person.”

“It’s a shame,” I said with deep regret.

She covered my hand with hers, the ever-present smile playing on her lips. “Joy Guardiansounds like a peaceful occupation. Where did all this thirst for blood come from, Kurai?”

“We’re warriors, sworn to protect the temple and the Source of Joy by any means necessary. We’re trained to fight and even kill if needed.” The words I often said with pride came out hollow as I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her bottom lip and the cut that split it a little off center.

Like her bruises, the cut was healing slowly. Her lip still looked swollen slightly on the right. Red blood dried inside the cut. And it looked so painfully familiar, dragging out my darkest memories from their graves.

“You’ll be safe here, Kurai,” Mother said, placing a kiss on myforehead. “The Joy Guardians will take good care of you. They don’t accept just anyone into their ranks. Blessed be the kindness of the Master Guardian.”

“But when will you come back?” I asked, fighting tears.

My stepfather used to say, “Big boys don’t cry. They accept their punishment and learn from their mistakes.”

And I tried, I tried very hard not to cry. I tried to act like a big boy, even as my mother walked away, leaving me at the temple to never come back for me.

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