Page 50 of How to Hack a Hellhound
I huffed a breath out. “I don’t use sex to escape my feelings.”
Aiden just raised his eyebrows at me,
“And I don’t have trauma. Not like…” I cut myself off.
“Not like me?” Aiden finished quietly.
“Fuck, Aiden. I’m sorry. It’s just that I really didn’t go through anything. Nothing happened to me. I’mfine,” I insisted.
Aiden looked away from me, his gaze on the far wall. “You know what the really fucked up thing was about being with my stalker for a year?”
I shook my head, afraid of what Aiden would tell me.
He looked at me. “It—sex—was awful, but eventually, it was also just… normal. It was like… I don’t know, going to the dentist or something. I didn’t enjoy it, but I just wanted to get it over with. There were times I would go down on him without him even asking, just to get it out of the way. And he was always sweet afterwards, nice to me, and it didn’t seem so bad to do that in exchange.”
“Aiden,” I murmured, and tears were leaking out of my eyes again.
“What I went through was awful, but eventually it was just… I don’t know… normal. It was my life, and I couldn’t always be in panic mode about it. And he wasn’t always around, so I watched a lot of television. I read a lot of books. I survived.” Aiden shrugged.
“And I’m so proud of you for that. And I wouldnevercompare what happened to me to what you went through. There is no comparison,” I said.
“But there is,” he said, looking at me. “At the time, I did what I needed to. I thought, ok, I’ll get through it, and it isn’t so bad, and I’ll be fine. And stuff happened, and I survived. But I couldn’t do it now. I couldn’t go back there again. I couldn’t get on my knees right now for some guy I loved, but I got on my knees for someone who kidnapped me and held me hostage, and I did it willingly.”
“You did it to survive,” I said.
“You did things to survive, too, Q. You blame yourself—I know you do. I know you thought about what would happen to you. I know you thought about what you were willing to give up of yourself to survive. I know because I thought that, too. We make bargains with ourselves. Ok, if I have to do this, it’ll be ok. I’ve done that before with some guy I barely knew, so this’ll be ok, right?
“But it isn’t ok, because we don’t have a choice. And suddenly that act—whatever it is—it doesn’t feel like it’s ours anymore. It feels like it belongs to someone else. Likewebelong to someone else. You weren’t raped, Q, and I know you think that means you don’t have trauma. But you do. You do because you made those deals with yourself. Because you knew what was going to happen, and you let yourself accept it, because you are a fucking survivor.”
I was crying steadily now, and Aiden reached out and took my hand in his. I couldn’t seem to stop the tears. I hadn’t been raped, and I had told myself that I was fine, because they hadn’t done the worst thing. I’d lived it in my mind, though. I’d thought about what I would do. How I would act. What I would give up to survive. Aiden was right about that. It wasn’t the same, I knew it wasn’t, because I had been spared and Aiden hadn’t. But yeah, maybe it had fucked me up a little.
“And sometimes when bad things happen to us, we blame ourselves. We think back on our actions, and we blame ourselves,” Aiden continued. “He used to come to the bar where I worked, and we used to chat. I flirted with him, Q. One night we even made out. So I blamed myself for what happened. I thought, if only I had ignored him. If only I hadn’t made out with him after my shift. And I will never make out with another random guy, because that memory is poison inside me.”
I wiped my eyes with my free hand, squeezing Aiden’s hand with my other hand. “I love you, Aiden. You’re brave and amazing, and you are the best fucking person I know.”
Aiden smirked, and I noticed his own eyes were a little teary. “That’s only because I’m pretty sure Liam isn’t actually a person.”
We both chuckled wetly at that, and Aiden came around to hug me. We stood like that, just hugging, for a few minutes.
Finally, I whispered, “I had sex with Marcus. A couple weeks before he kidnapped me.”
Aiden nodded his head against me.
“It was consensual and we used condoms, and… I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I do blame myself, because I shouldn’t have trusted him. I feel sick now about all the random sex I had, because I was going to be sold for sex, and Marcus made no secret of that. He joked about it. Joked about what a fine piece of ass I was, and how he could attest to it with the buyers. He made me feel… dirty and cheap,” I admitted.
“You aren’t dirty and you aren’t cheap, and that’s why Liam hasn’t had sex with you. Because he values you. He tries to figure out what you need and then gives it to you. He loves you, Q. All you need to do is ask him, and he’ll tell you,” Aiden assured me.
I hugged him tighter. “How are you so fucking wise and well-balanced?” I asked.
“Lots of therapy,” Aiden joked. “ And I’m notthatwell-balanced. I talk to the guard dog sometimes,” he laughed.
“Hey, Kushiel talks to the trees, and he’s pretty cool,” I reassured him.
We both laughed at that, and then we ended up in a discussion wondering what the hell Kushiel might be. If the guys were hellhounds, then Cass and Kushiel were probably something weird too. We guessed wood nymph for Kushiel andwitch for Cassius, but I had been wrong about Toby, so maybe hellhounds just liked quirky humans.
After all, they liked me. And they liked Toby.
Aiden and I ended up heading into my room and watching tv. I think neither of us wanted to be alone. If I took comfort from the fact that Liam could watch us through the cameras, well, that was my own weird thing. Since Liam didn’t seem to mind (and actually liked watching me), I was just going with it.
