Page 89 of My Revenant
“I was thirteen the first time.” Jonah’s jaw clenched. I’d thought it would be difficult to tell him, to let it out after all these years. It wasn’t. Rather than letting it out, I was letting him in. And letting him in was the easiest thing I’d ever done. “Sixteen the last time. That’s when I brought him here.”
He nodded again. Processing. “And…” He hesitated a moment. “He touched you… the way I touch you?”
“No. Not like you do. Never like you. Your touch is wanted, Rabbit, always. His wasn’t.” Even though Pierce told me it must have been, because I’d reacted to it. Against my will, I’d reacted to the foul hands that touched me, even as they burned. My body listened to him instead of me. I hated him for that too.
Jonah stepped closer to me, his hand unclenching to rise to my cheek. His touch was warm even though his hand was cold. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know, Rabbit,” I told him.
“No, I don’t think you do,” he said firmly. So certain. Like there really was no doubt in his mind. “Itwasn’tyour fault.”
“I know that.” Something inside me squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze.
“It wasn’t your fault, Dex.” His tone was so rigid. Immovable. Steady.
“I know,” I whispered. The thing inside me bubbled and oozed under the fire in his eyes. Black ichor. The guilt that seeped from the wound.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I—”
“It wasn’t.”
I sucked in a breath. I’d told myself those words so many times, over and over like a mantra. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.It wasn’t my fault. It felt like a lie.
His palm guided me to him until his forehead pressed against mine, his eyes blurry this close, but still on me fiercely. His gaze still burned the thing inside me that had made a home in my soul like a parasite in the wound.
“It wasn’t your fault.” He spoke directly to it. Intimidated it. It shifted inside me, hearing him in a way it had never heard me. “It wasn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve it.It wasn’t your fault.”
I choked. A strangled, awful sound rose from my depths as it broke me. Tears flowed freely, cleansing me the way I’d hoped the ocean would cleanse me the night I brought the body here. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“H-how can you know that? You don’t know that I—when he—I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it, but he touched me, and I—I couldn’t stop myself from reacting to him.”
“It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.” Every word spoken with intensity. With purpose. “I’ll tell you that as much as you need me to. Every hour of every day for the rest of our lives. It wasn’t your fault.”
I sobbed again, the parasite inside me burning away.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was his fault. All of it. And when I get to hell, I’ll make him pay for what he did to you.”
I smiled even as I sobbed again. “You’re not going to go to hell, Rabbit.”
“Of course I am,” he said, his voice softer now. Tender. He’d scraped the ichor off the wound, and now his words soothed over it, tended and cared for it. “I’m in love with the Devil. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
I fell to my knees, and Jonah fell right along with me, his arms around me, holding me as I cried as much as I’d cried the day I’d brought the body here. More. I cried harder because for the first time since I’d lost my father, there was someone here to listen. To care. To soothe.
Jonah held me through it all, until there was nothing left for me to give and I felt hollow and empty inside. Because the ugly thing that had always eaten away at me hadfinallyleft. It might come back, and that might be soon, but I didn’t have to face it alone anymore. I had Jonah, and if I didn’t believe myself, he would tell me. I’d always believe him.
“Will you tell me what not to do? So I won’t hurt you?” he asked once I’d calmed down, pulling back to search my eyes.
I smiled at him and nodded softly. “You won’t h—”
“I don’t want to risk it, Dex. I don’t want anything I do to make you uncomfortable.”
“It might be different, because it’s you,” I told him, because if there was anything Jonah wanted to do, I wanted to do it with him. “It’s just… he would… when I was sleeping… that’s when…”
“Okay.” He leaned in, his lips pressing against mine softly. “I won’t touch you while you’re sleeping. I promise.”
