Page 64 of Sparks of Insanity
I shook my head, and Blaze groaned.
“Let me see if I can guess. You either coerced him into it, because you’re a manipulative asshole like me, or you drugged him. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s a fucking family trait, isn’t it? That and ignoring consent.”
I’d suspected things about Blaze, and my dads, but only from little bits I’d overheard, from listening to them when they thought nobody was listening. Eavesdropping is a great way to find out stuff nobody wants to tell you.
“I was trying to break his control, so he’d be with me,” I said morosely, and Blaze snorted, slumping back in his seat and scrubbing his hands over his face. They still had dried blood on them. Ethan’s blood. That realisation was what broke through the shock of the day’s events, and opened the floodgates, and for the first time since I was a little kid, Blaze held me while I sobbed my heart out.
My parents arrived, and my mum looked stunned when I ran into her arms and sobbed against her chest, the familiar scent of her perfume filling my senses, until my nose was too blocked for me to pick it up any longer. She cried with me, while my dads disappeared with Blaze to discuss whatever.
“Mum, I didn’t mean to.”
She nodded, stroking my face and brushing my tears away, after we’d taken two seats beside each other.
“I mean, all the times I did this to you guys, I had no idea what it was like for you. I can’t believe I put you through this hell so many times, and I’m so sorry. I can’t believe how selfish it was, but he was helping me. He… I didn’t mean to push him to this, you have to know that.”
Mum smiled, cupping my face in her hands, like she couldn’t bear to not touch me right now, just in case I revoked the privilege later.
“Sometimes things happen that we just can’t undo, baby. I swear we’ve all done worse, okay?” That wasn’t necessarily the most comforting response I could have expected.
She sat back again, her eyes taking in every inch of me, lingering on the marks on my throat, as she chewed on her lip.
“Did he hurt you, Ember?” She winced then, shaking her head. “Em, sorry. It’s so hard to remember, but I’m trying.” She was, I knew she was, they all were.
“He was a little rough, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t push him to, mum.”
“But it was what you wanted?” How could she see that, when nobody else could?
I nodded, staring down at my hands, screwing up the handful of tissues I held.
“That makes me a freak, doesn’t it? Liking it when he loses control and hurts me?”
Mum sighed, reaching for my hands and staring at them with wonder, as I let her take them.
“Baby, what people enjoy in the bedroom, or whatever room they do it in, doesn’t make them freaks.”
“I know, as long as there’s consent.” She looked away for a moment. I knew she was going to tell me something abouther past with my dads, something that would prove what I suspected.
“Sometimes consent comes after the fact, Em. Sometimes you don’t realise it’s what you wanted, but it is. My god, listen to me counselling my daughter by telling her that lack of consent is okay. I don’t mean that exactly, but every relationship is different, and what works for some doesn’t work for others.”
“I know my dads did bad stuff, mum, just like I know Blaze has. I think I kind of understand some of it now.”
“None of it was right, Em. It just happened to be right for us.”
Ethan (a day later)
THEY WERE KEEPING ME in for observation, but at least the one benefit of my being here, alive when I’d rather be dead, was that I finally had the power to block Ember from visiting me. I was able to keep the entire fucking Cross family away from me.
I was being heavily monitored, because I was dumb enough to admit that I’d try again and get it right next time. It gave me time to think at least. I had no visitors except healthcare workers, and this damn psychiatrist they’d sent in three times so far.
“They’ll keep sending me until you at least talk to me, Ethan. Wouldn’t it be easier to just talk and let me in?” He asked, folding one leg over the other, as he tried a gentle smile at me. He was older than me, wearing black and white, and that fact alone made me think of her.
“What’s there to say? Do I want to die? Yeah, because I have nothing to live for. Write that in your fucking notes.”
He sighed, making no such note as he leaned forward a little.
“You say you have nothing to live for, but everyone has something. You have family, you have friends, are these people not worth living for?”
Ha. Nice try. “My family and friends have all disowned me, because of a rumour about me which I know you have in that fucking file.”
