A Tub of Cold Water

As my bedroom door was being rattled and jiggled, I had found the power to hop towards my window, throw it open, and crawl out. As I threw it closed with a frustrated whimper, I could see my slim, big-armed father trip down the stairs and swing around the wall with a fist raised high. He looked around, but I didn’t stay long enough to see what he did next. I started running toward the end of my block with a river of tears flooding down the curves of my cheeks.

Turning the block, the Ford Focus’s headlights were throwing my shadow before me like a joke and the punch line was that I’d never run as fast as my Peter Pan silhouette, nor would it know the pain of bruises to the chest, stomach, and legs like I would. I threw myself to the left and ran through a playground area just on the other side of my block, my legs pumping harder, shooting more towards a sprint than anything else.

The car was right on my heel, I could feel it, hear it, and taste the gas rivulets on my tongue as I turned down another block. That was when my legs started to give out and my chest heaved from the distance and the fact that I had bruises covering over four of my ribs.

“No!” I shrieked breathlessly as I pumped off the hard summer ground. I told my aching ribs, my collapsing lungs, and my dry, closing throat, “Just a little further! Please!”

Finally reaching the gate, I jumped at it and climbed a relentless style before throwing myself on the ground and crawling up the backyard stairs. A frosted glass window was beside my head and I pushed it open, climbing weakly and tiredly before I flipped down and collapsed in a still-damp bathtub.

My eyes gravitated to Skye’s back, strong and lean and tanned. You could see the contours of his muscles tighten as he craned his neck and turned his head around to stare in horror back at me.

With a toothbrush clenched between his teeth, white suds swimming down the corner of his mouth and his black spiked lip ring covered over with spit and toothpaste. It was now for the first time in a long time that I found something to smile about, whether or not it was a small ghost of a smile that picked up the corners of my mouth.

“What the hell happened, babe?” Skye’s voice hollowed in horror.

Just like that, the smile pulled down and my tears swam down my face in a pointless attempt to feel something else besides the bruises rubbing against my shirt. “I forgot! I for-for-forgot, Skye! To clean, I f-for-forgot to clean! How could I… I forget?”

As hyperventilation consumed my actions, Skye had spit out the toothbrush and remaining spit into the sink before sinking to his knees against the linoleum bathtub and pressed a hand to my cheek. “Hush, darling, I’m here now.”

A sob echoed against the cream colored walls as I gripped his bare shoulder, thrusting my face into the crook of his neck. This five-foot-eleven dark-haired, dark-eyed cutie, whose passion in life was photography, was the only one who knew how my father beat and battered my body. He was the only one who understood my sufferings that accompanied my mother’s absence. He was the only one who stuck around when I became a shell of a person, the only one to stay and stop me from trying to commit suicide every damn day.

Skye Maverick Johnson was all I needed in this life; he proved his loyalty in too many ways that I knew the statement was true. My hand pressed against his neck, the other curling over that hand as I wailed and shook in the warmth of his house.

I chose this time to think about more pleasant things—anything that could stop the tears and stop Marney from coming in and seeing the cover up wash away under my tears. Marney—Skye’s mom—and Marie—my mom—had been college best friends. Marney was the reason that my parents even ended up together. Skye has been my best friend since I was four years old, when our mother’s had rekindled their lost, postponed friendship in the form of preschool days. He shared his gummy bears and juice box with me every day that year. It was all fairytales and Disney production from there on out, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

The days of sticky, fruit-smelling fingers and biting the heads and arms off of the many different gummy bears flooded my memories and I could taste it, smell it against Skye’s bare skin. Unbeknownst to me, my tears dried up before a fit of hiccups erupted chokingly through my throat. Skye pressed kiss after kiss against the top of my head before he pulled me to my feet and helped me out of the bathtub.

Like a protective boyfriend or caretaker, Skye started to examine my cheeks and neck with careful fingers and skeptical, angered eyes. And like a protective boyfriend or caretaker, he trailed his plump lips against both cheeks and down the length of my neck. He was cautious and couldn’t hide the tremble between his fingers as he ensured my physical health was in the best shape it could be, given the circumstances.

They’d always said that Skye and I would end up together down the line, that we were destined for high school sweethearts, and then the big double ring ceremony. A part of me always believed that we would end up like they all predicted, like this really was some Disney production, or a Nicolas Sparks novel in the making.

But the more I tried to fall in love with Skye, the more I found myself pulling back from the welcoming kisses he would try to press against my lips. Most of the time, I obliged. He was like my sort-of-kind-of boyfriend. We shared kisses, we cuddled up during a film on the couch, we held each other in bed—we were practically a couple, but I could never cross over that arbitrary line and call him my boyfriend.

He was my savior, my guide, my protector. “Boyfriend” didn’t really fit in between those lines.

Skye pulled me back and ghosted his thumb across my lips, his brown eyes gliding over the feature of my pale face and paused on my chestnut eyes. This was always the soft indication that he was going to kiss me, and I always welcomed it with puckered lips.

His lips were soft and demanding, gentle and wanting as he deepened the kiss with the slick of his tongue. This was Skye’s way of washing my worries away, waving away all of my misery with the swathe of his tongue over mine. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t fulfill its endeavor.

My fingers locked tightly in his hair as I tugged on it, arching my back once before I sighed a breathy, jagged sigh. Skye pulled back with a much approving smile on his lips as he whispered between my lips, “Feel better, babe?”

I nodded quickly against his forehead before I opened my eyes up to his and smiled softly, the worries of my father melted away with the pressure of his mouth and the scars and bruises that painted my body black, dark red, and blue were nothing but clothing I decided to wear. Curling a piece of hair behind my ear, he pressed one hard kiss to my lips and looked around the house before resting his eyes on the bathroom door.

The bathroom door, it was like any other oak wood door, light brown and smooth as sand beneath your fingertips. He stared at it like his mother was going to burst through the other side and wave a triumphant finger at him. A solid “Ha!” screaming from her throat as she caught us wrapped up in each other’s arms. Or maybe he was picturing what I was: My father in the foyer with a pleasant smile and sleeves down past his bruised knuckles as he conversed with Marney. I could picture the conversation now.

“Oh, Chris, it’s been so long since you dropped by!” Marney would gush, her hand pressed to the base of her throat as she smiled appropriately at my father.

My father, tall, slim, and undeniably intimidating would be smiling a tight lipped smile with a gentle nod to shake his sandy locks around. “Oh, Mar, you know how it is. Crazy kids and their curfew—you just never know if their homework is really done or not.”

“Well, I haven’t seen her drop by, but then again, I’ve only been home from work for a little over ten minutes now.”

“Oh?” He would say, taking mock interest in her work schedule to seem normal and ward off any suspicion of his beatings and bludgeoning fists. “How is the old bank working for you these days?”

“Great, great. I’m manager now.” She would beam, completely unaware at the eyes he’s rolling her behind closed lids. “And yourself?”

“Well, the union does what it can for me. I’ve been working a lot downtown though, and I leave for a couple weeks in October.”

“Oh,” she would say with the same kind of mock interest in her high-pitched voice, giant smile and welcoming, loving dark blue eyes. “Well, let’s go check upstairs for her, then?”

“Yes, let’s.” he would say in an all-too-eager voice, his eyes lightening and dancing with delight to all of the things his stinging palm would do to my skin, followed by his throbbing knuckles.

They would walk upstairs and notice the bathroom door closed and Skye’s bedroom door wide open and walk back and push it open to find us entwined around each other. That would be my own version of hell. He would take my savior away from me, and I would have nothing in this bruised life.

Before I could wander too far into my own dark life, Skye turned his head toward me and whispered something about getting me to his bedroom without anyone noticing. He crept with me hot on his heel until we reached his room, where he pushed me in with attentive hands and pressed his back against the closed door.

I stumbled forward by a couple feet and turned around to watch him, only to find him watching me already. His face was set and his lips held a grim line where a normal breathtaking smile would reside. When I moved my eyes up to his, I found that they were raw with an unreadable emotion, staring at me with possession and love.

I watched his eyes crinkle and cringe closed slightly when I watched him with the innocence of a new born. It was then that I noticed that Skye didn’t have his eyes trained on mine, like I did. No, his eyes were staring around mine, beneath them. I reached my hand up to touch the blackened flesh and cringe away from my own careful touch.

“Skye,” I scolded quietly, my eyes finally breaking away from his and staring burning holes into the beige carpet of his dark blue bedroom. “Don’t.”

“Look at me, babe.” He whispered back to me, his voice desperate for my attention in a way that I couldn’t quite understand completely. It was usually me who was desperate for attention, never Skye.

I did, though. I’d do anything he’d ask of me. I whispered, “What?”

He moved toward me, slow and corralling, like I was some frightened beast that needed coaxing. When his arms encircled me, he tilted my head up with his nose skimming a line up my jaw to my chin. “I promised nearly a year ago to protect you, and I meant it. I’m going to save you.”

I knew he meant it, I knew he believed it with every bone in his body, marrow and nerve-ending and all. It was me who couldn’t believe it, though. I never was going to escape the dangerous life that Chris held me accountable to.

I turned my eyes away from his. I couldn’t bare the sight of his hope and promise burning a brighter brown in them. “Can I stay the night?”

“I thought you were going to anyway.” He muttered before disentangling himself from me, pulling away and moving toward his dresser where he pulled out a pair of red and black plaid flannels and an oversized sweatshirt.

He moved back toward me and hooked his finger into a belt loop, drawing me closer. It was the simple gestures that Skye did that sent my heart racing, reminding me of every touch that he’d rewarded me with or every caress his lips danced across my skin. He popped my button and slowly pulled the zipper down. From there, he took a step back so that I could step out of my pants after I shimmy them down my legs. I hobbled into the flannels before standing straight up again.

He stepped toward me and gripped my t-shirt by the hem and jerked it toward him so that our hips crashed sweetly. He pulled it over my head and dropped it as his fingers trailed down my neck.

Leaning down slowly, he kissed the spot beneath my ear and whispered slowly, breathlessly, “No matter the amount of spots he puts on your body, you’ll always be the gorgeous girl at the end of the day.”

I looked down at all of the bruises that lined my ribs and hips from crashing me down onto the floor. My eyes, then, moved to the scars from when he dug his fingernails deep into my stomach and ripped them across my skin mercilessly. I winced from the remembrance of the pain I felt before Skye found me on the floor in my bleeding mess of moans and whimpers. I shook my head slowly, disagreeing silently with him.

“I’ll make you notice one day.” He whispered through gruff promise before scrunching up the sweatshirt and putting it over my head, I managed the rest.

Skye turned off his light before pushing me with the tips of his fingers down onto his slate grey comforter. A moment later, he joined me and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me back to rest against him. Burying his head into my neck, he told me to close my eyes and to sleep.

“I promise,” He stressed, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

In my dreams, though, was the place he needed to be. Instead of the normal rusty brown eyes of my father waiting for me in dreamland, it was pale jade eyes that held all of the sadness in the world.

They were sad, always so sad, but tonight, the mouth that usually frowned held a smile awaiting my arrival. He held his hand out to me, palm turned up, before he whispered cooingly, “Hello, Aubrey.”