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His body covers mine, fingers sliding my underwear back into place. I blink, tears still spilling. “Are you ready?” He whispers. “When I jump up, you run. Run until you can’t anymore.”
I clutch his shirt, my eyes looking between his, “Come with me.” I plead.
“I can’t, it’s you or me. And you’re too pure to live in that world.” He moves over me.
“What world?”
“We don’t have time.” He pleads with me with his eyes to understand, but I don't. I want him to come with me.
He jumps off me and before I can blink, he’s on his dad, knocking him off the chair and tackling him to the ground.
I scream, curling myself around my knees as I bring them to my chest. “Atticus!”
He looks at me with so much fear my heart thunders in my chest. “Run!” He roars right as the knife comes down on his face, over and over again, blood pouring around his eyes. “Fucking run, Constance.”
And so I do. I run until I forget who I am.
My body tremblesas I sit in the shower, body laying on the tile as I allow the shower to pour over me.
I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s the water, but my cheeks feel hot. My chest is constricted and I can’t breathe. I gasp, trying to take in any air, but it feels impossible.
My fingers digging into my skin as I hyperventilate.
I can’t function, not with what I know. He sacrificed himself so I could escape and I have no clue what lies ahead for him, but judging by the picture I found in his desk, I know it wasn’t good. It couldn’t have been.
Why? Why would he do that for me? One more year and he could have left and never looked back, but instead he…
I can hear a distant calling of my name, the rapid pound on the door. I believe it’s Francis.
After the visit to whoever that woman was because she was no mother, I locked myself in the guest room and I haven’t come out since.
“Miss? Are you alright?”
I can’t get any words out, I can barely catch a single breath as I allow the scene of Atticus' young, bloody face looking at me and telling me to run.
What a coward I was. How could I leave him like that? Allow him to suffer for me. And he was doing it the whole time. Walking me to and from school. Locking me away in my room while he stood guard. When did he sleep? Why did he even care enough to protect me from his father, my mother?
Questions on loop like my own personal hell. Plunging me deeper and deeper into the numb abyss I long for.
I sink into that feeling. Drifting away until something pulls me. Brings me back and grounds me.
Strong arms wrapped around me, my body curled in his lap as he rubs my throat soothingly.
“Good girl. Look at you listening for the first time ever.”
His voice soothes me, rocking me like a lullaby and bringing me back to the present.
I blink the fog away, my eyes connecting to the mossy green I’ve spent loving since I was fifteen.
My hands touch his face, my fingertips tracing the scar. “I’m so sorry.”
He looks confused until realizing that I’ve remembered. He grabs my hand, bringing it to his lips and laying bites on the tips of my fingers. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Why?” That's all I can ask.
His face grows stony, and he looks as if he’s putting up walls.
“Please,” I beg. “Please, just tell me why?”
