~~
“Watch your step. Stay right behind Izabella.”
“I’m scared. I don’t want to go higher,” Izzy said from above me. We were high. Really high.
“I’m right behind you. You’re not going to fall. We’re almost there,” my mom coaxed. I didn’t want to go higher, either. Even at six, I knew this wasn’t safe. What kind of mother lets her little girls climb billboards along the highway? My mother. That’s who. Billboards located just over airport runways. I didn’t know what state it was in, but it was big. Huge planes, flying in an out.
It wasn’t until we made it to the top that we felt the magnitude of that. The ledge spread at least four feet wide, and the fear of falling depleted with the view. My mother dropped the backpack from her shoulders and sat against the giant ad behind us. Gas and lodging, next right. She pulled the thin blanket from the bag and snuggled us to her. One twin on each side. Izzy wore the same red tank top as me, and matching white shorts plastered with red strawberries. We all slid out of our shoes and waited for the next takeoff.
“So many people. All going to different places. Where do you think they’re going, Clydes?” my mom questioned in a faraway tone as she removed the bread and then the peanut butter. Again. It would be our breakfast, as well. Maybe with honey if we had any left.
“Maybe to Maine. I want to go to Maine,” I announced.
“I want to go to Maine with Gabby, and then on a train. Some people sleep on trains.”
My mom handed me my sandwich with a peculiar look. “What’s in Maine?”
I bit into the sandwich and replied around the food in my mouth. “I’ll show you,” I mumbled with a full mouth, retrieving the folded paper from my back pocket. I’d torn it out of a magazine when we had to wait for a man to fix our car at the garage. That’s why we had to eat peanut butter again. My mom said we had to use all the money for a new starter.
Mom took the crookedly folded paper and opened it. “Acadia National Park?”
“Uh-huh. Look. It has boulders, and me and Izzy can climb on them.”
“One of the highest tides in the United States,” she read.
“Yeah, turn it over. See the tide is all the way to the rocks now,” I explained with a little finger to the same rocks.
“Okay, let’s go to Maine. Here, you write it down, Izzy.”
“No. I get to write it because Izzy wants to see a train. She can write that,” I complained.
“Oh, right. Smart thinking,” she agreed with a smile. Her finger tapped her temple playfully. She leaned back and bit into her own sandwich, handing Izzy the shared bottle of water. I wrote my idea in our blue notebook and handed it off to Izzy.
“Whoa!” Izzy suddenly exclaimed as the noise got louder and louder. The plane was close enough to read the lettering. It shot up over us as fast as lightning. I always thought airplanes flew in slow motion. They always looked like they were barely moving in the sky. Until that night, anyway. Airplanes were fast. Lightning fast.
“Wish them well,” my mom called while waving her arm. “Goodbye, have fun, safe travels.”
Izzy and I did the same thing, yelling goodbye while sandwiches waved in the air. We were so close. The gigantic plane rose just above our heads until it was off, leaving us with a gust of wind and awe. A moment in time I would never forget.
I never felt safer in my life. Fifty feet from the ground. I was safe. My mom talked and talked about where we were going next in between takeoffs and landings. Izzy and I took turns telling jokes that made no sense, we sang songs, counted stars, and listened to my mother talk about things I didn’t understand. The universe, and our frequencies. How we had to always be happy. Be kind to everyone we meet, and listen to our first instincts.
Normal little girls were being taught to do chores and responsibilities by six. Izzy and I were taught that the answers came from within. Not a textbook. Not a teacher. Not a doctor. The answers always came from within. Izzy and I always agreed. Both lying that we understood. We didn’t. Neither one of us. It was almost like she was prepping us. Like she knew. She wanted us to be happy, not spoiled. She hated stuff, and because she hated it, we never had it.
Not even a house.
“Listen to that tiny voice. The first instinct. It’s always right, girls. You hear me?” my mom rambled in a serious tone while she squeezed both our hands. She preached the stars to us a lot while staring out into space. We spent the entire evening on top of the world, listening to crazy talk from our happy mother, and watching planes.
Once darkness took over our surroundings, a whole other magical phenomenon fell upon us. The clear night with twinkling stars and brightly lit airplanes took on a complete new dimension of mystic.
When Izzy and I got tired, we laid our heads on our mother’s lap. One on each leg. We did this a lot. Fell asleep like this, all over the United States. Izzy and I fell asleep with our mother’s hand stroking our hair. She stared up at the sky for hours, eventually laying down with us. The noise didn’t even bother us. With our mother between us and our hands touching each other’s, Izzy and I dozed off to a happy, peaceful sleep. Roaring planes, soaring above our heads.
Chapter Seven
Day after day, I got a little better. And day after day, I didn’t remember. I remembered things, incidents, and voices. My mother’s and Izzy’s. I remembered them, but nothing else. I remembered traveling through the mountains on a train with a hobo named Boo. Izzy and I loved him. He played the harmonica while my mom danced around the car with us. He even shared a bag of plain potato chips with us. My favorite. I remembered that trip to Maine, too. Izzy and I climbed huge boulders, probably higher than the billboard.
I learned a lot by asking the girls questions when Paxton wasn’t home. When they weren’t out running around doing everything under the sun, we got to know each other. I hung on their every move, and I fell madly, deeply in love with them. Both of them.
I spent a lot of time alone while they were away being busy, but come Saturday, Paxton made me go to their tee-ball game. I didn’t mind. Other than him taking me to the doctor, I hadn’t been anywhere. Not even for a walk along the beach. I couldn’t wait to do that.
“Let’s go. We have a busy day today,” I heard from a dead sleep. Paxton pulled the curtains apart and sun poured into the bright room. My eyes squinted and looked to the clock. Seven thirty. Tee-ball games didn’t happen at the butt crack of dawn.
I rubbed my face and sat up, noticing for the first time I did it with ease. No sharp pains or sore muscles. “Have I always let you tell me what I’m doing?”
“Yes, from day one,” he admitted with arched eyebrows, strolling toward me. He put his hand on my chest and pushed me backward, forcing me to the bed. The covers were thrown off and the belt combination unlocked. Routine. Every morning before I could even go to the bathroom, Paxton had to remove my guard diaper. I had no wetness like the night before when he’d spread me open and guided one finger up my slit. Still, he did it. Every morning.
I rolled my eyes and mentally shook my head, annoyed. “I have to pee.”
Not that I needed his assistance anymore, but Paxton helped me to my feet and followed me.
“I’d like for you to start doing things around here again. You can start small, but I can’t do it all, and I’m not paying Tricia to do it anymore. You can drive the girls. You can cook from now on.”
“I cook?”
“Of course you cook. You think you have all this for the hell of it?” Paxton questioned with a harsh tone, making a sweeping motion with his hand. Yes. The house was nice. Very lovely, but it wasn’t a mansion by any means. It was an upper- to middle-class home, maybe. He could shove it all up his ass.
Paxton picked up my toothbrush and brushed his teeth. That didn’t bother me at all. Why would it? He’d just left his poison my mouth the night before. It wasn’t like I was going to catch something from him. Evidently, I had been stupid in my past life.
The sudden flash behi
nd my eyes kept me from speaking for a second. Paxton’s words floated through my ears, but I didn’t hear him. A room with thin, yellow sheers. They hung in front of glass doors and blew lightly in the wind.
“Did you hear me?” Paxton asked in the same angry tone.
What the hell?
“Huh?”
“The house. I just said it was bad enough that I had to pay someone to come in and clean for us. You need to start helping out around here. I don’t need you if you can’t carry your load.”
Without the crutches, I limped toward him. The new boot I’d gotten from the doctor the last time helped a lot. At least I didn’t have a stiff leg anymore. He wanted me to start moving my knee and begin therapy the following Monday.
“I think I carry the load just fine. Never mind the head injury. I don’t know how to cook.” I scoffed, clenched my jaw, and glared at him.
“You have a tablet. Find a recipe, and watch it, or you’ll be holding a load before we leave.” His words were laced with a threat even as his soft lips touched mine. The discovery tested me—how much of my adaptability to Paxton’s bullshit could I endure? One second he would belittle me, and the next he’d have his tongue halfway down my throat. He wouldn’t help me at all. I couldn’t ask him anything about who I’d been before. I got the same thing. Tell me where you were, who you were with, and where you were going. I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t freaking know.
My girls and my neighbors could help to a certain point, but they didn’t know us. Not the real us. They knew a façade. Something that wasn’t real. An illusion. They weren’t there from the beginning. Trisha was my only friend, or neighbor. I wouldn’t call her a friend just yet. I didn’t know if we really did have that status. She said we were friends, and that’s all I had to go on.
“I’m not sure you want me cooking for you, or anyone else. I feel like you kidnapped me and you’re trying to give me this life that’s not really mine. I don’t feel like the type to be controlled.”
Paxton placed a finger over my lips and shushed me with a quiet, “Shhh, hush now. I assure you with everything in me that you are the type to be controlled. That’s why you sucked my dick. That’s why your legs fall apart whenever I come near you. You’re a slut. My slut. I own you,” he said in a dry, sultry tone, fingers gliding down my neck. The arid swallow stuck in my chest when his fingers wrapped gently around my throat. His grip tightened and his lips met mine. “Shhh, don’t talk, baby girl. Turn around and go take a shower like you were told.”
A cowardly emotion washed through me. I dropped my gaze to stare at the floor and submit to him. This was quickly learned, as well. If Paxton didn’t get in the shower with me, he took on the role of spectator. Like this time. He leaned against the counter, feet crossed at the ankles, and stared while I struggled to get my shirt over my head. He stopped me with another order when I bent to remove the boot from my foot.
“Turn around and do that.”
“Seriously?”
Before I could blink an eye, Paxton thrust his fury in my face. Flared nostrils and popping veins. I gasped when he pulled the hair at the nape of my neck with a tight jerk.
“You need to stop, Gabriella. You don’t talk. You shut your fuckhole and do what you’re told. Do you understand me?”
I tried to falter, to back down. But I couldn’t do it. I honestly thought he had me confused with someone else. This wasn’t my life. It couldn’t be. No way would anyone in their right mind put up with this guy.
“And what if I don’t?”
Paxton suddenly let go of me and backed away. “Then go. Walk out that front door and go.” He gestured toward the door while I just stood there. My eyes shifted to his serious, stern face, then to the door.
“Where the hell would I go? You won’t tell me anything about anything. Where are my parents? My sister? I know I have a sister. You want me to remember, but you won’t help me to remember. I’m not your property. You can’t own people,” I countered right back. I couldn’t help it. He was impossible.
Weariness crossed his forehead in two lines, just above his strained eyebrows, the same two I’d seen many times now.
“You wanted this. You knew what I expected before you ever agreed to any of this. You wanted it, too. Now you think you can just come in here and change the rules. It’s my fucking game. Either play my way, or get the fuck out.”
“Why is it so hard to talk to me, Paxton?”
“Tell me where you were and I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” he responded, tone lowered to an uncharacteristic calmness.
I clamped my eyes shut with a deep sigh. Back to square one. It was hopeless. Paxton wore blinders. Blinders that he would never take off. Not for me, anyway. I was forced to go by his arbitrary rules. No rhyme or reason. Just because. Because Paxton said so.
With my hips cocked to the side and a fuck you glare, I spun out of his arms and bent at the waist. I slowly peeled the Velcro away. You want a submissive, you fucker…? There you go.
I took my good old time, ass in the air, purposely exposing all. The sound of Velcro being pulled apart amplified like a scratch in the air with the next strap. Inch by deliberate inch, I peeled it away. Once I had nothing else to occupy my time with, I stood, again, taking my time. I may have even arched my back a little a little for show.
I flipped my hair over my shoulder with a jerk and glared back at him, expecting to find him glowering at me. Nope. Not even close. Paxton had his feet spread apart and his arms crossed, wearing a smile. He was amused. I amused him. His hand went to his crotch and he grabbed himself as he stepped toward me. Again, he didn’t do what I expected. The muscles in my neck had already contracted, waiting defensively for his hand.
That was the first spanking—that I remembered, anyway. I wasn’t expecting it with the way he’d positioned his body. His chest pressed to my left shoulder and his hand met my ass with a loud crack. My body reacted with a jolt. “Keep it up. I have an idea for later,” he said as a threat, lips touching my throat.
My heart pounded in fast beats while my mind tried to catch up. Paxton’s hand soothed the sting on my ass with gentle strokes. I did nothing. I said nothing. I felt nothing. Dumbfounded, I didn’t know how to react.
“Later?” I blurted it like a croak, and I don’t even know where it came from. I hadn’t even been thinking it.
“Yes, later. We have to go to Lane and Candace’s first.”
“Oh.” Again, that’s all I could think of “Can I take a shower now?”
“You asked. Good girl. That makes me happy, and my dick hard all at the same time. I think I’ll fuck you later,” he whispered as he murmured hot words against my neck and then my lips.
He yanked my naked body to his, one hand in the center of my back and one over the faint sting on my ass. I sort of melted into him with a kiss. I didn’t mean for it to get emotional. It just happened. I relaxed into him, pressing my chest into him, while my hand slid slowly up his arm. Paxton took two steps, slamming me against the shower wall. His kiss was desperate, animalistic.
I didn’t know what to think. My head spun in circles while emotions took over my body. Feelings that I didn’t like. That I didn’t want.
The more desperation that came from Paxton, the more it saturated me. Passion ignited, exploded in my core. My body liquefied erotically into his, and I tilted my head, begging for more. His lips fervently ran down my throat and sucked.
But just like that, he stopped.
Paxton raised his gaze with a stunned look, like he was dumfounded for a second.
“Get ready,” he ordered hoarsely. Paxton cleared his throat and stalked away.
I stared after him, feeling more confused than he looked. What the hell just happened? I felt—ambushed.
I used my shower time to reflect on the fire that had seared between us briefly. Something euphoric and intoxicating. Not just lust. It was more than that. It sort of made me feel like the Dilaudid did in the hospital. Light and
floaty. My fingers gently ran over the scar on the back of my head as I contemplated what just happened.
I breathed hot steam deep into my lungs and sighed heavily, switching thoughts. I would revisit that one later when I could wrap my head around it. I moved to my dream—the billboard high off the ground with my mom and my sister, and the room with the yellow curtains. Where was that? Where was my mother and my sister? They were real. That was a real memory. That much I knew without a doubt. What I didn’t know was why nobody else seemed to know them, or anything about them. Why?
Paxton was gone when I emerged wrapped in a towel. I blew out a puff of air when I saw my clothes laid out on the bed. The man had to be in control of everything. Without my boot, I hobbled to the bed. My finger traced the dainty panties made out of mostly string while I thought about his choice in clothes. It wasn’t that he had bad taste. I liked the outfit just fine. White shorts with a red top. One pink flip-flop to match my blue boot. The thing that bothered me was him laying them out. Why? Was he on that high of a power trip?
I dressed in front of the glass doors. The ocean sprawled in the distance below a bright-blue sky. I felt good for the first time since I hadn’t remembered who I was. Not mentally. Just physically. The pain seemed to have subsided in my hip, I could walk without crutches, and I hadn’t had a pain pill in over twelve hours. I didn’t even feel like I needed it. Now if my mind would follow suit and catch up, I’d have something to talk about.
I blow-dried my hair in front of the vanity in my bathroom and pulled back the sides with a twist and a clip. After I curled the two pieces that I’d purposely pulled out, I painted my nails a pale red, a duller shade than my shirt. I liked being a girly girl. I liked feeling pretty. For a brief second, I sensed I was being watched, like I wasn’t supposed to snoop in someone else’s things. Not mine. Expensive makeup was neatly arranged in the middle drawer, everything in its place. Lipstick and eyeshadow in every color, blushes of rubies and reds, foundation in every shade of the seasons. Any girl’s dream.