Dominic had carried me to his room and locked the door. He wouldn't let me leave from the bed.
He climbed in, holding me close to his chest.
I had cried again once I realized the magnitude of what I was trying to do.
I thought about Ethel. She was kind and caring, she was smart, she sacrificed her own safety for our own. I thought about the snow angels we made late at night, and the watermelon flavored gum she gave us on Christmas, the times she snuck upstairs with water bottles or alcohol wipes to cleanse our wounds. We would gnaw on old pieces of gum we kept in plastic, pretending it was food.
Ethel would sneak in, wrapped in her silk robe and sit on the floor, wiping our tears as she bandaged our wounds.
And Clara, remembering the scars on her arms. I wanted to ask why Sara had hurt her, but I never did. I was too scared to know the answer. Clara had cried because the alcohol wipes burned too much. She screamed into Ethel's robe. The memory embedded in my mind, her screams. I never forgot it.
Then she turned fifteen.
Clara was slouching, in pain, as if she couldn't stand. She was scared. There was this sort of horrified yet far awake look in her eyes.
"Clara?"
"... Please," she whimpered softly. "Leave me alone."
She would curl up in her bed, wrap the blankets around her body in a cocoon. It made her feel safer.
I remember feeling confused and scared once I was of age. Ethel sat on my bed and talked to me.
After three years of this, we finally escaped.
I remember feeling I had deserved this, deserved my life, deserved the things done to me. Ethel sat with me one evening. "You deserve none of this, Violet. You are beautiful and smart; you are kind and compassionate. Be proud of who you are, of what you'll become. I believe you will get out of here and do good things. Never forgot that, never. Not everyone is the same. People can be kind and loving. There will be people that want your trust and love, you just have to let them in."
I turned to Dominic, and slowly, I began to tell him.
CITEȘTI
Don't Touch Her
Dragoste"What did he - Where did he touch you?" His voice had hardened, mad. I swallowed and looked down. "You son of a-" He walked off the porch, angrily running his hands through his hair. "What did he look like? I'm swear I'm gonna kill him. Tell me what...
