Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
When he’s finished, the underwear is white again. He wrings it out and hangs it on the line next to his socks.
I’m still standing in the tub. Still bleeding. Still confused. So I take off the shirt, too. I don’t want to get it dirty. It slides up over my head, and the air in the room hits my skin, making me shiver.
Jag turns around. His eyes go wide, then snap away so fast he stumbles and spins toward the wall.
“What—?” His fists flex against the tiles. “What are you doing? Cover yourself!”
“Why? You’ve seen me naked.”
“That was different.” He presses both hands behind his nape like he’s trying to hold his skull together. His elbows stick out like wings, and every muscle in his back goes tense. “You… Dove… You can’t just— God. Fuck!”
“Why are you acting weird?”
“I’m not… Fuck. Fuck.” He bends at his waist and straightens again. “You don’t look like a little girl anymore.”
I stare at his back. His spine moves when he breathes, jagged and rippling.
“What do I look like?”
“Like a woman.” He shakes his head sharply. “But you’re not. You’re still a kid. You can’t take your clothes off in front of anyone. Not ever. Not even me.”
“Well, that’s not true. I know what people do together without clothes on.”
“Kill me now,” he whispers under his breath. Then louder, “The shirt. Tell me when it’s on.”
“Fine.” I pull it on and cross my arms. “Done.”
When he turns around, he doesn’t look at me first. He looks at the doorway like he’s about to sprint into the night to avoid this whole thing.
So I say one word that will grab his attention. “Sex.”
He looks at me now. Really looks.
“What do you know about that?” His eyes narrow, then widen, then do this panicked flicker.
“I know you’ve been doing it for years.”
His face drains of color.
I push on. “Sometimes when you sneaked out of our forts and tents in the middle of the night, I followed you.”
He flinches like I hit him.
“I saw you.” I stand taller. “With men. And women. In their cars. In alleys. In empty buildings. I saw you put money in your pocket after.”
His whole body turns to stone. Then something else. Something cracks.
“Little Bird.” The words break in his mouth. “You… God, no. You weren’t supposed to—” He drags both hands down his face, scrubbing hard like he wants to erase himself. “You followed me?”
“Of course, I followed you.” I shrug. “You’re mine.”
He staggers back a step, bumping into the cracked wall. He looks sick. Not angry. Sick. He grips his stomach. His jaw grinds back and forth, and his nostrils pulse wide.
“I did that to feed you.” His voice strains. “When we were sleeping on the streets. When we had nothing. When you were freezing and hungry and small. I couldn’t get a job. I didn’t have anyone. I didn’t have a choice.”
“I know.”
“That was never supposed to be something you watched. Never.”
“I wasn’t scared. I just wanted to know where you went.”
He shuts his eyes like he can’t stand looking at me. Or maybe he can’t stand me looking at him.
“I’m not proud of any of that,” he says. “I’m not proud of the way people touched me or the way I let them. I did it so you could eat. So you didn’t have to do anything like that. Ever.”
I don’t know what to say. My throat hurts.
When he opens his eyes again, they’re angry and sad. But he looks at me like I’m the whole reason he survived those awful years.
“You can’t talk about sex.” He steps forward, stops himself, steps back again. He’s rattled. Really rattled. “Not with anyone older. Not with anyone who wants something from you. You don’t let anyone see you naked. You don’t let anyone touch you. You don’t—”
“I already have.”
“Have what?” He goes deadly still.
“I had sex.”
He pins me with a look so terrifying my insides fold up.
“Who?” His shout hits like a fist.
“Why are you mad?”
“Who?” he roars.
I step back until my legs bump the tub’s cold edge. “A boy at school.”
“Which boy? What’s his name?”
“He’s…” My hands shake. “Just a boy in my English class. His brother.”
“His brother?” His face contorts. Not confusion. Fury. Pure and simple and lethal. “Where is this brother? Is he in school?”
“No.” My toes curl inside the tub. “He’s too old for school.”
He inhales sharply, his chest lifting with a dangerous, animal breath. “How old?”
“He has a car.”
“That’s not an age, Dove.”
I press my legs together to stop the blood, my entire body heatless and tight. I can’t answer. I can’t say it. Because if I tell him more, he’ll walk out and come back with more blood on his hands.
And it’ll be my fault.
He watches me struggle, sees the fear, the hesitation. Then he realizes he’s losing control.