“I want you. That’s all there is to it. I want to show you that you don’t have to fear me and maybe prove
you can trust me.” Alexi gets straight to the point, lifting my hand into his and slides his fingers between
mine to hold me tenderly. I stare at our entwined digits, feeling his heat flow into my cold, smaller one
and gaze at it, disconnected. The space around me is surreal as though I’m dreaming. I should lie
down. I’m verging on passing out at this rate.
“I didn’t know what love was, what was staring me in the face. I haven’t exactly had anything to
compare it to.” Alexi sounds incredibly young once more, flitting between his normal cocky self and
these glimpses of an unsure teen that are throwing me off. This is a side I doubt anyone ever sees in
him and yet it's softening me to him a little.
Warning signs and neon flashing lights in my brain are telling me to proceed with caution. Half my
senses are saying ‘DANGER, DANGER’ and the other half is being pulled into warmth and hope and a
lot of maybes.
Aware that I’m weakening, I slide my hand away quickly to pull myself together. I’m not that feeble or
stupid.
I move away and walk to the couch and slump down to get some breathing space, body just giving in
from holding itself up, sinking my head between my palms and elbows on my knees as I exhale heavily.
So many emotions flooding me and I’m exhausted. It’s the middle of the night, probably nearer morning
and I’ve had an emotional few hours. This all feels surreal and crazy and I don’t think I have it in me to
deal with touching and hand holding. I don’t have the strength to withstand him. He’s too good at
coercing and controlling outcomes and I won’t be drawn in.
Alexi follows me and sits down too. Not close enough to make me feel crowded but not far either. He
leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging down between them as he watches me.
“Say something … anything.” He urges me a little desperately and I turn and look at him for a second.
Amused by the desperate tone but wrecked by all of this.
“Something,” I mutter weirdly, unsure what else to say and then giggle at my stupidity. I feel like I have
stepped out of my body and am floating out in space, just dreaming.
“Funny.” Alexi smiles and then throws himself back against the cushions in agitation, exhaling much
like I did. Both so frustrated with this odd, strained mood between us. This huge precipice I’m standing
on the edge of.
Who knew love confessions could go so badly?
“I’m still here.” I point out, as though I need to. I guess it’s my way of saying I’m thinking and maybe
believe him a little bit. I don’t even know. I feel like part of me wants to try and reassure him or
something. I’m not even sure why. My feet would not head to the door even if I tried. I’m wiped out and
practically ceasing to function.
“Yes, you are. For how long though, is what I really want to know.” Alexi nudges me lightly; his hand
touching briefly against my arm and sets his gaze intently on me from his more casual position. He
seems more relaxed that I haven’t run out the door. I guess sitting down is a clue I’m not about to leg it.
Although I am still thinking about it.
“How long is a piece of string? I can’t give you an answer that I don’t have.”
I really wish I could say, ‘yes, I want you too’; the truth is I’m scared shitless of letting this man ever get
that close to me again. He has the power to do so much damage on so many levels and giving him the
knowledge that he can, is suicide. I have to protect myself.
“I just need a chance to prove to you I won’t hurt you again. To be what you need me to be, however
long that takes.” He sounds sincere anyway, looks serious. My brain is egging me on to take it at face
value.
“How do I do that?” I blink at him, stupefied that it’s even possible.
“Stay. Spend time with me. Give me the chance to turn this around, make this into something more.
Just give me time and opportunity—the rest is on me.”
It’s not an unreasonable request, I suppose. Well, not for any normal human, but this is him and me
and our past.
“And if I can’t? What then?”
“Then I will do what I promised to do. Bow out of this club and leave you to it. There are no strings
attached. You still own half this club, and this apartment is yours. Everything we agreed, in the
beginning, stays the same. I exit left so you don’t have to deal with me anymore.”
I stare at him for the longest minute, a lump in my throat and stomach forming, and my fuzzy head still
going around in circles. One thing keeps coming to the forefront over and over.
“Do you trust me?”
He never used to, everything he said and did was because he didn’t. So, I don’t understand why he
changed in my absence. It’s an important question.
“Completely.” He says it with heartfelt conviction, no hesitation or thought and a look on his face that
swears truth. Eyes unflinching and focused on mine, an expression that hides nothing, not even
adoration and I shake my head at him, confounded by it. How he could just change his opinion so
dramatically. The way he is looking at me right now, as though I’m the most perfect being on the planet,
and I just can’t have faith in it.
“Why? You didn’t before.” Not even a tiny ounce of trust in me did he once harbour. If his explanation is
true, then mistrust was the root of all the evil he did to me. What changed that? And when?
“I didn’t know you the way I do now. I was ignorant of a lot of factors. A lot of truths. I needed to open
my eyes and see beyond the mask you wear. I had to take the blinkers off and really see you. Stop
doubting what was staring me in the face and give you a chance.” Pain in his words, a knife in my heart
that he could never possibly really know me. Not with all the cobwebs and skeletons in my closet. He
has no concept to how far my black hole of misdemeanours extends. I knew this was too good to be
true.
“And how exactly did you do that?” No one in the world knows all my secrets and scars, only me. No
one could love me if they did.
I need to know though, so maybe I can do it too. Learn to harvest this thing called trust from a
surprising source. Right now, he is still as much of an enigma to me as he has always been. And try as
I might to have faith in what he is saying, I can’t. He has wounded me so deeply and now nothing but
extreme fear blocks my way.
Alexi looks pensive for a second, then shifts in a way that suggests he is getting worried about my
reaction. His whole manner changes, a little stiff and guarded and he moves to a more upright position.
An air of tension overcoming him that leaches to me and hikes my nerves up again.
“There’s something I should have told you weeks ago. I just didn’t know how to, or how you would
react.” He glances at me and away again, eyes flickering quickly, guilt all over that normally blank
expression and my nerves are piqued to epic levels once more. I’m an emotional wreck and there is no
getting around this.
“What? Just spit it out, rip the band-aid off.”
It can’t be any more mind-blowing than telling me he’s in love with me. I think now is a good time for
confessions because I literally cannot react any worse than I have done so far. Load it on, bring it all
out. May as well when I’m saturated to death with all of it.
How bad can it be?
“I need to show you.” Alexi gets up quickly, eyes still avoiding me, and walks off toward his room
leaving me to sit here like a confused idiot. Watching the direction he went in and straining to listen to
sounds as he disappears. I expect to hear a drawer open or something similar, but it sounds like he’s
punching in the digits on his safe keypad instead. Whatever he wants to show me he keeps in his
bedroom safe.
Now I’m worried.
He doesn’t use that thing like an extra cupboard; he uses it as its purpose intends. To store things you
wouldn’t want others getting hold of.
I wonder if it’s something sinister or creepy; I mean he is the master at shocking me to the core with the
lengths he goes to with his devil side. I’m not sure what I’m expecting but my gut says it’s not good at
all.
I fidget, fingers itching, so I pull a cushion into my lap to focus my nervousness. I blow out some air to
try to expel the tension and tap my foot absentmindedly, so wrought and tied up with angst.
Alexi reappears quietly, startling me, carrying what looks like a black shoebox only a little squarer, and
comes around to lay it on the coffee table in front of me. He slides it towards me, a heavy-looking
offering, and stays standing, towering over me and looking a lot like a little boy in a lot of trouble.
My stomach turns over, skin prickling once more, and I just blink at it. I glance from him to the box,
lungs struggling to function as anxiety sits on my chest like a baby elephant and I sit back nervously,
steeped in mistrust.
“This better not be a severed head or something weird … like a hand.” I blurt out stupidly, nerves
frayed, imaging some oozing past enemy or maybe Tyler, dismembered and bloated as some weird
mob boss love token and Alexi just frowns at me so hard his eyebrows almost touch his nose.
“What?” It’s all he says and with such disbelief, I try to smile and shrug like I was joking but still lean in
tentatively and prod the box warily with my foot in case it’s about to implode on me. I’m sure body fluids
would be seeping out of what looks like cardboard, so maybe whatever it is dry…like a shrunken head
or a jar of body parts.
“I swear to God, it’s not a human limb. I think you need to steer clear of watching gangster movies,
London.” Alexi sighs, and flips the lid off for me rather dramatically, causing me to panic gasp and lean
back, revealing something I never thought I would ever see again.
It’s a sight that makes me shoot forward again and sit upright like a statue, as though someone just
fired a rocket up my arse. My stomach somersaults fully and my heart literally stops beating as I’m
winded so badly, I exhale sharply. It’s so much worse than a severed head.
I actually wish it was a bloodied limb sitting there instead.
Therein lies several journals of my youth. My long-lost diaries all tattered and worn and displayed in
tissue paper like he is presenting me with the crown fucking jewels.
I would recognise them anywhere. A sight worse than any I could have imagined.
I long ago left them in a damp-ridden, mouldy flat in London, hiding under a crooked floorboard when I
ran away. I should have destroyed them instead of leaving them to rot along with everything I once held
onto. I left every possession and tie to my mother in a building that was practically derelict thinking they
would rot with her.
How he came to have them in his possession is beyond me. I don’t even know how on earth he could
have them or if they are even real.
What kind of witchcraft is this?
I gawp at him, so sure I’m dreaming and should pinch myself to break this god-awful nightmare once
and for all.
Diaries of years and years of having no one else to turn to and offload the horrors of my life. This was
how I got it out of my head and battled on to breathe another day. I put everything into these dire little
notebooks. Every woe and dark secret. Every confession and dying dream. It was my outlet to stay
sane, and I used them to tear the ugliness out of my brain and lock them away to burden the books
instead of me.
These journals contain every horrid, dark and painful memory I never want to examine again. Almost
like cutting open my skull and letting the pictures pour out across the floor for him to see in all their
detailed glory. I was always a good descriptive writer; it was my therapy, and now sitting here, it’s the
worst thing I ever did. I never intended for anyone to see them, let alone Alexi.
I shove the box away hard with the flat of my foot, so it slides hard off the other end and almost topples
off, but he catches it quickly. Scooping fast and righting it back onto the table with a wary glance at my
face. He seems unsure how to react to me and just stays calm and still.
The icy coldness sweeps over my entire body as the blood drains, I must be white as a sheet with the
horrors of seeing the ghost of my past on the coffee table. What’s left of hope and warmth dies an
immediate death.
“How did … where did … why, you … I …?” I’m babbling, confused, brain chaotic as I try to think of all
the things I wrote within those pages, and he has them all. Words tumbling off my tongue which
suddenly seems to not work.
It’s like giving him every single humiliating, painful thing out of my head and laying it bare. Loading a
gun for him and holding it right at my heart.
I held nothing back in those books.
From long before the first time she let Rick touch me while I was her emotional and physical punching
bag. The reason her life was so shit. All the blame laid on a child for merely existing. She hated me so
much. My own mother, the woman who gave me life. I used to wish she would take it away again and
relieve me of a life that was wracked in misery just to stop her loathing me with every fibre.
Those books chart a life that’s so shameful that no one should be cursed to read them. Details of things
that make me sick to my stomach just pulling back what they contain. I’m surprised they didn’t burn out
his eyeballs as he flicked the pages.
I pushed away all thoughts of salvation at 16, accepted my fate and turned myself into a numb whore to
make enough money to plot an escape. It’s all in there. Right up to the day I let the pen drop and
stopped writing it all down. The moment I died inside and never needed it anymore. The day I left them
in that hole to never see the light of day again.
Every tiny, dirty little sad sentence which opens all my dark past and illuminates every cobwebbed
corner. The death of a child. The rise of a worthless shell.
Pain, plans and promises.
It’s how he knew about my dandelions and their meaning; now lying in tatters on the table in the form of
the bracelet he gave me. Now even that weighs with significance, knowing why he picked them of all
things to gift me.
It’s why he sees me in a different light.
Alexi knows the worst of my years. The worst of me.
He knows things I would never tell another living soul. If he wants to destroy me, then he has had the
power to do so for however long he has had these books. More fodder than I would have given him in a
lifetime of living in this club, all in a concentrated powerful dose. He knows everything he could use to
snub out the last of me.
Yet he has done nothing except avoid it. He had so much ammunition, so much he could use to wound
me, and yet he hasn’t done a thing with this information, except avoid hurting me with it.
The opposite of what a devil would do.
“I’ve had them since you went missing, and yes, I have read them all. I’m not sorry about that but I am
sorry I didn’t tell you before now.” Alexi has the sense to look ashamed, down to the floor, frowning so
boyishly. Like he has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but all I can do is tear myself apart
and cry, that he of all people knows everything.
Every sordid evil thing that Rick and my mother put me through, the men, the abuse, the violence …
the shackles and being tied up. The child paedophile ring he passed me around, to be filmed, raped,
photographed and used until I grew to look more like an adult and no longer fit the purpose. The years
of being destroyed, humiliated, defiled. How I was broken to pieces over and over and had to keep
gluing myself back together.
He has all of it.
The botched abortion that made me sterile, the years of picking myself up, slapping on makeup, even
when my body was bruised and torn, and letting men have sex with me was so painful my legs would
give out. He knows how I crawled out of a hospital bed after my insides were stitched back together to
get back on the streets for fear of Rick’s wrath. For that was worse than internal bleeding and intense
agony. Pushing away the pain and actively getting out there to enhance my ability to seduce men for
my own ends. Learning to woo and use my wiles to create the woman who sits before him now. The
sham, fake girl who masks a million sins.
A girl who spent years learning how to no longer care.
The beatings, the rapes, the torture. My mother’s overdose and how I stood and let her die, watching
her with no remorse as she gasped her last breath. The endless days of wishing myself dead even
though my own willpower wouldn’t let me execute it.
He’s right. He didn’t know a damn thing about me before and now he knows too much. Things I would
never tell a living soul, even under threat of death. He knows everything that is worth knowing if you
wanted to build a solid way of torturing someone to death. He could crush me so much more brutally
than before.
I don’t know how to feel about this other than suffocate with anxiety. Tears blinding my eyes as I stare
at that damn box and he just stands there too.
“How?” It’s all I can force out, unable to catch his eye and completely shamed to my core. I feel
vulnerable and naked, and now everything between us these past few weeks suddenly makes sense.
The subtle changes in not only him but Mico too, and I don’t doubt Mico has an idea about what’s in
these books. Alexi tells him everything, he is his closest friend.
Its unbearable weight crushing all that’s left of my self-respect.
They know my ugly truths. The worthless mess I really am. My poor beginning and trying to claw myself
some sort of life.
It’s devastating.
“I had a PI dig backwards when I couldn’t find you. He tracked you down to Hackney after pinpointing
English women and Texan men married with one registered daughter, born in the states. I pay him the
big bucks because he is thorough. It took a while, and he found these in an abandoned apartment in a
derelict building when he went out there to find out more about you. Or should I say about Lisa?”
And time seems to just stop.
My face freezing over with the realisation this goes beyond just reading about my past. His PI stood in
that very place that I left to rot after I ran. No one else would have moved in after, the whole place was
scheduled to be levelled, and they had been slowly evicting tenants over those years. I’m surprised it
was still standing. I left such a long time ago.
He knows my name is not Camilla.
He knows I’m not who I pretend to be.
I have no words, no breath in my body. I just sit like a startled deer in the headlights. Unmoving, afraid
to feel because there’s an entire world of tears and pain behind my dam, aching to be let loose. I blink
at that infernal box and pick at my nails absentmindedly, turning it over and over in my head. He knows
absolutely everything there is to know about the sad little girl who died the day I changed my name. It's
excruciating, and I can’t bear to look at him anymore.
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