Clarity - Nicole Dykes Page 0,41

when this marriage is only on paper, but I wanted to know.

I want to take the pain away, even if it’s only slightly.

“By the power vested in me by the state of Missouri, I now pronounce you ‘man and wife’.” The judge finishes and tells us we can kiss, but I shake my head, just asking him to sign the paper.

Rhys won’t kiss me.

We take Bree to school three hours late, but we made sure her absence was excused this morning, and then we part ways. Our wedding day is spent in separate parts of the city, working. After work, everything is normal for us.

I pick Bree up at Rhys’s shop. We go home. I order dinner, and then Rhys comes home at night. Nothing has changed. We didn’t even exchange rings, although I know we need to get them for the show we’ll need to put on.

We all hang out, watching television, and then Bree heads to bed. I pick up the living room and then turn to Rhys who is still on the couch, looking so fucking numb I think I could stab him in the leg and he wouldn’t feel it.

“I’m going to bed.”

He nods with barely even a grunt as I climb the stairs and go up to my room. I strip out of my dress and stand naked for a moment, looking into the floor length mirror near my dresser.

“What exactly are you looking at?”

I turn around and see Rhys in the doorway as I stand there naked. There are so many things I want to say, but I don’t. Somehow, I feel conquered tonight and just want to crawl in my bed, but I know I'm supposed to wear clothes now, so I pull open the pajama drawer in my dresser.

I hear the door click closed, and I feel him behind me before I can decide what to wear. “I’m sorry.”

I turn around to look up at him. “What?”

“Blair.” He looks so fucking tormented. “I’m sorry for such a shitty wedding.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” My voice is quiet as I look up at him.

“It was.” He slowly drags the back of his hand over my bare arm, sending shivers through my entire body, making the fine, blond hairs on my arms stand up. “I hate thinking about that house.”

I want him to talk to me so badly, but I know I can’t force him. “Maybe telling me, actually saying it out loud will help somehow.”

“I want it buried.”

I ache to touch him, but I don’t. His hand drifts over the skin on my stomach, just barely grazing me. “It’s not though, Rhys. It’s alive in you.”

I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat with his own agony, and I feel it inside. “I wasn’t lying. I fucked her.”

I had a feeling that part wasn’t a lie. “Okay.”

His eyes snap up to mine. “Doesn’t that disgust you?”

“Did you want to?” I hate asking these questions. I hate forcing him to talk, but I know it’s the only way to free him. I can feel his shame.

His head shakes side to side as he drops his hand, and I yearn for his touch to return. “When I first moved in with the Bradfords, everyone thought I was so fucking lucky. I was fourteen, and they chose me to live with them. Scrawny little street kid with dirt under his fingernails in their great big mansion.” I try to show no emotion. “But then a week went by and I began to see just how unlucky I was. Mr. Bradford would get extremely fucking drunk and beat the living shit out of me. They had three kids of their own, all younger than me, prized possessions and, as far as I know, he never touched them.”

He takes his shirt off, unbuttoning it slowly and letting it drop to the floor as he takes more steps back away from me.

“I don’t have any scars. None. My body is flawless on the outside, but to me it’s fucking ugly.”

I scan every carved muscle, every dip and ridge before meeting his eyes. “You’re anything, but ugly.” He’s painfully beautiful, but I know it’s the scars on the inside that torture him.

“A couple months in, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I was having a wet dream or something, but when I pushed the cover down, I saw it was a living nightmare. Mrs. Bradford with my cock in her mouth.”

“So, you didn’t want it.”

He undoes