The Monster (Boston Belles #3) - L.J. Shen Page 0,65
snatching the whiskey bottle by its neck and taking a swig as I began pacing the room.
“When I was a kid, before Troy and Sparrow took me in, back when I lived with Cat and my grandmother, we had a painting in our house. Just the one. It was a very cheap painting. A faded old thing of a cabin on a lake—basic and not very good. Anyway, the painting was in front of the bed in the master bedroom. It had the tendency to fall from its nail onto the floor every time the door creaked or someone breathed in the house. Cat was the only person with a key to the master bedroom, and she hadn’t figured out I’d learned how to pick a lock.”
I stopped. Took another swig. Realized I was halfway drunk and put the bottle down on the coffee table, noticing Nix was fingering and touching more of the bullets in the jar, breathing the initials out with her lips. Like she was mourning those people or something.
“When I was a kid, Cat used to punish me by starving me. In order to do that, she made the spot under her bed a makeshift pantry. That’s where she kept all the food. Condiments, chips, pretzels, ready-made meals. Grams wasn’t strong enough to fight her on this. As you know, I was a shitty kid, so I was virtually in a constant state of punishment. That made me very hungry and very small for my age.”
She pinched her lips together, and I could tell she was about to sob again. It made me feel like fucking Bambi. I didn’t need anyone’s pity. I rushed through the next part.
“At some point, I figured I could just break into the room and grab Ramen or a bag of chips or something. And I did. Often. But Cat had the tendency to come in at the most inconvenient time. When I didn’t have time to run away from her room, I had to hide under the bed, buried beneath the junk food.”
I smiled bitterly at the bare concrete wall in front of me, feeling Aisling’s eyes clinging to my profile, eager to hear more.
“Cat was a whore, so more often than not, when she came home, she wasn’t alone. I stopped counting after the fourth time I had to sneak under her bed and felt the springs of the mattress digging into my back as someone fucked her above me.”
Aisling looked away, hissing, like my pain bled into her body.
“No,” she croaked.
“Yes.” I changed direction, walking toward her. “I felt the weight of my mother’s sins, figuratively and literally. They fucked her over my back. Again and again and again. While I shivered, dizzy with hunger, every muscle in my body strained so I wouldn’t make a sudden move and make myself known. My most distinct childhood memory is that stupid painting. Every time the headboard hit the opposite wall, it would drop, but not facedown, so I could always see the cabin and the lake staring right back at me, as if they caught me red-handed. We had a relationship, this painting and I. I felt like it was taunting me. Reminding me of my shitty life, and every time I looked at it, I could feel the blue and purple dents on my back from the rusty bedsprings digging into my skin.”
“You don’t have any paintings,” she said slowly, looking around the room.
I tapped the bottom of my cigarette pack over my bicep, and one cigarette popped out.
I fished it between my teeth. “Nope.”
“My house must be very triggering for you.”
I chuckled, lighting up the cigarette. I sprawled beside her on the couch, careful not to touch her, exhaling a trail of smoke to the ceiling.
“I don’t have triggers.”
“Everyone has triggers,” she argued.
“Not me. I let hate fester and redirect it into ambition. I welcome my weaknesses and don’t shy away from them.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder, pressing her palm to my heart. I froze.
This was new.
And unsolicited.
Still, I didn’t move. Her hand on me felt good. Right.
“Is this why you hate women?” she whispered. “Because Cat wronged you so much?”
“I don’t hate them. I just don’t want much to do with them,” I groaned.
“Well, I want something to do with you.” She looked up, blinking at me with owlish eyes. Our gazes met. The thick humming of our pulses filled the air. I drew away from her, pressing my thumb to her lip.