FicWad

~A few weeks later- Dan~

She was still so scared.
Of everything. Of me.
I watch her pick at her toast, unsure of what to make of it.
We sat in silence.
“Where’s your flatmate?” She asks. “There’s two bedrooms,”
“He’s with his parents at the moment, but he’ll be back soon,” I reply, before I start on my crumpet, pretending to read a magazine.
She continues to break pieces of toast to nibble on, with an expression I could only call fear, like I was about to stab her with a butter knife.

After ten minutes, she pushes her plate to me, and I dump our washing up in the sink, before settling on the sofa.
She starts to get the jist and sits next to me, about two feet away.
“Do you want to watch a film?” I ask.
“What films do you have?”
“Don’t make me start,” I smile.
“What about Moulin Rouge?” she asks “Do you have that?”
“I do indeed,” I tell her, before setting up the DVD player, and inserting the disk.
The opening credits slowly take their place on the screen.
By the time we were at El Tango de Roxanne, we were both singing quietly under our breath, but at Roxanne’s part, I dropped out, leaving only Viola’s sweet, beautiful voice.
Then the song finished and she slowly, slowly rested her head against my chest.
We were in silent tears at the end of the film, the credits slowly rolling through the screen, her tears wetting my shirt.
Then she looks up at me and kisses me gently, our lips moving in synchronised silence, before she gingerly flicks her tongue into my mouth, deepening the kiss, and my hands tangle in her hair, while she hooks her hands into the back of our jeans, neither of us in control.
Then suddenly we’re in my room, her unbuttoning my jeans before backing onto the bed.
“No, Viola,” I breathe.
“I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret. You’re scared, you’re alone, and your emotions are so fragile. I don’t want to hurt you,”
Tears start spilling over onto her cheeks.
“He hurt me,” she whispered.
“He beat me and raped me. He slit my wrists then healed me. He was my fiancé, then he stole me.
He was meant to help people. He was a doctor,”
I stare at her in disbelief.
“He made me what I am. I don’t know my real last name anymore. He gave me his, so I only became Viola,”
I feel tears well in my eyes.
“I used to play music. But now that’s gone,”
“There’s a keyboard there if you want to play,”
She looks at it, before setting herself in front of it and playing.

“I want you,
The truth can’t hurt you it’s just like the dark
It scares you witless,
But in time you’ll see things clear and stark
I want you,
Go on and hurt me then we’ll let it drop,
I want you,
I’m afraid I won’t know where to stop,
I want you,
I want to hear he pleases you more than I do,
I want you,
I want to know the things you did that we do too
I want you,
Did you call his name out as he held you down?
I want you,
Oh no my darling, not with that clown,
I want you,”

Her voice was clear and full of her dark past, and I almost wept new tears for the bitter beauty to it.
“I used to be able to enjoy it. But now all it does is exposes me. I’m no use to anyone anymore,”
“Then why didn’t you kill yourself? Why did you struggle so long to survive?”
She sits in silence.
“You must mean something if you fought so hard. But even if you mean nothing to yourself, you still mean something to me,”
I take a deep breath, waiting for her reply.
“Dan, you’ve been telling me everything about yourself in these past few weeks, and I think it’s safe to say that I love you. You’ve taken in a broken girl, you bought me shoes and clothes, and you’ve been the nicest person to me that anyone has ever been. Even as a child, I was beaten and neglected, and left to fend for myself. I became a prostitute just to support myself, an abusive father and a mother who was a hollow shell.
And then I met Dr Rowan Parker, who I got engaged to before he locked me up in the warehouse for a year. I trusted him. But he killed me inside. He broke my spirit. And I’m the one that has to suffer for it,”
I sit next to the statue, a fallen angel, beautiful and broken, and hugged to sobbing figure.
“Shhh, it’s ok, you’re safe now, you’re loved. I love you Viola,”
I cradle her delicately in my arms like a china doll, and watched her tears run dry.
“Can we share a bed tonight?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” I whisper, kissing the top of her head.

We stare into each other’s eyes, our faces inches away, and my arm encircles her.
She rolls over so that her small body is huddled against mine, my hand on her arm, stroking her with my thumb.
Her brutal past still lingered between us, and when she finally speaks, her words are almost a prayer.
“I hope he’s in deeper shit than I am,”
“He probably is,” I whisper, kissing her neck.
“But it’s my word against a doctors,”
“You have proof, don’t you?”
“There are condoms and abortion leaflets-”
“Wait, wait, what? Abortion?”
“I got pregnant three times. Each time he made me get an abortion. And each time I lost another child. This was the hell I lived in for a year,”
Her eyes are starting to water.
“That’s why I wanted you so badly earlier. So that I could forget everything he ever did to me,”
“I promise if that’s what you want, then we will one day, but right now you’re too fragile,”
“You think I’m weak,”
“No, I don’t. I think you’re the strongest person I have ever met. I just don’t want to hurt someone who’s been hurt enough. When you’re ready, you can do whatever you want to me,”
She looks at me, a ghost of a smile on her face, something that once existed but wouldn’t come out of it’s hole, and snuggles into my chest like a kitten and closing her eyes.
I watched her sleep for a while, her slow, even breaths, her pale face innocent, her soft lips, and her high cheekbones.
Her feet entangle with mine, before I close my eyes to the darkness and let myself fall into unconsciousness.