Pray for Darkness

Pray for Darkness

by Virginia Locke

Copyright © 2013 Virginia Locke, all rights reserved.

Second ebook edition.

Cover © 2013 Virginia Locke

Cover Stock © Forgiss - deposit photo. Vintage Frame © porah - sxc.hu

Font Copyright: Matchbook (© Brian Hanes) & odstemplik (© gluk). From font squirrel

These artists do not endorse Virginia Locke or her work.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

***

BOOK BLURB

Sometimes the only way to face the darkness is to accustom yourself to the dark.

He's not the kind of guy I ever would have seen myself with before. Covered in tattoos and rarely seen with the same girl twice, he's the ultimate bad boy. He's also the younger brother of the man I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. But when the unthinkable happened, he was the only person I felt like I could trust.

Sometimes when everything shatters you don't want to pick up the pieces. You want them to scatter them further.

I've loved her since I was eight. She's the only girl I've ever wanted, and the only girl I could never have. I want to protect her. I want to save her. But she doesn't want those things from me. Instead, she wants me to do something that goes against everything I stand for, something that I know will destroy me.

And because it's her, I can't say no.

Chapter 1

Sasha

I pour my fourth cup of pomegranate white tea. It’s lukewarm. He’s late. I hadn’t expected that.

A part of me hopes my cell phone will start playing
Jingle Bells
. I’ll pick it up and it will be him, calling the whole thing off. Over the years I’d asked him to do many things for me. I’d told him things I’d told few others. But today, I’d share a secret that I hadn’t told a single other person, and I knew that after I was done he’d never look at me the same way again.

I take a sip of tea through tight lips, then set the cup down on the tray with an unsteady hand. I’d tried to tell others. My best friend Diana. The university therapist right before I dropped out. That support group at the Women’s Center. I didn’t even make it past the door. For ten minutes I pretended I was looking at fliers, then left.

And, of course, I’d tried to tell Brian.

I must have tried to tell him about a hundred times, but something always stopped me. Shame and embarrassment, sure, but it was more than that. Every time I opened my mouth to explain what happened—every single time I just
thought
of it—I gave the memory new life. I’d feel that man again, invading every part of my body until my mind was filled with only thoughts of him.

I don’t want to admit it happened.

I don’t want to think of him inside me.

I don’t want to give him any power over me.

This isn’t the kind of thing one can bury, though it’s seductive to try. Trying makes me feel like I can conquer it, but forcing it down doesn’t make it leave. Instead, it waits quietly for the opportunity to well up at the most inappropriate and random time: someone lighting a cigarette; the sound of a car door opening; when I look up to find a perfect, cloudless blue sky.

Trevor is the only one I haven’t tried to tell.

He’s beautiful even though he doesn’t try to be. His long, strong fingers are always smeared with charcoal. Oil paint decorates his plain, dark clothes. He smells like linseed oil and sawdust. His black hair is always either buzzed or just a bit too long because he never gets it trimmed. And bold, intricate tattoos decorate his arms.

I think he makes people uneasy because he’s the kind of man no one can tie down—because he not only sees beauty in ugliness but seeks it out so he can capture it in his art. He’s never judged me, perhaps because people are always so quick to judge him. And yet, I’m afraid he’ll start now.

I don’t know if he’ll do what I ask. He probably won’t. No sane person would. No sane person should ever want such a thing. But I do. Even if it destroys me—even if it destroys us both—I still want it.

I drink my tea and wait, wondering what could be keeping him, wishing he won’t come, because what I was going to ask would shatter everything that ever existed between us. I’d already broken so many irreplaceable things. There was only him left, and soon I would break that too.

***

Trevor

I love Tia. Ever since the day I saw her in a neighbor’s scraggly lawn with a little ‘For Sale’ sign I could barely read through the dirty windshield, I knew she was the one. Five months later, right after turning 16, I’d bought her with money I’d saved up from mowing lawns, hammering nails, carrying anything anyone wanted me to carry, and working at my uncle’s car wash. I’d never been so happy about owning anything, but that didn’t mean I could pretend the car wasn’t a piece of shit.

On most days, this didn’t bother me. Sure, it was sometimes a little awkward to pull up to a girl’s house with this gas-guzzling, wheezing monstrosity, but let’s just say that anyone who’d taken a trip with me in the backseat had suddenly forgotten about whatever it was they were originally complaining about.

Yeah, Tia and I’ve had a lot of good times.

Right now is not one of those times.

Traffic is bad. Traffic is always bad at 4:30 on a Friday. But your car suddenly refusing to go over 25mph and making grinding noises whenever you shift doesn’t make things better. “Come on,” I say as affectionately as I can through clenched teeth and pound on the gas pedal.

I grip the steering wheel and try not to look at the clock. Then I try to not think about how I’d been so excited after receiving her call that I’d ripped off my shirt in front of Kristen, our TA, slipped on a clean, not-paint-stained shirt before she finished squealing, and then bolted out of the studio without picking my phone up off the floor.

I’m acting like I’m fucking twelve and some girl just asked if I wanted to touch her boob. It’s embarrassing. This wasn’t the first time a chick had called me for a booty call. Not even close. But it is the first time Sasha had even hinted that…

I take a deep breath.

Alright, I was getting ahead of myself. I didn’t know exactly if she wanted to fuck, but I think she did. I heard the hesitation in her voice. The unfeigned breathlessness. The little twang of fear. She was about to do something very bad. Something she knew she shouldn’t do. She’d even briefly tried to talk me out of coming after inviting me, which had only made me even more determined to get over to her place as soon as possible.

This was probably a bad idea. I mean, you don’t fuck your brother’s ex-girlfriend. Especially when they’d only been broken up for a few months, and said brother was trying everything he could to get back with her. I knew I should have felt more guilty—alright, I should have at least felt
a little
guilty—but Brian had had her for almost a decade and I’d wanted her ever since the first day I met her; I’d thrown a water balloon in her face, and she’d answered three hours later by throwing a rotten egg in my face.

I didn’t know how to express my love back then. I’d tried pouring honey in her hair. Tickling her stomach. Burping the alphabet. Looking back, I’ve always been pretty sure that last one pretty much sealed my fate. No chick finds belching sexy. In all honesty, though, I’d probably fuck up even now if I tried to articulate how I felt.

But sex I could do. Sex, I was good at. Especially wild, untamed, crazy rebound sex. Brian was a nice guy, but I’m pretty sure he sucked in bed. I’d fuck her so hard, give her so many fucking orgasms, that she wouldn’t be able to help but fall in love with me.

At least that was the plan.

It was a stupid plan, but I was so fucking whipped it wasn’t even funny. The only thing that made life tolerable was that she didn’t know what affect she had on me.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Finally, I spy the mauve exterior of Sasha’s building and carefully maneuver Tia into the parking lot.

It’s not a bad place. A little shabby, and the bushes planted out front are ugly, but it’s homier than the ‘house’ I share with my five roommates, and I can tell it was probably really cool back when it was built in the late 70’s.

Plus she lives alone. That’s always nice.

I get out of Tia and make my way to the outdoor staircase that leads to the second floor. The steps are made of a gravel composite and scuff the bottoms of my shoes as I walk up. I take a moment to compose myself when I get to the top. I’m breathing like I’d just run a mile. Yeah, that’s a sure-fire way to win a girl over—show up at her door panting like an old dog on a hot day.

I move slowly past rooms 201 and 202. I swear my heart’s beating louder than my footsteps. At least my breathing’s normalized. Sort of. Well, at least I no longer sound like a dog. When I get close enough to read the 203 on the center of her door, I have to grab the metal railing to steady myself.

This is really happening.

I stop and wonder if this is the right place. I know it is. I’d helped her move her shit when she moved in. I’d carried the mattress she found abandoned by the office downstairs to this very room. I’d wondered why she’d asked me to help her move since I was Brian’s brother. Maybe it was because she hadn’t told anyone why she left and knew, somehow, that I wouldn’t ask.

There’s no welcome mat. The door is the color of dusty brick, and the three’s a little crooked. Whoever nailed in the numbers hadn’t done so with care. I rest my knuckles on the door, then knock three times.

“Coming.”

Her voice is soft, her footsteps hurried. She opens the door without looking to see who it is, then peeks out, whipping her head from side to side like she’s making sure no one followed me.

“Expecting someone else?” I ask.

“No, I just…”

“He’ll recognize my car if he comes by.”

She glances down. Dark hair slips over her face before I can read her expression. “I know.”

We remain like that—me outside waiting as she holds the door ajar with a trembling hand. It looks like the door could close on her at any moment. I fight the urge to grab it for her. No matter how much I want this, I can’t push it. If it doesn’t come from her, she’ll just regret it. I’m already afraid she’ll regret it no matter what I do.

And then slowly, she looks up.

She hasn’t cut her hair in a while. The ends have grown out in spikes, giving her a grunge pixie look. Everything about her looks thinner and more delicate. Her lashes look like charcoal next to her pale skin. Her cheekbones are almost frighteningly defined. Even the flush on her skin seems as ethereal as rose chalk; I feel like if I blow, the color will dissipate.

Her wide, blue eyes search mine for something, and as they search she bites her bottom lip.

My heartbeat spikes. I know that look. I’ve seen it on so many other girls’ faces—the moment they’ve decided to allow the dark thoughts that have been slowly growing around them to pull them under instead of untangling them or breaking free.

She opens the door. I step inside.

The only light in her studio apartment comes from the cracks between the drawn blinds. The ceiling fan circles on its lowest setting overhead, disturbing stale air. The evergreen economy carpeting looks like mud.

She shuts the door. The dark ambiance of the room swallows my shadow. She moves past my shoulder with a presence as insignificant as a specter’s and motions to two rickety chairs on either side of the table in the corner. “Have some tea.”

I follow her as she maneuvers through the boxes I’d carried up. She hasn’t moved them out of the uneven, random piles I’d set them down in. I don’t think she’s taken much out of them. All I see are a few blankets kicked to the bottom of her bare mattress, three pillows sans pillow cases, and some clothes scattered on the floor between the cardboard pillars.

She pulls a chair out for me. It lets out a sharp groan as I sit. “Thank you.”

Her pours tea into a floral teacup, then picks it up to hand to me. “Shit.” She steps away. “It’s cold.”

“No, it’s fine,” I reassure. “It’s perfect.”

“I’ll nuke it. It’ll just take a sec.”

“Don’t. I like cold tea.” I place my hand on her wrist, stopping her retreat.

“No you don’t. No one likes cold tea.”

“Not true. I like your cold tea.” I smile, directing her hand to the table. Reluctantly, she sets down the cup. Tea spills over the rim. For some reason, I can’t stop staring at it bead around the bottom of the cup and run down the table.

“Why don’t you tell me why you invited me over?” My throat’s tight. I hope she doesn’t notice. And then I hope she would notice—I hope she’d notice anything that would take her mind off whatever it’s wandered to—because she looks about three shades paler than she had just moments before and I’m not even sure if that’s humanly possible.

Her hands grip the back of her chair. “This isn’t easy for me to say.”

“Take a seat, then,” I reply in my most reassuring voice. I almost sigh in relief when she does.

She folds her hands in her lap and stares at the spilled tea on the table. It’s creeping dangerously close to the edge, but neither of us try to stop it.

She shuts her eyes. “I don’t know how to say this.”

“Sometimes things get easier when you just start.”

“Not these things. I didn’t just call you over here to chat, I think you know that.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“I want something from you.”

I remind myself to be patient. After a decade of being with someone, you don’t just get over them. I don’t know why she’d left Brian, but she was obviously still hurting.

“A few months ago…” She winces as her shoulders roll forward. It looks like she’s collapsing into herself. She grabs her thighs as if they’re the only things keeping her from doing just that. “He hurt me.”