Elated, I thank him and try to calculate how much I need to live, a concern I never had before in my life. My father is right in this, at least: I’ve never had to worry about money. Until now.
By my calculations, the amount Mr. Walker mentioned is too low. I’ll need a second job.
And another place to stay. Dad won’t let me keep this super-expensive apartment, although I hope he’ll at least let me keep the car. Audrey and Erin could help me find a cheap place. They have experience apartment hunting, whereas mine is zero. On so many matters.
I’m wary, intimidated as I’ve never had to worry about making ends meet until now. On the other hand, I feel excited, exhilarated. At nineteen, I’ll be taking care of myself for the first time. A bit old to be weaned.
But better late than never.
The car that looks just like Sean’s is parked outside my building. My stomach twists into a knot when I see it, but nobody is sitting inside.
Reassured, I flash my card, and the bar lifts, letting me into the underground parking lot. I park and take the elevator, thinking about what Miles said. That Dylan has my photo on his wall.
This is so confusing. He saves me, kisses me, then leaves. He comes back, makes love to me, asks me not to leave town and then breaks my heart again. He makes love to me on his kitchen counter, blows my mind away, asks me to stay the night, but it means nothing to him.
Why is he doing this?
Maybe skipping town wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
The elevator doors ding open, and I step out, fishing for my key in my purse, when I notice someone standing by my door.
The air whooshes out of my lungs. I take a step back, but the elevator doors have already closed, and the carriage has gone back down. Panic sends the world spinning.
Sean smirks and walks deliberately toward me. “Look who finally decided to come home.”
“What are you doing here? Who let you in?” I frantically press the button, calling the elevator back.
“Your father gave me the card to enter.” He pulls me away from the elevator and presses me into the wall, trapping me. “And the okay.”
“Get off me.” I push, but he doesn’t budge. My breathing is coming in short gasps. “Damn you, Sean, leave me alone!”
“Stop lying to yourself,” he whispers in my ear, and I desperately push and squirm, trying to escape his hold. “You want me.”
“I don’t want you. Why are you doing this?”
“I like to watch you struggle.” He’s still whispering, like imparting a secret. “I like to watch you run about, like a mouse inside a maze, when there’s no way out.”
No way out. My life does seem like a maze, full of false routes, dead-ends and painful shocks. What am I missing? Why can’t I escape?
“You want to please your parents,” Sean goes on, his hand running through my hair, an intimate gesture. “You want to give in to me, don’t you? Say it.”
I think I may throw up. “Stop it. Let me go.”
“You want me. You just don’t want to accept it.” His hand fists in my hair and pulls my head back. It hurts. “I’m a great catch. Lots of women want me. But you… You’re fighting me. You’re afraid of me. It’s exciting.”
“You’re sick,” I whisper.
“Tessa… When we’re married, our families will be so powerful, you can’t imagine.”
“I don’t care.”
“Of course you do. Money. Power. All this,” he nods at our surroundings, “has to be paid for, somehow. This is how you pay for it. You do as I say, and you stop resisting me, or I’ll be angry, and you don’t want that, do you?”
His grip on my hair is excruciating, and his hold on my mind is even stronger. Memories of him forcing himself on me crowd my thoughts, tighten around me like a vise. My father’s face and Sean’s merge, their voices blend. The memories become the long road of my failure to please anyone, to amount to something.
“Sean…”
“Be a good girl,” he sneers, “and do as you’re told. Daddy will love you.”
This is it. This is the answer. My mistake in all of this is that I’ve been begging for scraps, thinking my refusal would be enough, both for my dad and Sean. Thinking they’d let me go.
I thought my refusal would be enough for me—to convince me to sever all bonds, to give up on the silly hope my parents would change their minds, change their nature.
But I was wrong on both accounts. My father is a mad wolf, my mother a dumb sheep, and I have to save myself. I was wrong to think I could do this on my own.
“Say you want me. Say it. You’ve wanted me all along.” His breath is hot on my cheek, smelling of the cigars he smokes and alcohol. “Say it, before I make you cry and the neighbors know what a little slut you are for punishment.”