Three Little Birds

Promises Pt. 2

Time for your bath, Mathew.

All the oxygen was sucked from my lungs in an instant, as if inside the shower had created a vacuum where air did not, or could not exist. I felt my legs fail to continue to perform their function and as I went down I felt the water go over my head.

My chest burned and my veins boiled as complete terror consumed me. My blood felt like a river of fire, as if Pyriphlegethon itself ran through my soul, taking me with it in its sickening current.

I could feel their malicious hands, phantom memories brought back in a haze of panic, holding me under the spray.

I screamed.

It's time for your bath, Mathew. 

I do not know how long I sat, collapsed and curled up in the bathtub, how long I had been screaming exactly, or when suddenly the water was no longer cascading down around me.

I heard a voice above my head, but it was garbled, distorted from the water in my ears and the panicked state I was in.

I felt myself being pulled from the tub, n***d and wet and shaking. My screams quieted then to small, considerable whimpers.

"Mattie, I'm gonna set you down on the bed so I can dry you off, okay."

At this softly spoken comment my panic ran away with me once more. I clung harder to this protective, saving hold, desperate not to be left to my own devices.

"Okay. Okay. We'll do it like this." I felt myself being lowered as Mykel sat down. He cradled me in his lap as if I were a small child, and as if I were a small child, burrowed myself into him.

I felt the gentle swiping of the towel over my wet, goose bump ridden flesh, slowly drying me. He ran the towel gently over my hair, mopping up any water that remained there, before drying off my face.

I looked at him, my eyes still wide with fear, and he smiled gently at me before he wrapped my comforter around me, tucking it under me, cocooning me to bring my body temperature up.

"You're okay, mon bonheur. I've got you now. You're safe, baby, you're safe." He rocked and petted me, calmly whispering, until finally I was warm and calm.

He wiped a tear that had gathered at the corner of my eye and I shut my eyes to block away my shame.

"You wanna get dressed now?" He kissed my forehead and I turned my head further into him in indication that I didn't want to move; nor did I want him to move.

He chuckled before scooting us backward, before laying down on his side and drawing me to him. "Sorry. I couldn't feel my legs anymore." He smiled but I just stared at him, still not completely sure if he was real, or if I was still in that closet dreaming of a better life.

He frowned slightly, his smile fading, and unwound my fingers from his shirt, and laced our hands together.

"I'm right here, Mattie. Look at me, mon bonheur." I did. "I'm real, my love." My eyes watered again at not only the term of endearment, but the tone in which it was spoken. 

"Prove it." It was a plea, not a demand, spoken brokenly, and weakly, as if the mere attempt at speaking was too hard for me to go through with, with more than a splintered fraction of myself.

He pulled me to him, his lips crashing down on mine in so familiar a form. This time I did not pull away from him, shyness and fear did not block the neuron passageways to my brain from liking how his lips felt against mine.

He traced his tongue across my bottom lip and my body exploded in a pleasure filled wave. I felt my body begin to respond in a way it never had before.

Sure, in my past life, as I refer to it now, my body responded in a purely physical sense. It responded to the physical stimuli, but it was purely mechanic. A means for a loaf of bread. I no more enjoyed it than exchanging money for tacos at Taco Bell.

But when he kissed me then, it was something of the likes that I had never experienced. I pressed my body close to him, suddenly once again aware I was n***d as the day I was born.

Mykel kissed down my neck, nipping lightly as he went. I felt the stars explode above me as his hands snaked under the blankets, wrapping around me, gliding along my back, his fingernails lightly scraping against my skin.

I moaned and shuddered against his mouth. Then he pulled away breaking the kiss. I looked at him with hooded eyes, my body wanting more than it ever had. Demanding for the first time that it not stop.

Mykel smiled a smirk of a smile, right proud of himself, before his face became serious once more. His hand gently cupped my cheek, his thumb running smoothly over my cheek bone. "I am real."

I nodded at the impact of what he just did, and what it meant to me, unable to say anything. "You're real," I repeated, staring into his eyes. "This is real."

He kissed me again, shorter this time, but nonetheless dexterous in its delivery.

"This is real." There was something in his eyes then that changed. The meaning of those three words went far beyond that moment, far beyond my own anamorphic palpability. I felt a slight pain in my chest at those words, but the pain was the pain of mending wounds. Old scars that still bled as if freshly created.

"Is it?" 

He knew then that my meaning had changed along with his. His expression softened and within it held all the vulnerability he always kept so carefully hidden away. His eyes wandered my face as if seeing me for the first time before landing back on my eyes again.

"God, yes." His answer was a breathy whisper, his eyes full of so much emotion they were overwhelming to look in to.

"I don't...I mean..." His face faltered as I stuttered over what I was trying to say. "I don't want...w-want-want-want...to be a re-repla-replacement for what you lost...and I'm scared..." Mykel sighed lightly, though not from exasperation. His expression turned sad and I immediately felt like an asshole. "I don't think that's what you're do-do-doing. Don't-don't-d-don't--" I was getting worked up again and Mykel paused my fumbled explanation by placing his hand against my chest.

"Take a breath. Deep breath. One more. There you go. Breathe, mon bonheur."

I bit my lower lip in order to keep myself in control. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked with a small frown.

"I wasn't trying to say that that's what I thought you were doing."

He lifted my chin so I'd make eye contact. "Nor did I think you did. Mattie, I loved Kaiden. He was my oldest friend and my first love, and I'll always love him. But that life is over. The life I had with him died with him. I'll never compare you. You had similar pasts, but believe me you two aren't anything alike.

"What I had with Kaiden...as much as I miss him, is gone. And I can't keep living in the past. I don't want you to be Kaiden. I want you to be you.

"We don't need to rush anything, we don't need to label anything...but, yes, Mattie, this is real."

Then he kissed me again, soft and sensual, conveying to me through that small contact of lips promises he had yet to speak aloud.

"Let me show you that not everyone will hurt you. That not everyone will use you. That you're worth being loved."

I dropped my eyes. Worth being loved? 

"I've never been worth anything. To anyone," I whispered brokenly. My heart lurched at the utterance of those words. At how heartbreakingly true they really were. I had never meant anything to anyone. Not even my parents could find the most minute reason to love me. Why would anyone else?

"Mattie, look at me. Please." He waited until I became brave enough to bring my eyes up before he continued speaking. "The only thing I can say about your parents, or anyone else, is that they're morons, too blind to see how wonderful you are. Or they could see it in you, and not themselves, and wanted to feel superior. Either way, they were wrong.

"What they did to you, mon bonheur, is not a reflection of you, but a reflection of them."