Three Little Birds

Two Steps Forward Three Steps Back Pt. 2

Gently she pushed me to a sitting position, her warm, smaller hands cradling my face. "I love you, Mattie. There aren't any conditions to go along with that. I don't care how much you may cry, baby, or how often you freak out. You're not a nuisance. To either of us. 

"But as far as I am concerned, Mattie, you're just as much a part of me as...oh, my love...I could never just cast you aside." She thumbed away tears from my cheeks before vanquishing them from her own. "I knew what I was getting into when I hired you, Mattie. Do you think I was unprepared for what might happen bringing you here?

"I brought you here, permanently, because I love you, Mattie. And I've already lost two brothers. I won't lose you, too. I'm not going anywhere."

With that, she pulled me back into her embrace, repeated she loved me in a softly spoken mantra, as her shirt soaked up more tears.

I heard someone come downstairs, their progress slow, and attempted unobtrusive entrance; I curled further into her. 

Mykel knelt down behind me, his torso leaning against the edge of the couch before settling back. He did not touch me and for this, I was both grateful and hurt by the lack of contact.

Grateful because I knew his touch would be my undoing and I'd unravel entirely. The pain was of an imaginary rejection and a longing of his arms that I had been resisting. 

"Mattie," he whispered, his fingertips touching gently between my shoulder blades. "Please, Mattie, look at me."

It wasn't the request that made my head turn, but the tremor that accompanied it. I did not at once acquiesce, but first had to fortify myself to face the look I knew was painted all across his beautiful features.

Tears clouded my vision but I managed to make and keep eye contact, the struggle that it was.

I had no idea how much he heard, or how long he had lingered on the stairs listening to the things I had told to Liz.

"I love you. I love you more than you know. I couldn't and won't just turn my back on you."

His eyes were as bloodshot as mine felt and I stared a moment before speaking. "How can you love me like this, Mykel?"

"Oh, mon bonheur, I'll love you any way I can, and nothing will ever stand in the way of that. Not your past, or your fears, or your parents, or you, for that matter."

"You still want me?"

I hadn't meant to say it. It was something that had been circling my mind like vultures waiting for death in order to feast upon it. It was then my biggest fear. The knowledge of having fallen so hard for him, to have him discard me after having me.

I didn't tell him then and I haven't told him now, but the nights leading up to this moment were full of vivid dreams turned nightmares of us making tender love. He whispers words of love and beauty, painting a canvas in sweat and feeling.

We c****x together, our names on each other's tongues before he's rolling off and away from me. His expression then always changes from that smile that I adore to one I hope I never see adorn his face.

I watch in horror as he reaches for his wallet, and pulls out three one hundred dollar bills, tossing them on the bed.

"Mykel, what...?" I can never finish the question, and I don't need to.

"What? Did you really think I loved you? Get a grip, kid. I paid my w***e, now I'll be on my way." He laughs in the cruelest way then and he turns away.

As the echo of the door shutting reverberates in my head, I scream and I wake.

"I want you, Mattie," he said in a reality more lucid than dreams. "More than that, I need you."

He stroked my cheek with a curved knuckle and I captured his hand in mine.

"Why do I feel like this?" The question was broken by gasping breaths and tears.

"Baby, just because they couldn't get to you physically doesn't mean that simply seeing them, having them stand over you, hearing their voices...it doesn't mean that those things didn't affect you.

"It doesn't mean that the experience can't or doesn't hurt you, and bring it all back again." She pulled me closer to her, her arms wrapped securely around me. "And it doesn't mean that you're weak, baby."

Those last words, spoken softly against my ear, combated one of my greatest fears. My shoulders shook with silently screaming sobs, and I buried my face against her side and my arm. I felt Mykel's hand along my back and neck, Liz's hands running through my hair; the contact warm and the level of comfort and love I received from it calmed me quicker than I would have guessed.

For a long time I lay, my face hidden from them both, meditating on the feeling of their lovingly caressing hands, their warmth, them. 

I loved them both in very different ways, but each was new and completely alien to me.

Liz had been taking care of me in her own way for the last few years, but I admitted then that our relationship had reached a new plateau, and along with that realization came that I couldn't possibly live without her.

Unconsciously I tightened my grip around her. She responded in kind, making shushing sounds as if comforting a small child.

And I guess she was, in part. That little boy inside me was just as scared as he had always been. Still chained to the past, waiting for the next time he would get forced under the water. 

In truth, until I met Liz and then later Mykel, I had never really escaped that box for which so long offered the only safety I knew. While I had left the confines of that particular horror physically, mentally I had only created my own prison, hiding myself behind layers of mixed sweat and the occasional line of cocaine; trapping that boy away not unlike what my parents had done to me.

Liz drew us both out, assuring us of a safety within her embrace and mere presence that had been too good to even allow myself to fantasize about because I knew such things were too good for the likes of me.

Until Liz took a chance on a lost kid from the city who had no experience in anything but s*x and pain, and quite frankly I didn't think putting p********e in previous job history would go over very well, I had nothing and I had no one.

When I walked in I was terrified, more so I was cold, wet, and hungry...

"Hi, honey, can I help you?"

The place was nearly closed and by consequence empty. My head snapped up from the floor, I hadn't heard her come around the corner from the back room.

"I-I-I...um...th-that is...I came came came a-a-a-about the the the..." I paused, my heart racing and my breathing quickening to keep up with the faster blood flow.

"Easy, honey, easy, okay? Here, take a seat before you fall down. I just mopped, see, I don't wanna mop any blood off the floors now that they're clean."

There must have been something on my face that made her features soften. "I'm just kidding, honey."

When I sat she sat across from me, her energy calming me and I felt at once like I could breathe.

"Now...you came in because of the help sign?"

I nodded afraid I wouldn't be able to articulate my answer.

"What's your name, honey?" Her voice was gentle and until then no one had ever spoken to me with such kindness.

"Mattie O'Neill."

"Well, Mattie O'Neill...give me just a minute."

She got up and went back to the back, at last returning and with her a large towel. "Here. Dry off. You look like you're freezing."

I did as she asked, folding and sitting on the towel so as to not drip further onto the floor.

"Have you ever worked in customer service before?"

I shook my head and bit my lip. "I've...n-neh-never h-ha-had a job before. I'm new here."

"How long have you been in Rockford?"

"A week, maybe."

She looked at me for several seconds, silence filling the space between us, and for a moment I was sure she'd turn me out as everyone else had before her.

"Can you start tomorrow?" I looked at her, shock evident in my face. She smiled gently and continued, "The work isn't too difficult, though through the tourist season it gets pretty crazy busy.

"I can train you in what you need to know. I'm pretty full for employees right now...for the next two weeks anyway, then the lot of them go back to their dorm rooms. We open at six. Can you be here about five-thirty?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Alright. You can fill out everything then and we can start your training. Sound good?"

"Yes. Th-thank you."

"Promise me. Promise me you won't leave me. I'm sorry that I'm so insecure. And that I'm still so scared. I don't mean to be. I..."

Mykel leaned forward, pressing his forehead against my cheek. "Mon bonheur, listen to me, my love. We're not going anywhere. Either one of us. I swear. And we'll prove it by proving our word." He kissed my cheekbone and I felt his lips tremble, just as I heard his voice shake as he spoke his next words.