Three Little Birds

Safe Haven Pt. 2

You're a fool, boy. You'll never deserve him. Being a w***e was too good for you. You should have stayed in your box where you belong.

The voice was sudden and crippling and suddenly I felt her hands around my throat.

Mykel must have noticed the change in the air because when he looked at me his whole face changed. 

He slowly leaned forward and stamped the blunt out before sitting back just as carefully.

"Mattie?" He reached but pulled away when I tried to scamper backward and away from him, a whimper escaping me.

All I saw was her face swimming before my eyes, her malicious smile spreading like cancer across her distorted face.

"No. No, please." 

Suddenly I wasn't sitting on Liz's couch, but I was a little boy, scared and cold and hungry and terrified. She opened the closet, and glaring down at me, and pulled me out. 

She gripped my hair tightly against my scalp, holding me still with her other hand around my throat. The pressure was light but enough to keep me still.

I knew nothing of what they planned for me. Then my father's fist comes flying, connecting with my diaphragm and knocking every bit of oxygen from my lungs. My mother let me go as I collapsed, pushing me roughly once; my knees hit the ground hard, and I doubled over failing to pull in air to breathe.

I screamed. I fought against the arms that held me. Somewhere in my haze of panic, I heard a voice calling out to me. I paid it no mind. All I wanted was to escape the pain, escape the fists.

"Mattie! Mattie's, it's me. Stop, Mattie. Stop." My fights became less as my energy began to subside. "Mattie, it's just me. It's just Mykel. You're safe."

I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his chest. He tightened his hold and kissed my head, trying to prevent me from trembling right off the couch. 

"You're okay now, mon bonheur. Sh, love, you're safe. What happened?"

I shook my head, reaffirming my grip, and trying to dispel everything from my mind but him. "I keep hearing her. Why won't she leave me alone? I haven't seen them in six f*****g years...why do I still..." My words were cut off by the choking knot that lodged in my throat. 

Mykel pulled me further into his lap and gently rocked me, calming me. At some point, he relit the blunt and handed it to me. I declined not wanting to release my hold, lest reality melts away again into a nightmare.

"Don't let me go." I'm begging and I sound pathetic even to myself, but at that moment I did not care.

"I'll never let you go. That isn't something you need worry yourself with." Mykel combed his fingers through my hair and we lapsed into silence. 

I wanted so badly to tell him of the screaming in my head. Of the things, my mind projected back to me in the horrors of the voices from my past.

"Who do you hear, Mattie? Talk to me, mon bonheur. Tell me what's going on."

With my head still pressed into him and his arms still around me as I tried to calm down, my breaths started coming in a bit easier. Pulling myself fully into his lap, I clung harder to him, willing myself to speak.

"My mother," I said after several heartbeats. "I keep hearing my mother." I bit down on my lower lip in attempt to staunch any residual panic, or any new panic for that matter, to keep from boiling to the surface.

"What's she saying?" he asked me when it was clear I was not going to elaborate. His arms snaked around my back and front, holding me close against him, his fingers lightly drawing calming patterns over clothes and skin.

I concentrated on the feeling for a moment before answering. At the moment I was beyond relieved that he could not see my face; so he could not see the shame so plainly on display in my eyes.

"That I don't deserve you. That being a w***e was too good for me. That I should have stayed in my box. She says that you'll..." I couldn't go further as the flood of tears that came rushing forth like a title wave at the potential of truth I was afraid to face.

"That you'll f**k me like the w***e I am and once you've gotten your fill will leave like every john that's come before you. 'Cause, why would you want a disgusting little w***e like me?"

It was spoken in rapid succession. A single run-on sentence spoken on a wail of self-degradation and absolute terror.

Mykel said nothing for a long time. He held me tighter and closer to his breast as my cries ran their course. As I calmed down and my lamentation quieted, he spoke. He pulled us down supine, pulling me along beside him. I buried my face in his shoulder so he couldn't look me in the eyes.

He didn't try and force me. Gently he kissed my cheek, his fingers threading through my hair; he simply held me.

When he finally did begin speaking his voice was hardly a whisper. I listened closely to his words, my heart breaking and mending all at once, my tears forming anew.

"Oh, my sweet, mon bonheur. Listen to me now, okay?" When I nodded he continued speaking. "Mattie, you're not a w***e. And before you argue with me, just listen." I closed my mouth which was poised to argue. I sighed, but I listened.

"You may have been forced into a situation where you had no other option than to resort to prostitution...that was then, Mattie. Even then, I wouldn't call you a "w***e"...when I look at you, I don't see what you were forced to do. I see you. Hey..."

He lifted my chin up so I was meeting his eyes. "I don't care about that. I care about you." And with that, he placed a light but promising kiss gently to my lips.

When Saturday night rolled around Liz suggested that we go to a local bar that does karaoke. Mykel seemed excited about the idea, and I couldn't tamper that combined enthusiasm, nor did I want to. Just the opposite. Their enthusiasm was infectious.

The bar was a small place, but cozy. The atmosphere was thick with smoke, loud, and crowded. Not overly, but enough to make me slightly nervous. Mykel wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to his chest. Instantly, I relaxed and felt my chest loosen. 

"You're okay, mon bonheur." I smiled as his breath tickled my ear and I nodded. I turned my head into his neck inhaling his scent and smiling, pressed my lips to his pulse. I heard him inhale sharply as I nibbled slightly on the sensitive area.

Over the last week, Mykel and I had been getting closer. We had still done nothing s****l more than deep kissing. He did not push for more, but I saw a wanting hunger in his eyes.

He looked at me, shock marring his features. I smiled, encouraged. He smiled back at me, his eyes filling with something I had yet to see. Then his lips were on mine and the crowd melted away. He bit lightly on my lower lip and I moaned against him. He pulled back, a mischievous grin on his face before he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the table that Liz had somehow procured. 

He sat and pulled me down to his lap, wrapping his arms around my center to steady me. Liz smiled as she watched us and I noticed an exchange between them that I didn't understand. She smiled at her brother and he smiled before looking away, a light blush forming against his cheeks.

Before I could make rhyme or reason of it, the DJ announced that it was time for karaoke night to officially start.

After several drunken people made fools of themselves, Mykel leaned in so I could hear him over the music.

"You should get up there and sing something." He smiled.

"Are you crazy?" I felt my eyes widen at the suggestion.

He smiled. That smile that takes my breath away, and it had no less effect then. Though there was something different in his smile then. Something...more.

"Maybe a little." He kissed me before patting my thigh. We stood and I took the seat as he walked over to the stage and grabbed the microphone.

The whole bar erupted into cheers and he grinned. When the opening guitar came on I immediately recognized it. I smiled as he locked eyes with mine as he began to sing.