Page 46 of Beautiful Chaos
“We didn’t sleep together, Harper. You went in there instead of your room when we got home. I gave you a shirt to sleep in and left you alone. I slept on the sofa.” He gestured towards the living room, where a pillow and neatly folded blankets lay at the end of one of his comfy couches.
“Tell me, would it have been so terrible if we had?” He asked, barely able to look me in the eyes.
I took a piece of bacon from my plate and snapped it in half. It made a loud crunching sound. I watched the pieces crumble and fall to my plate.
Without looking in his direction, I stated: “I just needed this time to…be with my…consent.” I whispered, instantly regretting every word as it left my mouth. I picked up my fork and pushed eggs around my plate, to escape his gaze.
I felt his blue eyes staring. I turned to look at him, his eyes full of questions. “Who hurt you, Harper?” He spoke through clenched teeth, the anger radiating around him.
I don’t know what came over me, or why I felt the need to open up to this man I barely knew, but the words tumbled from my mouth like a dam breaking. At that moment, over breakfast.
“When I was 16 years old, I was hanging out at Aster’s house, like most days. My mom called Aster’s mother and said there was a family emergency, and I was to go straight home.
Our houses were only a short walk away from each other. During the daylight, I’d usually walked through a small alleyway which cut the walking distance in half. I never walked it at night because there was little light, and it was secluded. That night after my mother’s call I was anxious to get home so I braved the alleyway.
Just as I walked to the end, two huge men walked from either side blocking my way out. I had no time to react before one of them hit me over the head with something, and the next thing I knew I was in the trunk of a car.”
I put my hands over my face and began to sob. The memories of what those men did to me, started to roll back into my mind, as fresh as they were the day they got there.
“They took me to an abandoned warehouse, where they tied me up and beat me, and they…they,” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I didn’t want to relive it.
My sobs became uncontrollable. I was shaking and crying. I found it hard to catch my breath.
Jasper’s chair skidded across the floor and landed against the marble behind him as he stood; He grabbed my hands and turned me to face him. I couldn’t look at him. I knew if I looked into his eyes, I would see the same thing as anyone else, so I was forced to tell this story. Pity.
I don’t want to be pitied. I was pitied by the officers who took the call that day, and by the staff who cared for me through my recovery after I suffered severe dehydration along with internal lacerations and bruising. Pitied by the social worker who questioned me when my parents were nowhere to be found. Pitied by my peers and teachers when I was finally released to go back to school. pitied by Aster and her parents when they helped me pack up my things to move in with them once the judge declared my mother and father missing persons. I didn’t need any more pity from anyone.
I threw my head into Jasper’s chest and sobbed until I could stop myself long enough to continue. Something in me wanted Jasper to know the truth, the whole truth.
I turned my head, laying my cheek against his chest. The feeling of his beating heart calmed me.
“I was chained in that warehouse for ten days. Every day, I plotted my escape. Every day I became weaker physically but that only caused the men to become relaxed and lose focus. Once I found an open opportunity I took it. I escaped and I didn’t look back. By the time I got away, and the police returned to the scene they were gone, and the warehouse was set on fire destroying any DNA, or fingerprints, everything was gone. They got away with it, Jasper. They destroyed my life and took my innocence, and they got away with it. Now I’m broken. I’m so broken, no matter what I do, no matter, how badly I want to, I can’t fix it.”
When I let that last part slip from my mouth in a whisper, I realized, I had never said that out loud. I’ve consistently kept my feelings to myself, pushing forward with the hope that staying silent would mean they’d never become an obstacle. I was wrong because I carried it on my shoulders every day.
Jasper used two fingers to pull my chin upwards to meet his gaze. When my eyes met his, I didn’t see pity as I expected. Instead, I saw something else. I saw anger, I saw sorrow, and something I wasn’t quite sure of but, not an ounce of pity.
“Is that what you see when you look at yourself, Harper?” Jasper asked in a gentle voice.
“Yes,” I whispered through silent tears. It’s what I’ve seen for the last eight years.
A broken girl.
“Listen to me Harper,” he demanded.
He stared into my eyes like he was searching for something but only for a minute before he leaned his forehead against mine, “If you are broken, you are beautifully broken. That only means you were too unique to be bound together by someone else’s mold. Someone else’s idea of who Harper is. Who Harper should be. Instead of trying to fix you, try creating something new, something better. You are strong, too strong to stay broken.” He said, in a breathy whisper.
How he spoke gave a sense that, deep down, his feelings mirrored my own. It was as if he too, was broken, for his own reasons.
“Are you broken, Jasper?” I asked him and secretly I was hoping I already knew the answer. It would explain so much to me, and make whatever was happening between us, the connection or chemistry, or whatever it is, make sense.
He paused, with a long silence. A silence that was so loud. I could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
He reached up and cupped my cheek with his palm before he let his lips lock onto mine. My mind told me to stop this, to back away and go somewhere else, anywhere but right here, but I didn’t move.
I let him kiss me.
Chapter 31