Page 28 of His to Keep
Knowing I can’t hide in the bathroom all day, I eventually leave after pulling the deepest breath into my lungs. Callum’s over by the window with his hands in his pockets, gazing out at the trees swaying in the overcast day.
Even though I know he won’t talk to me because of what I said yesterday, I stand next to him anyway. After a while, he finally glances at me, and I warily meet it.
Yesterday’s anger toward him is long gone. I understand why he didn’t tell me about Father Aaron’s plans for me. But while I want to trust him, there’s a part of me that’s telling me to be wary. To not drop my guard too much around this mysterious man. He hasn’t tried to hurt me in any way. In fact, he’s been decent and careful and respectful when he could have easily overpowered me. Taken whatever he wanted from me.Ifhe wanted something.
My entire body reacts to his stare. A look of endless blue. The sky. The sun. Heat. Burning. “When was the last time you were outside?”
He looks back out the window and lets out the deepest breath through his nose. “When we moved here.”
“Where did you come from?”
He shrugs, but I feel like he’s holding back. He knows where he came from. “It was a nicer house than this.”
Silence comes, and I pick at the peeling paint on the windowsill, not daring to look at him as I ask, “Why do you think you’re an abomination?”
He doesn’t say anything right away, and I worry he hasn’t heard me until he mutters, “I just am.”
“There’s not a reason?” I angle my body to face him. Something he looks uncomfortable by. “I mean…you can’t just say you’re an abomination without there being a reason—”
“Thereisa reason,” he cuts me off. “I was born from sin.”
“What sin?”
He leans against the windowsill. “Why should I tell you since you think I’m a no-good liar?”
“Because you practically yelled it at me, that’s why. I think I have a right to know.”
“A right?” His eyebrow rises.
“Yes.”
His gaze pours into me, so intense I can no longer breathe. “Fine. I’ll give you the reason you’re searching for to be repulsed.”
“Wha—No!”
“My father raped my mother repeatedly since she was a girl, and the moment she became a woman, I was conceived. That woman was his own sister. It’s Penny, if you haven’t fucking figured it out yet. Think you have the right to know now?”
My eyes bulge.
His eyes cloud with anger and disgust as it takes me a moment for the words to process. Father Aaron raped Penny, his sister, and got her pregnant? If I thought this family couldn’t get any worse, it just did.
This is the reason Callum cuts and why he ripped his own back to shreds with a whip. He’s punishing himself for a crime he didn’t commit.
“I’m sorry,” Callum says next, guilt marring his features. “That was too much.”
“No, I am. I shouldn’t have pushed.” What did I do?
He was made from incest and it’s the reason he believes he’s an abomination. Why he thinks I’d be nothing but repulsed by his presence. I get it now. They say anyone made from that kind of wickedness is born with abnormalities, but there’s nothing about him like that. He’s more like an angel fallen from heaven. Why can’t he see that?
“You told me, so I’d be repulsed by you?”
“Has it worked?” He turns to me, the side of his lip lifting into a smirk, so like Father Aaron’s, I want to smack it off his face.
“No.” My teeth grit. “The only person I’m revoltedby is your father. How you were created isn’t your fault. It’s how youactthat matters. And you’ve done nothing to me—”
“Notyet.”
“You’re not Father Aaron.”