Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Clyde takes a deep breath. “I recognized the tattoos on his hands. It’s been years, but I swear to you, it’s him. I would not mistake them. But he’s everyone’s friend, your favorite mechanic, Prophet was so happy to introduce him. Who’s gonna believe me?”
He’s turning the puzzle pieces face up, but I still can’t see the full picture.
Or maybe I’m unwilling to do it yet, clinging to the illusion that what’s coming will not shake up everything I know. But I’ve been through so much shit I don’t need comforting lies. What I do need is to know what’s going on with my man.
“Clyde, please,” I say in the softest voice I can manage and stroke his cheeks with my fingers. He’s shaking like a leaf during a heavy storm, but I won’t let him fall. “I will believe you.”
He looks down, as if there were iron cuffs pulling his neck and arms to the floor. “I was just seventeen, trying to work out if I was gay, if I should leave the town behind, start a life somewhere else with a clean slate. I was curious, too horny for my own good.” His voice is quiet, but as he speaks, the thudding of blood in my ears intensifies, because this takes me back to the conversation I had with Isaac today. My stomach clenches hard, fighting the sinking feeling. I think I know where this is going, and I already hate Isaac more than anyone alive. “I just wanted an anonymous fuck. To know. I found out about a cruising spot and when I went there one night, I met a guy. No names, faces pretty much covered. I was cocky, wanted to get right to it, but as soon as he went for it, started touching me, I freaked out. I bit off more than I could chew, and it pissed him off. It’s all a blur, but when I told him to back off, he punched me out of nowhere, and then I was on the ground, and he… he was inside me, and I told him to stop, I fought back, but he ended up holding my hands down, and that’s… that’s all I saw. The spiderweb tattoos on his hands,” Clyde finishes in a monotone voice, as if trying to convince me he recognized the ink was somehow more important than what he’s told me.
“Fuck,” I utter in a choked voice, because my whole body feels rigid, as if ice has grown around it, preventing me from breathing freely. This is bad, so much worse than I expected when I first saw Clyde packing, and I pull him close again, to confirm he is here, and that nothing happened to him tonight. A part of me is angry at myself, because maybe I should have seen the signs. Clyde was weirdly careful about sex at times, and he did tell me about that time in his teens, when he got beat up and decided to join the Butchers, so he can learn to keep himself safe.
“That story you told me… when someone beat you up,” I mumble, holding him tightly, because the tension in his limbs means he might shove me away any second now, not wanting my touch either. “Is that what really happened?”
He takes a shivery breath through his nose and nods. “What was I gonna do? Tell my dad about it? I know better, but… back then… I kinda thought I deserved it. For what I wanted.” I sense his voice against my neck, and it’s like he’s speaking right into me, burrowing his soul inside me.
I want to keep it safe.
I want to keep him safe. For him to know that nothing bad can touch him here.
My hands twist in the clothes on his back, but no matter how much it makes me ache inside, there’s nothing I can offer him but my presence. There is no changing the past. I can’t keep him from going cruising at seventeen, nor keep that perverted creep Isaac away from him. It makes my blood boil, and all my insides stew with helpless fury.
It eventually becomes too much, but I can’t cry, or shout, so I squeeze him tighter, rocking us by the bed. Of course Clyde didn’t deserve this bullshit. For what? For being curious? For wanting to find out the truth about himself? For wanting to live his life the way he wanted to?
Grief dulls, but its power feeds the anger at the pit of my stomach. The bastard who did this has lived here for years, beloved, hiding his real self behind smiles and great mechanic skills. It makes me feel dirty that I let him work on my bike, that the same hands that forced Clyde down touched my ride and kept me safe.