Page 50 of Cruel Crypts
Her hand resumed stroking across my abs, and I flexed them beneath her touch, feeling her smile against my skin. “Sad first, then. So you know I told you that my mum was at work all the time, and my aunt looked after me? Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I mean, it was, but she was, um, addicted to some prescription pills. I don’t know what they were, and she just kind of sat around, and I was normally left to fend for myself unless she was having a good day—which didn’t happen very often. That was okay—like, I could deal with it, and I learned how to use the oven and make myself basic meals on the days when I knew my mum wouldn’t be there. But she got into these states sometimes—”
“States?” I questioned, fighting to keep my tone even.
“Um, yeah. She had intermittent explosive disorder, or at least that’s what my uncle said. She’d be fine for ages, then out of nowhere, she’d just have these moments where she’d rage…almost like how a kid might have a tantrum? It’s kind of hard to explain, but that’s the easiest way to describe it, I think. There wouldn’t really be any warning; it would just happen. Not very often, and it never lasted for long, but yeah. That was it.”
I ran my fingers through her silky hair. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“I’m not sure how common it is. She was on medication for it, but then she started taking these other sets of pills, and I’m not sure if they were even legally prescribed to her, to be honest, but I think they interfered with the other ones she was taking because the episodes started happening again. One time, when I was about eight or maybe nine, I was in the kitchen at her and my uncle’s house, and I was washing up some glasses. My aunt was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper. I’d put too much washing-up liquid on the sponge, and my hand slipped when I was holding one of the glasses. It made the glass bang against the tap, and it broke. I didn’t mean for it to break.”
Her voice wobbled almost imperceptibly, but it was enough for me to tug her even closer and kiss the side of her head. “You don’t have to tell me what happened.”
“No, I want to.” She took a deep breath and then continued. “About two seconds after the glass broke, my aunt appeared next to me and yanked me off the step stool I was standing on. I fell over, and I had to curl myself into a ball next to the cupboard to try and protect myself while she went into this rage. She threw some of the glasses, and they smashed. Then she started slapping me and shouting at me, saying I was stupid and couldn’t be trusted to do a simple task and I’d ruined her favourite glass. When it was finally over, she stormed out of the kitchen to lock herself in her room, and I managed to cut the bottom of my foot quite badly while I was cleaning up the mess. My uncle got home just after that happened, which was lucky because I ended up having to go to A&E to get stitches, and I couldn’t walk on it for ages because the cut would’ve reopened.”
I wanted to fucking rage. How fucking dare anyone treat Elena this way? “Fuck, baby. That’s just…”
“Yeah. Well, that’s a sad memory. I know it sounds bad, but she wasn’t physically abusive outside of that episode.”
“There’s no excuse for physical violence, and you were a fuckingchild.”
“I know. There isn’t any excuse.” She sighed softly before placing a kiss to my shoulder. “I did have a lot of good memories with her too. She seemed to be better in the summer, and we’d do things like go on picnics at the lake—all of us—and she was the one who taught me how to play the guitar.”
We were both quiet for a minute, my hand still stroking her hair, and then she sighed again. “Go on, you tell me something sad now. Get all the depressing stuff out of the way first. By the way, I’ve never told anyone that story before. Only my aunt and uncle knew the truth—they encouraged me not to tell my mum.”
“That’s fucked up,” I murmured.
“I know. There’s a lot of things that I wish I’d done differently when I look back on them. Anyway, I can’t change the past. Tell me your story.”
“How am I gonna top yours?” The atmosphere was still heavy, so I tried to lighten it. “Do you want to hear about the time I cried because Santa brought me the wrong colour miniature Ferrari for Christmas?”
She stared up at me, then rolled her eyes with a smile. “Rich-boy problems.”
“Oh, yeah. I was gutted. I wouldn’t even get inside it.”
“Wait, get inside it?” She arched a brow, and I smirked down at her.
“Yeah, it was a kids’ version that you could drive around in. Proper replica of the real thing.”
“Wow. Let me guess. You wanted it to be black, and it was red.”
“Wrong.” I shot her a smug grin. “It was red, and I wanted it to be yellow, just like my dad’s one.”
“So your obsession with black didn’t begin at a young age,” she mused. “It’s very sweet that you wanted it to be just like your dad’s, though.”
“Take that back. I am not fuckingsweet,” I growled, and she laughed out loud, her whole body shaking.
“Your face!” she gasped between breaths. Patting my chest in a condescending way, she bit down on her lip, attempting a straight face. “You’re right. You are very much not sweet. You’re very manly and sexy and growly and other words ending with a Y. But all little kids are sweet.”
“They are fucking not. Most are little shits, except for JoJo.”
“Okay.Somelittle kids are sweet. You were obviously one of them.”
“I’ll give you fucking sweet.” I yanked her on top of me and then rolled us so that she was pinned underneath me. We were both very naked, and it would be a shame not to make the most of it. “I’m gonna give you the sweetest fucking orgasm you’ve ever had in your life.”
And I did exactly that.
33
ELENA