Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (win 10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

She remains silent, keeping her gaze on her hands. She massages the crushed hand carefully, as if it’ll help relieve any pain she has there. Now that I’m alone with her, I start to worry more that she doesn’t even remember talking to me last night. What if Chloe has her so brainwashed that I won’t be able to talk to her anymore?

“Do you remember what you told me last night?” I place my hand carefully on her left arm, hoping that there isn’t a small break somewhere in this arm as well as the other one. She flinches at me touch but it doesn’t seem to be because I caused her any physical pain. She nods her head slowly at my question and I brighten up instantly.

“That’s good, I thought maybe she tried to make you forget or… She didn’t do anything to you, did she?” immediately I start to worry that we had been caught somehow and Ellie had been punished without my knowledge. She shakes her head in a clear ‘no’ way and I find myself smiling. “I’m glad, I hate it when she does. I’m sorry I can’t do anything to protect you, it kills me. But I’ll get us out of this, I promise.” I run my thumb across the skin on her arm as delicately as I can manage and she glances up at me. Our eyes lock for only a few seconds before she moves her gaze to her hands again, but still I can see some kind of struggle going on in those green orbs of hers.

“What’s wrong? You can talk to me, Ellie. You know I won’t hurt you.” I rub her arm gently and try to smile encouragingly when she glances up at me again. She shakes her head in a way that says ‘This is a bad idea.’

“Why don’t you want to talk to me? Nothing happened the last time, you’re safe. It’s okay.” my reassuring seems to do little to actually reassure her and she scoots away from me slightly. I pull my hands away from her, giving her space in case I scare her off. The last thing I want to do is push too far and become another Chloe in her eyes.

A few minutes of silence passes before finally it looks like she’s trying to say something. “S-shouldn’t have…” is all I can manage to make out.

“Shouldn’t have what? You shouldn’t have talked to me? I told you it’s okay, she doesn’t know.” she shakes her head at me words.

“No, I know that… ” it leaves her barely above a whisper, her voice sounding cracked and strained.

“Hold on, I’ll get you some water.” I get up and rush to the kitchen, getting a glass of water from the sink before rushing back to the living room. I take my seat beside her again and I had almost handed her the glass. Before realizing how hard it would be for her to hold onto it, let alone bring it to her mouth. I scoot closer and bring the glass to her lips, she takes a few gulps of the water rather quickly; like she hasn’t had a decent drink in forever.

She coughs a bit after I pull the glass away and I set it on a table by the couch as she clears her throat. I wait impatiently as she starts to speak again, “I… shouldn’t have said w-what I said.” clearly I remember the only three words she had managed to say last night and suddenly the sentence she’s saying now starts to feel like a stab in the chest.

“You mean you don’t love me anymore?” somehow I feel like I’m jumping to conclusions like Chloe does all the time, but I can’t help myself. It had been such a relief to hear her still say those words after all that’s happened and now she’s sitting here saying she shouldn’t have said them.

“I do… But, I’m not supposed to. I’ll ruin things again.” As soon as she utters that last sentence, it all makes sense. Chloe has her completely convinced of the little fairytale Chloe lives in herself. Realizing it hurts more than I thought possible, because I don’t know what to do. Just like with Chloe, I don’t know how to breach this subject. I don’t know how to tell her that it’s all a lie, a fairy tale that Chloe has centered around herself and somehow now Ellie is in that world too.

“None of this is your fault, Ellie. You have to know that, okay?” she nods slowly, sniffling back a few tears. Out of old habit I reach up to brush the tears away and she glances up at me again. For a moment, it feels like it use to; before this whole mess happened. And suddenly all I want to do is kiss her, just so she knows my feelings towards her haven’t changed. Chloe can try all she wants, but she’ll never make me love the girl in front of me any less.

I lean closer, only inches apart from her. She pulls away at the last second and I realize all too late that I shouldn’t have tried to kiss her. It brought up too many memories and now she’s crying all over again.

“I’m sorry, don’t cry. Please.” I pull her in for a hug and to my surprise she hugs back without hesitation, instead of pulling away like I half expected her to. For a few minutes we stay in that hug, until her tears have stopped falling. Even after she’s stopped crying, we stay in the hug. Until her injuries make it uncomfortable for her to sit like that. So I pull away, but to my surprise she moves to curl up in my lap like a child would, burying her nose in my neck.

For at least an hour we just sit here like this, not wanting to move in fear of breaking the calmest moment we’ve had in god knows how long. After a while I start absentmindedly playing with her hair and for a long time, she doesn’t seem to mind it.

She nuzzles my neck and starts to speak again.

“I wish we could be like this… I wish you were mine.” the statement nearly brings me to tears but I bite back the sob, for her sake. I wish you still believed the truth. I move to hug her, trying to express all the emotion that I can in the small action.

“I am yours… I wish I knew how to take back everything Chloe’s made you believe.” she moves away from my neck to look at me when I say that, but the statement seems to fall on deaf ears. She doesn’t understand anymore.

I want to tell her how much I love her, I know she needs to hear it now more than ever. But I can’t bring myself to tell her. If I did, I would have to explain how everything Chloe has told her to believe is a lie. I would have to take her world apart and put it back together the way it’s supposed to be; I would have to heal her.

But deep down, I think we both know that we can’t heal unless we get out of this situation. So until I find a way to free us both from this god forsaken house, then she’ll just have to stay like this. Like a puzzle piece that Chloe had managed to shove together in the wrong order. One day, I swear to take back everything she’s done to us both.

“Can we stay like this a little longer?” Ellie moves to nuzzle my neck again and with it, I try to push Chloe to the back of my mind.

“Of course we can, as long as you want.” I know as soon as I say it, it’s a lie. Because we can’t stay here as long as we want, eventually Chloe will come back and we’ll have to come back to the horrible reality we now know. But until then, I’m fully determined to let us both escape reality; at least for a while.

Another hour or so goes by and still we don’t move. At some point, Ellie falls asleep; murmuring quietly into my neck. I can only imagine Chloe controls her world even when she’s asleep. Which is probably why she looks so worn out, I wonder when the last time she actually slept soundly was.

I carefully get up, moving her to the couch so she can sleep a little more comfortably. She sprawls out on the couch and sleeps like a child would, tossing and turning every so often. I watch her sleep for a few minutes before I’m convinced that she’ll stay asleep if I leave. I go to the bathroom quickly before going to the bedroom and grabbing a blanket from the bed. I bring it back to the living room and drape it over Ellie’s sleeping figure.

I try to maneuver myself into the spot I was sitting in before, moving her head into my lap. I was hoping it wouldn’t wake her, but unfortunately she wakes from her sleep, turning to stare up at the ceiling. Her eyes fall on me after a minute and she smiles faintly.

“Are you hungry? I can try to find some food for you.” I know it would be impossible to do without Chloe knowing I’d broken the locks she has on all the cabinets and fridge. But I’d do it, if Ellie needed me to.

“No. Don’t get us in anymore trouble.” she reaches her good hand out to boop me on the nose and for the first time in what feels like centuries, we both laugh. We settle back into this calm state after that and pretty soon she falls back to sleep. Hours go by but I can’t go to sleep like she can, I don’t want to miss a second of this; even if she’s only sleeping. It somehow still manages to bring back some of my spirit, I think a part of me is just glad she’s getting some rest. Content with just sitting here, I pass the time playing with her hair; occasionally running a hand over her skin when it’s not too painful to look at her broken state.

I lose track of the time and maybe for a while I even doze off. I don’t know how long I sleep but the sound of the front door unlocking rouses me from my sleep. I rub at my eyes before going back to playing with Ellie’s hair, like I need to do it in order to wake up better.

Before I can really wake up full enough to realize Chloe’s back, she’s standing over us; not five feet away. “Is this all you’ve been doing all day, River?” her voice finally makes me snap back into my senses and I look up at her, trying not to show my fear.

“Yeah, I just wanted to relax today.” I jump back into my character and she seems to buy it.

“Aww, you poor thing. You’ve been so stressed lately. Do you feel a little better now that you’ve had a day to relax?” She smiles that stupid smile at me and I plaster my fake smile on as she bends over to kiss my forehead.

“Yeah, it was nice.” she giggles at my reply and moves to kiss my nose.

“I’m glad, I should let you do this more often then. Come on, I have dinner. I ordered chinese food, how’s that?” I try to sound enthused, no matter what kind of meal she might have. She gets Ellie’s collar and leash and wakes her up rather roughly, simply pulling the girl out of my lap and onto the ground. I try not to break my character when a small wave of