Amelia
Dozing off in the car, my mind brought me back to the night before. I’d completely broken down in Nikolai’s arms, and he’d been the perfect big brother as always, soothing me, caring for me, reassuring me. He didn’t even complain when his needy little sister asked him to cuddle her throughout the night. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was a brat.
I realized in the morning just how inconsiderate I’d been in asking him to share a bed when I awakened to his morning wood pressing against me. That couldn’t have been fun for him, to try to hide a natural bodily reaction from his sister, so I’d crept out of bed and into the shower, shame burning through me.
Something was very, very wrong with me. In those first hazy moments when I’d woken up, I’d felt him poking me. I wasn’t completely naive. I’d been a regular fifteen year old when we’d left society. I knew what a morning erection was. And there was a very shameful part of me that liked feeling him behind me, believing that erection had been because he wanted me.
Of course, I’d acted like nothing had happened when Nikolai had gotten out of bed. He didn’t need to know that I’d inadvertently felt him against my ass. I didn’t want him to see that something inside of me was broken. Maybe after what our father had done, the line between what was okay between family members was just… blurred. That was all. I just needed to do normal things, like a normal girl, and I’d be healthy again.
Yeah, that was it. Find a normal routine, maybe a professional to talk to, and I’d be fine.
I sincerely hoped that was true. I think the adrenaline last night, and then the high of finally being free, had shielded me from the truth of the nightmare I’d lived through yesterday. No, my father hadn’t raped me, but he did sexually assault me, so roughly that I was bleeding by the time he finished. I wasn’t sure if that was something that I needed to have looked at, or if it was simply because I’d never inserted anything into myself before.
Just thinking about it sent shivers down my spine. A cold sweat broke out along my forehead, and I was glad that Nik had let me borrow an old pair of sunglasses he’d found in the glove compartment. While I knew he could still see me, logical thought was out the window when it came to this desperate necessity to hide myself at the moment. If the world was darker around me, I was darker in its vision. Smaller. Less likely to be seen.
I wished my father had never seen me the way he saw me yesterday.
I wished my father had never brought us to that horrible place.
I wished my father had kept me safe, instead of being the one to hurt me.
I wished I wasn’t hurting, sore and scratched and bruised in places that couldn’t be seen underneath my hair and my clothes.
I wished I didn’t feel guilty, like it was somehow all my fault.
But maybe it was. I knew it wasn’t, but it sure as shit felt that, somehow, deep down inside, I could have done something, anything, to stop it.
With that thought, I finally was claimed by a nap, the light rock lulling me to sleep as Nikolai drove us into the arms of our only remaining family.
***
“Mia,” I felt someone’s hand on me, and startled awake. “Hey, it’s just me. We’re here.”
Looking up, I saw Nik, who appeared both excited and nervous. His hands clenched and unclenched by his sides, and his mouth twisted from smiling and then grinding his teeth.
I was a little apprehensive myself. Most of the misplaced guilt I felt earlier had faded, but my anxious mood had not. I was on edge, and I wanted to retreat, wanted it to be just me and Nik again. I loved my aunt dearly, but maybe I wasn’t ready. It had been so, so long since we’d had normal interactions with someone other than each other. Would we be okay? Would she look at us with pity, or would she treat us normally?
My questions were answered soon enough, because as soon as the car door shut, Aunt Sharron flew out of the large purple Victorian home like a rocket, immediately encompassing both of us in her arms.
“My babies, oh, god, my babies are back home,” She practically yelled, squeezing so tightly I had to catch my breath when she finally let go. “Well, don’t just stand there. I have lemon cake, your favorite, as well as some iced tea. I know how much you two kids like that.”
All of my worries didn’t completely disappear, but I knew, in her embrace, that things would wind up being okay.
Her home, which had original hardwood floors, actually had plenty of space, but she’d converted all but two of the rooms into “hobby” rooms, as she called them, with the money her late wife had left her. One was a sprawling library, complete with one of those rolling ladders. One was an arts and crafts room, where she made knick knacks which she sold on etsy. My personal favorite was the glass blowing studio in her converted garage – I used to sit and watch her work in the heat for hours as a kid.
The guest room, where we dropped our bags before coming to sit in the den, was located on muğla escort the ground floor, while Aunt Sharron’s room was upstairs. It held a massive wooden bunk bed that we used to have sleepovers in – a double on the bottom, single on the top. The room connected to a bathroom, which was great for middle of the night bathroom visits I was famous for (bladder of a squirrel here, folks.)
On the red chaise sofa, I sat beside Nikolai, while Aunt Sharron took her seat across from us, setting the snacks and drinks on the mahogany coffee table between us. I tried not to think of the coffee table at my old home – the one I’d broken just yesterday.
“So,” She said, an eyebrow raised. “Who wants to start?”
Nik and I exchanged a glance, and I shrugged my shoulders.
“A few days after the last time we saw you, I came home from school to moving trucks. Dad…” I trailed off as I thought of my father. The once loving, adoring father, who had turned into someone I no longer recognized. Finally, I cleared my throat, continuing. “Dad said he found someplace better for us, where we would start a new life. Obviously, neither of us were happy with the change. We had to leave all electronics behind, so we couldn’t let anyone know.”
“Where did you go?” She asked, leaning forward, elbows on her knees.
“The place is called Serenity Farms, but it’s a cult. Everything is about what God says, through the Prophet.”
“Prophets? Place sounds lovely already.” Her eyes darted between Nik and myself. “Let me guess. Women are to be wives, in the home, barefoot in the kitchen raising babies and sex toys for their husbands?”
The last part made me wince. Nik’s hand found my shoulder, rubbing soothing circles over my shoulder blade. The touch made me jump. I knew he wasn’t our father. He’s not our father. He’s not our father. He’s not our father … I repeated to myself, but I couldn’t seem to calm down. My breathing became erratic, and the sounds of the room seemed to fade as my chest heaved and ringing began in my ears.
When I finally noticed both my aunt and my brother staring at me, my mouth opened to speak, but I found that I couldn’t.
I leapt to my feet. “Excuse me,” I finally choked out, making my way into the bathroom attached to our bedroom.
I heard Nik’s voice, a low murmur, speaking to Aunt Sharron, before footsteps approached me and a knock was on the door. I ignored it and simply turned on the tap of the large sink, splashing ice-cold water onto my face, trying to quiet down the buzzing of the memories rolling through my head.
He was gripping my head as he used me however he wanted.
I turned off the tap, and turned on the shower.
He was forcing himself into my throat.
I jumped into the frigid water, trying desperately to warm up in the home’s old pipes, not caring that I was still fully dressed.
He was ripping my pants off.
I grabbed the soap in the shower, scrubbing myself. Why couldn’t I get clean? Oh, there were clothes in my way. But I really, really didn’t want to be naked. This would have to do.
There was screaming, it was my screaming, telling him to stop, not do, don’t touch me.
Suddenly, there were arms around me, and I fought, so hard, but they wouldn’t leave.Then, suddenly, Nik was in the scalding hot shower with me, holding me to him.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe now. He’s not gonna hurt you again, okay? I’ve got you. You just let it all out, my Mia.” He reached over me and turned the water off, sinking down to the ground with me when I slid down the wall, and he didn’t say anything else, just stroked my hair as he held me.
I didn’t even realize that I was still screaming.
Nikolai
Aunt Sharron had, after seeing Amelia’s massive panic attack, given her a Xanax, which kicked in while she blow dried her hair and got into some comfortable pajamas our aunt gifted her. I held her until she passed out into a benzo-induced sleep, and after a few more minutes of holding her, I couldn’t resist kissing her cheek before I went back out into the living room, where my aunt was sitting with her face in her hands.
Against my hopes from the previous night, the past few years had not been kind to her. Worry lines were now permanently imprinted on her face, her hair was mostly grey with only a few streaks of black, and her eyes looked haunted. She was still beautiful, but something in her had hardened.
Sensing me enter, she looked up, and when she finally spoke, her tone was grave. “Sit down, Nikolai. And this time, I expect you to tell me what’s really going on.”
With a sigh, I debated whether to tell her the whole thing. I didn’t want to break Amelia’s confidence, but at the same time, I thought that she not only deserved to know, but that she may be able to help me find someone reputable to help Amelia heal.
“There wasn’t anything illegal going on at the farm, at least not that we knew of. Nothing that would endanger us, just a lot of warped thinking and brainwashing escort muğla about the will of God. I couldn’t call CPS, because Amelia was being homeschooled, was being fed, and wasn’t being abused. So I decided that we’d stay until she was eighteen, then we’d leave, since I couldn’t legally take her.”
Aunt Sharron nodded along. “I get that, but that doesn’t explain why that,” She pointed towards the room, where Amelia was resting. “Just happened.”
“I’m getting there,” I said, heaving a sigh and rubbing my eyelids. I felt a headache coming on, accompanying the pain as I thought of the events that had transpired just a mere twenty-four hours ago. “When she hit her eighteenth birthday, as much as we wanted to leave, it made sense to stay for the remaining two months so she could say she graduated. That way, she didn’t have to worry about re-acclimating to a normal life just to finish a few months of high school. She’d have as much time as she needed before starting college.”
Aunt Sharron said nothing, just watched me like a hawk as she waited on me to continue.
“In the cult, you can get married at eighteen, but most people wait until their daughters are done with schooling to arrange a marriage. That was what our father,” I paused after spitting the term out. “Said he was going to do.”
“Said?” She asked. She may be older, but she was still as sharp as a tack.
“Yes. Said.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “He was declared to become the next Prophet. The Prophet can take as many wives as he wants, but his first is always seen as his true partner. Yesterday, I was walking and heard screams coming from our father’s house. Turns out he decided…” I trailed off, trying to decide how to say this as delicately as possible. “He decided to force Amelia to become his first wife. I got there, but… I don’t know exactly what happened. She’s really shaken up, as you can see.”
Aunt Sharron had tears in her eyes, her mouth covered by her hands as she slowly shook her head. “No. No, no, no. Not my baby.”
Reaching across the table, I took one of her hands. “She’s going to be okay. I’ve got money, and I’m going to get her in to see someone. I just need help finding someone who can… who can help her.”
“What about the police?”
I shook my head. “She said she doesn’t want anything to do with him again, and that she just wanted to leave.”
My aunt nodded in understanding. “Who could do that to their own baby?”
I shrugged, as baffled as she was. “I don’t know. All I know is that she was a mess when I got there, but she put up one hell of a fight. Beat the absolute hell out of our dad.”
“That man is not your father,” She muttered angrily, standing up to pace the room, a string of expletives leaving her mouth like a sailor.
“Tell me about it. He’s permanently demoted to sperm donor status.”
She stopped pacing, and looked at me, her mouth opening and closing for a moment before she spoke. “You know, your mother always had a hard time getting pregnant with him.”
I watched as she resumed her movements back and forth across the room, more slowly this time, before eventually coming to sit beside me. “I didn’t know that.”
“They tried hormones, and after several months of it not working, one of her coworkers died in childbirth. Marina, a woman whose partner fled when he found out she was pregnant.”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s interesting and all, but what does it have to do with anything?”
She looked me directly in the eye. “Don’t you ever wonder why you look different than the rest of the family? Why your mother and sister have those bright blue eyes, your father green, and you those dark browns?”
The pieces started to click in my mind. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Marina told your mother that she wanted her son to be named Nikolai.”
I brought my fist to my mouth, biting down on my knuckle. “So I was adopted, but my birth mother, she wanted me? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Aunt Sharron’s eyes filled with compassion. “Oh, sweet Nikolai.” She placed her hand over mine. “Your mother was going to tell you when you were eighteen. She didn’t want you to grow up knowing grief and loss. Her intention wasn’t to deceive you.”
My mind was spinning. I stayed there, in shock, before thinking to ask. “What about Amelia?”
“Amelia was your mom’s miracle baby. She’d given up all hopes of getting pregnant, but she was happy. She had you, and you were the light of her life. When she got pregnant with Amelia, she couldn’t believe it. When Amelia was born, you held her before even Frederick, your father. You said, in the cutest little voice, that Amelia was your favorite, most perfect person, and you’d always take care of her.”
I smiled, thinking back those hazy early childhood memories of when Amelia first came home. I’d hovered constantly, thinking that if I wasn’t around, something bad would happen to her.
“Listen,” She said. “This doesn’t change anything, other than the fact that you muğla escort bayan know now. Even though you’re not blood, you have always been and will always be me and Amelia’s family. Okay?”
I nodded, accepting the embrace she offered. “You’ll always be the best Aunt in the world. Always. Just do me a favor.”
“Anything,” She said without hesitation.
“Let’s not tell Amelia yet. She lost her father yesterday, through his actions. She’ll never lose me, but I don’t want her to think that she will because of this. Once things have calmed down, we can all sit down and talk to her.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Aunt Sharron agreed easily to my request.
With that, we sat at the dinner table and began to dig into the steak and potatoes my Aunt Sharron prepared for us. We placed Amelia’s serving in the refrigerator, in case she woke up hungry later, although my aunt warned me she’d probably be out all night.
While we ate, Sharron caught me up on all the goings ons in her life. She’d taken a welding class, but had put off her travels in hopes we would resurface, especially now that Amelia had recently turned eighteen.
Once dinner was finished and dishes were washed, she took out some tequila and limes and made a margarita for each of us. I’d never had one before, and all I knew was that those things were deliciously strong. For the first time in so long, I was finally fully relaxed. Amelia was safe, and we were home.
“So, do you have any plans now that you’re out, or are you just going to lay low for a while?”
“A lot of it depends on what Amelia is comfortable with. Believe it or not, I did get paid to work at the farm. I managed to stash most of the money away, so I have a nice nest egg for us. Ideally, I’d like for us to find a place close by and go to college. If Amelia is not ready for that, though, I can hold off as long as need be.”
I could feel my aunt’s eyes assessing me. “You’re good to her, Nikolai. Not many siblings would go as far as you have for your sister. They would have left the second they could, and not looked back. And if they’d stayed, they wouldn’t put their own plans on hold to look out for her emotional wellbeing. Especially after finding out they aren’t related by blood.”
Shaking my head, I discarded the notion of abandoning her. “It’s not an option for me.”
A wry smile graced her lips. “I know it’s not. I’ve seen the two of you together, even since you were little. Thick as thieves, the two of you. In fact, I almost wished you hadn’t been raised as siblings. Never seen two people so perfect for each other.”
I nearly spat out the mouthful of margarita that I had. After swallowing and clearing my coughing fit, I’d come up with a response. “Not so sure how she’d feel about that one.”
“Aha!” She said, snapping her fingers. “I knew it!”
I froze. “Knew what?”
Shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly, she smirked. “Oh, nothing. I’ll let you two peabrains figure it out for yourself. If you want my advice, I’d tell her you’re not related sooner rather than later. Why torture yourselves more than necessary?”
With that, she stood and brought our empty glasses to the dishwasher.
“I’m going to bed. You kids sleep well. I’ll leave it up to you how and when you give her the news. Something tells me she’ll be more relieved than disappointed.”
And then, she was gone, leaving me with my thoughts. Had she just implied that my sweet Amelia felt the same way that I did? There was no way. She was too good for that. Too good to even consider a guy like me, who’d fucked his way through high school and then left his wife at the drop of a hat.
As I made my way to the bedroom, I found myself thinking of Rachel. How was she? Was she still at our house, or did she go back to stay with her parents? I sense of shame overwhelmed me. The ways of life there were wrong, and I was forced to take my vows, but I did vow til death do us part. Rachel didn’t deserve my deception, or to be abandoned like that. I hoped that, one day, she made her way out into the real world and found someone who would love her the way she truly deserved to be loved.
In the room, Amelia was passed out in the bottom bunk, curled up on her side. Looking at her, all thoughts of Rachel immediately dissolved. She simply no longer existed in comparison to my Mia. I took a moment to brush the hair out of her face before grabbing a pair of boxer briefs and changing in the bathroom.
When I came out, she rolled over, eyes still closed.
“Nik?” She mumbled, obviously still drugged up and half-asleep.
“It’s just me. You can go back to sleep.”
“Stay with me?”
Damn it, I couldn’t resist. I loved, more than anything, the feeling of her in my arms. So I lifted the covers and cursed inwardly. At some point during the night, she’d kicked off her pants, and all I could see were a pair of sweet lacy pink panties, which hugged the upper part of her ass perfectly and left her inverted heart-shaped cheeks bare.
Amelia was going to be the death of me.
Digging toward the foot of the bed, I found her pants and wadded them up in front of my junk. I really did not want a repeat performance of this morning, where I’d had to pretend to be asleep because she wiggled when she woke up and excited certain parts of my anatomy.