4 Chapter 4

        A week had passed since I went to the woods. Every night since then, I've been having dreams and flashbacks.          

                                                                                    ~~~~~~

    I was playing with a little girl on the carpet. I was ten years old and the little girl was no older than seven. It was my sister. Our bedroom door swung open and there stood my father. I couldn't tell if he was drunk or high...or both. He looked at us and his mouth was moving but no sound. He then left the room and closed the door. That's when the loud arguing began for a while till I heard a bottle break. I could hear the hits land on someone's face and skin. The blows were heavy and weighted and in between each one, I heard the whimpers of a woman. get up and peek out the door slowly. It was mom on the floor...she had curled herself in a ball and she was shaking. My father was standing over her with his hands balled up.

"What happened Riley?" my sister asked behind me.

"Nothing...nothing at all. Lets go back to playing, okay?" I say as I lead her away from the door and continue playing with my sister as worry clouds my head. I'm sorry mom, I can't do anything. I'm too small. I'm sorry. I'll sit here and protect Rhea. I'm sorry.

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I woke up Saturday morning with tears running down my eyes. Rhea. It's been so long since I've thought of you and you were so young. So young. I love you so much. I miss you beyond comparison. Sad on a Saturday morning. Nothing to do but to sit in my sadness...fuck. Fuck!! That final night came back into my head. My night with them keeps replaying in my head and the white noise starts to hum as their smiles pass in my head. My sadness starts to mixes with anger. What happened that night wasn't even my Fucking fault. What was I supposed to do????

        My thoughts are interrupted by a vibration. I check my phone and see that it is 11 am. I have messages from My group chat with Zen, Alex and Malcolm and I have messages from Zen alone. The messages were basic, just saying hey and stuff. I text Zen that I'm okay, but he responded quickly saying "do you want to me come over and hang out for the day?" I don't know if that's a good idea since I really don't feel good but... he always makes me feel better. And I'm home alone. He can actually sleep over. Oh jeez wait...maybe he shouldn't. Wait what if something happens??? Like what if he says he wants to have sex, like teens do that right? Do I have condoms? Does he have condoms? ...Do we need condoms?? I text him back saying "sure, you can actually sleep over this weekend if you want to." And within two minutes, he texts back saying "um are you comfortable with that?" Yea, he makes me feel safe. But I just know it can get very explicit very fast. And I think I'm okay with that actually.   I text back saying I'm okay with it and he says he'll be over in 20 minutes. Oh shit, I should make myself look good. Um how do I look sexy?

I get up and look in the mirror and my curly hair is in a mess. I try to fix the black side, then the white side by applying product which made it curly and messy but...curly messy good???? Oh my God I'm so pale and my freckles looked weird. I never understood why they were just around my nose and eyes. Fuck, that took ten mins. I then sweep the ENTIRE HOUSE in about five minutes. Okay okay what am I going to wear? Oh I can wear tights to make my thighs and...ass look.....I can feel myself blushing. I change into black tights and a black long sleeve crop top....It looks like I'm trying too hard. I just put a regular pink long sleeve shirt and a hoodie on and zipped it down. Oh wait, we may need money to order food and stuff. I go into my Aunt's room and go into her dresser where I find her purse. I pull out all four of her credit cards. I sit down to call the number on the back of these cards to check the balance and...there is at least $900,000 on EACH card. I was getting $100 a month, if that. My phone vibrates next to me with text from Zen saying "I'm outside."

I go outside to the front gate and open the gate for Zen, allowing him to park his car next to mine. He gets out the car and wraps his long arms around my lower back and gives me a super tight hug. He let's go after five seconds to then go into the back of his car and his book bag and bags filled pull out bags.

"So I bought us candy and chips and a whole bunch of junk food so we can chill out and do whatever makes you feel better."

"Feel better?"

"I could tell something was wrong through the phone." He said. How?? Him saying that made me frown. I should've probably told him I wasn't okay and that I was really sad. So sad I want to break down actually. He rubs my back, "come on, let's go inside and talk about it." We walk into the the house and I take him to the living room where we sit across from each other on the couch. He takes out a pack of gummy worms and opens them. I'm still frowning because I feel like I lied to him.

"So what do you wanna do?" I ask.

"Anything, baby." I liked it when he called me baby.

"Seriously."

"Let's watch movies and cuddle." He says as he moves closer to me and put his arm around me. I had put my head on his shoulder and turn the TV on with the remote. For hours, we didn't even watch the movies and just talked about anything and everything. I just got lost in his eyes. We laughed and I giggled and smiled so wide. He came over and is sleeping over because I'm the one that's not okay. He's wasting his weekend on me so I can feel better. I don't deserve such an amazing person. I ordered a lot of pizzas for us and we just ate pizza and candy and it was just amazing. He's so amazing!

We made our way to my bedroom where I laid down and Zen goes to the bathroom to shower. He took his clothes out his bag and left his phone on the bed. Hmmm he left his phone. I wonder who he talks to. Not that I don't trust him, it's just...I wanna see who he talks to that's not me. I grab his phone and I use my finger print in to open it. He put my finger print in about two months ago. I go to his messages and to my surprise, Elizabeth is the forth latest text he sent. I press the messages with my finger then scroll up to read. I didn't even know she had his fucking number. The thought of them talking makes me heated. It makes my stomach feel weird and my heart beat fast. I don't like it.

The messages were Elizabeth flirting with Zen. She was calling him cute and offering to come over to his house. She wanted to "suck him off so hard, his toes curled." Oh my God, this fucking girl. These messages were from Thursday. The day Zen looked uncomfortable and I asked him what's wrong and he said nothing. I knew he was lying because he scratched his forehead. He always scratches his forehead when he lies. But why did he lie to me? His replies to his messages were him just saying "please stop..." and "I don't think Xena would be okay with this...". It's like he's scared to flat out bark at her like he obviously needs to, she won't stop. The last text which was this morning was a message from Elizabeth offering to send him nudes. I'm want to stomp her goddamn face in and I might have to. Does she not get it?? Because I could've SWORN I WARNED HER....breathe, Xena. It's okay. You'll just have send another message. And make sure this one sticks.

    I heard the shower turn off from down the hall since the pipes that ran through the whole house were a bit loud. I toss his phone back to the edge of the bed and wait for him to come back. Send a message, Xena. A strong one.  Zen walked in the room two minutes later with shorts and a baggy shirt on. His eyes were a little low so he must be tired. Cutie. He turns off the light and lays down next to me.

"Okay, so let's talk." He says. His tone was different. He was serious. I had forgotten he wanted to talk about this morning. The sadness had flooded my face and head again. I felt like I was drowning. "What's wrong?"

I miss my mom and sister. "Nothing."

"Are you lying to me?"

Yes. "No." I look away.

"Look me in the eyes and say that."

I look up and into his brown eyes. He was concerned for me. I'm not okay. "I'm not okay."

"Come." He leaned back and open his arms to me. I crawled on top of his chest, it was flat and somewhat muscular. I lay down on top of him with my head and face on his chest. I listen to his heart beat slow and hard. My thighs tangled with his as he wrapped one arm and rubbed my back with his warm hand and used the other to play with me hair. "What's wrong, Xena?"

I'm just so tired of fighting. "I've lost so much."

"Does it have to do with your mom and dad?"

My voice starts to break. "Yes."

"You haven't told me much about your dad."

"Because I hate him."

"That's fine. When you want to talk about anything, Xena. Anything at all, I'm here for you. I'm sure I'm going to be with you for a while, maybe forever but I'll always listen to you." He kissed my forehead and that made me so so unbelievably happy. I was safe in his arms and he was like my diary and I loved him even more for that. Soon Zen. Soon I'll tell you what happened that night, but not tonight. It hurts too much right now. Some comforting silence passed.

"Zen, how long have you liked me before we started dating?"

"About Six months. Why do you ask?"

"I liked you for roughly the same amount of time. We were basically Dating then too, we just didn't know.Let's just say we've been dating for six months and a week." I say as I giggle. I can feel him smiling.

"Okay,love." His voice vibrated his chest which felt good on my face. "Six months and a week." I look up at him and he looks at me. "I always loved how deep blue your eyes are. I always get lost in the ocean inside of them. It's beautiful. You're beautiful."

I'm blushing hard now, my face feels hot. I move up a bit until we are at eye level. I take my hand from his chest and pull on his bottom lip. "You are very good with your words, mister. Almost like a player. And you're really fucking cute too."

"I know." He smiles wide as I continue pulling on his lip.

"You're mine, okay? Mineeeee. All mine." I look him deep in the eyes and get somewhat lost. I was smiling for so long my cheeks started hurting. "If you try to cheat on me, I'll fucking kill you, dumb dumb." I chuckle.

"Okay, drama Queen." He's still looking at me calm as ever.

"Hey, I'm serious." I let go of his lip. "I love you, Zen. I really do."

          The moonlight pierces through the curtains and lands in his skin clear brown skin. It was like a chocolate pool. "I love you too, Xena. I really really do." He said. I can feel the meaning behind his words. He meant it. He really meant it! Zen loves me! For the first time, I lean down and kiss his lips and mouth. I kissed him and I kissed him and I kissed him and enjoyed every second of it. His hands moved to hold my thighs and rubbed them up and down slowly. I felt his fingers caress my skin while my hands held his jaw. His lips were sweet and salty from the candy and pizza. His hands went from my thighs to my stomach where he almost touched my chest. I would be lying if I said I didn't want him to. So I pushed his hand up so he cupped and squeezed my breast slightly.  I put my hand under his shirt to rub and feel his chest.  Our first kiss. My first kiss. We kissed through the whole night until I fell asleep on top of him with his arms around me and my lips on his cheek. Sweet. sweet Zen.

     My dream had changed. It was a dream of Zen and I married with kids. It was a dream of me spending the rest of my life with an amazing person and someone I would give my all for. He is my joy and contentment personified. My King.

I love you, Zen. I really really do.

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