Sins On The Skin

III.

"He asked about you, yesterday." The high-pitched female voice said from the other side of the phone. Gwen had known that the announcement was bound to arrive at some point but what she hadn't anticipated was that it would come while she was in a public place, while she was trying to act as mundane and domestic as possible. She had imagined herself holed-up in her bed, with all the alarms she had managed to get her hands on turned on and all the windows locked shut.

Not this.

Never this.

Cold sweat broke all over her body, despite the fact that the hot chocolate had practically burned her insides as it went down her delicate throat and reached her empty stomach. Her fingers struggled to keep their grasp on the phone, the tremors sizing her body, causing her to forget how to breathe. She kept her eyes nailed to the little triangular table of the coffeehouse, not ready to handle eye contact with any stranger that would see her as nothing but a damsel facing a bloody crisis.

"What did you tell him?" It's alright, she whispered to herself as she regained her mental consciousness, it's all going to be just fine.

He can't hurt you anymore, she reminded herself but she was not able to sound reassuring, no one can.

"The truth. That I had no idea where you were." Gwen ran a hand through her hair, relief flooding her entire being, like the oxygen that flowed through her veins, surely and quietly. Perfectly. "You can't keep on living like this, Nadia. Seth told us about your silly little fight but I'm one hundred percent sure you can work whatever happened out." Gwen stiffened at the mention of her given name, the change in her stance apparent even through the phone. But her friend didn't know she wanted nothing to do with the woman that name decorated and so, she didn't understand why the coldness that took over Gwen's being managed to travel through the device .

"He loves you."

I wish I could say that it isn't true. She wanted to say, but something held her back, I wish I could say that he didn't care, that he didn't love me or to admit that at least, he thought he loved me so hard. A chocked whimper tore her throat apart but it was so small, so practically soundless that it hid her distressed state under a blank mask. To a passer-by the whimper appeared as nothing more than a gasp caused by the sound of the newest gossip reaching her elfin ears.

Why exactly had she decided to keep in touch with Sophie, again? Besides the fact that they had been friends since their middle-school years not much brought them together, anymore. Once upon a time, they had been practically glued to each other. Those were the good times, the times when they read the same books, loved the same movies, drooled after the same celebrities but they grew up, eventually, and ended up following different paths, it was completely normal. Completely expected.

Not for Gwen, she had a thing for filling her mind with the false hope that people were going to stick around forever, but it a natural order that most things followed in life.

Sophie had ended up marrying her high-school sweetheart, living a vainglorious life in the suburbs and shopping like there was no tomorrow just to fill her otherwise meaningless hours. She laughed at snark remarks her new friends made and smiled prettily whenever she wanted Luke, her husband, to give in to one of her wants.

Gwen on the other hand, had run far far away from her old environment, leaving the diamond necklaces and the platinum bracelets behind, knowing that they worked the same way as handcuffs did. They were a small, subtle way for Seth to ensure her captivity.

As if a wild animal could be tamed.

Seth didnt know that the lion doesn't turn into a kitten just at the promise of luxury or blackmail and guilt.