To Be Child of God [A Merome Story]

✧Chapter 20✧

Jerome just held me for a while, arms tight around me, chin resting on top of my head. He kept his breathing calm, trying to time it with me as my sobs turned into hiccups, wiping away the tears with his thumb when they crept down my cheeks. As the sun set outside our small window he got up and drew the curtains, taking off his shoes and jacket off before climbing back beside me.

"Do you want to go to bed now?" He asked me gently, nudging me into a sitting position. I forced myself upright and took a moment to gather himself before nodding. Undoing my headscarf I let my hair fall loose, shuddering at the feeling. Ever since the honeymoon I hated seeing or even brushing my hair, because it only reminded me how much I looked like my sister. "Here, I'll brush it. Do you want me to braid it too?"

I nodded. It was an intimate moment, but I don't think I thought of it that way. I was tired and almost floating. I really wasn't grounded in reality.

Once my hair was done Jerome helped me out of my apron, shirt and long skirt, pulling a nightgown over my head. I let him. I hated that he saw my body but we had been married for several months now. I had given up on caring that he saw me when I changed because it distracted me from looking at myself and hating the way I looked even more.

His hands stayed on me. I didn't shake them off like I did most of the time, I let them stay there. He was gentle, but something about the mood was something I had never experienced before. It wasn't calm- there was tension. It took me a while to realise that it was sexual tension, because I didn't really realise it.

"Mitch?" He whispered, playing with my nightgown. "Do you want it?"

And for some reason, I nodded.

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But then I was lying there. It was as if I had never actually been present in the situation, it was someone else running my body and acting like that. I had said yes, I had wanted it, but it felt so wrong. I felt as if I had been watching this whole thing play out as a bystander, watching from the sidelines rather than being an active participant. Disassociation, they later said. But it didn't matter to me then.

Jerome was still laying on me, one hand on my chest and the other behind my back. Everything about his touch felt so wrong now, like he was a stranger and I didn't even know my own body- I had told him this was okay, but now I wasn't okay. Oh God, I couldn't do this. I couldn't do this-

Forcing myself out from underneath him I pulled on a shawl over my nightgown and wrapped my skirt around me, not even caring about doing it up properly. I heard Jerome cry out, my name I think, but I didn't hear him. I opened the door and ran down the hall, down the stairs, out onto the gravel pathway. The stones burned my bare feet but I didn't care about that either. I ran. I ran with no direction.

I think, subconsciously, my brain directed me where to go. I had no intention of ending up there but when I collapsed in the green bean field where I first met Jerome, I wasn't entirely surprised. It was just where I ended up. I collapsed and I sobbed into the sleeves of my dress. I cried like I never had before.

I felt disgusting. I never wanted this body but it had been mine all of my life and now it felt like it belonged to someone else. I had wanted to change it, rid it of the things that made me feminine, but now I wanted to get rid of it entirely. My legs shook, my breathing came in short, sharp gasps.

But then a voice called out-

"Charity?"

I startled so much that I physically jumped but I knew it wasn't Jerome. I recognised her voice and knew after just a moment that it was Susanna. I had no idea why she was out here at this time of night but she may have seen me run from the building, as her room was just down the hall from my own.

"Charity darling, are you alright?" She said soothing, crouching down beside my sobbing self. I didn't even try to calm myself. "Sweetheart, come here."

She wrapped her arms around me and, for once, I felt like she understood. We had only been friends because we were apart of the same group and we would be married about the same time, but in these actions she more like a mother than a friend. She seemed to know exactly what to do.

For a little while, Susanna just held me. She let me cry, she let me ugly sob into her shoulder but when I was exhausted and my eyes were fluttering closed, her hand gently touched my stomach.

"I know you've been having a hard time." She said gently. "Did you lose a child?"

I was so shocked that I didn't even answer. I think she took that as a yes because she smiled sadly, hugging me tighter.

"I lost my baby too." She murmured, pulling back so I could see her own stomach. Where there had once been a bump... it was almost gone. "We do not know if she was a boy or a girl, but I lost her all the same. I know it is hard."

I only nodded slowly. I just accepted it. It was a ready made excuse, honestly, and although I was still filtered between reality and some far off place in the back of my head, I had enough to know I should take this and run with it. I leaned back against her and closed my eyes.

For a little while, even though it may have only been a few minutes, I was able to clear my mind. I forgot about my internal dilemma, about Lachlan and Vikk and Rob and Preston, about the choice I had to make. About Faith and her marriage. And for a moment, I didn't realise the possible consequences of what had happened in the last hour. I forgot. For a while, I completely forgot.