Grape Juice from Lemons

CHAPTER XXXIII

Her...

I saw someone. I saw him behind my window, behind my bathroom window, staring, observing every inch of my bare body. " You're hallucinating again, Nico. Just stop, no one would stare at you with such desire as he does. " But Max didn't know what it was like, because he was a boy.

My body isn't the most desirable, I'm already discriminated against for the color of my skin, but the way this man saw through me, as if I was nothing but a body, but a woman, it left me a feeling as if my body was just an object for him to use. As if I was a thing. As if I had no other purpose, than to serve him like a dog does it's owner.

I felt the lukewarm water pool underneath my feet as I held on to the towel flesh to my naked skin, staring at the mirror through which I saw him. Were they oblivious? Didn't they care that I saw them?

I tried to make the goosebumps that arose to my skin disappear with a blink of an eye but there was no use. Should I be as nonchalant as he is and just bluntly stare back at him? " Do it, just stare, he won't hurt you, I think. " I couldn't, I was scared. Max wasn't, Max never is ... was.

There was nothing left for me to do, but to stay calm, walk over to the door, make sure it's locked, grab my robe, drape it around my body and sit down next to Bryson and his small bathtub. I was grateful that I had invited Declan over, but the possibility of him not coming, sank deeper and deeper into my thoughts. Max mocked me as he saw my shivering body sit on the ground as he himself sat on the closed lid of the toilet.

I hated the feeling of fear or rather the vulnerability that comes with it, the helplessness, the paper-like feeling of being, breakable. I grabbed a few razors from under the sink and started gliding one along my skin, I saw the man move to get a better look at me. I felt violated and utterly disgusted for being watched without as much as a single sand grain of remorse, they were ruthless.

I started to gently break the blades off of the razor, to place inside my palm. When push comes to shove, I had something to protect me. But something in me believed he wouldn't try to break inside, something even told me, he didn't know I saw him. I liked to keep it that way.

For how long I sat on the cold floor with my bare ass was unknown, Bryson grew tired of the bath and was slowly beginning to throw a tantrum, while I couldn't even look out the window, afraid I'd still see him, observing.

But when I heard the harsh knocks behind the bathroom door, I felt my heart drop, I felt every sense in my body enlighten and Bryson stiffen beside me, almost as if he knew. I pushed him as far away from the door as possible, while I stood up myself. The robe which once was around my body was now draped around Bry to keep him warm. I knew he'd see blood if this was the stalker behind the door.

" Jack, open the damn door. " I had never been happier to hear his low voice yell at me, I had never craved for the sound of it. But when I threw the door open and pure emotion controlled my body, I threw my hand around Declan's neck and hugged him closer than the towel was. He was confused, before he hugged me back, looking at my half-dried hair, rapidly shaking body, and erratic heartbeat he decided not to pry answers out of me, although I knew he wanted to. But I wanted him close to me, to protect me, to be there for me.

After the incident, I placed clothes around myself and By and started making pancakes, without the mention of the incident. It was driving Declan mad. It drove me, because I didn't know how to feel or act. I was just .... numb.

" Talk to me, Jack. Why were you so scared? Did someone hurt you?" He didn't let the situation go. He stood next to the oven the entire time that I cooked. Every once in a while he looked over his shoulder to see what Bry was doing.