His cheek rubbed against hers, but his arms turned to stone and his chest expanded with a long, tense inhale. “After he smashed the doll, he pressed my face into the dirt and fucked me.” Her heart crushed instantly at the emptiness in his voice and the impact of his words. He released a slow breath and kissed her brow. “I came to grips with that a long time ago. He was the first but certainly not the last. For the next four years, many of her drug dealers turned to me when she was too stoned to put out. She OD'd when I was thirteen.”
Amber held him tightly, her hug expressing what she couldn't with her voice. When he leaned back, his eyes were clear and searching. His gentle expression filled her with heartache, but she also felt a strong surge of something else. “I'm proud of you.”
He cupped her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks as his eyes followed the movement. “Mm. Not much to be proud of, Amber. By age thirteen, I was a whore just like her.”
Her jaw stiffened, her words rushed and heated. “You were young. It was all you knew. And you broke free from it. You didn't let it kill you.”
“Don't make excuses for it.” His eyes sparked. “I don't.”
She wanted to argue, but his hard, domineering glare was back. She bit her lip, her mind swimming through everything he'd told her. “So you're trying to make a doll that doesn't break?”
His gaze traveled through the garage, probing the broken body parts. “I've tried. They all break eventually.” He laughed. “I'm convinced their hollow bodies are filled with mysterious energy, just waiting to cave in. Like dark matter. Can't fuck with science.”
She stroked a finger over his jaw, savoring the connection. “Dark matter holds the universe together.”
His lips twitched. “It also threatens to destroy it.”
Were they talking about the dolls or him? She pointed at the plastic woman and child sitting in the cabinet. “What about those two? They're not broken.”
His eyes closed, opened, and he patted her leg, lifting her to her feet as he stood. “That's enough for one day. I've got shit to do.”
More secrets then. She stared at their shiny blank faces, and they stared back, trapping their story behind painted lips. “You'll tell me when you're ready?”
He nodded and led her to the door with light steps as if he'd shed the weight of the world. So why did she feel so heavy? It was admirable what he was doing, making and breaking dolls to redeem his childhood. To redeem his mother.
But she wouldn't dress it up. He was her mirror in a way. They both carried a million cracks beneath the skin. Even under the stark light of the fluorescents, it was hard to see which of them was more broken. But for the first time, she felt like she had to vanquish her mental illness not for herself but for someone else. Because she was broken with him, and if she fixed herself, maybe she could make him a little less broken, too.
The first twenty-four hours in Van’s cabin had been both terrifying and eye opening. Amber’s surroundings and the man she shared them with challenged the routine and order she desperately clung to. Her world had become a state of nonlinear catastrophic exasperation.
As the hours bled into days, the next three weeks were very much the same. Every day was just like the first, the punishments and the tenderness, the panic attacks and the sex. She made his life hell, and he whipped her for it. She adored him, when she didn’t hate him.
He followed through on his promise to be as messy as she was clean. When she scrubbed the shower walls, he coated them with motor oil. When she picked up his socks, he decorated the house with tampons, tying the strings in knots so complicated she couldn't undo them.
Three weeks with him made her fear a little less. She still couldn't face the outdoors, yet every day he forced her out. Sometimes, he required a single step on the porch. Most days, he hauled her kicking and screaming to the tree where he whipped her and fucked her into an adrenaline-induced state of elation.
But as the weeks passed, she could still feel that intangible thing in her head, scratching against her brain like it wanted out. Something else lived in there, too, making her anxious. Her dependency on routine and straight lines was shifting. She was becoming too centered on Van.
She was aware of it, knew it was unhealthy, and still she listened for his footsteps and watched his expressions with a pounding heart. Whenever he left the house to jog in the woods or run errands, she awaited his return with an uneasy amount of panic.
Then there were his secrets. How did he get his scars? Why did he keep those dolls in the glass cabinet? Why wouldn't he tell her? She'd developed a new obsession, a dangerous one.
On day twenty-four, she sat alone in the garage at the worktable and tied off the final stitches on a doll. The body was made of leather, strong and durable, and stuffed with wool batting. She'd glued and sewed the plastic limbs and head to the leather torso. Van had painted the face with red puckered lips and twinkling blue eyes. The long straw-colored hair had taken him hours to weave.