Because of Us (My Best Friends Brother)

NINETEEN | Shelby.

POV | Landon

Five Years Earlier

I've been living away from home for a year now. Studying Business management wasn't all it was made out to be. I think I've done more drinking than reading since I arrived. But I'd also met Ryan. First day of class we had managed to find our way sitting next to one another. Soon after we studied together, followed by drinking together. And not long after that we realised our reasons for being here were similar.

We were both here because of our Fathers. The only difference, I hadn't spoken to mine a year more than he had his. Kind of an odd thing to bond over. But for us it worked. As our year together passed, we met Myles and Cam. By our second year we had become an unbreakable group of four. Everyone knew who we were. Especially the girls.

Young, dumb and wreck-less we made our way through a lot of them. Whether together or alone, the notches on my belt grew. The party’s became more intimate, more sinful. Drinking was no longer a priority as the atmosphere changed. Our group of four finding ourselves stumbling into what one would call a s*x party. Though it wasn’t what you would think.

It was much like a normal party, drinks and finger food. The socialising aspect was one I was used to. What I wasn’t prepared for was the girl splayed out on the recliner in the corner. With what I assumed was her partner between her legs, devouring her core like it was their last meal.

Some watched, some touched themselves while watching. The scene before me intrigued me, as it did Myles, Cam and Ryan. My first party was tame, standing off to the side as more of an observer. The second party I found myself in a room, watching a couple explore one another and voyeurism.

By the third I found myself in one of the designated corners, enjoying the company of random girls who wanted to kiss and touch. By the fourth I was committed to the freedom. I’d learnt the rules. Certain rooms were for certain things. Even if in a room, you were never obligated to do anything. Consent was key. And for someone to give me consent in such a space, it made something in me spark.

I craved control. The trust someone could willingly give me became something I lusted after. I wanted to protect, to pleasure. For someone to submit to me, trust every word, every touch. Then I met her. In a room, in a dark corner. Her bright blue eyes sparking that desire that I so deeply craved.

The hunger in me grew jealous. Jealous of the other eyes that would watch me touch her. Jealous of the ears that would listen to her cry, moan and beg. I became selfish. I finally wanted someone to myself, I wanted her to submit to me and me alone. Just us in our own world. Just Shelby and I.

She looked at me like I was her everything. She gave me all her control, all her trust. She folded into my words, bent around my desires. She completely gave herself to me. She was mine and only mine. So I claimed her and she claimed me. Love overtook lust. We fell, completely consumed with the fantasy of a first love.

At least I was. I had fallen head over heels. Every kiss, every touch. I fell more and more for this girl. I gave up the parties. I barely drank. I focused on my career, wanting nothing more than to build a life for us.

But the more I fell, the harder it got to breathe. The hole I had dug became tighter. Suffocating me in an endless pit of despair the day she changed.

When I tried to kiss her lips, she would scream. Telling me to bite them instead. I complied. When I tried to hug her, she would yell. Demanding my hands around her throat. I listened. When I tried to make love to her, she cried. Begging for chains and whips. Wanting marks on her skin to remind her of who she belonged to. I did anything to make her happy.

Part of me wanted these desires, part of me enjoyed it. Maybe that’s why I felt so guilty. But I didn’t understand what I was getting into, I didn’t understand the agreement we had made. The world I had stepped into wasn’t the one I thought it was. The parties full of respect and consent were gone.

In their place was Shelby. Her screams and demands breaking my heart. Every urge I didn’t satisfy she decided to take out on me. She stopped kissing me. Instead she would bite my skin till it bled. When I reached for her, she would push me away. Wrapping the things around my throat that I wouldn’t put on hers. The tortured skin she wanted to wear instead became my own. Her marks on me instead of mine on her.

The control I so deeply craved she ripped out from under me. No protection. No pleasure. Just like my father did, she took it all away from me. Everything I built after him she tore to shreds. And she did it with a smile on her face, all while she laid in another man’s bed.

Every little fight turned into a war. I felt stupid. I felt weak. I didn’t want to hold on but I couldn’t let go. Every time I tried, she was there. Begging and pleading for me. Telling me he was hurting her. That she couldn’t be alone, if she was she didn’t think she’d make it through the night.

Her life ended up in my hands. While mine withered away. The pain he inflicted on her she would inflict on me. A vicious cycle I was stuck in for eleven months and twenty-nine days.

I could say a year, but I didn’t want to give her that. Those last two days were mine. The only two days of freedom I had before I turned twenty-one and never saw Shelby again.

***

Present Time

I didn’t even have to look up to remember her voice. Everything around me faded away. That hole I dug all those years ago trapping me back in. Suffocating me in wet cold dirt. The only warmth I felt was radiating through my hand. I gripped Belle's thigh tighter, praying it spread. Praying it saved me from the pit I had found myself in once again.

My ears rang, blocking her out. My eyes only moved for a second as she lent down. Her fingers came into view on the white cloth before me. My jaw clenched. I wanted to break those dainty little fingers, the innocent ones that secretly held so much blood.

As the thought rushed I had to look away. I hated the way she made my anger consume me. Almost as much as I hated the sadness. I wanted to leave. I needed to. But I was frozen, trapped where I sat, unable to make a move. Scared that if I did her fingers would reach for me, touch me like they used to.

I silently prayed, focusing on the warmth in my palm. Feeling it spread across my neck and thighs as she wrapped herself around me. Protecting me with her light. My Princess. I finally looked up meeting Belle's gaze. She was here, pulling me back in. Or maybe I was pulling her to me. I wasn’t sure. But the cold hole around me became less restricting.

Instinctively I gravitated towards her lips. Needing to taste her, hoping it would ground me enough to stop the haze I had slipped under. My eyes watered, tears threatening to spill despite the sweet taste of her. I would follow her anywhere just to get another. I don’t know how or when, but when her warmth began to disappear I followed.

I followed her all the way to the car, not caring about anything but having her warmth back on me. She complied, slipping her legs over mine. Coating me in a blanket of her light. My face in her neck I inhaled her scent, like vanilla and berries. Subtle and sweet. Her warmth, her light, it was easy to let the words ‘I love you’ fall past my lips.

The pain of my past was one I had buried away. I’d pushed it down into that pit and covered it with the dirt that remained. Only I didn’t wash my hands, I was still covered in it and all the secrets it kept. The walls I had built and covered in concrete were cracking. Not only did I need to finally let it out, but I needed to let someone in.