"Hey, a falling star!" Mykel jumped at my exclamation, making a startled yelp as he jumped backward. I looked behind me grinning, a slow chuckle escaping me at the look on his face. The startled shock slowly morphed into a slow, sleek smile that spread across his face. He had been smiling more the past couple weeks, though only lately had his smiles been reaching his eyes. This smile though was the kind of smile that makes me melt. This smile reserved for me and one I had not seen in weeks. "Look," he said.  I looked back to the sky in time to see dozens more streak across the night, glowing trails lighting up the sky. I watched mesmerized, enraptured by the beauty of it all. Mykel tightened his hold on me, squeezi

I wanted to believe him so badly. His words and his tone and the softness of his touch was so foreign the concept was hard to swallow.  "What am I worth, Mykel? What have I ever done that's worth anything? I went from one abuse to another. Why would you even want me? Why do you want anything to do with some...used up whore?" The word made me sick to my stomach and tasted rancid on my tongue. I heard Mykel suck in a long breath, his nostrils flaring. "Listen to me now, Mattie, and listen well. I don't care about what you had to do back then. Do I like you were put into a situation where that was y

You're a fool, boy. You'll never deserve him. Being a whore was too good for you. You should have stayed in your box where you belong. The voice was sudden and crippling and suddenly I felt her hands around my throat. Mykel must have noticed the change in the air because when he looked at me his whole face changed.  He slowly leaned forward and stamped the blunt out before sitting back just as carefully. "Mattie?" He reached but pulled away when I tried to scamper backward and away from him, a whimper escaping me. All I saw was her face swimming before my eyes, her malicious smile spreading like cancer across her distorted face. "No. No, please." 

I remembered the way they cowered from Mykel as he spoke, glancing in my direction as if I would speak up...or if they could reach me... "You were smaller," Mykel said softly, kissing my cheek. He rested his forehead against where his lips met my skin and sighed. "I wasn't when I ran off," I countered. "Things are different now than they were then, also, Mattie," Liz said. I looked at her and shrugged. "Think about it, doll," she went on, "when you ran away, you'd had sixteen years of abuse that you dealt with every day. You were kept in a state of fear. They trained you to be afraid.

Gently she pushed me to a sitting position, her warm, smaller hands cradling my face. "I love you, Mattie. There aren't any conditions to go along with that. I don't care how much you may cry, baby, or how often you freak out. You're not a nuisance. To either of us.  "But as far as I am concerned, Mattie, you're just as much a part of me as...oh, my love...I could never just cast you aside." She thumbed away tears from my cheeks before vanquishing them from her own. "I knew what I was getting into when I hired you, Mattie. Do you think I was unprepared for what might happen bringing you here? "I brought you here, permanently, because I love you, Mattie. And I've already lost two brothers. I won't lose you, too. I'm not going anywhere." With that, she pulled me back into her embrace, repeated she loved me in a softl