The Ties That Bind Us: (The Ties Duet Part One) Danda K. (dark academia books to read TXT) 📖

can almost see the words floating above us like they’re showing off because they know there is no taking them back now. Not even Camilla knows I can sing. I’ve never told a soul, and here I am, blurting it out over pizza with someone I’ve barely known for a week.

His eyes widen, and he leans forward in his chair, placing an elbow on the table and resting his chin on the palm of his hand. He gives me that same shit-eating grin I’ve become very accustomed to.

“What do I have to do to get you to sing for me?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

I don’t answer him right away because I know there’s nothing he can do. I give him the most honest answer I can. “Disappear?” I respond as if I’m both answering his question and asking if he’d be willing to.

I don’t want to tell him I’d never trust him enough to sing in front of him because I don’t want to offend him, but, in typical Jaxon fashion, my stubbornness just rolls off him.

Giving me an insouciant nod, he continues with his questions. I find myself a bit taken back by his lack of interest in the bomb he doesn’t know I just dropped.

“So, tell me about this list.” He grabs another slice of pizza. After taking a huge bite, he places the slice back on the plate and wipes the corners of his mouth. I’m still silent from my previous disappointment. What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I care if he doesn’t push to hear me sing? He circles his hand to gesture for me to spit it out, so I do.

“It’s just a list of places I’ve promised myself I would go.” I lean back and look around. Grabbing a napkin from the table, I begin to shred it to distract myself from the sudden turn of events. Jaxon continues to watch me.

“That sounds pretty straight forward, but why a list? Why waste time waiting? If there’s somewhere you wanna be, why not just go?”

I feel the sweat building on my neck from my nerves.

How do I explain that I’m a twenty-one year old who was abused most of my life? Whose spirit was so broken down that I couldn’t or wouldn’t leave my tormentor? How do I explain I spent most of my teenage years locked in my room, both by force and by choice?

And how do I tell him the marks my father left on my body have also marred my soul?

That there were so many nights I contemplated just ending it all because I was already dead to the world anyway.

The days I should have cried, but I was stone cold. Numb. The nights my father’s alcoholic friends would cop feels of his thirteen-year-old daughter? Some even ballsy enough to try and pry open my locked door in the middle of the night while I slept.

But I never cried. I never felt anything emotionally from my home life except numbness.

How can I look at this man who looks at the world through such a painted lens and explain to him I’ve spent my life fearing the world more than I feared the man who brutalized me?

It’s easy, I can’t. So I sum it up as simply as possible and hope to God he doesn’t pry.

“I told you, I wasn’t much of a traveler until now.” I crack my knuckles and my neck to try and ease the tension inside me. “I spent most of my time at home. Sometimes with my best friend, Milla. But I recently decided that I was gonna make good on my promise to experience all the places on my list.” I stop, hoping he won’t dig further.

He seems like he’s contemplating something. “I see...well, I, for one, think it’s great that you’re finally taking the leap.”

More like a plunge. 

He sticks his hand out, palm up as if he wants me to give him something. “Can I see it?”

I raise an eyebrow in response. “See what?”

He gives me a knowing look. I wiggle in my chair, feeling like my insides are going to implode from the pressure I’m feeling. “The list. I’m curious to see what’s on it.”

I consider it. I’ve been giving him a much harder time than he probably deserves. For the most part, he’s been patient with my frosty exterior. Yes, he gets under my skin with his sarcastic comments, but mostly I’m projecting my frustration onto him.

These conflicting feelings towards Jaxon are ones I’ve never experienced before. One moment I need to be far away from him, and the next, I crave his scent. He smells like musk and cinnamon, mixed with masculinity and sweat. I don’t know what to do with these emotions he ignites inside me.

I feel him in my darkest places, like the electric current coursing through a wire when you plug it into an outlet. He has illuminated things inside me I never knew existed. The way my body can feel him all around me, even from a distance.

I reach into my pocket and freeze, undecided.

A small part of me wants to show him my scars. I want him to see me for all that I am. I want all my broken pieces to be laid out for Jaxon to judge.

If someone with such a positive outlook on life, despite the odds, can look at what little I have to offer and still value me as a person...maybe my father was wrong. But the larger and very cynical part of me is afraid all he’ll see is a fearful and bitter shell of a woman.

One who carries so much baggage that the weight from it would likely hold him back from his own form of freedom.

I throw caution to the wind and decide to hand him the paper.

His eyes flick through the list silently, and I sit there in anticipation of his response. There seems to be no judgment on his face, just a bit of confusion.

“You’ve never been to