When We Were Still Human Vaughn Foster (the kiss of deception read online .txt) 📖

ideas of what was wrong with me. They couldn’t get why someone ‘so young’ and who had ‘so much’ was so unhappy. It didn’t really matter what they said or how much they prescribed; I just know I started falling apart when I stopped dreaming.

“On top of that, I wasn’t… the best kid in the world.” Her cheeks flushed and a hand absently brushed back loose strands of hair. “I was the girl smoking in the bathroom at school. I was the one who’d sneak out at night to go to a party. I always got invites, but I never went for my friends. I went to get drunk. It was the only way I felt alive.

“As the years went on, my parents gave up. They were positive and supportive, but their patience eventually wore out. I could see through their fake smiles. They were always thinking the same thing:

Our daughter’s broken.

We don’t know what else to do.

She’s a wreck.

Will she ever be normal?

“When I was sixteen, we moved to Columbia. I don’t know why, but I started feeling better. There was something about South America I actually liked. The weather, the music, the food, I mean everything was perfect. My parents still didn’t trust me, but I didn’t care; for the first time in years I felt... solid.

“But then I, umm, I met this guy... Julian. I don’t know what it was, but as soon as I saw him, something clicked. He was a senior, straight-A student, son of lawyers. And he was hot. My parents probably fell for him faster than I did. They always told me that I finally found a good one; maybe I could start moving forward with my life. I should have been insulted with them implying that a prince charming could fix me, but I didn’t care. I believed it.

“Then he- he umm…” Avia wiped her face and took a deep breath. She placed her right hand over her left to keep it from shaking, then straightened her back. “He started asking for stuff. At first, I said I didn’t want to, and he seemed to respect that. But as the months went by, he got more insistent. Eventually I- I gave in and we umm... did it.”

Avia paused, looking up to see if some reaction crossed her friend’s face. Disappointment? Shock? He only blinked. His body was still, attentive to every word she had to say. She didn’t know why she’d expected anything else. Cheshire practically knew everything about her already, and that included her sex life.  If she ever found herself talking about a cute guy, he would simply nod his head, a thousand miles away. He never pried or asked questions. In fact, the topic seemed to completely disinterest him. On the occasions a guy would come back to the condo, Cheshire would take on his natural feline appearance and continue his nap without a care in the world.

“Like, at first, it was amazing,” Avia continued. “I was living in the most perfect city in the world and I was dating an amazing guy. More than all that, my parents were starting to look at me like a normal teenager. But then... I don’t know if he’d always been like that and I’d been too lovestruck to see it, or what, but Julian started to change. He started getting clingy, always needing me with him.

“I didn’t tell my parents everything, but I told them he was getting obsessive and that I wanted to break it off.” Avia’s despondence became a scowl and her hand tightened around the bottle. “You would’ve thought I told them I wanted to drop out of school and start stripping. My mom lost it, going on about how I was finally getting better and that I’d finally done something right. To my parents, Julian was the one drug that finally worked. I started to think that they were right, so I stuck it out.”

She bit down on her lip and ran her hands down her face. She could feel her breath shorten and fought to stop her lungs from spasming. Closing her eyes, Avia took another deep drink of her beer before looking back to Cheshire.

“Even when the verbal abuse started, I couldn’t leave, could I?” she spat. Her knuckles turned white around glass.  “Bitch, slut, they all became the norm. The really shitty thing was he never raised his voice or got upset. Whenever I’d try to stand up for myself, he made it sound like I was being dramatic. What hurt the most was when he called me hueco— it’s Spanish for hollow. Same thing I’d gotten from my parents— without him I was incomplete.

“When it got physical, I told my dad. I expected him to, ya know, be a dad. He should’ve protected me. He should’ve gotten his gun and marched over to Julian’s, or something. But what happened?!” She smashed the bottle onto the floor. Her face flared bright red as anger consumed her every feature. “He fucking punched a hole in the wall, furious that I would lie to him! My parents didn’t believe that I could be telling the truth for one second. But why would they? Julian was the model of perfection, and I was just a problem child without him.” Avia threw her hands up in defeat. She took a deep breath and shook her head. It was almost a relief to see Cheshire still hadn’t moved. His expression was unreadable but showed undivided attention.

“It went on a few more months,” Avia said with a shrug. “Until I finally said enough was enough: I said no. He didn’t care and fucked me anyway, but I actually said it, ya know?” She stared Cheshire directly in the eye. “The physical and verbal attacks got worse until he finally lost it. It was the first time I actually saw him snap.