My whole body tensed.
I grabbed her hand instinctively, even before I turned to look at her. I waited for more.
She continued staring at the ceiling, avoiding my gaze.
When it was obvious she wasn’t in the mood to share more than the bare bones, I tentatively asked, “Who was it?”
She smiled grimly. “The usual suspect.”
“How long did it go for?”
“I don’t remember. I was too … I don’t know, deep in denial.”
“Why’d you keep it a secret?” I propped up on my elbows. I knew before she even told me her family and friends weren’t aware of the situation.
I thought back to her awkward conversation with her father and chanted in my head, No way, no way, no bloody way. Her father did not abuse her. Because if he did, I’d have to kill him, and I was not built for prison life.
“Shit, I can’t believe I’m telling you.” She sniffed, the first tear falling down her cheek, sliding toward her ear.
I held my breath and, for the first time in my life, prayed to God. That she wouldn’t stop. That she would step out from behind those high walls she surrounded herself with, open the door, and let me in.
“I was always the tomboy, the troublemaker. I didn’t want to be the cause of yet another problem. Dumb, I know, but I was tired of being the bearer of bad news. The one who always got everyone into trouble. But at the same time, confronting him meant running the risk of everyone finding out. So I just … bottled it in. For a while, I mean. And then another thing happened …” She stopped, closing her eyes again, trying to swallow the lump in her throat and failing.
Belle wasn’t like other women. She was the type of girl who’d take her secrets to her grave. But this, already, was enough. It meant the world to me that she chose to tell me.
“The two men I trusted and loved the most turned their backs on me, each of them in his own way. This no-trusting, no-getting-attached vibe you’re getting? That’s my fuck-you to your gender, Devon. If I decide to trust again and get hurt, it’d be the end of me. This is why I keep resisting you every step of the way. Whatever you’re feeling, I feel it ten times over. But it’s not worth it for me. Either I kill my feelings or my feelings kill me.”
I brushed a thumb over her sunshine hair, tucking it behind her ear. “Darling Sweven, what’s a little death in the grand scheme of things?”
This unbearable, infuriating woman truly understood me. My quirks, my eccentric ways. Mostly, our time together was frustrating and bad. But when it was good, when the walls came down—it was the best I’d ever had.
Emmabelle turned to look at me for the first time since she started telling me her story. “Enough about me. So what made you claustrophobic, Dev? A truth for a truth. You promised to share when I gained your trust, and I think I’m there. Tell me what happened.”
And so I did.
Past.
The dumbwaiter was the size of a bookcase when I was first shoved into it, at age four.
Like a baby in the womb, it was spacious enough for me to move my limbs, but still small enough that I needed to crouch.
By age ten, my legs were too long, my arms too gangly to fit into it properly.
And at fourteen, it felt like being shoved into a sardine tin with fifteen more Devons. I could barely breathe.
The trouble was, I kept on growing and the dumbwaiter stayed the exact same size. A small measly hole.
I didn’t always hate it.
At first, as a wee boy, I even learned to appreciate it.
Spent my time thinking. About what I wanted to be when I grew up （fireman）。 And later on, about girls I liked and tricks I’d learned at fencing lessons, and what it would feel like to be a bug, or an umbrella, or a teacup.
It all went to hell one day, when I was eleven.
I’d done something particularly nasty to upset my father. Snuck into his office and stole his poker then used it as a sword to fight with a tree.
That poker was vintage and cost more than my life, my father had explained when he caught me with the thing broken in half （the tree had obviously won）。
I was thrown into the dumbwaiter for the evening.
Mummy and Cecilia were away, visiting relatives up in Yorkshire. I wanted to go with them （I never wanted to stay all by myself with Papa）， but Mummy said I couldn’t miss an entire weekend’s worth of fencing sessions with my sabreur.
“Plus, you haven’t been spending enough time with Papa. A bit of bonding time for you two is just what the doctor ordered.”
So there I was, in the dumbwaiter, thinking about what it must feel like to be a bottle carrying a letter at sea, or cracked pavement, or a coffee mug in a busy London café.