To Keep You

Fourteen: Chaya

"When I see you, I don't see a woman, I see a field filled with freshly bloomed flowers, and their petals glowing within the morning sun's light."

Those itsy-bitsy words did little to fantasize me, for what am I? A schoolgirl in search of love from a boy who can't even spell my name? Like the lave in Mauna Loa, I began to shake violently as anger boiled within the very blood in the veins that snaked around my body.

As if they were daggers, my eyes sliced upwards to meet Aaron's head on. However, he seemed unfazed by both his poetic words and my wrathful anger. Gritting my teeth, I shoved his hands away from the fresh bandages and scrambled to my feet.

"Would you all just stop it! God! I put myself in that lake to drown! Not to be saved by a criminal and be forced to now drown in this sick and twisted love! Your words aren't lovely and sweet! They're cringy, sick, and disgusting!"

I nearly wanted to scratch my own ears off just to escape their words. Between Malachi and Aaron, I feel like I'm a new toy for them. One they control, whatever they want, they force me to do.

Aaron furrowed his eye borrows, and a tight frown laced through his lips, "I have no intention of courting you, Chaya."

Hell must've frozen over for the very anger within my veins froze while my eyes dared to slice through him once more for my lips are as dirty as the murky waters of the Amazon. They have yet to speak the truth about my name, and yet here this ill statured of a man has just bluntly called me by my God-given name.

"It's Candy." I growled out in a challenge.

Shaking his head, he smirked slightly, "You mumbled your name in your sleep."

His words were filled with the truth, yet they burned like acid for what else does he know about me? Knowledge is power, so what power does he now hold over me?

Sensing my thoughts, his lips parted as if to speak but before any words could flow out the door to the shed flung open and an out of breath Malachi marched in appearing higher than high spirts upon seeing me.

Groaning, I slowly and painfully sat down on the bed, "What am I, a disco ball that everyone flocks to?"

Biting the inside of my cheek, I struggled to breathe for the bandages wrapped tightly around my ribs; it felt as if the bandages were a snake, and I, the prey it's slowly suffocating.

Aaron sighs, "Take it easy, Candy."

As he turned and stumbled out of the shed, I could not control the glare that was shadowing my eyes. All my life, I've prided myself in the knowledge that not many people know who the real Chaya Spring is, yet here this ill man has stolen a singular piece of information from me.

It displeases me to my very core.

As the door gently closed, Malachi happily approached the bed, before clumsily taking a muffin wrapped in a white cloth from his pocket, "I know what Pa said about you having no food, but you are already so small I cannot allow you to starve yourself."

As if a ghost had spoken the words, they were as soft as velvet and brushed upon my skin as the air swirled them around my body. My face remained emotionless, for truly, I didn't know how to feel. Part of me is angry that he cares for he has no right, too, and then the other part of me respects him for stealing food for me. The street rat within me sees it as a sign of honor and respect for stealing food for another is a love language to us.

However, I made no attempt to take the muffin from his outstretched hand for all I know it's drugged.

Reading my mind, Malachi shakes his head while gently placing the muffin on the bed only inches away from me, "Candy, if you want to survive, you'll going to have to learn to trust me."