Stuff It

Chapter 50

Dry lightening clapped across the skies in a flash of light followed by a thunderous roar that simply seemed to go on and on in Nina's sensitised ears. Ears Dash leaned down to lovingly brush his moist lips against.

Nina looked on at him in stunned disbelief. She was not broken. Not sharing her past did not make her broken. What was there to tell anyway? That she had been in the accident that saw her parents killed. That it had not actually been an accident at all.

The thunder rumbled overhead.

It had been raining that day too. A light drizzle of water but that said nothing of the lighting that had rained down on them. It had been a dry storm, just like this night. The slightest shiver went up Nina's spine at the clear recollection. She had been in the back seat. All strapped in tight. Watching the drama unfold both outside the vehicle and within.

It had appeared at first just like all the other fights between her mama and papa. The shouting, the yelling, the abusive slurs, it had all been a common enough exchange between the two.  Nina had seen nothing wrong by it. She'd been more fascinated in glancing out the window at the spectacle of lights God had taken so kindly to display across the skies for her enjoyment. She hadn't really feared the lighting. Not back then.

A tree was struck and split in half right in their path. There had been time for them to sverve around it. But they didn't.

A quick glance at her papa had shown her his sudden intention even if it had been too late to do more than scream in mindless terror. His swift glance at her mama's terrified face had said it all. It had not been comfort or remorse when he'd glanced at her. It had been pure malicious intent.

And then he'd done the right thing to swerve away from the crashing tree trunk but he'd chosen to send the car and all of them in it down the ravine instead.

It had been hours before she'd been found. The sun had been up in skies and shinning brightly down at her. She felt its scorching heat. The work on removing the fallen tree trunk off the road had already been well underway. Nina hadn't thought anyone would look down the ravine to spot her. Her state of shock hadn't relented in the hours past to do more than grunt out pain so calling out for help hadn't been an option.

Her dad had killed her mum.

And himself too. She didn't think he had intended for her to get hurt. He had, like always, simply forgotten she had been there at all. In the backseat, she had been easily enough overlooked. In the heat of their fights they had often enough forgotten all about her. So that time had surely been nothing different.

A shout had rang out from above. Someone had finally spotted the wreck. Her worried conciousness had lingered long enough to mark the footsteps of the arrival of help. She'd seen a pair of worn runners and just as worn old jeans before the figure had crouched to peer in.

Nina had closed her eyes then and left things to run their course.

When she'd been admitted to the hospital she'd said nothing. When the accident had been scratched off the list as anything else, she'd said nothing. And when she'd recovered enough to get discharged to the orphanage, she'd said nothing then either. Instead she'd toughened up and not let fate rule her... for as long as she could.

Getting adopted had been the last straw... or so she'd thought at that time. It hadn't mattered that the Aurora's were a nice couple. They'd pick her for nothing more than her name. The Aurora's had their silly 'N' fetish. And to have a letter of the freaking alphabet decide her fate so decidedly had been the last straw. The last little nudge she'd need to finally meet run away and break down.

Only she hadn't run all that far.

And it had taken that smug arrogance of an overindulged boy to put everything into perspective. Just like that her motive to live hadn't been to simply live but it had been to strive to return taunt for taunt and arrogance for arrogance.

Dash had given her purpose. A belonging. He had been there. The one surity lingering on even as her adoptive parents passed on... in a freak road accident of all things.  The sense of dejavu had rocked the balance terribly at that time but just knowing Dash would be there, had been enough. Enough to hold her strong.

Strong enough to let him go. Seeing him in the arms of all those women had been hard but seeing anything else had been harder still. And all this time, Dash had instinctively known this. Known and not pushed. Well not really push. He did do his best to taunt her to near mindlessness about them. And she'd let him because an alternative had been impossible to comprehend.

Now he'd declared to the world that she was his and he was waiting for her to do the same. To open up and let him in.

But could she open up to him? Would he want her still? Would he see her as his mother did? Totally jinxed and terribly accursed?

Or would he simply love her back. But most importantly did she deserve his love?