"Put that down, Connie." Steven scolded as she picked up her phone.
"Fuck you. Jesus has anyone ever told you how frustrating you are?"
"Have I ever told you how frustrating you are? You've gotta have some idea of how infuriating you are." He irritated her to no end and she let him know how much he did every day. It was exhausting. Her parents had moved to Florida the year after graduation and that meant the only person who could truly help her was him. She refused a therapist. He tried being nice, but that never really helped. She saw niceness as weakness. He intended to fix that, but later. For now, he would speak in her language.
"I know who you're texting." She looked up at him and turned on the phone anyways. "He's a fucking piece of shit."
"You don't even know him." She murmured as she unlocked it. "And it's MY phone. I can talk to who I want."
"Nope, it's our phone. It's been our phone for a month now since I clearly can't trust you."
"Traitor," She murmured.
"Quit texting that guy before I kill him." His tone was serious enough to make Connie hesitate and set the phone down gently.
"I hate you," She said it with no hint of playfulness and though it hurt, Steven expected nothing less.
"You're gonna hate me for a long time if you keep testing my patience."
This was something he and Connie had done every few days for the two months since he had retaken her virginity. She had continued her unhealthy coping mechanisms just as strongly as she had when she was sleeping around. She denied anything she didn't want to acknowledge, she blew up at the smallest of things, she was so stone cold some days that Steven honestly would sit in the bathroom and cry. She was so fucking difficult. Every time he thought they were making progress, she shattered it.
He could never leave her in a room with her phone for more than 10 minutes. He had to start sleeping IN her room on the floor. She always thought she was so sneaky with her midnight escapades with god-knows-who, but he had been sleeping lightly. The first time it happened, he had a talk with her the next day. Of course, she denied it like her life depended on it. They argued and she shut herself in the bathroom for 8 hours. Steven sat on the other side of the door and just waited. It was all he could do save for breaking the door down every time she did it. She never came clean, at least, not the first few times.
She came clean without him catching her in the act when Steven had done a surprise inspection. She had scoffed at him and held her phone close to her.
"If you think I'm letting you touch my phone, you've got a fist with your name on it." She often made empty threats, and he tried to assume it was because she was growing fond of him. Though, there was a few times where she had left a nasty bruise or welt on his cheek or arms. When she made good on her threat, it only gave him more determination to fix her. More determination to help her.
"I'm not inspecting your phone, Connie." Steven said. "Come here." There were few times when Connie actually listened to a single thing Steven was saying, but in that moment she did. He moved his hands toward her to pull her closer and she flinched. It hurt and annoyed him, but he didn't let that stop him. He brought her into a tight hug and held it, hoping she'd maybe start to cry. She didn't. She didn't even hug back but she did turn into the hug and inhaled deeply. Steven did too and chuckled.
"What?" He could tell by her tone that she was already on the defensive.
"That's not the way you usually smell."
"What do you mean?"
"That's not the way you smell when you've been sweating. I've smelled you countless times after training, Connie."
"Steven, that's gross."
He raised an eyebrow. "You know what else is gross? Sleeping around with a bunch of pigs." He watched as anger, embarrassment, shock and defeat flashed across her face in under a second. "Go shower."
The second time, he was out on the porch waiting for her to come outside. He saw the pickup pull into a shielded area and turn off its engine. Clearly the driver was a fucking idiot.
Connie was all dolled up and jealousy rolled through his veins. Why couldn't she put effort into the people that love her and need her instead of the people that lust for her and want her? "Where you headed, Berry?" He meant to sound chipper, but instead he sounded bitter and angry.
Connie looked as if she was deciding on how she could run for it, but when she looked at Steven she slumped, sighed, and mumbled a curse.
"What's that?"
"I said I'm going to bed, asshole!" She slammed the door and he could hear her stomping back to the bathroom.
Shortly thereafter the pickup sped away with all its lights off. For a moment, Steven thought of chasing it, but then shook his head.
It had been nearly three days since Connie tried to sneak out after that incident. When she finally did, all Steven had to do was wait on the recliner and point her back towards the bedroom.
She trudged along and he followed her back in, shutting the door behind them.
He liked to think, though, that her attempts were slowing down due to something he had started doing.
He could tell when she was getting sex starved. He could see it in the way she walked, how much more irritable she would get. There were times they would argue and she would try to storm out but he managed to put up a blockade every time. She hadn't successfully snuck out in a week and a half, and she was becoming viscous. Every word was angry and any attempt to talk was immediately shot down.
So, he started fucking her at night.
And it worked. That's the part that surprised him.
And it wasn't the gentle lovemaking that one might think of when being someones personal rehabilitation coach. No. He rammed into her, used her and gave her orgasm after shaking orgasm. He didn't try to be gentle with her. He gave her what she wanted, and then gave her what she needed. His goal was to leave her aching, sore and exhausted.
She started having no energy to sneak out at night anymore. And at this point, he knew exactly what she liked. He was satisfying her and anytime she tried to sneak out from that point on, was to irritate Steven.
A few times, he stayed up all night waiting for her to try to escape and she never did. He felt like a single father and thanked the stars he wasn't Nora, or Greg would have been even more clueless.
It had continued like this for two months.
"Steven?"
It was late night in December and Steven had been sound asleep. "Yeah, what's up?"
She was silent for so long that he thought she had gone back to sleep, so he closed his eyes and started dosing off.
Not even two seconds passed after he closed his eyes that he heard her get up from bed. She wasn't being quiet, but in the dead silence it was hard not to hear every little sound.
He was surprised though when she laid down next to him, about 6 inches away. He opened an eye to see her curled form trying to keep warm with no blankets. "Oh, Ni-Ni." He sighed and instead of moving her closer, moved his stuff close enough that he could throw an arm over her. She tensed and stopped breathing for a moment. He was about to ask if she was okay, but then she latched onto his arm and wiggled closer to him. Steven smiled to himself as he drifted back to sleep.
Odds were, she wasn't sneaking out tonight.