Adelina Celine Torres
"Aaron what did I say about forcing me to hang out with you?" I say when he picks me up from Nick's. I was about to go to dinner with Phoebe, but Ronny here is needy and says he wanted to hang out with me.
Phoebe says we can do dinner tomorrow, but I still feel bad for ditching her. Not too bad, since Nick jumped at the opportunity to go to dinner with her instead, and she didn't seem upset. And I love hanging out with Aaron.
"Can we go watch a movie?" I ask him, having really badly wanted to watch the new Avatar movie. It's been out for the past three weeks and I haven't had time to see it yet.
It's been a week and a half since Ronman here saved me from his psychotic father, and I have slowly adjusted to being back to normal.
I actually found it oddly easy for me to just pretend nothing happened, which I don't think is totally great, but its whatever. Mike pulled me aside and said avoiding talking about things with Aaron will only make it worse in the future, but I ignored him.
He's a doctor, not a therapist.
His words do make me think about telling Aaron, though.
I haven't stopped having nightmares where he goes through with assaulting me in the worst way....where my fighting wasn't enough to stop him.
I shake off those thoughts as Aaron says, "Okay," He responds, making me pull out my phone and search for movie times at the cinema.
I have missed actually going to the movies. I love it. Buying overpriced popcorn, a drink, and dibs.
Oh my gosh do I love dibs. I don't know where else sells the little balls of ice cream coated in chocolate, since I have never seen them outside of the movie theater, but if anyone knows where else I can hook myself up with them, let me know.
"Is the 6:30 okay?" I ask him. It's already 6:15, so if we go straight there we should be able to make it in time.
"Yeah, please don't get seats in the front row again." He tells me.
We went to see a movie a few months ago and the only available seats were row 1, so I bought them. I didn't know how slandered I would be for it, though, or I never would have done it.
It was 'do you not see how uncomfortable this is?' or 'I am never letting you buy tickets again' or 'have you never been to a movie theater before?!' for the entire movie.
Such a baby. Sure we had to crank our necks straight up to see the screen, but there was no need to whine the whole time.
"Don't worry, I got back row middle of the theater." I show him my phone as proof. We drive for the next five minutes until we pull into a local mall with a movie theater in it.
"I am so excited for this you don't even know. Jake Sully was my childhood crush like for ever." I hold Ron's hand as we walk inside. "Who's that?"
"Have you not seen the first Avatar movie?"
He shakes his head, and I go on to explain the plot to him so he won't be confused for this movie. "So you have a crush on an alien?"
"Yes. Although I have heard that he's not as cute in this movie, at least his hair isn't." I order popcorn and dibs and a water, Ron says he doesn't want anything because its 'too overpriced', but I bet you anything he will just be eating my stuff.
I mean, he did pay for it after all.
Against my will.
Such a man, never letting the lady pay. Even when we first met he would be grumbly if I ever paid for anything, and now six months later he is still the same.
Six months.
"Did you know we have only known each other for six months?" I ask him. He nods, "Mhm." He holds my popcorn and I hold my water and dibs as we walk to our theater. "Crazy right? Like six months ago today we probably didn't even know we existed."
"I knew you existed."
"Really?"
"I mean I knew your family." He clarifies as we reach the door to theater 4. We walk in and I lead me and Ron to our seats at the top of the theater. The movie is pretty packed, so I'm lucky I was even able to get seats.
We get to our seats just as the movie starts, and I set the popcorn between us since I know Ron will want some. I also offer him some dibs, which he takes.
That's how you know I like someone, cause dibs are very scarce.
Fast forward three hours, and I am on the verge of tears at the end of the movie. "Why did they have to kill him?!" I tell Ron, who is giving me a look for crying over a movie. "Why didn't Spider die?! Why Neteyam?!" I say.
"I can't believe you're crying." He says to me.
"Have some compassion, Aaron." I sniffle, wiping a tear from my face. He just rolls his eyes, "Come on we are the last people here because of your little meltdown."
I smack him, lightly. "Stop being mean because you're jealous of how hot Jake Sully is."
"Im not-- come on." he says, getting up and taking the empty popcorn bin with my empty dibs and water bottle in it.
We exit the theater and throw away our trash, and I am thrown off at how dark it is outside. I knew it would be night time, but it's so trippy walking into the movies during the day and out when it's dark.
I take Ron's hand in mine as we walk to his car, "Did you like it?" I ask him.
He nods, "Better than I thought."
"The next one comes out in 2025, so we got a little bit of waiting time." I tell him. We reach his car and I climb into the passenger seat, buckling up for his crazy driving.
Ron is infamous for going 20 over the speed limit constantly. He claims he doesn't like driving slow, and that going faster makes him get there faster, so why would he drive the speed limit?
My response was safety, to which he rolled his eyes.
"My house?" He asks me, "Duh" I respond.
I roll down the windows and play some country music as we drive, but more like pop country since I am in the mood to sing.
I almost stick my head out of the window, then remember what happened to that girl in that horror movie Ron made me watch months ago, so I don't. I am out of breath when we reach his place, my hair insanely wild and my face feeling super dry from the cold outside air being blown on it.
"One day I will get you to sing with me."
Cue a look.
"Are you not secure in your masculinity? Is that it?" I ask when we get out of the car, knowing me asking that will make him crazy. "You got me." He says, "I knew it." I respond.
We walk into his house and I flop on the couch, my stomach feeling weird, probably from all of the triple butter movie theater popcorn I just ate.
Ron follows, slowly climbing over me. "Aaron, we are in a public place." I remind him when he leans down and kisses me.
"Everyone is at a work dinner." He responds. I give him a look, "Did you skip a work dinner?"
He shrugs, "I didn't want to go."
Antisocial.
He kisses me again and I wrap my arms around his neck, having missed this feeling. We have kissed over the past week, but that's about it, and even then our kisses haven't been super passionate or anything.
He hasn't tried to do anything more, and neither have I.
I think I would be fine to, but at the same time there's a little fear inside of me. Not fear necessarily, but... trauma? I don't know. Can someone have sex trauma? Sounds legit.
Or am I crazy and making stuff up?
Either way, guilt weighs down on my conscience for not being completely open with Ron, so when his hands pull at my shirt I stop him.
"Aaron," I say, "I...I'm a little scared to do anything." I say, feeling awful. Aaron didn't hurt me, Aaron has never done anything to me that I was even slightly uncomfortable with, so why am I even nervous with him? Shouldn't I only be scared with people I think will hurt me?
He pauses and pulls away from me and I sit up. "Scared?" he says, his voice sounding confused. Aaron knows Tread or whatever his name is would hurt me, but me and Mike never mentioned what his father did.
As far as Aaron knows, I only interacted with Tread.
I sit there for a few seconds, trying to put together words to tell him. "Not of you," I start with, "It's just...I..." I mess up my words, and I know my face is red.
"Your father...he..." I trail off, then glance to Aaron who completely tenses at my words. I can tell that I don't even have to finish my sentence: he already knows what I was about to say.
"I mean I'm fine, I guess I'm just a little nervous ya know. I want to, but I just wanted to let you know before." I say, since I don't want him to think I don't want this or anything.
"Fuck Adelina," He says, not looking at me. "Why didn't you tell me before?" He finally looks at my eyes, and I see the hurt in his.
Not just hurt, but guilt.
"I didn't want to make it a big deal. He didn't really do...that..he just tried to and—I'm sorry." I respond.
He takes a second to respond, and I can tell his whole body is tensed from what I told him.
"Well it is a big deal," He says, "I want to be there for you, but I can't if you keep things from me."
"I'm sorry." I say, "I should have told you..." I sit up and I look at him, his beautiful hazel eyes and his messy yet perfect dark hair.
"Fuck your nightmares..." he says, and I can tell he is deep in thought about every time I have woke up in the middle of the night close to having panic attacks this past week.
"Ronny," I say, "I am fine okay?" I give him a small smile, then hesitate to ask what I think I need to stop myself from going crazy.
"Are you... mad?"
He furrows his brows, "The fuck do you mean am I mad? I'm fucking livid Addie."
Oh.
My eyes drop to my hands, unable to look at him as an aching forms in my chest and I feel my eyes start to water. He's angry with me.
"Hey...hey Addie not at you, baby, never at you" he lifts my chin to look at him, kissing my forehead.
"At him," he clarifies, and I blink and look at his face. He looks so worried my heart melts, "Y-yeah of course" I say.
"I'm so sorry Addie" he says under his breath, and I see his eyes looking anywhere but mine. He blames him self.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down to me so that we are in a hug. "What do you want me to do Addie? Anything baby" he says, softly kissing my head.
I feel my eyes swelling with tears as memories of what happened resurface. I bury my head in his neck and try to blink them back.
"I just really hate thinking about it" I say truthfully. "It's- it's like if I just ignore it then it didn't happen."
I feel his chest move slowly against me as he breathes. "That's not good for you, Adelina" he says after a moment, "You can't keep it inside, it will tear you apart" he says just above a whisper, and it breaks me to think he is speaking from experience.
I nod against him, knowing he's right yet still feeling a lump in my throat at the thought of speaking about it. I can hardly even think about it.
We sit for a moment and I build the courage to say something. "H-he took me into that room" I say, a tear streaming down my face.
"I was dumb I- I thought he was going to let me get a bed. Maybe I was good in the b-basement and I didn't scream when they hit me s-so I earned a bed and a nice room"
Aaron sucks in a breath, his hand sliding around me to slowly rub my back.
"But then he didn't leave. H-he made me go in alone with him and I tried to not let him touch me b-but he wouldn't listen"
"I'm here" he whispers. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a second to be still, to hear Aaron's heartbeat and calm myself down.
"I remembered how you told me I was strong...and I managed to get him off of me" I say, taking a deep breath, "H-he got so mad and h-hurt me...but then he left" I nestled into Aaron to try and hide my tears.
"You are strong baby. The strongest person I know" he rubs my back slowly, "I will never forgive myself for letting this happen to you Addie" he says just above a whisper.
I slightly shake my head and try to communicate by pressing my head into him that I don't blame him whatsoever.
"Can we stay here for a long time" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
"As long as you want" he leans away from me for a moment, gently lifting his hand to wipe my tears. He looks deeply into my eyes and all I see is worry, pain, but most overbearingly love.
"Come here" he says, turning and pulling me so that I lay somewhat over him, my head resting on his chest.
He wraps his arms around my waist and holds me firm like he is scared to let me go, and I melt into him. And for the rest of the day we lay like that, his soft heartbeat being the only thing to make me feel at peace.
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