"Deal." He looked me in the eye as he repeated the word.
So he's not going to back out of it, I thought. Not exactly unusual for him, but...
"I'll go first I guess," I said.
After all these years, it should be easy for me to tell someone, right? It's not that bad...isn't it? Not as bad as it would've been.
Ash glanced down at my hands, which were gripping the cloth, crinkling it. "Are you sure?"
I nodded stiffly, forcing the words from my mouth. "Might as well." I didn't bother asking him if he'd keep his promise or not. I knew him well enough that he would.
Raising my arm, I let my cloak fall away and showed him the marks. Most had healed completely, some had faded now, but others were still somewhat prominent. A few were visible, peeking out from under the bandage.
I traced a long pale scar that stretched from my elbow and up my forearm. "This one was from dropping a barrel."
He looked confused for a moment. "How did you manage to hurt yourself just by dropping a barrel?"
"I'll get to that in a second," I said faintly, steeling myself. I pointed to another small one on the back of my left hand. "That was from accidentally letting the horses out too early. I got this after coming home late for the second time."
I named and described the different scars that crisscrossed my body, not explaining why they were related to each other until I was done. I'd thought that I'd already forgotten most of them, as they weren't visible anymore, but I named every single one.
Every single one.
They were permanent reminders of my failures. Even if they faded on my skin, I'd still remember them in my mind. And the pain that had accompanied them.
My voice trembled slightly and I forced it to become steady. "And this last one was because I lost in the training competition that the Felines have."
For the first time since I'd started talking, I looked at Ash for a second, almost afraid to see what was there.
He appeared calm on the outside, his face calm with a tinge of worry. His hands were silently tapping the chair's arm repeatedly but his breathing was still slow and even. He might've already guessed where I was going with this.
"All of these," I concluded softly, clenching my hands together. "Were either directly or indirectly caused by...by my paren -- " I broke off, my throat closing up, and tried again. "By -- by my par -- " Coughing, I cleared my throat and opened my mouth, determined to say it.
I had to say it.
Time was running out. Tick tock.
I had to say it to him.
"My -- "
Ash put his hand over mine and I abruptly halted. "That's enough," he said quietly, not a trace of malice in his words. "You can stop now."
Without realizing it, I'd started tearing up somewhere in the middle while I'd been talking. I took a shuddering breath, looking up, and focusing on the ceiling to prevent the tears from falling. I will not cry, I said to myself. I will not cry. I will not...
"That's why you have all these scars?" Ash said, his voice barely audible.
I smiled bitterly in a self-deprecating way, quoting what my parents had drilled into my mind long ago. "These scars are reminders of what happens if you fail. Reminders so you don't do it again. Ever."
His eyes were shadowed and had a dark look in them even without his hood up. He had looked like that when he'd found Dakota over me in Sora's mansion.
Wanting to defuse the situation, I shrugged it off like it was no big deal. Which I regretted when my shoulder protested. "I'm over it now. In a way, they really did teach me something I guess. I learned how to defend myself after a while."
Ash glanced at my arm, this time at the scars on my wrist from then. Those were self-inflicted, the consequences of my parents always degrading me over every little thing. "Why? Why did your parents do this to you?"
"It's a long story," I started, the weight of what I was about to do suffocating me. "One that I might as well say since you know almost everything already.
"Mother had been trying to have another boy to help out around the farm since later on, Mike and Erin would leave. But they couldn't, so since they were poor and my parents were desperate for a child, Father asked anyone and everyone for help."
You're giving too much away, an instinct hissed at the back of my mind. I ignored it.
"I don't know all the details, but my parents spent the last of their savings on another solution. There was a different couple who were expecting a child -- a baby boy -- that they didn't want. They were going to abandon the baby once it was born. A deal was made, and -- "
Stop! The instinct repeated. I felt sick all of a sudden as I was about to spill the biggest secret I'd kept to myself for years. The reason why they hated me.
"As soon as the baby was born, custody would be handed over to Mother and Father. There was no backing out now, the deal was set in stone. The last of the money had been spent. Everything was ready. My parents would get the family they'd always wanted and the couple would be rid of a nuisance and disappear."
Don't do it, I was warned one last time. Last chance to stop this from being said.
The night at the inn on the way to the Serpentine camp, before I was abducted, I had a vision of it. The whole story had played out for me from beginning to end, perhaps a way for the deities to make our jobs harder. My father had whispered the words to me before I'd left, words so quiet that I hadn't heard or recalled them. Somewhere in my mind, the words had been captured so later I could be tormented in my dreams.
"Except the baby was a girl."
(Side Note: Well...yeah. Sorry for the short chapter/update and that Ash's secret hasn't been said yet, but what do you think? Mel's been going through a lot of stuff...)