Vulnerable: Book 1 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

31: The Ghosts of My Past

When I finally calmed down, we walked back over to his bed, sitting down on it as he held me close still.

"It was my fault," I whispered against him. "I started it."

"I highly doubt it."

I shook my head. "You just don't want to think that I'm a bad person."

He brushed away the remaining wetness from my cheek. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

Pursing my lips, I said, "You don't want to hear about my ex."

"Maybe hearing what he did to you will anger me. But if you are ever to trust me, I think you need to get it off your chest."

"And what if you realise it really was my fault? Then what?"

"Nothing you have done in the past will change how I feel. I promise you. I just want you to voice whatever it is that you carry with you."

I buried my head into his chest, listening to the calming beat of his heart for a while. He pressed his lips to my hair, tracing his fingers up and down my back.

Eventually, I decided 'fuck it'. If he hates me after this, then he hates me. But there was no coming back. And better get it over with now then later. So I began to talk.

"Jacob and I started dating because we were the last of our friends not in a relationship. It wasn't really that we were overly crazy about each other, yet everyone else had paired up. He had... done everything before. But I was still a virgin, feeling the pressure from my peers to get my first time over with. And it wasn't that first time that I guess still affects me. It was terrible, to be honest. Over way too quickly and painful. But everyone's first times are generally terrible so I hear. But it never really got better. 

"Nonetheless, I always was open to doing it. Because when we had sex, he would be nicer to me for a while. He was more affectionate the more often we did it and I craved that kinder side from him. But then one night we were at a party. He had convinced his brother to buy us alcohol and we got pretty drunk. He wanted to do it again and at first I agreed, thinking it was best to just get it over with and maybe he would stick around and hold me for the night. But..." My stomach began to tense as the memories became vivid in my mind.

Ben pressed his lips onto my forehead. He hadn't felt any disgust for me yet, only worry, and that is what gave me the courage to keep going.

"I agreed to do it. But halfway through I began to feel really sick. And I asked him to stop..."

I didn't continue. Ben held me tighter, rage pouring through him. "Tell me he stopped."

"He told me to hold on and that he was nearly finished. He held me down until he had and then I puked all over him. He left me to clean up the mess."

"That arsehole."

"I consented to begin with," I said in a small voice.

"That doesn't give him the right to continue if you say no halfway through."

I didn't know how to feel about what Ben was saying. I had spent so long trying to justify what had happened... to tell myself my emotions and disgust was an effect of my own doing. That it was something broken within me that expected more false romance, when relationships weren't meant to be like that.

"What happened after that?" he asked when I didn't speak for a while.

"I cried for a long time and one of my friends walked in. She tried to comfort me and I told her what happened."

"What did she say?"

"That this is what guys do. That if I don't want it, I need to not lead him on to begin with. Because once they start, they need to finish."