Good Girl

Writers' Hour Magazine ‘s prompt this week: Write a piece in the genre of your choosing that begins with the line “I have to tell you”. 500 words or less. Previously unpublished.

Careful who you let in…

“I have to tell you about Aiden.”

“Yeah? What about him?” My words were sharp, like daggers down the line, and I immediately regretted the vitriol. Laura didn’t deserve it.

He did. Aiden. The man - no, the man-child - who had gotten too defensive when I’d asked him why he’d blown me off for dinner a few nights ago. Who’d been spending more time at work, and then at post-work drinks, and then boys’ weekends, and, really, anywhere but with me.

But not now.

Now he was standing on my doorstep, head dipped, lips curved in a contrite smile, his hands shoved in the pockets of his low-slung jeans and the collar of his jacket popped and skimming his stupid (chiseled) jawline.

“Can I come in?” The request was low and full of promise, and I hated (loved) that it made my heart stutter.

I could make him wait. Make him suffer. But we both knew where he’d end up eventually, so I tucked my cellphone between my chin and shoulder and stood aside to let him in.

Laura hesitated, the silence hanging. “Just tell me,” I pressed.

Aiden made no move to cross the threshold. I pulled the phone away and whispered, “C’mon, it’s getting cold.”

Still, he waited. “Aiden, come inside.”

This was good. Laura would tell me the truth about whatever shady thing or things he’d done and I could deal with it face-to-face. I should’ve listened to her when she told me her brother was bad news. When she told me not to date him. But maybe tonight was the night I finally got up the nerve to not forgive him for whatever he’d done.

Aiden’s smile broadened, that dimple in his left cheek deepening (lord help me I was going to forgive him) as he brushed past me, moving into the house trailing the scent of dead leaves and bonfire smoke, and I let him.

“...He was in the forest,” Laura said, her voice faint, and I brought the phone back to my ear as I shut the door behind him.

I twisted the deadbolt into place and then slowed, stopped, as I felt him come up behind me. He put one hand on the door next to my face, moved the hair from the back of my neck with the other, and brushed a soft kiss on my shoulder, and I let him.

“They said he must’ve been attacked,” she continued, and it took a moment for that word to cut through the haze that had clouded my thoughts. Attacked.

Laura sobbed then. An awful, anguished sound. “An animal, maybe… His throat… the blood… Viv, Aidan’s dead.”

Dead? No. He was here, and that kiss from cold lips brought with it a brief, stinging pain, and the haze grew as dark crimson ran down my arm, and off my fingertips, and dripped onto the floor…

…And I tipped my head back.

“That’s my good girl,” he growled, and bit deeper.

And I let him.