Chapter Fifty-One
Grace
We had managed to get through Mean Girls without exchanging many words. I tried to get away without speaking to him, minimizing my vocabulary to short responses or grunts of acknowledgement.
"What did you think of the movie?" Tristan asked me, resting his hand on my knee.
I stared at it in revulsion but I had to remind myself that I had to play friendly enough that he thought I might actually like him.
"It's a classic." I responded dully, finding my nails suddenly captivating.
He seemed to study me for a moment before sighing.
"Well, I thought it was stupid. Thanks for asking, Grace." He smiled sweetly at me.
I was one hundred percent done with this situation. It was hard for me not to get discouraged with everything that had happened. I was losing hope of being found- how had it taken them so long?
"Boo, you whore." I muttered under my breath, not really caring if he heard me or not.
"I suppose it was quite quotable." Tristan stated begrudgingly
I nodded, "Well, I think that's about all the excitement I can take in one night, I'm going to hit the hay." I started to move off the couch but Tristan's hand tightened on my thigh possessively.
"What are you doing?" I asked, trying not to curl my lip in disgust.
"We're not done down here. I have a few more movies lined up then I thought we could take a bath." Tristan slowly met my gaze and my heart stilled for a long second. This was the face of a psychopath.
"I don't do the whole bath thing, plus like I said, I don't kiss until marriage, so what makes you think that I'd let you bathe with me at all?" I narrowed my eyes at his audacity. But, by now, nothing about him surprised me anymore.
I cut him off as he began to speak, "You really need to respect me if you want this relationship to go anywhere." I swear my eye was twitching.
Tristan scoffed, "I do respect you. You should see what I do to those I don't." He fixed his dangerous stare on me and for a moment I lost my breath.
"Like you did to Petunia?" I whispered, frightened.
If I thought his eyes looked cold before, they were emotionless pits now.
Bad move, Grace. Now you've really done it.
Tristan inhaled and exhaled out of his nose loudly and I braced myself for the hit that I thought was coming. My eyes darted around for some sort of weapon that could help me if it came to that.
"Let me tell you a story about good old Petunia," Tristan began, seething. "When I first was brought to that wretched group home, you could bet that I was a broken, fragile little boy."
I stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
He continued, "When all I needed was to be held and comforted, she sent me to my room without my dinner regularly, because she was put off by my moping. My moping." He all but hissed.
I was dreading the rest of the story, already knowing where this tale was going to end.
"That's horrible," I mumbled, knowing he was expecting me to say something.
He gave a small nod in acknowledgement. "I was given the silent treatment and left alone to my dark bedroom right after my parents had both been killed in a car accident. I wasn't given love, hell, not even a damn hug!" He yelled.
"I grew to resent the woman. Petunia didn't even try to introduce me to potential adopters. She kept me in my room and showed off the more appealing children. I was there for years."
Tristan paused and clenched his fists together in anger, reliving the memories.
I continued to listen, feeling terrible for being curious at all.
"Until you came along," He said, giving me an appraising once over. "And we shared the same story, the same destiny. It was like we were meant to be. And when you were adopted, taken from me just like everyone else, I lost it. I told Petunia she was as useless as tits on a nun. She said some things; I said some more things, so I ended it with a bang." He grinned like the Cheshire cat.
"You beat her, didn't you? It was you after all." I said, already knowing the answer.
"But of course, my love." He said obviously. "I beat her with my old baseball bat. I thought she was dead, but apparently not. It's a pity." He examined the ceiling above him.
"How could you do something like that?" I blurted, horrified at the pictures flashing through my mind.
"Have you missed everything that I've said or are you really that dense?" Tristan snapped, annoyed.
"I don't understand how you think doing that to her would make anything better for yourself." I said quietly.
"Oh, it doesn't silly girl. It was revenge." He answered calmly.
My heart pounded in my chest violently.
I couldn't hold my tongue any longer.
"You're a monster." I whispered, slowly backing away from him.
And that's when he lunged for me.