Rohan lay behind her with his arms over her caressing her stomach, he felt so contented. He breathed in her smell and had a huge urge to talk, to tell her. "I don't know where I was born, Annie."

She opened her eyes and stared into the night; he was going to talk. Annie held her breath and waited.

"I didn't know if my parents were dead or if I had brothers or sisters." He sighed, and then continued to speak, "I'm glad they're dead. I'm glad they suffered. Especially after knowing what they did to Mercer."

Annie rolled over in his arms so she could see his face in the moon light, which streamed through the crack in the curtains. She touched his cheek but she didn't say anything.

"My father beat me... gave me this." He put her fingers on the scar on his ribs. "And most of the smaller scars on my back. He beat me with his army belt. I only remember his angry eyes and the pain of the belt stinging me. I have flashes of this happening. I'm somewhere different with each picture that comes into my head. I think each scar is a different beating. My mother never stopped him."

Annie watched his Adam's apple move up and down.

"The only memory I have of her isn't very nice. I've tried to think of others. To remember if they loved me or were ever nice to me but I can't." Rohan ran his fingers lightly over Annie's face. "I walked to the door of her room. She was lying naked on the bed, her eyes rolling back in her head with a bottle of alcohol in her hand. There was a man. He wasn't my father. He was on top of her, pounding his body against hers. My father came and caught me looking through the door. I didn't know what was happening to her. I remember feeling scared for her. My father held me by the back of the neck and forced me into the room, and then made me watch. When the man was finished my father did the same thing to her. I didn't really understand what they were doing at the time but, I did later. Then he beat me, gave me this... said I was a filthy little bastard."

Rohan touched the scar on his chest again. "He broke my ribs. I couldn't breathe. I was six or seven. I don't remember much before I was seven. That's why I can't see them in my head. It's like I didn't have a life before then. But I remember all of this vividly. My mother on the bed. The man. My father and the beating. I remember going to hospital. I remember the police and I remember being taken away from them. I remember being happy about that." He laughed sarcastically. "I didn't know it at the time but I was being taken to a worse place where they didn't just beat me. They burnt me... did this to me."

His fingers moved to his backside as he sneered. "She said it was an accident... told the doctors I had fallen back on it because I was mucking around and she'd had it on the floor to iron on a towel. I tried to tell them the truth but they believed her and sent me back. Because they had questioned her about it, she blamed me and said I was a vile lair so every week she burnt me with her cigarette until that word was engraved on me. She forced me to lie still while she did it. If I didn't, he would beat me and burn me with the flame of his lighter. That's what the longer scars are. I lived there until I was fifteen. A vase got broken. He beat me so badly I thought I was going to die. His daughter broke it but she blamed me. I ran away but they caught me... the police... and made me a ward of the state. They put me in a home for troubled boys."

Rohan inhaled deeply, and then pushed Annie's hair gently behind her ear as he studied her eyes. "I was clever because I had always read. Books saved me, Annie. They took me to places I could never go. The kids, all the kids everywhere, they resented me for being clever. They beat me up, peed on me, anything they could to..." His words floated away.

Annie could see he was struggling. "Shush... no more... it's okay there's plenty of time... you don't have to..." Rohan touched her lips so she stopped talking.

"I want to Annie... I want to finish... I need to."

She nodded and let the tears she was holding back spill onto her cheeks.

"There was a teacher at the home. He encouraged me and helped me apply for university. He helped me get accepted, got me a scholarship that covered all my expenses, books, a room, everything except for food and clothes. I ate at a homeless shelter not far from the room. They gave me clothes." Rohan paused, "I thought he was my friend but after he helped me, after he organised everything, he made me..." Rohan inhaled deeply. "He made me suck his dick... was going to do other stuff to me but someone came and knocked on the door so he couldn't. I ran away and lived on the streets until I could go to that university. He came there looking for me, tried it on me again but for all the things, which had been done to me I wasn't going to let him do that."

He huffed bitterly. "I wasn't going to let that happen to me, Annie, and it was the first time in my life I'd fought back. I hit him. I hit him so hard he never came near me again."

Rohan looked down at her and saw that she was smiling gently through her tears.

"By the time I went to university, I was this man who couldn't trust people, talk to them and though the beatings stopped I've been continually ridiculed for the way I look, the clothes I wore, the way I react to people and how well I did in my studies."

He chuckled a little and touched her face. "People don't like it if you're cleverer than them. Especially if you're someone who behaves and dresses like me." Rohan wiped away her tears and kissed her eyes. "Don't cry, Annie. It's okay... I'm okay."

He held her close and continued, "It took me six years to finish my degree. I couldn't study full time because I had no money. The scholarship given include money. My major is Molecular Biology. It overlaps with Biochemistry and Genetics. DNA and RNA research and stuff like that." He looked at Annie's face again, her wide eyes staring at him. He chuckled. "None of that means anything to you, does it?"

Annie was glad to see him smiling so she gave him a silly grin and shook her head. "You lost me at, my major is." They laughed together.

He stroked her face again. "I've been working at Sykes for a year. It's my first real job. Just testing blood and urine samples mostly, nothing to do with my field but I needed the money. I've never had much until now so I've always had to get my clothes from lifeline and places like that. I don't know how to dress so the people... those women, Sally and Mercer, always intimidated me just like everyone else about the way I looked, the way I dressed. Some of the men in the lab did things too like put shit on my desk. I've always ignored it because it's nothing new to me."

Rohan swallowed and kissed Annie lightly on the forehead, and then ran his hand over her hair and down to her neck. "I resigned myself to the fact that's how my life was going to be, until I went into Ruby's. I was running away that day, from Sally and Mercer because they always liked to embarrass me."

He sighed and smiled gently. "You were there, Annie, looking at me with your big blue eyes and being nice to me. You gave me hope. Hope that I wasn't vile and that there was someone out there who could look inside of me and see who I really was. You gave me a reason, Annie, and everyone needs a reason more than anything else in the world to keep them searching for where they belong."

Rohan broke down. He rolled away from her, gripped his hair tightly, and then let out an intense howl as if bringing all his demons and all of his pain and suffering up from the depths of his soul.

Annie pulled herself higher and cradled him against her. She rocked gently backwards and forwards until he was quiet. She slid down in the bed and wrapped herself up in him. Annie Mitchell belonged to Rohan Wayland. Heart, soul and body. "We'll work it out, Rohan. We'll work it out."

She had said that before. Rohan knew, with her beside him, they would. "I love you, Annie. You've moulded me into a man. A real man. The man I was meant to be."

Rohan has come a long way from his horrific beginnings.

If only there was an Annie out there for everyone the world would be a better place. ♥♥

I hope you enjoyed, 'The Evolution of Rohan Wayland'.

Thank you so much for your support. You will find a dedication on the next page and an explanation of why I wrote this book.  ♥♥

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