* * *
“I don’t know what the hell happened,” I tell Brianna, barely able to look her in the eyes. “Like how it escalated as quickly as it did.” My wide-eyed, beautiful woman stares back at me with untold depth in her irises. Like she’s shocked and saddened, but more than anything worried for me. Her hand is resting palm up on the corner table in the coffee shop and I’m quick to take it. Even if my hand is battered and bruised, I can hold hers.
“Have you guys—” she starts, her voice low enough that no one in this place could hear. Even though I’m all too aware Melissa is trying, cleaning mugs that don’t need to be wiped down just so she can be as close to us as possible.
I cut Bri off and tell her, “No, we got into it once or twice when he was drunk two years ago …” My breath catches in my throat, remembering how my mother was crying. She just wanted him to stop but she was afraid to get between him and the door.
He was drunk as a skunk, fighting with her and wanting to get in the car and get more beer.
“Once or twice?” Bri questions and I take in a steadying inhale.
“We had a couple rough months,” I admit to her and my thumb runs soothing circles over her knuckles. Readjusting in her seat, she faces me fully and then reaches up to my temple.
Her touch stings and it’s only then I realize I must have a cut or a bruise there near my eyebrow.
My eyes feel raw, my muscles are still tense and wound up. But I’m better now.
“I want you to tell me everything, Asher,” Brianna murmurs, peering up at me like she’s afraid I won’t.
As I lean back in the seat, it creaks. Every memory hits me, over and over. I used to not be able to sleep because of them.
Not until Bri would text me to tell her I loved her so she could sleep. And once that was over … I couldn’t sleep at all until my father had quit.
“What happened, Asher?”
Melissa comes by just as my mouth parts. “Can I get you two anything?” she asks calmly, with kindness I don’t feel I deserve right now.
I know I swung first. I know I did. I started it today.
“We’re good. Just need some privacy,” Bri answers and again readjusts, this time getting closer to me, holding my one hand with both of hers and moving it to her lap.
“You can tell me, Asher,” she says and still I hesitate. My mother doesn’t want a soul to know. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay,” she promises me and tears prick the back of my eyes because she doesn’t get it. It’s not going to be okay.
“He’s an alcoholic,” I tell her as I sniff and give in to the need of someone else just knowing. Anyone else in this whole damn world. As I lean forward, the legs of the chair scrape against the floor. “Two years ago, maybe a little more.” I swallow thickly, looking up at Bri and then dropping my gaze.
“When we were together?” she questions and she doesn’t hide the struggle to contain her emotions.
“Yeah, we were together,” I admit under my breath, staring at the table.
I expect her hand to fall, or to loosen on mine, but it tightens instead.
“Okay, two years ago, last spring?”
Nodding I look up at her to find her attention all on me, head tilted, wanting me to continue. It’s something I haven’t had in so damn long. Someone to at least listen. Even if they can’t help me. I just want someone to know.
So I tell her how Dad’s drinking got worse. How Mom was just trying to take the bottle away from him when he hit her. How instead of him realizing how bad it was getting, he just kept drinking. All day and all night. How my mother tried to stop him, how I had to step in.
How it happened once while Bri was outside and it scared the hell out of me.
I wanted to protect Bri and my mother, and my father too.
“I’m so sorry, Asher,” Bri whispers over and over as I go through that first week. I’ve thought about it so many times.
“I wanted to tell you, but you had your midterms and you wanted me to come up after …” I can barely swallow the lump in my throat so I force myself to take a sip of sweet tea.
“Asher, I would have dropped them in a heartbeat. They are nothing compared—”
“I know you would have, which I couldn’t do to you,” I admit to her. “I know you would have done anything for me. I just couldn’t have done anything for you, except keep you out of it, far fucking from all that.”