“I’ll bring you food anyway.” She turns and leaves, a part of me smiles inside at her stubbornness that reminds me of my mother. I decide right then that my mother sent me Delia. Somehow, someway, from heaven above, my mother is watching me through her. And I believe in heaven, because I can’t mathematically prove it doesn’t exist, and because she believed in it. Right now, I need her to be there, not in the ground, dead and gone.
Once the door shuts, I pull out the note in my pocket and read a line and another and another: No matter how hard it is for you, and I know you, it will be monstrously hard, turn your cheek to the insults and attacks. Don’t let anyone make you fight. That’s not control. Losing your temper because someone else can bait you is weak. You are not weak. Dream big and live big. Use your gifts, don’t let them use you anymore than you let anyone bait you into throwing them away.
Be the man I know you can be.
Not for me.
For you.
I look up and Delia is in the room, and I don’t remember her entering. She’s hugging me and my cheeks are wet, my heart cold. It’s ice that is brittle and breaking.
***
Harper
The present…
The macaroni starts boiling over as Eric kisses me, both of us laughing as we race to attend to the stove. “So much for my impressive cooking skills,” I joke. “Now you know why I microwave TV dinners all the time.”
He grabs a strainer and takes over, dumping the water. “A little boiled over water never hurt anyone unless it gets thrown at you.” He sets the pan back on the stove. “Believe me, I know.” He walks to the fridge and returns with butter and milk. “Now we just need salt and pepper.”
“Believe me, I know?” I ask, ignoring the food, certain this ties back to his Navy SEAL days, which might be sensitive, but he opened the door for a reason.
He flips his arm over and takes my hand, running it over what feels like welts his tattoos cover. My eyes go wide at what I realize is a scar hidden beneath his ink and my gaze meets his. “Torture?”
“That’s pretty much what every day near Isaac was,” he says.
I suck in air. “Isaac did this?”
“Yes. Isaac did this.”
“How? When? Why?”
“He hated me. We had words while he was boiling water, and you get the idea.” He scoots me over and takes the packet of cheese from me. “I got this.”
“He threw the hot water on you?” I’m outraged. “Tell me I’m misunderstanding.”
“You aren’t.” He mixes everything in the pan. “Bowls are by the stove to the left. Can you grab them?”
“Eric—”
“Let’s eat, princess. We’ll talk over the gourmet mac n cheese. I’m about to hollow out here.”
Hollow out.
For some reason, I get the feeling those words mean more to him than hunger. They mean a lifetime of pain. They mean survival. Eager to talk to him, to understand him, I grab the bowls and a few minutes later, we’re upstairs on the chair we were on earlier, the dark night now etched with a hue of orange as the sun rises; almost as if the night has shifted with his mood, because despite his story, despite what his father did to him tonight, he’s in a better place right now, and I don’t understand it.
“Gourmet,” he says, scooping up a bite. “You and me make a good team.”
He’s right. We do. I set my mac n cheese on a table next to us and turn to face him. “How bad was the burn?”
He takes another bite. “Bad.”
“What did you do in return?”
“Screamed bloody murder while our housekeeper Delia called an ambulance.”
“How old were you?”