He stands there for a long moment in silence only staring at me.
“I trusted you, Dad. I trusted you to make the right decisions, to put me first because I am your child. I trusted you not to put me in danger or to use me for selfish reasons. How could you have betrayed my trust in such a way?” I gasp for air hyperventilating now. Unable to keep the ground beneath my feet I collapsed to the floor truly and completely devastated.
“Lucy,” he says, laying down next to me and alternating between caressing my wet face and wiping the hairs from my cheek by tucking them behind my ears. I love you so much,” he says, his voice rough and full of emotion that surprises me. “I love you so much more than I can possibly say.”
“I don’t believe you. How can I possibly believe you? All you’ve done is lie to me. I can never trust you again,” I all but whisper, folding my arms around my knees and rocking back-and-forth trying to comfort myself. It’s a calming technique I learned in my childhood. One that I obviously carried into adulthood. One that I pray I never pass down to my children. If I am young enough to have any after prison.
“Lucy,” he sighs reaching for me before thinking better of it as he rises and walks out of the dimly lit room. I sit there for a long moment. What a horrid, horrid man. I came here scream at him and punch him in the face and all he can do is tell me I’m wrong, then tells me he loves me, and walks out, leaving me in this dimly lit apartment. I can’t stay here a moment longer. But I don’t know where else to go. I can’t go to Kenton because I can’t tell him anything. I probably need a lawyer now so I’m not sure what good it will do me. Looking up I see my father down the hall. He is digging through something, but I don’t really care enough anymore to wonder what it is. I simply close my eyes and let my thoughts drift in my exhaustion.
Sleep comes quickly. I don’t even mean to fall asleep. It simply happens to me during times of stress. Abbie once joked that I was like a bear that hibernates but instead of hibernating during long winters in Wyoming, I hibernate for long periods of stress. And with that, I tend to stop eating too.
Can you go through stages in quiet because of family struggles or the pressure of school? My thoughts come to me more clearly now as I realize there is a pillow propping my head up.
Opening my eyes slowly, I blink against a haze. It’s darker out. I wonder how long I have been asleep. I sit up slowly because my head feels heavy and groggy. There is a dull ache that’s pounding between my eyes.
“What time is it?” I groan, not wanting to speak to him but wanting to know where Kenton might possibly be at this time of day. Will he be out patrolling as usual or is he at home thinking of me?
“It’s about 7 PM,” my father answers, sitting next to me on the floor. He’s not looking at me. His knees bend up to his chest and his arms stretch out as he twiddles his long fingers. “You’ve been asleep for about 10 hours,” he supplies, still not looking at me.
“Oh,” I say, not really sure what to say anymore. Everything I ever wanted to say, I said to him hours earlier. I glance over at him. I can see the purple shadow where my fist met with his handsome jaw.
We sit in silence for a moment longer as I contemplate my next move. Maybe I should try talking to Kenton. Maybe I can make him understand. I’m not a criminal. I’ve never even smoked pot. I just felt trapped. I felt like I had to help him. But I realize now you can’t help someone who doesn’t want help. Swallowing hard and raising my hands over my face, I rub my gritty eyes.
“OK,” I say, shaking my head and rising from the floor. “I guess I’ll go. I don’t ever want to speak to you again,” I tell him, not bothering to look at him as he sits in silence. Crossing to the door my hands close around the old handle.
“Wait,” his voice cracks, thick with emotions. “Lucy, please wait. I’ve had some time to think about what you said, and I have some things to say too.” He frowns at me, his eyes clouded.
“I don’t want to hear a thing you have to say,” I answer honestly.
“I didn’t ask you what you wanted to hear,” he says simply looking up at me without actually refocusing. “I didn’t want to hear anything you told me earlier. I certainly didn’t want to feel anything,” he says, rising up his hands and brushing them against his sore jaw. “But you made me listen, you made me understand. Which is why I am going to do the same thing to you.”
Not saying a thing and not wanting to listen, I stand for a moment and watch him, wondering if I should simply ignore him and walk out. “You can’t make me stay.”
I know this but it’s not like there is a huge rush to go shit on my name to my soon to be ex-boyfriend. “Please Lucy,” he whispers, reaching out an arm and waving to the floor next to him. “Please just sit down and listen to me. There’s a lot that I want to tell you, and I want to make sure you know these things before you walk out of my life forever.”
Turning slowly, my feet sticking to the crappy linoleum by the front door, I cross over to the man I want to love the most in the world and sit in front of him, my legs crossing.
“I have made a lot of terrible decisions,” he starts, looking away for me while on his feet. “Losing your mother was the worst thing that ever happened to me. She was the light of my life, she saved me when my own parents abandoned me. Boys don’t just wake up one day and decide to be drug lords,” he smiles starkly, but not actually seeing me. His eyes are too distant on some other distant memory unrelated to me.
“My parents weren’t good people, Lucy,” he says, swallowing hard and closing his eyes. “And I’m not telling you this to make you feel like you have to be grateful for what you have or to tell you that you could’ve had it worse, because I know that what I gave you wasn’t near what you deserve. Honestly, your mother was better at parenting than I ever could be,” he swallows hard. His eyes take on a glassy look. “My father was a drug addict. He would shoot up heroin when he could afford it,” he bites out, his eyes growing hard. “And when he couldn’t, he would?” pausing and turning slowly he lifts up the back of his button-down flannel shirt exposing a barrage of circular burns.
“What are those?” I ask, my voice shaking and afraid to know the answer.
“Cigarette burns,” he whispers, turning away and lifting up the other side of his shirt and exposing horizontal scars. “At least, it was at first.” Still not looking at me, he went on. “My ribs were shattered and required surgery. It happened a few times,” he said sliding down his shirt.
“Oh my God, Dad,” I whisper as my throat feels tighter. I had no idea. My father never took off his shirt in public while we were growing up, even at swimming pools or at the beach. Those
trips he always kept a shirt on. Now I know why.
“Why didn’t anyone help you?” I ask tears brimming and threatening to overflow once more.
“It was a different time,” he shrugs, “CPS wasn’t near the same level as it is today, and schools weren’t near as vigilant reporting suspected child abuse cases. Not that anything would have happened,” he adds, his voice hard. “Small town mentality, everybody knows everything and everybody looks the other way,” he finishes glancing up at me, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation.
“What about your mom? There’s no way a mother could allow this to happen,” my voice hollows as my father continues to stare at the crack linoleum floor.
“My mother, if that’s what we are to call her, was no better than my father,” he states simply with a shrug. “She never tried to stop him, not once. She would just look the other way and drink herself into oblivion.”
“What?” I say shaking my head trying to wrap my brain around this new world.