Mother fucker.
Jaw clenched.
Stomach muscles contracted.
Upper body and arms tensed.
“He did this?” I asked with what I’m sure was the most disgusted face I’d ever worn. If such a thing was possible, my eyes would have been spitting daggers of fire. I’ve never understood men putting their hands on women, couldn’t even fathom someone considering it.
“Yes,” she whispered with her chin pointed to the floor.
It looked bad, real fucking bad. The spots where his knuckles had met her skin were a deep purple, almost black, surrounded by varying shades of green. Her bra strap was almost covered by folds of swollen skin.
The air grew heavy and warm, and a shortness of breath overtook my lungs. I was forcing every breath I took, feeling like I might pass out. My glance slid to the door as I considered getting in my truck and beating the fucking shit out of him. I wanted to slam his face into concrete with my fists and cover his entire body with what was on her back. Never before had I felt such an urge to kill someone. That would have happened had I got my hands on him in that moment. I was sure of it.
My attention focused back on Hailey, as I attempted to force pounding the life out of Jason from my thoughts. I was careful not to touch her skin and kept the shirt pulled away from her body. Her back looked like it would thump in pain if something as soft as cotton brushed against it.
I had two extreme emotions competing with my mind and heart. Rage and pain, and the pain seemed to intensify the rage.
“It was the first time and the last time. I left the next day while he was at work,” she said.
I pulled her shirt back down. She grabbed a tissue from the end table and wiped her eyes before turning back around to me. She wouldn’t let me catch her eyes with mine.
I pulled her at the waist. “Come here,” I said. She scooted closer to me and placed her head on my chest.
“You’re shaking,” she said.
“I can’t help it, it’s the adrenaline.” I stroked her arm with the tips of my fingers. My mind was racing from one thought to another. As much as I wanted to comfort her, I struggled with the waves of rage that kept flooding over me.
“Cody, it’s my fault. I hit him first. He came home late and drunk. I checked his phone and found the text messages between him and the girl he was out with. All I could think about was how much I gave up for him. I abandoned you. I abandoned my mother. I tried to make it work so hard and he wasn’t trying at all.”
“It’s not your fault. There’s no excuse good enough for him to have laid his hands on you. None. Period.” Her thinking she was at fault made me want to hit Jason even more. He’d punched her. Not slapped, not pushed, not that either of those would have been better or were less offensive. He’d fucking punched her, in the fucking back. Couldn’t comprehend that shit. I was certain my ass would be in New York later that day.
She looked up at me, and flashed a look at me like she was reading my thoughts. She shook her head no. “You can’t go after him, Cody. He’s still Chloe’s father.”
I wanted to argue with her but decided against it. It would solve nothing right then and I knew I just needed to be there for her. Going after him wouldn’t change what she had gone through and I knew she needed me. There was no way in hell she would tell anyone else about this, except for possibly my mother. Couldn’t leave her to deal with it on her own.
Jason was certainly a piece of shit, but I never thought he’d put his hands on her.
“You should file a report,” I said.
“I have to have a way to support her. He might not have been much of a daddy to her, but at least he fulfills his obligations as her father.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard her call it for what it was. It was the first time she wasn’t stuck in this fantasy world when it came to him. She thought she could change things, if she just did and said the right things.
She looked up at me. “I’m going to make Chloe lunch. Are you hungry?”
“I ate right before I came over.” I couldn’t eat right then if I wanted to, and that never happened.
I sat on the couch with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands while she made lunch. We didn’t talk for several minutes, because neither one of us knew what to say. What was there to talk about? Her plans for the day? Rainbows and unicorns and shit? You can’t just change topics after something like that.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” she said as she stirred the pot on the stove. Her hip rested against the counter and she shot a look of regret at me.
“You should never feel like you can’t tell me everything.” I shook my head at her in disbelief that she was second-guessing sharing it with me.
“But you look so upset.”
“Of course I am, but that’s not a reason not to tell me things, Hail.” I stood up and walked into the kitchen.
She let the wooden spoon rest in the pot and folded her arms across her chest as I approached.
“At least I tried with him, I guess,” she said.
“Do you get it now, Hail? You can’t make love happen; you can’t force someone to want what you want.”
Embarrassment crept across her face. She pulled her arms tighter against her chest.
“Shit, Hailey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you deserved what he did in any way. I shouldn’t have said that.” I’m a fucking moron sometimes and should have just kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t the right time to have said things like that.
“Cody, I know that. I never wanted him to want it for me. I wanted him to want it for Chloe.” She turned to the stove, and turned the burner off. I was silent as I watched her get a spoon and bowl. I didn’t want to say the wrong words again.
“Have you iced your back? It looked so swollen.”
“No, I haven’t had much of a chance to do anything but clean and grocery shop,” she said as she set the bowl on the placemat. She called for Chloe, who was quickly in the kitchen with us.
Hailey put her in the booster and we took seats at the table.
“You know if I see him I’m not gonna be able to help myself.” I raised my eyebrows at her.
“I know, that’s another reason why I almost didn’t tell you. I doubt he’ll be back in town anytime soon. His parents are in Europe for the next five months. He has no reason to visit.”
I grunted. “He’s such a piece of shit.”
Hailey’s eyes widened. “Cody!” She looked at Chloe.
“Sorry.” That had slipped; never swore in front of Chloe or spoke badly about her father.
Chloe finished eating. “I’m going to lay Chloe down for her nap,” Hailey said as she stood up from the kitchen table. She wiped Chloe’s mouth and then picked her up. I followed her into the room and took a pillow off her bed and headed back into the living room, placing it on the couch.
I opened the freezer, and grabbed two bags of frozen vegetables. As I made my way back to the living room I grabbed a towel from the linen closet. Hailey shut the bedroom door and then walked toward me.
“Come on,” I said as I took her hand and led her to the couch. “Lie down on your stomach.”
She did as I instructed, and didn’t resist. I lifted up her shirt and carefully unclipped her bra and pushed the straps to the side so her back was bare. The sight of her back stirred up the pain and rage again. I pulled her shirt back down, placed the towel over her back and then put the bags of vegetables on top.
She shut her eyes as I stroked the hair away from her face. I so badly wanted to comfort her in any way I could, but there was nothing I could do to fix this shit. She shut her eyes and relaxed. She was small, thin, and frail in comparison to me. Jason was my size. He easily had sixty, maybe seventy pounds on her. I thought the emotions in me had calmed down, but they suddenly flooded back, making me feel out of control. The rage was fully on fire inside of me, and I needed to release it.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered.
I walke
d out to the front porch to smoke a cigarette. She was defenseless. He must have had her pinned to the floor or against a wall. Her hands must not have been any use to her. Even if she’d had use of her hands, she would still have been defenseless. I tried to shake off the thoughts. I couldn’t think of how it happened. I couldn’t have that image in my head. All that mattered was the fact that she’d got hurt.
Standing on the porch, I lit my cigarette and took a deep drag. My mind flashed to the image of Hailey’s back. Pain flooded through me and then rage took its place. The rage was winning and I so desperately wanted to get at Jason, and teach him all about what happens when you hurt someone I love.
I paced back and forth, taking really deep drags with every four or five steps. I flicked the cigarette into the yard and looked at the wooden post that supported the overhang on the porch. A mental movie of me beating the shit out of Jason played in my mind. My fist slammed into the post at full force, over and over again.
Hailey opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. She put her hand over her mouth, her brows furrowed and her eyes welling with tears.
She stood with a look of sheer shock, with her eyes on my hand. I realized it was bleeding; I could feel the warmness and wetness beginning to cover it. It looked like I’d caught one of my knuckles on a nail. I didn’t care.
She wrapped her hand delicately around my wrist and tried to lead me back inside. “Come on, let’s take care of this.”
I didn’t care about my hand, shit, I couldn’t even feel it. Here she was worrying about my hand and I was worried about her heart. The pain of knowing she had been hurt, that she had been hit intensified in me again. I embraced her carefully, pulling her against my chest. “I’m so sorry, Hail. I’m so fucking sorry.” My body shook, and her body began to shake in response.
I rarely cried. I always managed to choke back tears when I could feel them rise up. The last three times I could remember were the day my father died, the day after Hailey left, and right in that moment, as I stood there holding her.
Chapter 10 - Hailey
Taylor followed behind me as we walked up the sidewalk to my new place. She offered to take the grocery bags from my hands, but hers were full too. I sat them down instead, and got the keys from my purse. Anxious to see my new place, I jiggled the key in the door.
My new place was a rancher duplex. The exterior was a little run down: a few pieces of siding hung loose, the rain spout was rusted, and the trim was in need of a good paint job. It would do though; any place other than my mother’s house would do.
Taylor held the door open as I picked the grocery bags back up. I was immediately met with the chemical smell of new carpeting. Mr. Gritley rarely made any upgrades, so that was a nice surprise. Although, the odor it gave off was not.
There was a sliding glass door on the left side of the living room that faced the street. I placed the grocery bags on the breakfast bar across from me before opening the door to let in fresh air.
“It’s kind of odd that they put the entrance on the side of the house,” Taylor said.
“It doesn’t matter to me. It could have been in the backyard for all I care,” I said.
We walked into the dining room, which adjoined the living room and had two windows. I took the bags from Taylor’s hands and placed them next to the others and then opened the windows in the dining room. The walls in both rooms had a dingy yellow tint. “The prior tenants must have smoked,” I said, thinking about how the walls resembled my mother’s house. “I’ll definitely need to paint.”
“Oh, that will be so much fun!” Taylor said as she checked out the kitchen.
“Does that mean you are volunteering to help?” I said as I unlatched the second window.
“No, I meant it will look fun once it’s finished,” Taylor said, laughing at me.
“Typical,” I said, turning around and flashing her a sarcastic look of disappointment.
I joined Taylor in the kitchen, tapping my fingers against the edge of the kitchen sink as I took in my surroundings. The cabinet doors were cheap particleboard. Second characteristic that creepily mirrored my mother’s house, but thankfully they weren’t that dreary brown color. “I’m going to have to get creative to spruce this place up. At least the cabinets are white. I can paint a design on them. I won’t be able to do anything to the green stove though.”
“That’s the worst shade of green I’ve seen in my entire life. It’s the color of something an animal would shit out,” Taylor said, and then laughed.
I looked at her in bewilderment, not sure why she found herself funny.
“At least the refrigerator is newer.” She looked inside it, then shut it, turning on her heel, and she looked at me again. “White cabinets, black fridge, and an animal-shit-green stove. I’m sure you can do something with a palette like that,” Taylor said, amused with herself.
“No dishwasher. That’s going to be a pain when I wash my mother’s empty containers.” Taylor’s negativity could sometimes be infectious.
“Just ask her to wash them,” Taylor said, giving me a look that suggested she thought I was stupid for not considering it.
“She’ll tell me she will, but she won’t. I’ve asked her before.” I didn’t want to go into a discussion about it with Taylor – she didn’t get it. “Let’s check out the bathroom.”
I turned the knob and it oddly opened toward me. We looked at each other, confused. I pulled the door fully open into the wide hallway.
“Makes sense now,” I said as I looked into the bathroom.
The toilet and sink were less than two feet from the door. There was a shower to the right, but no bathtub. It was the most oddly configured bathroom I’d ever seen. It was long but shallow, and definitely weird.
“There’s no way a fat person ever lived here,” Taylor said.
I ignored her. “How am I supposed to give Chloe a bath?” I asked out loud, not looking for a response from Taylor.
“I guess you could shower with her,” Taylor responded. “This place is weird with its sliding door, shit-green stove, and funky bathroom.”
“Please don’t point out the negatives right now,” I said, still examining the shower.
“I was just pointing out the obvious.”
I’d noticed the door at the end of the hallway when I first stepped into the living room and immediately got upset with Mr. Gritley for telling me it was a two-bedroom. I didn’t say anything in front of Taylor because she would have harped on it.
I opened the door and thankfully it opened in the proper direction – into the bedroom. There was a row of closets to the right. They had the panel-type doors that slid along tracks. They were as deep as the bathroom and spanned across the ten-foot-wide wall. Another door was directly across from the bedroom’s entrance.
“I don’t have enough clothes or possessions to fill half of the closet space over there.” I pointed to the closets on the right, assuming that the door led to another closet.
“Maybe it’s a real bathroom; let’s check it out,” Taylor said.
Taylor opened the door and peeked in so she could see it before me. “It’s another bedroom!” She swung the door open and we walked in.
“You’re right. This place is weird,” I said, giving in to the negativity.
“At least you have a large bedroom.”
“This will be Chloe’s room. If there is ever an intruder they would have to get through me first.” I was joking, kind of.
Taylor furrowed her brows and gave me an odd look. “We live in Milbourny. Nothing bad ever happens here other than an occasional shoplifting crime by a teenager.”
I looked at the windows, thankful that there were two of them, and that they would let in plenty of natural light.
“Speaking of Chloe, who has her?” Taylor asked.
“The only person I would ever let watch her besides Cody. Mama Mary.”
“Well, that’s insulting,” Taylor said, scrunching her face up at me.
Taylor’s biggest responsibility in life was paying off her monthly credit card debt that she racked up because of her ridiculous shopping obsession. Never would I trust her to watch Chloe. She wouldn’t have offered anyway, so it really didn’t matter. I had always envisioned her marrying a rich guy, having a surrogate, and then hiring a nanny. It was completely ironic that she worked as a nurse.
Cody pulled up in his black pickup truck. Luckily, there was enough space outside for the trailer that was hitched to it to fit along the sidewalk. I watched through the window as he opened the door and jumped out. He had his baby-blue baseball cap on backwards. I loved when he wore that hat. It brought out his blue eyes, and made them seem brighter.
“Let’s go,” Taylor said, motioning her head toward the door.
“We should get something to hold the doors open,” I said, still preoccupied with the sight of Cody.
“They have stoppers on them,” Taylor said. I turned around to look.
Sometimes she would surprise me with moments of brilliance. She wasn’t a ditz, like Cody liked to call her, but she wasn’t particularly observant either. We opened all three doors and kicked the stoppers down.
As soon as we were in sight of Cody and his friend, Taylor yelled, “Hey, boys!” She sashayed toward them, waving her hands above her head as she shook her hips in rhythm. She was ridiculous sometimes, but I loved her for it. I admired that she wasn’t afraid of who she was, the confidence she showed, and her lack of constant introspection.
“Hey, Taylor,” Cody said as he kept his eyes on me.
I smiled at him, happy to see him.
Cody’s friend nodded in our direction as he unlatched the back gate of the trailer.
“Hailey, this is JT,” Cody said.
I stood there with my thumbs in the back pockets of my jeans.
“Hi, JT, thanks for helping me out today. I really do appreciate it,” I said, reaching out my hand to him. He wiped his hand on his jeans and then shook my hand.
He looked me up and down and said, “Yeah, no problem.” The way he looked at me was somewhat creepy, like he was assessing my sexual worthiness. I hated when guys did that.
The Secret That Intervened Page 7