“I know.” He took a deep breath. “I feel like I'm exploding whenever I touch you, see your smile or hear your voice."
"We're sweethearts," I shared boldly.
"And if we were that boy and girl in high school, like you said, sweethearts together, how could we reach for love? What ways are available for us to do that?”
“More dating, continuing our deep conversations about everything, hanging out,” I thought seriously. “And—”
“Yes, all of those,” His voice sizzled in the air. “And nudging you gently, testing each other respectfully, and following the cues we give to each other for deeper intimacy.”
“Yes.”
“I want to help you get there, Nicky.”
Oh, I love his deep voice.
“I want that, too." I steadied myself on the kitchen island. "But we need to talk about what it all means.”
“Sometimes . . .” He leaned close. His lips touched my ear. “Sometimes sex doesn’t talk—it whispers.”
Yes, whispers . . . kiss me now.
“Relax and make yourself at home while I go change.” He kissed me on the forehead.
Oh damn . . . I was hoping to taste those moist lips.
“I can’t relax wearing these dirty clothes.” I tugged on my sand-spotted T-shirt and sweats. "I think my suit had a rip in it." As I gathered myself, I sped up. “Can I shower in your guest bathroom? Do you have something I can borrow? A robe and then I can wash it later for you? You have a washer and dryer, don’t you?”
“Sorry. I should have taken you home first." He held my shoulders. “I was afraid you’d get in your pajamas and wouldn’t come with me. Yes, I have a washer and dryer.”
“I would have come with you,” I smiled and looked away.
He started toward his bedroom, but then turned around. His expression warmed. With a determined look, he stepped close. His belly was against mine. My breasts pressed to his chest.
My heart pounds way too hard. I know being with him will shorten my life.
“From the moment you left me to go up to your sister’s bedroom early this morning, all I could think about was having you here to hold.” His eyes were bright and seemed to take in every detail of my face. “Let me get something for you to wear.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course . . . you can always hang around in your birthday suit,” he suggested. "I wouldn't mind."
“No, no, I’m not—”
“Kidding, Nick. Although . . . it wouldn’t be the first time we were naked together, would it?”
I looked away, completely embarrassed, secretly keeping an eye on him. I couldn’t get over how he was able to say everything so naturally, as if it was just normal conversation.
It is. It can be.
“I’ll be right back,” he informed.
My legs, face, and chest . . . my entire body seems to be pulsating. Please don’t call me into your bedroom.
I looked around Ryan's apartment, admiring his style. His furniture was modern and coordinated with the walls in shades of grays, blacks, and olive greens. Accents of purple and red within the pillows, draperies, throws, and other accessories complimented the décor. Several interesting art pieces hung from the walls. Two sculptures that were a modern interpretation from an artist's hands sat on display. His kitchen, dining, and living room areas were open and flowed together. He'd strategically arranged his dining table, sofas, and other furniture to create separate spaces within the large room.
Two oversized matching chairs framed a large, black leather sofa. An entertainment center, put together from individual pieces of dark wood and glass, was arranged against the largest wall in the room. It was polished to a brilliant shine. On its sides, glass shelves held various photos in decorative frames. In the middle was a large, curved-screen TV. Speakers were mounted throughout the room for a theater style experience.
God, what a guy he is. Leather, dark, masculine colors, speakers everywhere—this is a big fat trap for naive and unsuspecting women . . . or not so naive . . . or unsuspecting.
There was a balcony and sliding glass doors to the left of the entertainment center. To the right, a large picture window showed a stunning view of the city. Perpendicular to the sliding glass doors was a gas fireplace. A small loveseat was placed in front of it. I visualized sitting there together on some chilly night, warming our souls and bodies, a cup of hot chocolate in our hands.
I looked more closely at some of the photographs on the glass shelves. Another introspective side of Ryan revealed itself. One was a picture of a mother and father standing with two little boys. I assumed it was Ryan and his brother. Both of the boys looked so innocent. It was difficult to glance at their sweet faces, knowing the tough times that were ahead.
The innocence in the family photo made me think about the first time I became aware of my dad’s addiction—taking me back to a time when none of us knew our own darkness coming.
It was a night when my eight-year-old sister and I transitioned in a way we wouldn’t understand for many years.
Chapter 26
Only An Undershirt
Unlike Ryan's father, mine was alive.
In many ways, however, I’d lost him, too. Dad’s dark descent into alcoholism began even before I was in kindergarten. The beginning was somewhere just shy of five-years-old, when Jenise and I came to “know” his friend, Ernie.
Ernie started showing up at our house a couple of times a week while my mother worked at juvenile hall on the night shift. Gradually his visits increased. Each time he brought whiskey. Sometimes the bottle was a pint; other times a fifth.
Why didn’t a man with two children and a wife of his own know any better than to bring alcohol on the nights Dad was responsible for his two young daughters?
He was addicted and diseased the same as my father.
He craved it.
Needed it.
Lived for it.
Ernie was a big man, well over six feet and 230 pounds. At that time I didn't know he used that strength to abuse his wife and beat his oldest son.
Unfortunately, Dad's peer was his first co-dependent.
Maybe on some of the nights when dad was late, he was doing the same thing—drinking a bottle at Ernie's house, preventing his friend from watching his own little boys.
Although I didn’t grasp the deeper layers of what I had experienced for many years, I became aware of two absolute truths: an addict has no conscience and addiction has no heart.
It turns on family.
It’s greedy.
It wants what it wants.
It won’t stop until it’s satisfied.
The problem?
It’s never satisfied.
Ernie and my father sat on two grey recliners in our living room in front of our big picture window. They pulled the heavy, beige curtains closed, as if locking themselves in cages of drunkenness.
They looked like giants sitting in the middle of the room.
Was the only purpose of them sitting there to block my sister and me from escaping? Without actually being jailed, they trapped us, holding their bottles and our freedom in their hands.
The secrecy of our family’s sins had begun.
The pure joy of being children, something my sister and I had previously taken for granted, ended in a blur of sloppy drunkenness that night.
Afterward, we never looked at being secure in our home—or having the protection of our father—the same way.
Jenise and I were getting ready to take a bath. I was having trouble with my little cotton undershirt. For some reason, I couldn’t pull it over my head, nor could my sister. We both ran out of patience and I stormed out of the bathroom despite the protests from my sister.
I knew my father would help me.
Venturing out to where Dad and Ernie were drinking, I was bare-bottomed and uninhibited. I didn’t think about being naked.
How did I know it wasn’t okay to go out there without wearing any underpants?
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I’d never been aware that being naked was wrong; I’d been around my parents plenty of times without clothes.
“Dad, can you get my undershirt off?” I whined. “I can’t get it, and Jenise can’t—”
The full force of Dad's hand smacked my butt. It was as if the burn screamed. The pain rang out like church bells ringing in Sunday mass.
“Get in the bathroom!”
Even though it hurt like hell, it wasn't Dad's hard wallop that wounded me, or the handprint that remained in white against the crimson of my behind for hours. It was his words and the choices that followed.
“Are you stupid?” he shouted.
I felt as if he'd killed the two of us. Hearing my father call me stupid with his slurred voice and in front of his red-faced, drunken friend was far more painful than the burn on my bottom.
I felt dirty and ashamed of myself—without knowing why.
The experience changed me in several ways.
First, I knew I didn’t want to be made to feel "less than" ever again. Ultimately, the encounter drove me to pursue a higher education so that no one could call me stupid, and have meaning behind it.
Second, I vowed never to be helpless or made to feel weak. I surrounded myself with the people who helped me gain strength and intelligence: teachers, higher ups at the places I volunteered, and the parents of my schoolmates.
Third, I became sensitive to the “cute” words used to describe women. For whatever reason, the experience caused me to believe that some men tried to make women believe they were helpless little girls to be dominated and made submissive.
Fourth, it marked the beginning of my bashfulness and shame about my body. I came to adore sweats, sneakers, T-shirts, and turtlenecks. I covered my skin at all costs—with clothes, but also additional weight when I was an adolescent. I hesitated when I had an opportunity to share myself verbally and physically.
Because my father was horrified when his little girl showed her immature nakedness, I learned baring myself was dirty and it was better to hide, be unnoticed, and stay invisible.
That night was also the beginning of my fear of boys. To be a naked girl was bad. It was the defining moment of how I shaped my thoughts and associations about sex.
If I could make my own father and his friend react that way at only five-years-old, what did that mean? How would boys my own age react? If I made them uncomfortable, would they scream or hit me, too?
I couldn't take the chance that I might get that kind of rejection or be made to feel ashamed ever again.
When Jenise was raped six years later, I learned that being a flirty girl only brought trauma; it reinforced my beliefs that sex was dirty. Even as I started to explore my own body and began to masturbate, I knew I was sinning. Turning on sexually was dangerous—and might bring violence.
During my weekly confessions, my priest told me that sex without marriage was a mortal sin—an offense to God. So much so that according to my church, it meant if I hadn’t gone to confession, I’d be cast to hell with other sinners—even the murderers and rapists.
My naked body was bad.
Period.
After my father spanked me, I ran back to the safety of the bathroom, crying all the way. Jenise immediately locked the door.
"I told you not to." Her little arms surrounded and comforted my body and soul. When she was able to settle me, Jenise was finally was able to take off my undershirt. “It’s okay, sissy,” she almost cooed. “They can’t hurt us.”
We sat in the bubbles hugging and playing with our bathtub toys, washing each other’s back and letting the water run down our bodies as if we were washing off the shame.
Not too much later, the conversation in the living room between my dad and Ernie quieted. We heard our father snoring. It was the same rolling, sinus-filled, raspy-throated snore we’d heard coming from down the hall when Dad drank too much whiskey and was asleep in his bedroom.
“Dad's snoring,” I said in as quiet a voice as I could. “Do you think Ernie is asleep?”
Footsteps came up the stairs. The bathroom doorknob turned back and forth a few times.
“Shh,” my sister whispered, putting her finger to her lips.
We sat in the bathwater without moving.
It seemed that we weren’t even breathing.
Finally, the footsteps went down the stairs and out the front door. We heard Ernie start his car and then drive away.
Jenise and I never told our mom what happened. We didn’t purposefully withhold telling her, it was more that we didn’t understand the sick, twisted man who tried to get into the bathroom and see two little girls bathing. We knew something was off about it, but like other children of family alcoholism, we didn't know what to do with our feelings.
After that night, we made sure we slept in the same bed together whenever Ernie visited. Our little arms hugged each other’s body and we kept the light on and door locked.
We believed, as children do with undying faith, our light would protect us from the darkness.
Maybe it did.
You would think that all two little girls could do with a father who chose the bottle over them was wait for Mom to come home and rescue us. Not so. During all those nights of being left alone, we were learning survival.
It wasn't purposeful.
Nevertheless, we learned the lessons.
The options for two little girls weren’t many, but as if some power combined when we were together, we learned to hide, be quiet, lock the doors and try not to be noticed—we learned that being passive and invisible could save us.
What also happened that night was Jenise went from being an eight-year-old-child to my protector. She grew up instantly without knowing it. It brought the notion of survival into our house—another worry to our already sick and dysfunctional family.
In many ways, she became an adult in a matter of seconds.
The way she sheltered me?
She was my big, brave sister and my hero forever.
Like it did for Jenise, transition also came for me.
I wasn’t fully aware of all the subtleties of what had just happened, but I knew my life was different. Something felt different about my body, but also in the way I felt about Dad.
He had allowed his disgusting friend, Ernie, to witness how he's punished me for baring my bottom. I hated that Ernie sat there with a smirk on his face. I felt like I didn’t matter.
I struggled to separate the drunken man in our house from the loving and sober one. It was bad enough the raging demon took my father into the disease of addiction, but in choosing his friend over me, he put me second, the same way he'd done to Mom.
My father befriended someone like Ernie—what did that mean? Ernie was another monster in our house, hiding under the cloak of friendship. My complete and unquestioning faith in my parents was gone forever.
Question my own father? No—how could I?
I stuffed that feeling down, as far down as I could. It was too difficult for a little girl to face. And even if I admitted my love or him had been compromised, who would I be?
Who would he be to me?
I had to love him. I couldn’t hate him.
But by his actions I knew I wasn't good enough for his love.
Ernie made sure to leave every night just before Mom came home, creeping in and out like some dark spirit just before dawn. He never tried our bedroom or bathroom door again. Still, we made sure it was locked whenever he visited. I felt like he was one of my father’s demons, come only to destroy my family.
In a way, he did.
Jenise and I were left alone as our parents continued to deny our struggle and theirs. It wasn’t an accident that we grew up quickly.
My sister and I . . . we “dealt” with it.
It changed the way I trusted—forever.
If I couldn’t trust my father to keep me safe or choose me over anyone else, how could I trust anyone?
If my own father would rather numb himself wi
th his friend and make a joke out of one of his daughters, he couldn’t really love me, could he?
And now, wouldn’t Ryan, with whom I was trying to form a beginning, a man who seemed to promise safety and love, a good man, let me go just like my father had?
Hadn't my father also been a good man at one time?
Chapter 27
A Photographer’s Eye
My dark memory faded as I gazed at the beautiful photographs Ryan had displayed on the glass shelves framing his entertainment center.
There were magnificent thunderstorms against Mid-western summer skies, dramatic ocean vistas, historic covered bridges, mountain lakes, and several tender shots of children.
Did you take these? Am I seeing another side of you—a side that’s even softer than what I’ve seen so far?
There was lush intimacy in the emotion he’d captured. It was like he’d found the very secret of what each moment meant. I especially liked one of a little boy and a small rabbit. The boy held the bunny to his face. His smile was warm and I imagined Ryan’s gold dust had fallen on him.
I held the picture to my breast. The tenderness captured by the photographer came through like a brilliant wish of hope. To me, it spoke of a longing for calm and family, a respect for nature, and the innocence I believed was in his heart.
There were no other pictures of Ryan, either alone, with family, or with teammates, nor were there any photographs of him in grade school or college.
Where are all his trophies? He must have dozens from little league on up. With all his success, why doesn’t he have them displayed? He wants attention, but only when in the public eye? Or is he so secure that he doesn’t need any of it? I wonder what his bedroom looks like. Oh, that’s where the trophies are! A trophy room for trophy women! No wonder I wasn’t invited in there.
I walked toward a shining, gray marble dining table, which stood in between the living room and kitchen area. Eight high-backed chairs surrounded it, all covered in heavy black cloth.
Jagged Heart (Broken Bottles Series Book 3) Page 18