Before Hadley

by J. Nathan

  She turned around slowly, her shoulders slumped. Even at ten, I could tell she was defeated. We both were.

  I wanted to make a move, to tell him to leave us alone, but I sat frozen to the bed. It’s what always happened when he took that tone with her. I was so small, the smallest in the fifth grade. And weak. So very weak.

  And as much as I tried to be strong, tried to defend my mom when he became violent, he just tossed my feeble body to the side, oftentimes locking me in a closet to keep me out of the way. I was a nuisance. It’s all I’d ever been for him.

  “Hayden and I were just getting away for the night—”

  Whack.

  “Liar.” The word dripped with hate as he lowered his hand.

  My mother cupped her cheek as she twisted around, checking to be sure I remained safely behind her. Her icy blue eyes misted over. Not from the slap. She’d endured worse and never cried. Her tears were for our missed opportunity. Our foiled chance to escape once and for all.

  “Please let us go,” she whispered.

  He leaned in closely. Now I could see him and the anger in his dark eyes. “Go? Go where?” The overhead light reflected off the shiny gold badge on the front of his uniform. The one that earned him respect from everyone in town. Everyone who didn’t really know him. “Who’ll want you?”

  My mom sniffled. Or it could’ve been me. At that point, we both wept.

  Needing to be closer to her, and wanting to keep him in my sights, I crawled to the foot of the bed. If I could see him, maybe I could protect her.

  His white knuckles gripped her wrist like a vise. No wonder she hadn’t moved away from him.

  “Please.” My voice came out low. Or was it that I just couldn’t hear it with my heartbeat pounding in my ears? “I have a game in Austin tomorrow. Mom thought you were working late so we were going to make a trip out of it.” I prayed my lie deflected the attention off of her. Because given his cold empty glare, she needed me.

  Whoosh.

  His fist slammed into my stomach. The wind knocked right out of me as my body folded and I toppled back onto the bed.

  “Hayden!” my mom screamed, breaking free of his grasp and rushing toward me. She braced me in her arms as I gasped for breath. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s here. It’s going to be okay.”

  It wasn’t. But I let her soothing words wash over me as I struggled to catch my breath and regain what little strength I had.

  And then she was gone. Ripped off me like she’d been caught up in a tornado. Perfume bottles crashed to the floor as her body slammed into the dresser. Her scream echoed as glass from the mirror shattered over her.

  My eyes shot to the monster.

  His big hands were braced on his knees, his breaths deep like he’d run a marathon. He watched through beady eyes as my mother steadied herself to her feet.

  I wanted to hit him. To knock him back. To kill him.

  I jumped down from the bed and lunged at him. A vicious backhand to the face propelled me onto the floor. Black spots clouded my vision. My head spun. My nose was surely broken, but none of that mattered. I needed to get to the phone on the nightstand. If I could just call—

  Click.

  My head whipped around.

  He held something black in his right hand. He lifted it, extending it out in front of him.

  Shock seized every part of me. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening like this.

  “Please,” my mother begged as he aimed the barrel of his weapon at her. She edged as far away from me as possible. She always kept his attention off of me. Always protected me. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  A calculated laugh escaped his lips. “Now, you’ll do whatever I want? Weren’t those the vows you promised me ten years ago?”

  She didn’t dare answer. She just took another step toward the bedroom door, stretching the distance between us.

  “Then he came into the picture.” He spun around with his gun aimed at me. “He ruined everything. He took you away from me.”

  I cowered to the carpet, preparing for the pain. For the nothingness. “Mom, run.”

  “Noooo!” she screamed, racing across the room and throwing her body over mine.

  “He got your time. Your affection. Your love. It was all supposed to be mine!”

  Three shots crackled through the air.

  Three times my body jolted. I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound got cut off by the sight of blood spreading like a rush of ink through my mom’s shirt. Within seconds, her grip loosened and her body peeled away from me, sinking to the floor.

  Sobs ripped through me as I scrambled to my knees, slipping on the pool of blood surrounding her lifeless body. “Mom, wake up.” I draped myself over her stomach, unable to look at her head where one of the bullets hit. “I’m here. I’m right here.” With trembling arms, I tightened my grip, burying my face in her blood-soaked shirt. A putrid metallic smell replaced her floral scent.

  God, please help her. Please.

  “You’re gonna be alright, Mom. Just stay with me.” I couldn’t hold her tight enough to stop her from hurting. To stop her from slipping away. To stop her from leaving me all alone. “I love you so much.”

  Guttural, unable-to-catch-my-breath, sobs poured out of me. And still, as my world crumbled around me and pain overwhelmed my being, I needed to get to a phone.

  Click.

  A quiver rocked through me.

  I closed my eyes with my arms still wrapped around my mom, the woman I loved more than anything in the world. The woman who’d carry me over to the other side. To the light.

  I braced myself for the impact of the bullet, praying for a quick death. Praying to be far away from him and the nightmare we’d been living.

  But the impact didn’t come.

  I cracked one eye.

  The monster stood over us with his gun to his temple and his eyes locked on mine. “This is all your fault.”

  When he was certain I heard him, he fired once.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ELEVEN YEARS LATER

  HAYDEN

  My eyes snapped open. I wished I could blame the mid-afternoon sunlight seeping into my living room for the sweat dripping down my face and my heaving chest. But I couldn’t.

  Most people endured a rare nightmare. One that rocked them to the core. But not me. The same two plagued every one of my dreams. Unfortunately, they weren’t strange figments of my imagination. Explorations into the deep recesses of my psyche. They were real memories. The worst I possessed.

  I would’ve given anything to erase the horrid images from my mind, but they were my penance. My cross to bear.

  I sat up from my black leather sectional, the focal point of my living room. It’s the one place I normally fell asleep, if I fell asleep. Running my hands through my unruly hair, I scanned my apartment. For a guy, I kept it pretty clean. Of course I only cared about my flat screen. Without the white noise it provided, my bare walls closed in on me.

  I stood up, working the kinks out of my neck. I should’ve grabbed my bag and headed to the gym, but I walked to the window at the rear of my apartment instead.

  Late August in Texas didn’t see many trade winds, so the trees and flowers surrounding the building sat idle in the balmy afternoon air. Luckily, a well-maintained pool flanked the rear of the property. And since most of the residents were elderly and rarely left the building, I was the only one who ever used it.

  Walk away, man. Walk away.

  I should’ve gotten something to eat. Taken a shower. Met up with Remy and the guys. But my damn eyes had a mind of their own. And they sought the sole picnic table. The reason I stood at the window in the first place.

  Since moving in three years ago, it had been an ordinary picnic table. But for the last four days, it had become the very bane of my existence. Maybe not the actual piece of lawn furniture, but the unfamiliar girl seated on top of it. The one with her head buried in her knees and the coffee-colored waves of hair spillin
g over her body, bawling her eyes out.

  Four days ago, she rolled into the parking lot in a killer black BMW sports edition. She lugged an oversized brand-name suitcase up the flight of stairs to the second floor, clearly not realizing the building had an elevator.

  From my peephole, I watched her pull the suitcase down the carpeted hallway and approach the door diagonal to mine. Katherine, the owner of the building and a total babe for an older chick, greeted her with a sympathetic smile before stepping aside to let her in. Though they didn’t hug, the girl was obviously staying with her, and not renting an apartment.

  Sure, I looked like a creepy stalker staring out my second floor window, but I wasn’t. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. I just couldn’t ignore the fact that the girl hadn’t stopped crying in four days. Nor the fact that I felt like shit for not going down to check on her.

  Don’t get me wrong. My apartment was a revolving door of one-night stands, each convinced they’d be the one to change my ways. And never once did I feel bad for tossing them out after I screwed them. They knew exactly what they were getting when they agreed to go home with me.

  I didn’t do relationships. Too much trouble. I didn’t care about other people’s problems. Got enough of my own. And I didn’t do kindness to strangers. Strangers didn’t care about me.

  Bottom line. I kept people at arm’s length.

  A shrink would attribute my aversion to relationships to the trauma I suffered when I was ten. But I’d been left to self-diagnose since I never saw a shrink. Bouncing around foster homes left little time for that. And truthfully, I wanted no part of baring my soul to some stranger. Fuck that.

  If I learned one thing from my messed up life, it was that you didn’t let people in, and you didn’t let your emotions out. You couldn’t. I wondered if I even had any. Emotions that is. Because if you asked me, life had hardened me beyond repair.

  And just because I felt like a total dick watching the girl on the picnic table bawl her eyes out, it didn’t mean I’d gone soft. Not by a long shot.

  Maybe it was her shoulder-shaking sobs that kept my feet firmly planted by the window. Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t seem much younger than me. Nineteen. Maybe twenty. Or perhaps it was the way her body scrunched into a ball that made her appear so small. So fragile. So broken. Like she needed someone to take care of her.

  Jesus Christ. Listen to me.

  I was one step away from playing sappy love songs and watching fucking chick flicks. I dragged my fingers through my hair and drew a deep breath. I needed to get the hell away from the window.