In one hand, Roger had a death grip on my mother’s wrist, and in the other, a bottle of bourbon, already half empty. Mum yelped once again, desperately trying to yank her arm free of his grip, which only made him tighten it that much more. “Well, well,” he loomed over me, his anger palpable. “What do we have here?”
I’d been so caught up in being with Joey that I’d failed to notice the tire tracks leading into the garage that would have warned me he was there, and immediately, my heart sank.
Everything else that was going on fell away from me for a moment as my father locked his eyes into mine, his energy dark and his smile even darker.
Chapter Ten
“Roger, come on!” Mum continued to scream. “Let her be. She’s had a good time tonight; let our girl be happy for once!” She yanked some more at his iron grip, still crying as she pulled to no avail.
“Where have you been?” Roger slurred, ignoring her entirely. “Did I give you permission to go out tonight?”
In a bold, unwarranted burst of strength, I found myself standing up to him. “Did I ask for your permission?”
He raised his eyebrows at me, more annoyed by my defiance than anything else, not even remotely as bothered as I’d hoped he’d be. “I’m sorry, are you taking a tone with me?”
Roger was made up entirely of metal and sharp edges, whereas my false outer layer of strength felt like aluminum foil wrapped around how soft and vulnerable I felt as he stared me down. I crossed my arms protectively, as if shielding my core would actually keep me safe from whatever harm was coming my way. “Yeah, because you don’t dictate my life.”
He began to cackle in a crude, sputtering laughter. “Your life? What life, Ashley? You sit in your room and you paint your sad pictures all day. You don’t have a life worth dictating.”
“Hey, that isn’t true,” Joey piped up from where I’d forgotten he was not far behind me, stepping back up onto the porch to stand defensively at my side.
My stomach churned in a sick, grumbling manner. “Joey, please,” I begged quietly, putting a hand against his chest to try to keep him away from my train wreck of a life, to keep him thinking I was the little star he assumed I was. “Don’t.”
He showed no signs of backing down, though, squaring his shoulders with Roger. My father looked him up and down before snorting at him rudely, “And just who do you think you are?”
“My name is Joey, sir, and I can’t let you talk to Ashley like that.”
“You seem like a nice boy, Joey,” Mum pleaded with him, tears still streaking dark mascara rivers down her thinning, ivory cheeks. “You don’t know Roger like Ashley and I know him. Don’t get involved in somethin’ that’s too big for you.”
In one fluid motion, Roger swung his hand up and sent my mother sailing to the floor. The disgusting sound of the impact of her body against the wood forced a loud, quick yelp from her, and instead of rising to fight again, she stayed on the floor, her body jerking as she sobbed. My father turned to hover over her. “If he wants to start trouble, then let him start it!” He choked a bit on a bourbon hiccup as he turned back to Joey and I. “You don’t know anything about my family, little boy, so why don’t you butt out while I’m still giving you the chance.”
“Do you expect me to just stand here and let you hurt them?” Defensively, Joey stepped forward, reaching a hand out and guiding me behind him. My father went to peek over his shoulder at me, but it didn’t go unnoticed, and my date shifted to block me from view. “No, you’re talking to me now.”
Roger was silent for a moment before spitting with an audible smirk, “I will give you one more chance to hand her over before I take her from you.” He laughed, and I heard the thick, heavy swallowing of him guzzling a bit more from his bottle. “Save yourself the trouble; she isn’t worth this fight.”
Joey’s muscles were still tense and rigid as I huddled against his back for any form of solace from what was happening. He fired back with a stone voice, “Well, with all due respect, if you want her, you’ll have to go through me first.”
There was a looming stillness in the air for what felt like forever, and I almost thought it might be better than the two of them fighting. All I really wanted was for Joey to head back to his car, go home, and pretend the past two minutes hadn’t happened at all. I didn’t have much time to daydream about how much easier that would be, though – without warning, the silence was quite literally shattered. After the cracking permeated the hush, a plume of liquid droplets sprinkled down over Joey and I. Roger snarled immediately after the noise, “Not a problem.”
“Run!” Joey yelped at me. I didn’t have time to process what was going on before he grabbed my wrist and dragged me from the porch, forcing me to scurry along beside him if I wanted to stay on my feet. I turned to look back as we made our dash from the house to his car, confronted with the image of Roger following too closely behind us, his bottle smashed in half as a makeshift weapon. The jagged edges were facing outward as he held the handle, swinging it wildly as he ran after us.
Joey was quick to open the passenger door and shoved me into his SUV before moving to the driver’s side, and I hammered the lock down immediately as Roger arrived, trying his best to pry the door open. The instant Joey got the key into the ignition, he gunned the car down the street, peeling out with a loud, whining screech. I watched as Roger chased us down the road for a second or two before his pace slowed to a standstill, and he fell to his knees in the street.
Not far from my house was The Bistro, the first place in Marmara that Joey would likely be familiar with, and we whipped into the parking lot not long after. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath since I got into the car, and I finally let myself exhale as I felt the pain of oxygen deprivation beginning to take me over. Exhausted, I shut my eyes and dropped my head woefully onto the headrest on the back of my seat.
“You know, when you said you and your dad don’t get along, I figured it was just a disconnect between your age and his. I didn’t expect anything at all like whatever that was,” Joey admitted, breathing deeply, trying to calm down. “He is legitimately crazy.”
I felt his eyes weighing down on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him just yet. Guilt and panic fired rapidly throughout every inch of my body, and I shrunk down in my seat, away from him. “Sorry you had to be a part of that. That’s why I asked you not to engage him.”
“Like I’m actually going to stand there and say, ‘Well, thanks for tonight, good luck with your clearly abusive father, bye,’ and just leave you there to deal with him alone?” Tenderly, he placed a hand on top of mine, and I tensed up at the contact. “This whole thing is beyond your control, so why are you apologizing to me?”
Compelled by his sympathy and kindness, I pried my eyes open again and forced myself to look at him, his eyes emphasizing what his words had already said. “You didn’t need to put yourself on the line like that, and it almost got you hurt. I guess that’s what I’m sorry for.”
Unconvinced, he shrugged. “He didn’t actually get either of us, though, so it’s okay, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well, he would have gotten me, had you not stepped in to help me out.” I felt a fresh stream of tears beginning to well up in my eyes, and I tried to blink them away. “I appreciate that more than you know, Joey. Really.”
His smile was soft and gentle as he rubbed his thumb across the top of my hand, tucking his fingers against my palm. “I’m not taking you back to that house tonight. Why don’t you come stay at my place until he sobers up?”
A feeling of dread took me over all at once. I told him, my voice slightly erratic, “Oh, no, I can’t impose like that.”
“If you were imposing, I wouldn’t have offered,” he countered. “We have a guest room for when family comes to visit from Italy, so it’s not a problem to put you up for the night. We can just hang out and try to forget that any of this happened.”
Something inside of me trusted him enough to su
rrender to him, in the hopes that he’d keep me safe from the monsters in my closet throughout the night. It was that hope that guided me into saying, “To your house, then.”
The ride there was silent, save for the sound of the tires clawing for traction on the slush-covered road beneath us. It wasn’t awkward – more intense than anything – but I was still relieved when we pulled onto a side street not too far into the district lines of Corsica. The houses were nice, upper-middle class homes, and Joey pulled into the garage of one at the very end of the dead-end street.
The comfort of the Attollicci household swept over me the moment we walked through the door and into the oversized kitchen. A sweet, sugary aroma drifted through the warm air, and both of his parents were in the kitchen to enjoy it together, talking and laughing in their native language as we walked in.
“Ashley!” Julian beamed from his spot at the island counter in the middle of the room, where he sat surrounded by papers and manila folders. His friendly, accented voice wrapped me in a blanket of security as he took off his wire-framed reading glasses. “It’s nice to see you! Although I must say that it’s a little weird to see my son at your side instead of Ellie.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you two know each other, somehow,” Joey said, not trying to hide his confusion as to how we did, and he came back to me after tucking our shoes away in a small closet by the garage door, wrapping an arm around my waist. “I’m not sure if you know my mom, Rosetta, though?”
The short, portly woman I recognized from the register at The Bistro brushed her hands off on the black apron she wore around her pudgy stomach and stuck one out to me with a smile, and I shook it graciously. “Nice to meet you. Sorry for the mess of flour, dear, but baking doesn’t come without a mess.”
“Now, how did the two of you meet?” Julian asked, relaxing back into his seat and pointing between Joey and I with the tip of his ballpoint pen. “I walk by Ashley and Ellie almost every morning on the way to work, so I know you don’t go to the same school. How do you know each other?”
I turned back to face Joey, noting then just how severely Rosetta’s influence had been lost on him – he looked exactly like a younger replica of his father. “We didn’t before tonight. Some mutual friends introduced us and we hit it off,” he answered for both of us. “Would it be okay if she spent the night here tonight?”
Both of his parents seemed surprised by the audacity of the question, asking for a girl to spend the night at their house, especially after admitting that we’d only just met. When his son offered not a word of exposition, Julian pressed forward, opting to interrogate Joey in Italian for a moment of privacy in my presence.
Complete with eye rolling and pointed inflection, Joey made what I could only assume to be his counter-argument, and I just prayed that he wasn’t giving all my secrets away so soon after learning them. The two of them kept their volley going for a few moments, exchanging foreign words, strict expressions, and finally, a chuckle. It was then that Joey grabbed me by the hand and said, “Let me show you upstairs.”
Though I tried to smile at them to lessen the somewhat palpable tension, Julian and Rosetta's faces remained etched with concern. As we walked away, I could feel their eyes burning holes into the back of me until Joey and I were out of sight, echoing Italian dialogue following us up from the kitchen.
I asked cautiously as Joey led the way up the stairs, “So, what did you tell your parents just now?”
“I know what you’re hinting at,” he replied, turning to me as he nudged open the last door in the hallway, “and what happened at your house stays between you and I. I can only assume it’s a sensitive topic, so I just said your parents are arguing and you didn’t want to hear it, after having fun all night.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently. “Your secrets are safe with me, Ash.”
In a show of gratitude, I let my body fall against his, holding tightly onto him. For a moment, I stood there, ensnared in his embrace, enjoying the sensation of feeling him against me, of breathing him in and letting him surround me. He was so warm, and every part of him was tantalizing, and it was in his arms that I was finally able to relax. Aside from the brief goodbye hug we’d shared earlier, it was the first real hug I’d gotten in quite a while, and all I wanted in that moment was for him to hold me, to let me hold him, and I felt like somehow, everything would be okay.
“Thank you,” I told him softly as I pulled away from him, somewhat afraid of getting too drunk on him too quickly.
“Let’s get you some clothes for tonight,” he suggested, his expression still tender as he guided me into his bedroom. I found myself surrounded by muted olive walls, suffocating beneath posters and photographs, although everything else in the room was almost too tidy to belong to an eighteen-year old boy. “I don’t think anybody’s clothes will actually fit you, but you can borrow something of mine, so you’re comfortable.”
“Sounds good to me.” I looked around his room while he searched for pajamas for me, trying my best to recognize all of the things on his wall. I’d heard of a good number of the bands he seemed to like, but his personal photos were new to me, and a new face seemed to appear in every shot. Each one was a different second of his fast-paced life immortalized forever, and while it was always someone new with him at someplace different than the last picture, the happiness was clear in each and every one of them.
Before I could lose myself to the enormity of his life, I turned back to Joey just as he offered up what he found. “Are basketball shorts and a t-shirt okay?” he asked, and I smirked at him, taking the bundle of clothes as he oriented me toward the bathroom that was connected to his room. I quickly tugged on a pair of his cherry red shorts and a black t-shirt that was a size too big for me, and made my way back to him quickly, not wanting to waste a single second of our suddenly extended time together.
He, too, had finished changing, and had decided to lounge back onto his bed, but he sat up politely when he heard me come in. “Thank you again,” I told him, motioning to my new outfit. “This is way better than sleeping in jeans and a sweater.”
“No problem. Now that that’s all taken care of, though, I had a question for you,” he told me, patting the spot beside him on his bed, an invitation to sit that I gladly accepted. “I don’t know how you feel about everything that happened, but your lack of a reaction to it kind of hints to me that it’s nothing you’re not used to.” My abandoning our eye contact served as the silent confirmation that he needed. He proceeded carefully from there, his caution clear in his tone. “My question was, do you want to talk about it?”
The only other person who had ever offered to play the role of my personal therapist was Danny, and Ellie’s sudden pestering about it had begun to make me wonder if it was even real. Sure, he’s a real person, out there as flesh and blood in the real world, but what were the odds I was actually dreaming with him instead of just of him? What if he was just my desperate mind painting someone for me to talk to when I needed it the most? What if he was just the leg I needed to stand on until I found someone like him in my version of the real world?
Who even knew if Danny was really there, but I could confirm that Joey was, and he cared about me. Not only could I prove it, but I could also come to like it.
“You’d really listen to me if I wanted to spend tonight whining?” I asked him.
Ignoring my negative spin on the situation, he shrugged. “If you wanted me to voice my opinions and/or condolences, then I could do that. If you just need someone to sit down, shut up, and listen to what you have to say, then I could do that, too. I won’t force you into anything, but the offer is there if you want to take me up on it.”
Inside, another piece of the heavy, ironclad armor I’d put on against him chipped away. The shield he’d inadvertently been making dents in the whole night was beginning to give way, his subconscious efforts with me paying off greatly. “I might take you up on it later,” I continued, “but for now, could we maybe just do something that
has nothing to do with my father? I’m away from him, and I kind of just want to enjoy that."
Finally, Joey smiled, his serious expression wiped clean off. “If that’s what you want to do, then of course we can.” The inviting warmth of his toothy grin evenly matched the feelings he’d given me during our embrace just moments before, and I felt them begin to erupt inside of me again. “Without much use for our basement, my parents let me make it a hangout room for me and my friends. Plus, Rosetta is making cannoli.”
The two of us stole the small platter of sweets and raced to the basement before his parents could question any of our decisions. The room was somewhat dark, with a navy blue and off-white theme, but it was warm and comfortable. We set the desserts down onto the coffee table, and settled onto one of the leather sofas together to indulge in some video games and television while we snacked.
The night caught up to me quickly, though, and my body registered that it’d done a hundred times more that night than I was used to doing. Before I knew it, I fell asleep with my head tucked into the crook of Joey’s neck, using him as a pillow.
✽✽✽
I found myself stirring as movement began to sound in the hallway, and it was only then that I realized I’d ended up tucked into the bed in the guest room. I vaguely remembered Joey, at some point, carrying me upstairs and depositing me there, telling me he’d be in the next room if I needed anything during the night. The sun was already beginning to rise high in the cloudy sky, flooding the room with gray morning light.
A soft tapping came at the door, and Joey pushed it open quietly to poke his head in. “Ashley?” he whispered. “Are you up yet?”
I flubbed lazily onto my side, facing the door with a soft smile. “Just waking up.” With a coy smirk, he snuck into the room and relaxed beside me, and I grinned at Joey as I scooted a little closer into him, murmuring in my sweetest voice against his neck, “Good morning.”
Lucid Page 8