by Mari Carr
“I have a problem with being touched,” she began. “Well, I mean, not casual touches, brushing up against someone or that kind of thing, just more intimate touching. For some reason, it doesn’t bother me when you touch or kiss me, or at least not after the first night in the cabin when we had that big fight. I don’t know why. I liked it even.”
His eyes faltered slightly at her use of the past tense.
Hayley quickly added, “I do like it. It’s just tonight, you caught me off-guard and everything started happening so fast. I wanted you to do all those incredible things, I really did, but then suddenly I didn’t want it and he started laughing at me again and I screwed everything up, just like I always do.”
She stood by the bedroom door clad only in her long shirt. She twisted the hem of it nervously and realized she probably wasn’t making much sense. Hayley struggled to find a way to explain it all better, but the words simply wouldn’t come.
She’d never realized how much she craved a man’s touches until Jack entered her life. She wanted him to desire her, despite her insecurity, her past, her strange fear. No one had ever broken through her barriers until Jack and surprisingly, it felt good to have a friend on the inside of her self-erected walls with her. Safe, warm, content.
Jack reached over and pulled the material from her hands. “You’re going to tear your shirt if you keep twisting it like that.”
The room was suddenly stifling. She wanted to get away, outside, into the cool night air. She couldn’t breathe. She started for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jack walked passed her, blocking the exit.
“I—” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does and you—of all people—should realize I don’t make idle threats. You sit on your own, or I’ll put you in that chair and keep you there however I have to until I’m satisfied that we’ve said all that needs to be said. Do you understand?” Jack’s voice was laced with something that sounded surprisingly like humor. Glancing up, she caught the slightest glimpse of a smile before he lightly turned her and pushed her toward the chair.
Wearily, she sank down. Her brief nap before Jack’s arrival left her head fuzzy and dull. She longed for a week of nothing but sleep.
“Now then.” He sat in the chair opposite her. “Who started laughing at you?”
“What?” Hayley asked, confused.
“You said you wanted me to touch you until he started laughing. Who is he?”
While she felt emotionally drained, Jack looked fully charged. He sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His gaze held hers and refused to let go. It was as if he was willing some of his strength to her through the connection of their eyes.
“My father,” Hayley answered softly. “I haven’t told you much about him, have I? I don’t like to talk about him. Maybe Erin told you something?”
Jack shook his head.
“No,” Hayley continued. “Erin wouldn’t tell you anything. She doesn’t know much. I never told her or Tori. I don’t know why I didn’t. I suppose I was afraid they would look at me differently and I couldn’t stand that. They were my best friends, the only friends I’ve ever had, and I never wanted to run the risk of losing them. Not that I would, I mean—” She stumbled over her words, struggling to try to make him understand.
Jack reached over and grasped her hand, giving it a small squeeze. “We have all night. Take your time.”
Taking a deep breath, she continued, calmer than before. “My father was a drunk—a mean drunk. He would stay out late drinking. When I was little, I’d lie in bed praying to fall asleep before he got home. He always woke Marian up and picked a fight, usually over the way the house looked or even just because she hadn’t waited up for him. I’d hear him hitting her, yelling at her, calling her a worthless slut. She’d cry and beg him to stop.”
Hayley stopped and looked at the fire. “I was six years old when I finally pulled my head out from under the pillow and left the sanctuary of my room. I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought maybe he would stop hurting her if he saw me watching him. Fool that I was, I thought he would feel ashamed to hit her in front of me. I decided I would stop him.”
Her lips curled up in a mirthless smile. “Silly, huh, a little girl standing up to a huge man who spent his free afternoons in a boxing ring. Guess you know how that ended. Instead of one punching bag, he had two. He broke my arm in two places the night I decided to make my stand. Marian told him to get the hell out and took me to the hospital. She’d never fought him or yelled at him, so it came as quite a shock—to both of us. He took off and we didn’t see him for six months. I don’t know if it was Marian or the police who chased him away, but it didn’t matter—he was gone.” She felt a tear slide down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away.
Glancing at Jack, she saw not sympathy, but something more like hatred flashing in his eyes. Strangely, she was comforted by the look—it was one she’d seen far too often when she looked at herself in the mirror.
“So Marian and I were on our own. It was hard because there wasn’t a lot of money, but I remember those months as the best of my childhood. Then my father started calling and coming by. He swore to Marian he’d quit drinking, that he’d turned his life around and she believed him. He moved back in and things were okay for a few months. He had a job, he was home at night, he bought Marian some new clothes and even gave me a doll.”
Jack never moved as she spoke and she wondered what he was thinking.
“Before long, he fell back in with some old buddies and starting hitting the bars again. I could hear Marian crying at night, waiting for him to come home, waiting for it to all start again. And then it did.”
She shivered, her body moving beyond tiredness to a calm numbness. “You know it’s funny, but the nighttime with all its screams and tears and fists wasn’t what bothered me the most. I’d gotten used to those things. It was the daytime I could never get a grip on. He would come home every night and hurt her, but the next morning, he would kiss her and take care of her as if she was some kind of fragile China doll. I don’t know how you can beat someone with that kind of hate and then touch them with so much love.”
“Don’t you think that would explain why you don’t like to be touched,” Jack asked softly.
“I’m sure that’s part of it, but no, that’s not why. Marian stayed with my father for two more years, always the same routine of beatings and forgiveness. He never hit me again—after the night he broke my arm—regardless of how many times I stood in his way. I put myself between them night after night, but he knew Marian wouldn’t forgive him if he hurt me again. And I knew it too.”
“One night, I had just turned nine and he came home drunker than I’d ever seen him. He’d lost yet another job and we were broke again. The landlord had hung an eviction notice on our door. Marian was in bed recovering from the flu and I was sitting up, waiting for him. I wasn’t going to let him hurt her when she was so sick. She was worried about the rent and we hadn’t had anything for dinner because there was no money for food. I just wanted her to be able to sleep. He stumbled into the apartment and saw me sitting there. He started shouting for Marian, but I knew she wouldn’t answer.”
“Why not?” Jack asked.
“I’d slipped two sleeping pills into her hot tea before she went to bed. I told him she was sick and to leave her alone. You know, in all my life, I don’t think my father had ever really looked at me, but that night, he did. He’d always allowed me to exist in the same house, but he had no use for me. I knew from the cradle he didn’t love me.”
Jack started to say something, but she stopped him with a wave of her hand. “No,” she continued, “it’s true. My father didn’t care for me, but that night, when he looked at me, I saw something in his eyes that scared the hell out of me—hatred.” She shivered once more. Jack rose, walking to the bed to retrieve the quilt. Gently, he wrapped it around her before returning to his seat and reclai
ming her hand.
She’d never spoken about any of this before. Not to the psychiatrist, Erin, Tori, not even Marian, who’d been there for most of it. Since she was nine years old, she had kept all these things buried deep inside, afraid to let them out. Jack gave her an encouraging smile.
“All my life my father ignored me. Frankly, I didn’t think he had feelings for me one way or the other, but that night I realized I’d been wrong. He hated me. He asked where Marian was and I told her she was asleep and that I wasn’t going to let him anywhere near her. He laughed. The worst laugh I’d ever heard. It must have seemed funny to him—a scrawny, hungry little girl trying to protect her mother from the big, bad giant. But I did intend to stop him, anyway I could.” Hayley closed her eyes, reliving a time she hadn’t let herself think of in thirteen years.
“What happened?” Jack whispered.
“He walked over to where I was standing and punched me in the stomach—hard.”
Jack stood abruptly at this, coming to her chair and kneeling in front of her. “Hayley,” he began, but she shook her head, continuing quickly, the words flowing freely now. The floodgates were open and nothing could stop her.
“I wasn’t expecting it. He hadn’t touched me since the night he broke my arm and I believed I was immune from his abuse. I sank to the floor, the wind knocked out of me and he stood over me, laughing. Then without a word, he grabbed my hair and pulled me up so his face was only inches from mine. I could smell the whiskey on his breath and then he—” Hayley stumbled then, unable to go any further in her story.
“What?”
“He k-kissed me.”
Whatever Jack had been expecting to hear, it obviously wasn’t that. He reeled back on his heels. “What do you mean he kissed you?”
“Just what I said.” Hayley struggled to swallow around the lump in her throat. “He kissed me. Put his tongue in my mouth. I was gagging and trying to shove him away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
At this, she pulled her hands out of Jack’s grip and wrapped the quilt more closely around her. It was so cold. How could her body heat travel to such extremes so quickly? She’d gone from fire to ice in an instant.
Jack pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry,” he said gently as he lightly rocked her back and forth. “No more. You don’t have to talk about this anymore.”
“No,” she said. “I need to explain to you why, why…” She stopped speaking, unsure of what to say next.
“I don’t need to hear anymore, Hayley. I can guess what happened.” He didn’t want her to replay anymore of that horrible night. He was angrier than he’d ever been in his life. He wanted to punish her father—wanted to kill the man, but that would never be possible. The wild look in her eyes reminded Jack of a cornered animal. He hadn’t seen her like this since the first night they’d spent together in the cabin. He understood why she hadn’t told anyone about that night. Hayley was proud and brave. It would kill her to admit to weakness of any kind, regardless of the fact she’d only been a child.
She’d been a child abused by an adult who should have loved her. He could understand that—he’d suffered abuse at the hands of his uncle for two long, terrible years. Hayley had suffered through nine. He was touched she trusted him enough to confide something so painful to him.
“No,” Hayley said. “You don’t understand. I have to say this. I’ve never come this far. Please let me finish.”
He saw how much the conversation was costing her—her face was white as parchment, her eyes dark with pain and fear, and her body was shaking despite the warm quilt and blazing fire. He felt as though someone had driven a sword into his chest.
“Hayley,” he began again, but she halted his words with shaking fingers on his lips.
“Please.”
The pleading look in her big, brown eyes brought home how important it was for her to speak. For years, she’d carried the burden of that night alone. Tonight, she was sharing the load—with him.
“Very well,” he said, “but no more distance.” He picked her up and returned to the chair. This time, he sat with her on his lap, holding her as one would cradle a baby, tightly clutched against his chest. She sat still for an instant, adjusting to the closeness. He took several deep, calm breaths and hoped she would follow suit.
“I didn’t understand why he would kiss me like that. He’d never touched me except for that one beating, so the idea he was kissing me in such a horrible way confused me. Even though I was only nine, I knew what happened between a man and a woman.”
Startled, Jack started to speak, but she continued. “One time, I’d hidden behind the couch when he’d come home early. I was only five and still quite afraid of him. I’d gotten up to go to the bathroom and Marian didn’t realize I was out of bed. He came in, in a furor, and started yelling at her. He’d accused her of sleeping with one of his friends. I didn’t understand much of what he was saying, but Marian was crying and denying it. I kept waiting for him to hit her, but he didn’t that time. Instead, he said he would make sure she never wanted any other man. He started tearing her clothes off. I was confused and scared and couldn’t understand what he was doing. I know now. He raped her.”
She tried to get up, but he stopped her. He lightly brushed her hair away from her face and gently rubbed her back. Again, he started to rock her until she calmed down.
“The night he kissed me, I remembered what he’d done to her. I shoved him away and was able to break loose, but he caught me before I could get my bedroom door closed and locked. He dragged me over to the bed, slapping me over and over until I couldn’t run or fight anymore.” She paused briefly as his hold on her tightened.
“He ripped my nightgown and started touching me. All over, everywhere. His hands were so cold, so hard. He said if I wouldn’t let him have his wife, I would take her place. I tried to make him stop, but he just kept laughing at me, calling me horrible names. He put his fingers inside me. It hurt. I begged him to stop, but he kept on, laughing, calling me a slut, a whore.”
Each word she spoke made Jack more determined to slip through that damned tree and kill her bastard of a father.
“I couldn’t fight him. I tried, but I couldn’t. Then he stopped.”
“Why?”
“Marian was in the doorway. I saw the look in his eyes when he realized she’d seen what he was doing. God, Jack, I saw it so clearly. He loved her. In a sick, completely obsessed kind of way, he truly loved her and, in that moment, he’d lost her. The love she’d had for him died as if it were a rose withering on the vine. Despite everything he did to her, she loved him too. My whole life, until then, I thought he hated us both. But it was just me. He only hated me.”
She rested her head against his shoulder, exhaustion claiming her. The words she’d spoken had taken every bit of her remaining strength.
How could she tell such a horrific story with so little emotion? Then, he recalled his relationship with his uncle, the abuse he’d suffered as a boy at Wilshire’s hands. He, too, thought of those years in a calm, emotionless way. Over time, he had learned to separate the memories from the emotions. Hayley had done the same. The two of them had so much in common and yet so much to overcome.
Looking at her tired face, tight with anguish, he decided it was better she didn’t feel too much about that night.
“Why did he hate you?” Jack asked after a few moments.
“At the time, I didn’t know. Marian and I never talked about him after that night. She simply packed our bags and we left. I think I must have threatened him. He loved Marian to the exclusion of everything and when I was born, I took part of her away from him. He wanted her all to himself and he didn’t want to share her, not even with his own daughter. I don’t know really. That’s probably just me overanalyzing something that makes no sense.” Hayley smiled at Jack wearily. “Too many psych classes in college.”
“It’s a good explanation. What happened to Marian?�
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Hayley shrugged and, for the first time, Jack could see real pain. Hayley missed her mother.
“I know it may seem like she wasn’t a good mother, bringing me up in such a violent house, but truthfully, I never doubted Marian loved me and, later, when it was just the two of us, we had some great times. She was funny and attentive and all the things a good mother should be. Unfortunately, she fell in love with a horrible man. When all was said and done, she left him not because he hurt her but because he hurt me.”
Jack smiled, relieved Hayley had experienced love in her childhood. It explained much about her unwavering loyalty toward her friends and her determination to reach out to other women like her mother, to care for other children like her. She had learned to love through her mother.
“Why do you call her Marian, not Mother?”
“My father,” she answered. “When I learned to talk, he told me to call her Marian. I think he thought that would put some distance between us. If I didn’t call her mommy, she would cease to be that. Silly, huh?”
“He was a fool,” he said, “and if I ever meet him, he’s a dead fool.”
Hayley giggled. His fierce defense of her against a mean-spirited drunk who wasn’t even born yet seemed to please her. She had told him her deepest, darkest secret.
Christ. He would never be able to let her go.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me again if you knew.”
“Now who’s being silly?” He lifted her from the chair.
“I like your strength,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t scare you?”
“Not anymore. You make me feel safe.”
He carried her to the bed and pulled the covers over her before climbing in himself. He wrapped her up in his embrace and placed a light kiss on her forehead.
“Go to sleep, firebrand. It’s been a long night.” She was asleep before he’d finished speaking. However, Jack lay there long after the fire had banked, thinking of everything she’d told him, ready to guard her from the nightmares should they return.