I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat and glanced away.
Friend.
I fought the moisture threatening my eyes.
“He used to be, anyway.”
God. Maybe this was the worst thing I could do, rambling to my son about the man who’d confronted me a week before, demanding to know if Jonathan was his. But I’d held it in for too long and it felt too good to let it out. Just once to give voice to William, a declaration that what we’d shared had been real.
Jonathan frowned in a searching way. “The friend…that’s…mad at you?” he asked.
I grimaced and ran my fingers through his hair, not surprised by the conclusion he’d drawn. I knew I was crossing a line by speaking this aloud, but I at least owed Jonathan this. I saw the fear that had widened his eyes when I sped away from William before. Jonathan had strained in his seat to get a better look at the man who stood staring at us as we left him behind. Then tonight Jonathan had seemed unable to look away from him when we walked into the restaurant. It had only increased. It was as if a tether of awareness had linked them when Jonathan stared out the window at William who stood unmoving in the parking lot. It was almost unbearable to witness the way William had looked at Jonathan. I wanted to hide my son away from the protective longing that lined William’s face, because I’d seen it before when William shined his light into my life six years before. William was not going to give up.
“Yes…Mommy did something that made him very sad a long time ago.”
“How come?” Sadness slowly seeped into Jonathan’s features, as if he couldn’t comprehend I had done something to harm another person and this news had chipped a little away at the complete faith he had in me. As difficult as it was admitting my faults to my son, I knew it was a given opportunity to instill something in him that I’d always lacked. I wasn’t going to waste it.
“Because I was too scared to do what I knew was right…too scared to fight for what I wanted.” I lowered myself to look him fully in the eye. “I wasn’t brave enough.” And how I wished I’d been. Shifting, I took his small face in my hands and stressed the words. “But you’re brave, Jonathan. You can do anything you want…you just have to decide…decide how you want to be treated.”
Jonathan seemed confused, as if he didn’t understand—or maybe he just disagreed.
His attention went to the door and to the one who lurked behind it just outside this little haven. “Is your friend…bad?” he whispered low, cowering as he made the obvious comparison.
A skitter of emotions flashed through my body, guilt and sorrow and overpowering bitterness.
“No, baby, he isn’t bad.”
Unable to hold myself together any longer, I leaned in and brushed my lips across his forehead. “You should get some rest, sweetheart.”
“‘Kay, Mommy.” He rolled over and tugged the covers over his shoulder.
Everything felt heavy as I forced myself to stand. Up until then, neither of us had ever voiced our fears out loud. We acknowledged it in the tears we shed together. Soothed it in the way we clung to each other when we wiped those tears away.
I hadn't been prepared to hear my son call his father bad.
I found myself with my back pressed against Jonathan’s bedroom wall, biting my fist to keep from weeping aloud as I watched my son sleep in the shadows of his room. He tossed fitfully, as if the darkness had sucked him under and held him hostage in this nightmare that was our life. He whimpered from somewhere in the blackness of his mind.
Trembling, I forced myself from the room and into the equally darkened hall. I drew in a sharp, shocked breath when I noticed Troy hovering as a quivering ball of aggression on the brink, just inside the living room.
I shook as he approached. His steps were menacing, purposed as he slowly stalked toward me. Splaying one hand across my chest, he pushed me back against the wall. His breaths were ragged as he loomed over me.
His mouth descended on mine. Forceful. Hot. Angry.
It took everything not to cry out. This was how he would take his frustration out on me. He’d mark me, claim me—assert I was his without ever saying a word.
Pulling me into our room, he pushed me onto the bed. He never seemed to mind that I lay limp while he consumed me, and I couldn’t help but think that was the way he wanted it.
Only once had I fought him, and, in the end, I’d lost everything. Now I didn’t even try. I focused on the distorted spot on the wall, one I wasn’t sure was really there.
His hands became impatient in the normally controlled violence. His voice was harsh and out of place. “Maggie, look at me.”
I pinned my cheek to the bed and squeezed my eyes shut, seeking refuge in my mind.
“I said look at me.” His fingers were at my jaw, and his nails dug into my skin as he forced me to turn to him. His brown eyes were wild yet sharp and defined. “Do you see me? I’m never going to let you go, Maggie. Never.”
As if I didn’t already understand that. He’d made it perfectly clear what he would do if I ever tried to leave again.
He shuddered, rolled from me, sated, his anger quenched.
He just passed the anger on to me.
I faced away from him, and Troy draped his arm around my waist and pulled me against his chest.
Nuzzling his nose in my hair, he kissed my neck and mumbled, “I love you so much, baby,” close to my ear. I cringed as I was overcome by memories and regret.
One of the hardest things to stomach was he actually believed he did.
He drew me tighter before his breaths evened out, and he fell asleep.
I let the tears come, listened to the wind beat at the walls of this house, the words silent on my lips. “No, you don't.”
Maggie ~ June, Six Years Earlier
I held my breath when I felt him. My senses keened with William’s presence, prickling in awareness as I felt his eyes burning into me from behind.
Though the way he watched me now was different. This time it was with a sadness I hated was there.
Moving through his house, I kept my face downturned as I worked. My mind was so twisted up in confusion that I didn’t know up from down or inside from out. I didn’t know myself.
He’d brought something out in me I hadn’t known existed, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I wished I were brave enough to look at him. I wished I could find even an ounce of the courage I’d found in myself last week.
Kissing William was the bravest thing I’d ever done.
It was also the most honest.
In the house I grew up in, I’d learned to hide. The quieter I was, the less attention I received. My mom tried to show us love in the moments she wasn’t fighting for her own life, but every effort was overshadowed by my father. Even her attempts at affection had become unwelcome, because they only drew more attention to me. So I never asked for anything and only took what I was given—which was usually the last thing I wanted.
But with William I’d taken, giving into something I’d wanted since I met him—to feel his skin under my hands. I’d longed to touch him, even just a gentle brush of skin. I wanted to know if it’d feel anything like the way I imagined it would.
I doubted William understood what he’d come to mean to me over the last few weeks. How important he’d become. I doubted he knew how much I looked forward to the moment when I’d see him again. I couldn’t wait until he smiled at me with those soft brown eyes and made me laugh.
He had made me feel not only special, but almost normal, as well.
Then he’d asked about my parents. He said he’d heard. It had shocked me from that fantasy, reminding me of just how far from normal I was.
So ashamed, I ran into his kitchen and wished I could disappear from his house forever, whisked away to some unknown spot where I’d never have to face him again. I’d intended on fleeing out the back door, but then thought I at least owed him an apology.
No one had ever treated me as if I were a person.
; To my father, I was a puppet, a plaything reserved for his sadistic mind. To my mother, I was the one who picked up the pieces, helped her to bed when she couldn’t stand, lied for her the way I’d been taught to do since I was just a little girl. To the town, I was a rumor, at best, a charity case.
But William never looked at me as if I were any of those things.
He looked at me as if he actually saw me.
Then he had touched me, and the same warmth I felt brimming in his eyes had overflowed, wrapped me up and made me whole.
When I opened my eyes to find him staring up at me and he breathed our connection aloud, I’d had to show him and make him understand.
It’d taken all of about fifteen seconds for fear to take hold.
I’d fought it. I wanted so badly to stay—to smile and just be normal.
But I’d run.
Coming back today had been hard. Every bit of will I had was put into lifting my finger to ring the doorbell.
Now he watched me with an unease I wished I could erase. I’d do anything to take us back to how we’d been before, when he’d treated me like a friend and not some weak, damaged girl he had to tiptoe around.
Something broke apart inside when he finally escaped upstairs, the blunt click of his door shutting me out.
“You’re such a fool, Maggie,” I muttered to myself. Wanting something more with someone I knew I could never really have, and then screwing it up when he offered me a little taste of it.
William was so far out of my league.
The teenaged girl in me knew he was gorgeous. He was tall and lean, though I’d seen the strength when he’d stood up for me. His muscles had bristled and flexed beneath his skin. His face was equally as strong, though his cheeks still held a bit of roundness, a fading trace of youth that gave him a boyish, subtle charm. But in his gentle eyes, I saw something much deeper than all of that. William was kind and beautiful and smart and deserved someone a thousand times better than me—deserved someone who could actually look him in the eye.
I shuffled toward the kitchen. Mrs. Marsch sat at the table. Bills and invoices were spread out around her.
“I’m finished, Mrs. Marsch,” I called quietly from the safety of the archway, feeling too timid to make my way in without being invited.
With a smile, William’s mother looked up and beckoned me in with a wave. “Oh, thank you, Maggie. You don’t know how great it’s been having you here to help out.” She turned her attention back to writing a check while she continued to speak. “With my filling in for Lara over at the thrift store, I can’t seem to get anything done around here…and you know how messy my boys are.”
I approached her and stopped a couple of feet away, feeling more self-conscious than normal after what had happened with William the week before. I wondered if she’d be disgusted if she knew I kissed her son. “I’m glad to help…and I really appreciate the job,” I added.
A warmth so similar to the one I felt with William spread over me when Mrs. Marsch brought her attention back to me, and her head tilted to the side. “Are you feeling okay today, Maggie?” she asked as she handed me a check.
Under her watch, I somehow didn’t feel like a rumor or a charity case.
I forced myself to smile and meet her eye. “I’m fine...thank you. I’m just a little tired is all.”
Mrs. Marsch’s mouth turned up in understanding. “Well, you know you can let me know if you ever need anything, don’t you?”
I bit my lip and dropped my gaze to the floor, and I mumbled, “Yes, Ma’am.”
A modest, friendly laugh tinkled from her mouth. “Please, call me Glenda.”
Nodding slightly, I said, “Thank you…Glenda.”
“Anytime.”
Walking back out into the main room, I glanced up in the direction of William’s room. I hated that I felt like this, hated I wanted something so badly, hated I was too scared to do anything about it.
On a heavy breath, I turned away. My feet were sluggish as I headed to the front door. Relief and uncertainty flooded me when I felt him emerge from behind. For a moment, I stilled with my hand on the knob before I gathered myself enough to look over my shoulder. He stood at the top of the stairs. His expression was pained as he searched my face.
Maybe I was a fool, but right then, I didn’t care if I was. I’d never exposed myself to anyone. I had lived my life entire life in secrecy, and for once, I wanted to share myself with someone.
I wanted William to know.
Twisting the knob, I stepped out into the afternoon sun and rested the door partially open. I took the chance he would understand.
Humidity clung as a thin mist on my skin as I made my way up the sidewalk. Wrapping my arms around my middle, I hugged myself, watching my feet as they made contact with the concrete. Anxiety threatened to grip me when I felt him follow.
This is what you wanted, I had to remind myself when I got to the end of the street, trying to calm my natural instinct to hide. Staring ahead, I waited until I felt him near, then I darted across the intersecting street.
On the other side was my sanctuary.
Summer had taken hold, and only a couple families braved the blistering heat. A mother pushed a small child on the swing, and two older children climbed the stairs to the slide. I slinked behind them unnoticed, following the path that ran to the back of the playground. At its end rose a wood. It was dense and thick from the small river that ran deeper in the thicket.
I felt William at a distance behind me. His own apprehension was radiating in every step.
The ground softened beneath my feet when the path ended, and I traipsed through the wild grasses. The air shifted and cooled as the sun’s rays were blocked by the trees overhead. Children’s laughter filtered through the branches and leaves, obscured and distorted.
I sank down out of view behind the massive fallen oak. Velvety moss blanketed its sides, padding my back as I leaned heavily against its safety. Soft grass cushioned the ground floor, and lush-leaved branches created a canopy overhead.
Closing my eyes, I released a relieved breath into the welcomed seclusion.
I didn’t need to open my eyes to know he was there. I could feel him standing above me.
Allowing my eyes to drift open, I watched in my periphery as he settled facing me, just off to the side. He left a small space between us.
Minutes ticked on as we sat in the stillness. The only movement was the birds flying overhead and rustling through the leaves.
“This is where I come to hide from my father,” I finally said, still staring out into the distance, though I felt him stiffen with my assertion. I plucked a blade of grass and rolled it to a wet pulp between my fingers. “I always feel safe here...even at night.”
A weighted silence followed my admission. In it, he waited, seeming to understand I needed time. I’d never admitted it aloud, and even though I was aware everyone suspected it, making it form on my lips felt like the hardest thing I’d ever done. Funny how the lies bled so easily from my mouth but the truth fought to remain hidden. But the lies had been ingrained so deeply through fear and shame they’d almost become my truth.
I hugged my knees to my chest. He’d asked about my family, and I was going to tell him.
“My father,” I began, squeezing my eyes shut, “he’s...sick.” William inhaled sharply beside me, but I continued on, “So angry.” I glanced in his direction as I wet my lips. “I don’t understand it...how...how someone can find satisfaction in hurting someone else. When he hits my mother, it’s like...like he gains strength from it.” I shook my head to shake off the chills that flashed over my skin, and I couldn’t stop tears from gathering in my eyes.
William drifted a little closer. I could feel the heat from his skin, but he still wasn’t close enough to touch.
I choked over the sob in my throat as I tried to speak, completely unprepared for the onslaught of emotions that came with finally telling someone.
“He feeds on fear...on my fe
ar...my sister’s fear...my mother’s fear.” I wiped the tears from my eyes and rubbed the wetness onto my shorts. A fresh round took their place. “For my mother, it’s his fists, his words. With me and my sister”—a shudder racked my chest, the words ripped from my mouth—“he touches.”
I swallowed and looked at William through bleary eyes, seeing the shock and disgust he tried to mask on his face. “It’s like he needs the control...the reaction...to see us cry.”
Unbridled emotion rushed from his mouth, like he couldn’t contain the thought. “Does he—”
“No,” I shot out faster than he could finish, knowing from the horrified expression on his face what he was going to ask. I pinched my eyes closed and forced away the image of my greatest fear—my father climbing into my bed rather than getting onto his knees beside it.
For the longest time we sat there, until he finally asked the one question I knew was inevitable. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”
I’d expected it to feel like an accusation, but somehow coming from William, it didn’t. I bit at my lip and kind of shrugged. “When you’re raised the way I was, everything is a secret. It was a secret before I knew it was wrong.”
“God, Maggie. I can’t stand that this happened to you.” He stretched a tentative hand toward me and seemed to search my face for permission.
I lifted my eyes to him. For the first time in my life, I was completely open, hiding nothing. I wanted him to know me. When he gently spread the palm of his hand over my knee, it jarred another part of my guarded heart loose. I could feel it—his compassion—his sorrow—his anger as it seeped against my skin.
“I didn’t want to believe it. Or...” He blinked for a long second, and then he forced out the words, “I guess I just hoped it wasn’t true.”
Most people didn’t want to believe it. I figured that was why they accepted the lies so easily. The few times the cops had shown up at our door after Mom had been screaming, they’d just swallowed the ridiculous stories she stuffed down their throats. It seemed easier to believe them than to deal with the truth.
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