by Harper Sloan
It took every ounce of energy I had to smile at him and shake my head like he was talking crazy. “Damien, what do you want me to say? I’m fine. I’m not falling apart. I don’t know why you think that. Don’t blow this up to be something it isn’t.”
I saw my mistake right away, and knew that in trying to blow it off, I had made him mad. He was absolutely furious, I think because he thought I was covering for Dante, excusing what Damien saw as his unacceptable actions.
“Is that how you’re going to play it, Sabrina? You’re fine? Feeling good? No problems? You’ve got no feelings for my brother at all? If that’s true, let’s go say hello to him and the new flavor of the month. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
I shook my head in the negative. “No, Damien, it won’t be a problem. Let’s go say hello.”
Shaking his head at me in frustration, he took my arm and guided me back into the loudness of the club. I was totally boxed in, and I felt like I had to follow through in order to prove to Damien that I really was all right.
All of those thoughts left my head in a nanosecond as we re-entered the VIP section and I saw that the woman who had been all over Dante was now sitting in his lap, holding his face in her hands as she leaned in to kiss him.
I couldn’t hold it together because I wasn’t that talented an actress. Turning on my heel, I shoved past Damien and ran to the bathroom. I spent ten minutes in silence, sitting in a stall in the bathroom, trying to gather my courage to go back out. I was saved having to go out when there was a knock on my stall. “Sabrina. It’s Damien. Are you ok?”
Standing up, I opened the door. “I’m fine. But dear lord, Damien, you do realize that you’re in the ladies room, right?”
Glancing around, I saw several women standing by the sinks openly staring at Damien. I got the feeling the only reason they weren’t yelling was because he was so damn easy on the eyes.
“Honestly, I don’t give a shit. You’re upset, and you’re hurting. You need a friend, and I’m here. I’m assuming you don’t want Brooke or the girls to know about this. That being the case, I told them that you have a migraine and want to go home, and that I’m taking you. I’ve arranged for Spencer to come get them. I’ve still got your ID in my pocket, and I already gave Brooke and the twins theirs back, so we’re able to go right away.”
I almost sagged with relief, especially knowing that Spencer would come and take care of the girls. Spencer took their safety just as seriously as Dante and Damien did.
I knew I had to deal with the fact that Damien was now ‘in the know’, but having the girls figure it out too was not something I could deal with right then.
I nodded my consent to his plan, and we made our way out of the club. The air outside was cool and there was a breeze that helped to clear my head a bit. Damien helped me get into the Escalade and made sure I was belted in before taking his spot behind the wheel.
The drive to my house passed in silence. No music, no conversation. Thirty minutes later we were pulling into my driveway. Ever the gentleman, he was out of the car and opening my door before I even had the seatbelt off. It made me terribly sad thinking that I'd never know why the Hart men didn’t want to commit. Two finer men I’d never met, but they didn't seem to know it.
Once in the house, we both made our way to the living room. Taking my shoes off, I sat on the couch and waited for the inquisition. Taking one of the armchairs, he wasted no time in asking questions.
“How long did this go on?”
I silently thanked him for getting the question off without any further ado. Clearly he wasn't going to drag my torture out.
“The first time was the night of my dance competition. It ended the morning you saw me leaving his house.” I was surprised to feel relief that I was finally telling another person about it. I hadn't realized what a burden it was to keep everything a secret.
“Shit. Yeah, that makes sense. He’s always been attracted to you, and I knew he was hanging by a remarkably thin thread the day of the competition. I just assumed he reeled it in, like he always did. Guess I was wrong.”
We stared at each other in silence for a moment before I nodded my head. “I only found out later that he was attracted to me. I never even suspected until that night.”
Making a pfft sound, he shook his head at me. “He was a lot more than attracted. But he damn well knew to steer clear of you. I’m furious with him right now. He knew doing this could only hurt you. I’m going to knock his ass out for that.”
“No! Damien. No. This is my fault. He gave me the out, more than once. He was never less than honest with me. He told me from the get go that he would never, could never, commit. I was a fool for thinking I could handle what that meant. I went into this with my eyes open—or at least I thought I did. I’m just paying the price now for not realizing what that would actually feel like.”
“Oh fuck! Sabrina… You aren’t just suffering because it’s over. You’re in love with him.”
His words broke me, and before I could control it, I started to cry. Damien was out of his seat and hugging me in seconds. “I’m…fine… I never cr-cry in front of people. I’m ok.”
“Shh. Let it out. You need to let it out. Let yourself go for a minute. I’m here.”
I gave myself over to it, letting my tears fall. I figured even the strongest people were allowed to falter every once in a blue moon. After a few minutes, the tears stopped falling. When I pulled back, I was a little embarrassed to see that his shirt was wet from my tears. Grabbing a tissue from the side table, he dabbed my tears away.
“You manage to be beautiful even when you cry. Got to say, if Dante had not figuratively put up ‘no trespassing’ tape around you the second he met you, I’d have come after you myself. Of course, then I wouldn’t have you as an honorary sister, and that would be a loss. He’s a damn fool for hurting someone like you. I would have locked you down.”
It was a lovely sentiment, but it made me sad because I knew his problem was the same as Dante’s. “Oh please, Damien. You’re even less likely to commit than he is.”
The look he gave me was so sad that it broke my heart. I loved Damien like a brother, and I hated knowing that something had hurt him enough that he couldn't believe in himself.
“You’re right. Dante and I both learned early that commitment in our family is a death sentence. It just isn’t possible. You’re the real thing, and I’d have run from you at lightning speed long before it ever got to where you and Dante wound up.”
I saw my opening, and I took it. “Damien. I need you to be honest with me. It’s time for me to know what made Dante the way he is. Can you please tell me why the two of you don't believe in relationships? What happened that you both feel this way?"
Tilting his head back, he blew out a frustrated breath. He was silent for a few minutes, his head on the back of the sofa, his eyes closed. He seemed to be weighing his words, deciding what to say. Opening his eyes, he nodded at me.
“Your parents passed before we met, but there are pictures all over this room of you all as a family, smiling and laughing. I've heard you and Brooke talk about them enough that I know that you all loved each other. They valued you both, treated you well, took care of you, parented you. What Dante and I grew up with was… the exact opposite of that.”
“I was three years old the first time I can remember our parents leaving us home alone. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wasn’t the last. They packed up and rolled their luggage out of the house. Our mother was kind enough to tell us they were going to Mexico for two weeks because she couldn’t stand to look at us.”
“That incident stands out in my mind because our father broke two of my fingers when I begged them not to leave. He broke them, told me to get the fuck out of the way, and then they left. Dante set my fingers using tape and our mother’s nail files. Can you imagine? He was six years old, and he had to take care of us both because our parents wouldn’t.”
“We were told on an al
most daily basis that we were ugly, unwanted, disgusting brats. They were both cruel and angry. They made us suffer. I think they got off on it.”
I felt helpless and angry as he shared this story. It was far worse than anything I could ever have imagined. What kind of animals would do that to children?
“They were drugged out freaks, and they had sex parties in the house. I can’t even begin to tell you how many nights we had to sleep in the gardening shed because all of the bedrooms needed to be available.”
I was horrified by what he was saying. “Damien, where in the hell was your family? I know your mom cut Sandra off when she married your father, but where the hell was your grandfather? Did no one see this? Why didn’t someone help?”
Shaking his head at me, he frowned. “If only it were that simple. Our grandfather knew all about it, but he just care. The old man didn’t give a shit about family. He cared about the business, and he cared about sex. We were just… heirs. I don't even know why he was so insistent on there being heirs, but it was what he held over our father’s head to force him to have us.”
“His contribution was sending us to school. We were terrorized by him and our parents before we went. They told us that if we talked about anything that happened at home, we would be taken away and separated from each other. We were just kids, and the only thing we had was each other, so their threats worked. It helped a little that Spencer was in my grade. His mother was our mother’s best friend and fuck buddy. Spencer was just as fucked as we were, and we all helped each other.”
“When our mother got pregnant with the twins, it was a nightmare. She gained very little weight and got almost no prenatal care. You could hardly tell she was pregnant. She smoked, drank and fucked her way through the pregnancy. Our father was a bigger asshole than usual throughout the entire thing which made it even worse.”
“Nothing ever stopped those selfish assholes. The girls were underweight and kept in the hospital for a month before they came home. She used that time to rest up. Once the girls came home, they were dumped on Dante, Spencer, and me, and life went on for our parents. I don’t remember either of them ever changing even one diaper. Not one. There was an illegal woman who didn’t speak English who would come and care for them during the day, but her shift ended every afternoon when we came home from school. We were damn lucky to have her, because if she had not been around, we would not have even been able to go to school at all.”
“I guess the saving grace in all of this was that they didn’t starve us. Ramen noodles, Chef Boyardee, cans of soup, crackers, potato chips and Velveeta cheese. Those were the only foods they would buy, and that’s what we lived on. They bought cases of diapers, wipes and formula and left the rest of it to Dante and me. Providing that shit was their idea of parenting, and they never let us forget that they could stop doing even that at any time. Every fourth Friday, our grandfather’s maid would bring us clothing for the month. Other than the food and the clothes, we were given nothing. No love, no parenting, no birthday presents, no holidays. Nothing normal families do."
Staring into space, he collected his thoughts before continuing. “Their behavior got more and more out of control as the years went on, as you would expect with addicts. He fucked everything that wasn’t nailed down, and she did the same. The girls were three when our mother was diagnosed with AIDS. She killed herself within a week.”
He was gray as he paused, and I saw him struggling to maintain control.
“She… the crazy bitch left notes for Dante and I. She told us that she got AIDS because our father took her happiness and destroyed her life, and she hoped we killed ourselves before we could ever destroy a woman with the toxic sludge that is in our blood. She said that she regretted not only marrying our father, but she also wished she had never laid eyes on him, and she was certain that we would probably turn out to be disgusting sex addicts, bending women to our will, just like him.”
I was heartbroken as he laid it all out. I could picture Dante and Damien as children, so serious, forced to do adult things long before they should have had to. I put my arms around him and hugged him tight.
“Oh, Damien… she was unbalanced. She was selfish and pathetic, and she took the easy way out.” I heard his shuddery breath, and I knew he was crying. Softly, but he was letting it out. I hugged him for a few minutes until the emotion was back under control.
Wiping his tears away, he shook his head in frustration. “That’s the thing, Rina. I wanted to believe she was crazy. I know Dante did too. But there was something to it. God knows, living with just our father was worse than when she was around. Our grandfather died just a few months before she did. Once they were both gone, things got so much worse. His drug use escalated to epic proportions.”
“The truth of what she said didn’t come home to roost until we met Sandra. You know Sandra as well as anyone. Look at her. She shares blood with our mother, and she’s one of the nicest and most nurturing people I’ve ever met. They were raised by the same people, so our mom must have started out a lot like Sandra. Our fucked up father, who was raised by his fucked up father, destroyed her. Whatever is wrong with our family, it’s fucking genetic.”
I didn’t have a chance to argue that point because he went right on speaking. “Dante, the girls and I got lucky because we had each other. But I will never, ever put myself in a situation where I can destroy all the joy in a woman’s life. You never saw how bad I was. Until recently, I never even tried not to constantly move from one bed to another. Dante was no better. We come from a line of sex addicts. Sure, I’m a fun guy. But how much fun would I be if I couldn't be faithful? I can’t take that chance.”
It was so much worse than I had ever imagined. His family history was shit, but it couldn’t define him forever. I had to let him know that he was wrong about himself.
“Damien, you’re wrong and it’s because you don’t see yourself for who you are. You and Dante… you’re phenomenal men. You are nothing at all like your mother, your father, or your grandfather. You’re both so committed to your sisters, to your family unit. You’ve never resented them, and you’ve been unbelievably strong. You think you’re some shallow asshole, but I know differently. You had enough room in your hearts to bring Brooke and me into your lives, and you did it without even blinking an eye. Does that sound like men who can’t care?”
Stroking his cheek, I begged him with my eyes to listen to me. “Your only problem is that you’ve bought this horseshit that your mother said. She couldn’t be trusted to take care of you in life, and she showed herself to be thoroughly unrepentant for her behavior by leaving you those notes. Only a monster would do that. Whatever her problems were, they were hers. Your father didn’t force her to treat you like shit. She chose to do that, and she is responsible for her actions. She compounded her sins in the end by trying to lay all of the blame for her behavior at your father’s feet. They were both evil. You need to choose to leave both of those assholes in the dust, where they belong.”
Hugging him to me I said, “You're one thousand times more caring and more amazing than your parents ever were, and so is Dante. Stop letting them live in your head. This is your life, and you deserve to be happy. You need to decide to stop letting their crazy box you in. If you don’t choose to make your own life and your own decisions, they’re still abusing you, even from the grave.”
“You frustrate me, because you have so much more to offer than you even realize. Stop choosing to fuck the easiest women that don’t care if you commit or not! Take a chance! Find someone with a little depth and see what happens. Do you really have such little faith in yourself that you imagine you will go crazy or get abusive if you spend more than one or two nights with the same woman? I know, with one hundred percent certainty, that you would never do that. I know your core, Damien. You want to be loved, and you have more than enough love to give in return. You’re one of the most caring people I’ve ever met, and that isn’t going to change if you get close to someone.”
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Grabbing his face between my hands, I looked him in the eyes. “Think of how much better you would feel if, instead of being afraid that you would continue the Hart legacy of shitty behavior, you chose to start a new chapter entirely. You've already started something new, something different. The family that you are today is completely different than the sorry excuse you were born into. You’ve got a lot to offer. Stop keeping it in. As long as you live in their cage, they win. You have to let them go.”
Grabbing me, he hugged me to him hard. After a few minutes, he let out a deep breath. “I… well, I never thought of it like that. You’re right. I have been letting them continue to control me with their crazy. I don’t even know what to say, really. I guess I’ll have to think about it.”
I smiled at him encouragingly. "Do think about it. There must be at least one girl that you’ve met who makes a real impression?"
He gave me an odd look before he nodded his head.
"Yes. There is someone who makes an impression, but I'm too damn scared that I might hurt her, even though being around her makes me feel so… Christ, I can’t even explain it. But it would never work. I need not to think about her like that because it would ruin everything. She's too good for me, too perfect. If I hurt her, I don't think I could…"
I couldn't help my reaction, and I gaped at him. Who the hell could have left such an impression on Damien? When I started to ask who it was, he shook his head and said he didn’t want to discuss it, so we sat quietly together on the couch for a while in silence, both processing all that had been said. About twenty minutes later, I heard a gentle snore and realized he had fallen asleep. Poor Damien was emotionally exhausted.