by Bromberg, K
“A mother who is completely controlled by my dad.”
“Did the police do anything?”
And that’s the point when the entire room changed, yet again.
“Tell her what Reverend Hinton did,” Liam said bitterly.
Shoulders slumping a bit, Sam seemed to need a moment to tell the next part. How much worse could it get?
I glanced at his fingers and finally understood them.
“After my dad started to hit me, I punched him back. Once.” He coughed. “And I missed. It was the first time I’d ever tried hitting back—“
“He’d hit you before?”
“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“When I took a swing, he went into this super-charged, psychotic mode. Pinned me to the floor and held my hand. Snapped my index, middle and ring fingers on each hand like he was snapping summer beans from the garden.”
I winced, imagining the crack of bone.
“And then the rest of the beating. When he was done, he left me in a pile on the living room floor and took off his shirt. He reached for my broken left ring finger and yanked off my class ring. Then he slowly, systematically, scratched himself all over with it, leaving bloody trails.”
“Why would he—?”
“Because when Joe called the cops and they later interviewed him, he claimed I’d done that to him. That it was all a family affair and he’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“The police believed him?”
“Reverend Hinton would never hit his own child unless it was self defense,” Sam said in a sing-songy voice.
“Oh, God.”
“The fucker planned it,” Trevor said.
“Dad would have made a great debater. Thinking eight steps ahead.”
“That is so evil,” I gasped.
“No. I’m the evil one. I didn’t honor my father by doing what he commanded.”
Sam’s bitterness made me want to run away with him and just hold him for ten years.
“That asshole,” Joe muttered.
“You!” I whispered. “You saved him.”
“Joe’s my messiah,” Sam said. “I accepted him as my personal savior.”
“Ha ha,” Joe said, looking a bit sick.
I planted a quick kiss on Sam’s cheek and looked into his soulful eyes. “Thank you. I didn’t know any of this.”
“I know you didn’t. And I should have told you a very, very long time ago, Amy,” Sam said.
“Why didn’t any of you tell?”
Uncomfortable silence. Liam avoided my eyes.
“There’s more?”
“After Sam got out of the hospital, my mom offered to have him come live with us,” Trevor explained. “He was eighteen, so his parents couldn’t stop him. Sam’s dad convinced most of the town that Sam was this unstable, raging maniac who had abused his entire family and practically held them emotional hostage.”
“Way to project.”
“No kidding,” Trevor agreed. “Once Sam lived with us, Mom figured out damn fast that the problem wasn’t Sam. But she told us that most parents—including your mom—believed the stories.”
Mom hadn’t said a word about it. And no one else had, either.
“I live one town over from your district! Why didn’t I ever hear about this?”
“Sam’s dad did a good job of keeping it quiet.”
“C’mon. Gossip is an art form around here.”
“So is emotional blackmail. Think about the shit my dad knows about a lot of people in town,” Sam answered.
Evan. Did Reverend Hinton know about Evan? Was that why my mom would have kept the secret?
“My mom,” I groaned.
“What about her?”
“I’ll bet that’s why I never heard. She wanted to keep Evan a secret.”
“About his drinking?” Trevor asked.
I snapped my head up like a puppet on a string being pulled by a master. “You know?”
“I know he was a partier because I was, and he was at every big one.”
All the shame I’d felt was gone. Evan’s and Mom’s choices were theirs. Not mine. Nothing they did reflected on me. Why had I worried so much?
“Evan’s been in and out of rehab for years. Mom makes me keep it secret. Hell, I had to bail him out of jail. For drug felonies.” I looked at Darla.
“Is that what happened that night?” Sam asked, looking between us.
“When I said Amy had some business you didn’t need to know about? Yes,” Darla said.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me, Liam?” I asked, the words making him flinch.
Every set of eyes was on him, Sam’s unreadable, as Liam struggled for words. “I’ve asked myself that a lot over the years. Trust me – it’s not something I just blew off. Charlotte had just screwed me over – and I thought you already knew because your mom must know – and then....” He sighed and looked at me with a soulful, apologetic look. “I don’t know.”
I took in half the air in the room with a long inhale, then slowly let it out as I said, “We really hold on to our parents’ secrets, don’t we? We’re trained from early childhood that their lies are some sort of objective reality, and that we have to follow the charade at all costs. And then we grow up and it’s like a demented sort of inheritance. An emotionally fucked up trust fund that just keeps on giving.”
Five pairs of eyes bored into me.
“Carry the secrets around like we invented them, but they aren’t ours. Never were.”
Sam interrupted me and added, “And never will be again.”
Sam
“You guys have a lot to talk about,” Trevor said, clearing his throat. The others got the hint and trickled out, though Darla lingered and approached Amy.
“If you need anything, just text me.”
Amy nodded, and then Darla caught her eye with great intent. “And tell him, Amy,” she whispered. “Just tell him everything.”
“Everything?” Amy asked, a weird look on her face.
Darla seemed puzzled, then alarmed. “No, not about—” she waved her hands around her hips—“that!”
What the hell were they talking about? Both looked at me, then each other, and shook their heads quickly. Darla shot out of the room like it was contaminated.
“Something I need to know?” I asked.
Amy snickered. “Someday. But it’s not as important as what we need to talk about now.”
Tired of hiding, tired of not saying what needed to be said, tired of shutting down, I just decided that this was it—this was life. Our emotional reality had to be in sync and if I poured out my soul in the space between us and she didn’t like what she saw, then I would have to deal with that and move on.
Because being true to myself hadn’t been a one-time event four and a half years ago. It was an ongoing, lifelong process that could only come through in daily decisions that added up to a life of being me.
The real me.
“Tell me what happened that day. When you went home,” Amy urged.
“I just did.”
“Not everything.” She reached out for my hand and caught my eyes. “You came in and filled in the blanks after Joe and Trevor told part of the story. I want to know it all. I have all the time in the world. Nothing is more important than this.”
No one had ever asked me that. Not Joe, not Trevor, not their parents. They knew the barest of details and let me keep the rest quiet.
“Joe dropped me off in the driveway. I walked in the front door and felt cold inside. Dead. Like I was preparing myself, for I knew what would happen.” I didn’t need to close my eyes to envision the scene.
It was burned in my brain every second I lived.
“Dad was there and he said, ‘Did you do it?’”
All I could say was, “Fifth.”
Amy winced and squeezed my hand.
A deep breath in, then out, and I continued. “’Fourth?’ He screamed. ‘What hap
pened?”
“It was a runoff and I lost my debate. She won, so—”
“‘SHE?’” he screamed. That’s when my mom came running in the room and looked at the two of us. The way she twisted her neck, how her eyes were so disappointed in me, and so afraid at the same time, it—it kicked something off in me. Triggered it. I don’t know.” My heart was slamming in my chest. Amy had to be able to hear it.
“If it’s too much, you can just tell me later,” she said, a worried look on her face.
“No. I want to tell it all.”
She flinched.
My voice came out more like a growl than I’d intended.
I softened. “Because you’re the first person who has ever asked and you’re the only person who really should know.”
Tears filled her eyes and she stayed quiet.
“And then he screamed for a good two minutes about how I’d let a girl beat me.”
Amy rolled her eyes and I felt a smile spread across my face.
“That’s not the worst of it. He grabbed my arm—hard enough to leave a two-week bruise—and sputtered that I was a disappointment because I’d let a cu — a ’see you next Tuesday’ — beat me.”
All Amy did was blink.
“I’m sorry,” I sputtered, realizing how foolish it was to blurt that out. The image of Dad’s words and face was so branded in me, and it was that moment—that moment when he said that damn word—that changed my entire life.
One word.
One single word.
“He said that?” she gasped.
“Yes. Reverend Hinton called the girl I’d fallen in love with a cu —yes.”
“See you next Tuesday,” she muttered.
“No, he said the whole word,” I explained. “It set something off in me. No one calls you that and gets away with it.”
She smiled, her lips shaking and eyes filled with tears.
“No one, Amy. No one.” This time I didn’t try to keep the growl out of my voice. “Not even my father.”
“Especially not my father.”
Amy
My apartment had been so crowded that the breath of all those occupants warmed the air still, even though it was just me and Sam now.
Yet his story chilled me.
The broken fingers, his father’s self-abuse to spin a story, the minister spewing words about me that were unspeakable—it all made me ache inside for poor Sam and all he’d endured.
“Before we talk about anything else, let me say that when you saw me with that woman tonight, it wasn’t what you thought. I swear, Amy, she came on to me and her boyfriend shoved me against the wall and Liam saw it all—”
“I believe you.”
“You do?
I love you. The text said I love you.
“Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?” I asked.
A kick to the stomach couldn’t have has as much impact as my words. His face screwed up in pain. “Because I’m stupid.”
I shot him an oh, please look.
“No, I really am. I can’t seem to get anything right with you.”
“I don’t need everything to be right.” The air crackled with energy, sparks flying between us. “I need you to be real.”
Placing his palms together, like a little kid praying, he put his hands in front of his lips and closed his eyes. Disconcerting, though—he was still wearing that damn cop uniform and it made the whole conversation tilt a bit, surreal and weird.
“Ask away.”
“The whole truth?”
“Nothing but.”
“Get ready for the cross examination of your life.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’ve been completely on your own this entire time?”
“Once I graduated high school, yes. I mean, the Connors and the Rosses have helped me here and there when I needed a place to crash, like for Spring Break, but otherwise...” His voice trailed off. He looked sick, like someone had gut punched him.
I knew that feeling. Telling the truth when you’ve been taught to craft lies made you feel ill. Backwards and inside out it all was, but that’s reality when you’ve lived with parents whose sense of being revolves around convincing their kids that the surface lie matters more than the deep truth.
“Why didn’t you call or text me? Or answer my emails?”
“At first I just was injured and trying to figure out what to do. I lived in a constant state of panic, and I didn’t know how to talk to you. I had broken hands, no home, no money, and—I figured you would just reject me once the rumors got out that I was some maniac who attacked my dad, so....”
A memory. Prom night. My mom saying it was a “good thing” after all that I didn’t end up with “someone like that.”
Oh, God.
She knew.
Except she didn’t know. She knew the cover story and ran with it.
“And then the one time I did call you, you didn’t call back.”
“The one time what?”
“I lost my phone service—Dad cut it off—and the only number I knew was your home number. So I called and your mom answered. She said she’d give you the message. And when you never called, I....” He shrugged.
A vortex of disbelief surrounded me and began to spin, making the room off kilter.
“My mom what?”
His face changed, a resigned sigh pouring forth from that beautiful, soulful mouth. “She never told you, did she? I always wondered.”
“Sam, if you had called I would have run the Ironman triathlon to get to a phone and call back if I’d known!”
“All these years, I thought—” we said in unison.
“So you didn’t?” we said again.
Sam put his hands on my shoulders and bent down so we were eye to eye.
“You wanted me after all?” he whispered.
A huge lump in my throat made it impossible to answer. I just nodded.
“Really?” Incredulity stretched his voice as if he were a teen again, a pained sound of longing in there.
“God, Sam, yes.” A flash of prom night, crying in Liam’s arms, turning to him for comfort and love that was a pale substitute for what—it turned out—Sam wanted, too, made a giant ball of fury build inside me.
Ready to be thrown straight at my mother.
“Let me be clear,” I said, reaching for his face. My palms brushed against his strong jaw and the light stubble of a man’s beard. “I thought you were ignoring me and never wanted to see me again because of the debate. If I had known you called, I would have seen you. I loved you then,” I said, my voice breaking.
And I love you now. The words were on my lips when he interrupted.
“And Liam?” he asked.
Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard. “What about Beth? And Brent? And other girls you’ve been with? What do our pasts have to do with now? When I am in bed, alone, and lonely, it’s you I think about. Every.Single.Moment. Our kisses, your touch, the way you made me feel—it’s made every sexual encounter I’ve had seem like child’s play. A kiss or a caress from you is one thousand times greater than making love with anyone else. It’s always been you.”
A fierceness filled his eyes, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “It’s like you’re reading my heart,” he rasped. “I’ve tried so hard to get over you,” he added. “Tried to forget how you tapped into my core and made me feel whole. You got me, Amy. No one gets me.” He laughed bitterly. “No one. And now you’re telling me that I’ve spent more than four years thinking you rejected me and you’ve spent all these years thinking the same and we tried to fill the emptiness with other people.”
Time stood still.
We just stared into each other’s eyes, knowing.
“I don’t care about who we’ve been with. I care only about who you’re going to be with for the rest of your life, Amy.”
And then he was kissing me and once again, time tesseracted and folded, as if those years were blended into the present, as if we had
been together forever and would be together forever.
Just like that, the macrobeats and the microbeats lined up and the cacophony that plagued us both turned into a symphonic joy only we could hear.
The rush of blood pounding through me, the softness of his lips on mine, the feel of his arms around me, tightening as his tongue explored, impassioned lips closing over my lower lip to play and connect—it all felt so natural.
This was who I was. This was where I was meant to be. Sam was mine and I was his and my tiny apartment felt like the entire world as the rush of desire consumed us both. I reached for his shirt to take it off and —
Couldn’t.
My hands sought out the hem of his shirt, until I remembered he was still wearing his fake cop’s uniform. Reaching for the seams on either side of his neck, I pulled—hard—and his entire outfit peeled off in one strange tearing sound. He stood before me wearing only a lovely, very tight green G-string.
“Occupational hazard,” he muttered, kissing me fiercely.
“Let me get some ones to tuck in there.”
He burst out laughing, lips against my cheek, and then our wobbly legs fought against us as we discarded the only remaining layer between our bodies, a frantic need for skin and heat and lust so great we both felt it take over the space between us as clothing was discarded, Sam’s hands on my waist as he peeled every boundary between us off and tossed it aside like it was nothing.
We shimmered in the dark, the sliver of moon giving a gentle reminder of what light could do, the shadows and curves of our flesh like a sculptor’s relief map of sensuality. He looked so beautiful, and made me feel so real, our eyes locked, each second deepening the flow of love between us. Layer by layer, life as I knew it separated, replaced by a raw sense that awakened within.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, a foot away from me, his eyes roaming over my exposed body the way I’d always wanted a man to see me.
“I want you to love me as much as I love you.”
“Too easy,” he murmured, moving fast, hot hands on my waist, lips on my shoulder, teasing out a shudder of desire and joy. “I’ve been doing that for years.”
“Then show me how you love me,” I ventured, bold with him. His skin was so tantalizing, my curves against his hardness, our limbs and hands finding spaces and folds that fit together as if carved to interlock without fail.