Knock, knock, knock.
The firm knock on the door startles me. But I’m slightly calmer now and able to get up and peek through the peephole. It’s Michelle.
Relief, cool and cleansing, washes over me.
“Open the door, Allyson. Now.” She’s doing that mom voice thing again, which under any other circumstances would make me smile. Now, I just do as she says, slowly cracking the door.
She busts through anyway. “Where’s Cooper?”
“In his room.”
Michelle looks at Liam. “Hey, can you go play with Cooper for a bit? We need some Grown-up Talk Time.” I can hear the capitals, like she’s naming a game we’re going to play or a show we’re gonna watch. I think I’m the show, though.
Once Liam is behind Cooper’s closed door, Michelle narrows her eyes, all cursory lightness dissipating. “First things first, come sit down and let me look at that cheek.”
Her nursing no-shit-allowed attitude shines as she shoves me toward the kitchen and plops me into a chair. She presses on the bone, causing me to wince, but she seems satisfied.
“Not broken, eye looks reactive to light, so all good. But you’re going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow.” Her exam done, she leans back and glares at me, so many questions in the set of her lips as they press together like she doesn’t know where to start with me.
“That was crazy, huh?” I try, starting slow.
“Yes, you were. Wanna tell me about it?” she answers.
I shake my head. “What? Not me! That dad, Kyle, and Bruce. They were fighting, like actual punches, for fuck’s sake.” The image is burned onto my retinas, and I close my eyes to consciously choose another image to see on my lids.
Michelle’s hands cover mine. “Honey, I’m a nurse. I know what a panic attack looks like. And I know they’re not always triggered by something that makes sense. But sometimes, they rear up for exactly the reasons you’d think. Talk to me, Allyson.”
I pause, swallowing. I’ve talked about it. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with shit. But today is proof that even after all these years, deep down inside, there’s still a little demon just waiting to get out of his box and fuck my life up.
I take back my control, telling him to fuck off as bits and pieces pour out of my mouth. I don’t get too deep into it with Michelle now, not when it’s feeling especially fresh, but it helps to be more transparent with her. I pace but ultimately sit back down, crossing my legs and putting my hands back on my knees to re-center myself.
She gasps and cusses and asks if she can hunt Jeremy down as I fill her in on what happened so many years ago. A tiny blip of time in the big scheme of my life but formative in a way I hate. And in a way I love . . . because that hell also made me into a mom.
It’s quiet as Michelle processes, so the knock on the door sounds especially ominous.
“Allyson!” Bruce sounds scared. My big beast of a man, and I’ve scared the shit out of him.
Chapter 29
Bruce
I mean to knock, I swear I do, but even to my ears, it sounds like a pounding. “Allyson!” I call out, wanting her to know it’s me and hoping it makes a difference.
The door cracks open, and I see Michelle’s dark eyes peek out. I don’t let her say a word, too afraid she’ll tell me to leave, so I push right in. “Where is she? Allyson?”
It’s then I see her.
Al’s sitting on the living room floor, her skin pale, but there’s a high flush to her cheeks making her look like a porcelain doll. But she’s not that fragile, and the tense set of her jaw, her ramrod-straight back, and the ice in her blue eyes tell me that she’s furious.
At me? Fuck, I hope not, but whatever I did, I’ll apologize and promise to never do it again. Unless it’s to protect her, love her . . . because that shit’s happening no matter what.
All of my urges to demand answers evaporate in the face of the possibility of losing her, and I’m ready to beg and plead with no shame.
For her, I’ll do anything.
I drop to my knees beside her, reaching out hesitantly. I’m waiting for her rage to unleash on me, for her to have danced so far back that I can’t reach her, but she sits frozen, not recoiling away from my touch, but not leaning into it, either. The distance is mere inches, but it feels like a chasm has opened its gaping mouth between us. So slowly, I get closer, my breath frozen in my chest in anticipation of her reaction. She watches blankly as I get closer, and only when my fingers touch her face does she crumble.
The stiff line of her back collapses and her soft cheek melts into my hand. Needing more and thankfully sensing she does too, I pull her into my lap, rearranging us so that she’s cradled sideways with her head against my chest. I hold her tightly, wishing I could crawl inside her to know what she’s thinking and feeling or maybe let her crawl into my heart so she can feel surrounded by my love. We rock naturally, my hand running down the length of her unrestrained hair as I soothe her and the reassure the monster inside me that she’s okay.
Michelle clears her throat and says gently, “I’m going to take the boys for the night. Holler if you need anything. And Allyson?”
Allyson raises her head from my chest to look at her friend. They have a silent conversation I’m not privy to, but I can tell there’s something deep being said between them. Michelle’s next statement confirms that. “You need to tell him.”
My gut drops at the confirmation that there is something to tell. I mean, I know that something’s wrong, but I guess on some level, I was hoping I might have misread everything. I’d rather that than what I think Allyson’s about to say.
That I’ve lost her, that even as she’s wrapped in my arms, she’s already decided that I’m not enough or maybe that I’m too much of a bad thing. Fuck, that hurts.
Michelle calls down the hall, and Cooper and Liam show up. Their lips are pulled down in matching frowns, and they both eye Allyson’s position in my lap.
I offer Liam a fist and he bumps it. Behind him, I meet Cooper’s eyes and hold my fist out for him. He didn’t hear my explanation at the field, and there’s a chance he’s terrified of me after seeing me go after Kyle like that. I speak slow and low, with intention I hope he can feel. “I’ve got our girl, Cooper.”
It sounds like the simplest truth in the world, but with Allyson, nothing is simple. Other than the fact that I’m not going any fucking where without her. She can fight me, she can refuse to let me in, but I’m tough enough to withstand it and rough enough to dance with her again if that’s where this is going. I got her back once, and I’ll get her back again.
Cooper bumps my fist with a nod like he understands the adult shit that’s going on. If he does, I wish he’d explain it to me.
Then they’re gone and I’m alone with my girl.
The words tumble out too fast, but I pray she can understand. “I am so sorry, baby. I know I shouldn’t have fought like that, especially not in front of the boys, but when he hit you, I . . .” My voice chokes in my throat, dying as I growl instead, “I need to see, please.”
She lets me lift her chin gently with one finger, and I peer into her eyes as much as check over her cheekbone. The blue depths are empty. Whatever she’s feeling is hidden behind walls again. So many walls, so many defenses.
“Michelle checked it, said there’s nothing broken, but it’ll bruise.” She says it easily, like she’s not talking about some asshole leaving fucking marks on her perfect skin.
“Goddamn it. I’m so sorry if all that scared you—if I scared you. I know I’m a monster who fights more than I should, but I couldn’t let him . . . he hit you, Allyson.” My voice is a dark rumble that promises retribution, the pain of that connection between her pretty face and Kyle’s ugly fist echoing in my head again. It’s a sound I won’t ever unhear.
I swallow thickly, holding her too tightly, but I can’t let go. I won’t let go. Not even as she wiggles against me, trying to put space between us that I don’t want.
&nb
sp; “You’re not a monster. What are you talking about?”
Allyson’s confusion is bordering on alarm, and I need to settle down again. I don’t want her cowering in my arms.
“It’s okay, I know. I’m so sorry. I won’t fight anymore, ever again, if that’s what you need me to do. Anything for you, Al. Anything.” The begging plea to not leave me pierces the air.
“Bruce.” Allyson pushes against me, putting space between our upper bodies even as she stays in my lap. “I think you’re confused.”
“Hell yes, I am,” I huff miserably. “But I love you. That’s the one thing I’m not fucking confused about at all.” I pin her in place with my eyes and hold her hips, not letting her get away. Not that she’s trying to, but just in case.
She grips my cheeks this time, pulling my beard sharply to get my attention. “I don’t think you’re a monster.” Her brows knit together and she shakes her head. “I had a panic attack.”
I was all ready to argue my case, but that stops me in my tracks. “A panic attack?”
Her hands lower to her lap, clasping together as her head falls to look at them. “Yes, I used to have them . . . when I was married . . . and for a while after. But I haven’t had one in years until today.”
She sounds ashamed, which I don’t understand. It’s not like she chose to have a panic attack or something. Her body just overreacted? I think that’s what a panic attack is, anyway, but I’m no expert.
“What made it happen today, Al? Tell me so I can make sure I don’t do it again.”
She looks up, the tiniest light peeking through her walls. “Cocky much? It wasn’t because of you—well, not entirely because of you.” She tilts her head, angling it as her brows bounce up and then back down into a frown.
It’s the first spark of my girl I’ve seen, and I want to swing from the fucking rafters in celebration. “Can you just tell me what happened then?”
“That’s not an easy thing to do. I’m embarrassed and mad, and I don’t want this to change how you see me. I’m better than this now, so much better than this, but today was like a perfect storm aimed right at my weakest parts.”
Her shoulders curl in, and my first instinct is to tell her that she never has to be embarrassed, not with me. But she’s entitled to feel whatever she’s feeling, so I keep my mouth shut and simply press my lips to her forehead, letting her know I’m here and to take her time.
She starts slowly, her words halting and soft. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, about us and about Jeremy. Not because I miss him or anything.” She huffs like that’s ridiculous, easing a fear I didn’t even know I had.
I remember the slick and fancy guy I saw her with at college that day. Maybe I’m wrong about my suspicions, and if so, I could understand her missing her ex. It’s hard to shut love off, even when things go wrong and it’s been a long time. We’re proof of that.
“But with him fresh on my mind, Kyle’s finger in my face and calling me a bitch dredged up some ugly memories I’d rather stay buried. And the punch . . .” She chews on her lip worriedly, her eyes darting left and right unseeingly. I think she’s lost to the past.
My hunch isn’t wrong. I can feel it in my gut. I saw her flinch and shrink like she wanted to be a smaller target. I force my voice to be neutral even though my insides are on the verge of an angry eruption. “Did Jeremy hit you, Allyson?”
She nods absently. “Yes.”
I’m furious and on the edge of spinning out and hunting this fucker down, but he’s not my priority. Allyson is. So I say nothing, burying my face in her neck, her hair strangling me, but I burrow in deeper and hold her tight, my fingers digging into her skin but I can’t stop. I don’t want it to be true. Not her, not my Allyson.
She wraps her arms around my neck, scratching at my scalp and cooing platitudes. I should be comforting her, but I let her soothe me too, praying it’s a sign that we’re both in this together.
“It was only once,” she rationalizes.
“One time too many,” I state unequivocally. “I’ve hurt a lot of people, Al, mostly on the field, but I would . . . could never hurt you.”
Her arms fall, and she pushes against me to get up. I can’t let her go, but one look in her eyes tells me she’s getting antsy, maybe even flighty, so I let her stand, staying at the ready to chase if she runs. She paces back and forth across the living room, from the front door to the kitchen, nibbling on her lip with her arms crossed tightly over her middle.
“The slap wasn’t the bad part, honestly. It was everything leading up to it, the years of little comments cutting me down inch by inch and isolating me from everything and everyone I knew, including my parents.” She stops pacing and looks at me, her eyes shockingly blue in her pale face. “Do you know what gaslighting is?”
I don’t bother racking my brain for the unfamiliar word. I just shake my head in answer.
She resumes her walk. “I didn’t either. I just thought I was crazy until my therapist gave it a name. It’s a kind of manipulation, little things that sound stupid but accumulate and change your perceptions of everything, even yourself. He made me doubt everything to the point I was confused all the time. I felt like I was losing my mind and didn’t trust anything, especially myself because I was obviously so stupid. I only trusted him because he loved me in spite of my shortcomings.”
“What the hell? I don’t know what to say. There are so many things wrong with that. Who’d do something like that? Why would someone do that?” I am so far out of my element here, but if this is where Allyson’s been in our years apart, I need to understand. I want to understand her.
“It started out small, even funny at first. I’d set my glasses down by the computer where I was working and go get a drink. I’d come back and they’d be moved. He’d laugh at how forgetful I was, like ‘Ha-ha, you can’t even keep up with glasses, silly girl,’ and it was a little enough thing that I believed him. We’ve all done things on auto-pilot like put the remote control in the fridge or something, so it seemed plausible and I didn’t realize for a long time that he was moving them.”
I nod. “I can see that, I guess. Then what?”
She swallows. “It wasn’t silly games anymore. But he didn’t jump from hiding my glasses straight to the bad. It was incremental. Things got worse so slowly that I didn’t even realize it was happening until it was too late.”
She sits on the couch, and I turn, sitting at her feet as she delves into her past, offering up a story. “One time, there was this super-fancy Italian restaurant coming to town, and as soon as he saw the sign in the window, he wanted to go. I tried to tell him that it was too expensive and out of our budget. I mean, I was working and he was in his last semester of law school and we had a baby. Five-hundred-dollar Michelin-star food wasn’t happening. But I wanted to do something nice for him, so I made lasagna. It was almost half the weekly grocery budget for all that meat and cheese, but he raved over it so it seemed worth it. I was so happy to have done something right.”
A small smile lifts her lips, but there’s a wry twist to the smile, not happiness like she’s saying. “The weekend the restaurant opened, I made it again as sort of an apology that we couldn’t go. He called it disgusting, dumped the whole 9x13 pan of it in the trash and spat on it. That was bad enough, but then he started ranting that if I loved him, I’d know that he doesn’t even like lasagna, that his favorite Italian food was fettuccine alfredo. Two weeks later, he’d bugged his dad enough that he invited him to try out the fancy restaurant. Jeremy told his parents I couldn’t come because I wouldn’t leave Cooper, not even for an hour to have dinner. So he went alone and came back with a to-go box. I thought he’d brought me dinner after all, to be nice or something.” She shakes her head. “I should’ve known better. He opened it, showed me the lasagna inside, saying it was his favorite and that the restaurant’s was so good, he got one for his dinner the next night. He was baiting me, eager to get a rise out of me. This was early on, so I questioned
him, and he told me he’d always loved lasagna, hated fettuccine alfredo, and had never told me otherwise. He laughed out loud when I tried to remind him that he’d thrown an entire pan of lasagna away, telling me that he would never do that because one, it’s his favorite, and two, it’s so expensive to make and we don’t have the money to squander on things like that.”
“He sounds like a prick,” I spit out bitterly. A memory of her lasagna and her sweet smile at my complimenting how good it was runs through my mind. It’d seemed like such a little thing to me, but I can see now that it was major to her.
She sighs. “Yeah, but it was more than that. It was his being a prick in a sneaky, underhanded way that made me doubt myself and question reality. It wasn’t that he threw the food away but that he said he never did it. And after a while, when he did things like that, I started to believe him over my own eyes, my own memories, my own thoughts. And like the narcissist he is, he basked in my needing him for everything even as he called me names for it.”
I’m still not sure I get exactly what she’s saying. I’m a simple guy, and this gaslighting sounds complicated and nuanced. But I can grasp that he was an asshole and she got away and divorced his sorry ass. I’d love to think that’s all that matters, but whatever damage he did to her, it’s still written in the scars on her heart. Today’s proof of that.
“He tried to make you weak, but you were so strong you got out, baby,” I say reassuringly, though I’m not sure it’s the right thing to say.
Her frown is deep. “Not because he hit me. He didn’t physically lay a hand on me except for that once, but he was too rough sometimes.” I don’t realize I’m growling, thinking she means he was hard on her in the bedroom in a way she didn’t want, until she sets her palm on my chest. “Not like that. Sex with him was bland. He wanted the whole good girl, missionary, once a week, in the dark. And I figured it was just different because it was someone different.” Her eyes meet mine, so much heartache and pain right there on the surface. She’s not even hiding it from me, and I gladly take it in, carrying the weight of it with her.
Rough Love Page 29