But the feeling is also something I cling to as we sit in Tate’s truck outside of his childhood home, which sits abandoned, the roof caving in and the brick covered in dead greenery that was killed by the cold. It’s a sad picture, just about as sad as hisface right now as I peek over at him from the passenger seat. I cling to that warmth from earlier because I know it’s about to be anything but.
“I haven’t been back here since Child Protective Services picked me up that day,” Tate mumbles after a while, though he doesn’t look at the house. “If I could get away with burning it to the ground, I probably would.”
I frown sympathetically as I watch him speak, watch the way he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose before he finally turns his head to look at the house. But it’s short-lived before he’s shaking his head and dropping his chin to his chest again.
“It’s tainted, you know?” he asks me, though I don’t expect him to be waiting for me to actually answer. “The things that happened behind those walls. I could never look at this house and feel anything but…awful. A lot of places around here feel like that.”
God, do I know the feeling. And I wish I didn’t. I wishhedidn’t.
“My old school, the grocery store, the gas station at the corner down the road,” he lists off, fidgeting with his hands in his lap, “they’re all tainted.”
I want so badly to reach over and grab his hand, but I want him to be able to get this out on his own. Not with my help, but with his own strength. I know he has it and I know he needs this. He needs to overcome these feelings, and the only way he can do that is to face them head-on.
“I don’t remember a lot from when I was really young,” he says, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. “Your brain blocks traumatic things out to protect you. Like a shield. They used to resurface in therapy sometimes, but for the most part, it’s all blank for me.”
The thought of something so evil happening to him as a little boy makes a heaviness form in the pit of my stomach.
“The first time I can remember something happening is when I was six. I went to tell my mom that I was hungry, and I interrupted her boyfriend from yelling at her,” Tate clears his throat, “so he slapped me upside the head so hard that I stumbled into the brick fireplace, cutting open my knee.”
I can’t even help it when my eyes start to blur, an uncomfortable sting before the water forms in the corners.
My parents never even spanked me or my brothers when we were growing up. I guess they were what you call “gentle” parents. They’d talk to us. Communication was a huge thing in our home when we were kids. I couldn’t imagine…
I shake my head.
“I looked at my mom for help because that’s what you do as a kid, you expect your mom to be there when you get hurt,” he swallows thickly, “but she just stood there. She didn’t move. She didn’t even look at me.”
Wrapping my arms around myself, I squeeze tight to keep from full-on sobbing. I can feel it getting caught in my throat, but I don’t want to clear it. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. His mom was his first heartbreak, andI’mcrying?
The more he says, the more I feel like I know him on the deepest level you can know someone. Probably deeper than you shouldeverknow a person. I’ve seen all the raw, personal stuff, like looking into his soul. And he just bares it all to me without question. What does that mean?
What does it mean when I feel like I can do the same?
“Most people turn a blind eye, you know,” he says. “They see someone nodding off in the car in a store parking lot, kid in the backseat… No one says anything. They mind their business.”
I do know that. Firsthand. Toward the end of our relationship, Landon was more comfortable acting out in front of his friends, who did absolutely nothing. Those cowards.
“As a kid, you’re looking out of the window,” he clears his throat, “just hoping someone will make eye contact with you. That someone will notice. Say something.Helpyou.”
My heart feels like it might crush under the weight of his words.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps after a moment, rubbing his hands on his jeans as he glances over at me. “I feel like I’m talking your head off?—”
“No, no, keep talking. Talk as much as you want. I’m all ears, of course,” I assure him in a weak voice, shaking my head. “I just…don’t know what to add. Sure, I’ve had my experiences, but not nearly as long as you did. I don’t feel it’s my place to throw all of my baggage on you with everything you’ve got going on right now.”
Tate frowns at me. “Just because yours didn’t go on as long as mine doesn’t mean yours is any less traumatic, Maeve. Trauma is trauma. I…wantto hear about it, if you want to talk about it. I’m here to listen to you, too.”
Do I want to? Do I want to baremysoul to him?
“Sorry,” I mumble,” I think I’m just so used to…only talking when I’m told that I feel like it’s never my placetotalk.”
“With me, it’s always your place to talk.”
I swallow, thinking of how I want to word what I’m about to say. I’ve only ever opened up to my therapist, never anyone I know. This is all so new to me, and it scares the shit out of me to consider the possibility that he might look at me differently after this, if he hasn’t already.
But I’m ready for this, I think.
For him to see all of me. Even if he decides he doesn’t like what he sees.
