Della turned her head and stared at him for a moment then she whispered, “I think it started when you began to talk about getting out.He thought you would move on without him and he didn’t think about that.He escaped through the junk he was pumping into his arm.”Shaking her head she admitted, “I don’t know if it was the drugs or your absence but he turned his back on everything and everyone that ever meant something to him.Mom and I weren’t the only ones he left behind.”
“Andrea?”Snake whispered her name.Jesse had a girlfriend.“I thought he’d marry her someday.”
Della nodded.“He showed up one night higher than a kite and she wouldn’t even let him into her apartment.He scared her enough with some threats that she called me the next day and said she was leaving town.Even she knew he was high and that was her dealbreaker.Well, she got away but he found her a few days later and he was just pissed.He beat her bad.He even did 30 days in lockup for that beating.That’s when she stepped out of the picture for good and Jesse never found her again.”
Snake just stared at her.Nothing she was telling him made any sense at all.The man she was describing wasn’t the young man he left behind.
Della just shrugged.“He wasn’t only using drugs but he was hitting steroids pretty hard too.He was trying so hard to buff himself up so he could be strong enough that nobody was ever going to talk down to him, I think.”
“You said he found you three times since I left, did he hurt you those times?”
Della nodded but didn’t say how.
Snake stayed silent until he figured out she wasn’t going to talk about those times.He growled then opened the back door to allow Bucky to come back inside.Then he clenched his fists and rushed outside to cool off.
Della watched him as a single tear rolled down her face.
Chapter Six
Snake paced the backyardand he kept looking back at the kitchen window.The first few times he could see the devastation on Della’s face then she disappeared.
Finally, he cooled off enough that he thought he could face her again.When he went back inside, he looked around but didn’t see her.That’s when he saw the closed bedroom door.
He went over and listened for a moment but he didn’t hear anything.He knocked softly and he heard Bucky whining on the other side so he slowly turned the knob and went inside.
He saw no one on the bed so he looked around the room.Finally, he saw her sitting in the corner with her face on her knees and her arms wrapped around her body.He walked slowly over to her and knelt in front of her.“I’m sorry, Della.I guess I couldn’t wrap my head around this new version of the old Jesse I grew up with.The fact that he hurt you like that just made me see red.”
Della wiped the tears from her face and looked up at him.
He tried to explain why he stormed out earlier, “I’m not mad at you, I’m furious with Jesse.He should have been the one to protect you.Yet from what you’ve told me, he’s done anything but.”
Della nodded and kept her chin on her knees.“The world is a harsh place when you’re all alone and don’t have anyone to call for help when you need it.”She sighed hard.“But I survived.I worked any job I could and I lived from hand to mouth.But I lived every day with the knowledge that Jesse couldn’t stomp me out, not the way he thought he could.My brother was an idiot and his mind became a blank hole he’d never fill due to the drugs or the steroids.So when they buried him I would still be here, surviving.It wasn’t much but it was all I had until now.”She lifted her head and stared at him.“Now I think I got you,” she whispered.
Snake smiled and sat down beside her.“You bet your ass you got me and I am not going anywhere without you.”
Della blushed and whispered, “I’ve always had a crush on you, as if you didn’t know that.”
