I face Mara so our chests meet and bury her face in my neck, the more contact I give her, the quicker I can bring her body temperature up. It’s a strangely intimate position, but, whatever works, I guess.
She’s so small in my hold, I’ve been with petite women before but they’re usually conscious, I never let anyone sleepover and I don’t sleep over either. Asleep and broken, Mara feels like a fragile doll. Too bad that fragile doll has the heart of a demon and the mouth of a witch. Ya know, I kind of like her like this, unable to speak. It’s only now that she’s unconscious and unaware I’m holding her that I realize she’s not as big and bad as she makes herself out to be.
I wonder when she got back to town. Dylan does most of the shopping cause I try to stay as far away from civilization as possible. She could’ve been back for months for all I know. And I wouldn’t put it past Dylan notto tell me since he knows I hate her guts.
Yet here I am, trying to save her from hypothermia. If there is a God, he has a sick sense of humor to land her at my doorstep.
“Are you staying down here tonight?” Dylan leans over the back of the sofa to ask me. I nod. “Okay. Come get me if you need anything. And let me know when she wakes up. I’m sure she’ll have some questions. Mainly why she’s not wearing any clothes.”
I get a sick sense of delight thinking about the fit she’s going to throw when she wakes up in her underwear. Appearance first, safety later. That seems like her style.
“Night, brother.” With that, Dylan heads up the stairs to his bedroom and turns off the lights in the process.
Under the glow of the roaring fire, I tighten my hold on Mara and close my eyes. This isn’t Mara Meyers I’m holding, it’s a girl in need. It’s not my high school tormentor, it’s a woman I found on the road in the snow. And she needs me.
“I have a fucking faggot and a mute for sons, Lois,” my father screams at Mom in the kitchen while Dylan and I sit on the porch listing to the bullshit our father is spewing. “What the hell do you want me to say? That I’m happy with our life? That I’m okay with this shit? Neither one of them are right. Maybe I should send them to the cabin this winter to become men. No help from anyone except themselves.”
The look Dylan and I exchange says it all.That actually doesn’t sound too bad.At least we’d be away from him.
Mom uses her passive, tender voice that she always uses to pacify our father. “They have school, Phil. They need their education.”
“Fine.” I hear his thunderous steps get louder as they head our way. “Then maybe I’ll toughen them up myself.”
“Phil,” Mom shouts. I hear her little footsteps follow our father toward us and jump to my feet to stand between the son of a bitch and my brother. He’s plenty tough from wrestling, but they kicked him off the team this year when they found out he is gay. Not that he was interested in anyone on the team. But they don’tgive a shit. He doesn’t think the same as them so he’s a threat, a danger.
Our father tried to get me to wrestle too, or play football, or baseball. Hell, he even tried to get me to play golf with him, but I don’t want to do anything that requires me to be around people. I started using the weights and bench press he keeps in the garage, but even that isn’t enough for him.
The door flies open so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t come off the hinges. As soon as our father locks eyes on me, smoke comes out of his nostrils. He drops the cigarette he was smoking inside and smashes it under his boot. He’s preparing for a face-off. He’s been waiting for a reason to hit me again and I just gave him one.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Our father grits out in a strained voice. All the years of smoking make him sound like rocks in a blender now.
When I don’t answer—like he knew I wouldn’t—he takes a step closer. “You trying to stand up to me, huh? Trying to be theman, now? Protect your fucked up brother?”
He’s not fucked up. Everything about him is completely normal except his taste in partners. Which, to be honest, isn’t that weird in this day and age. But our town is a decade behind the rest of the world and they don’t appreciate him leapfrogging into modern relationships.
“So what are you doing, boy? Answer me when I ask you a fucking question.” His voice raises a notch in volume with each word until he’s yelling at me. But that’s never scared me before and it sure as hell doesn’t scare me now.
“You fucking retard.” My father swings his fist at my head and I stumble, but I remember a few things from my brief time in sports and tackle him with my shoulder to his abdomen, arms around the waist, trying to take him down. Even though I’ve gotten a bit bigger since picking up weightlifting, he’s still bigger than me. Offensive lineman in high school. Probably could have gone to college on scholarship for it if he hadn’t knocked up our mom.
He’s caught off guard by my attack which causes him to stumble, but it doesn’t take long for the bastard to shove me to the ground and stomp on my chest.
Mom starts hollering, crying for our dad to stop. But when he’s like this, there’s no stopping the rampage. The sad thing is he’s not even drunk. I’ve heard about dads who get violent when they drink. But at least there’s an excuse there, a way to stop it. Our dad was just born mean, bitter, violent.
He shoves me down the front steps with his steel-toed boot and I turn into the fetal position and hold my bruised rib cage hoping that seeing me wounded like a dog on the ground is enough to satisfy his taste for blood and misery.
“You thought you could hide behind your brother?” Our father turns on Dylan, clearly not satiated yet.
“No, I—.” Dylan loses the power of speech when our father charges for him next.
Panic sets in. I see the pure terror in Dylan’s eyes, hear Mom plead for our father to stop, crying in between sucking in lungfuls of air she can’t hold onto. And my chest caves with the weight of it all. I can’t see them hurting. He can hurt me all he wants, but not them.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
Chapter Three
Mara-Present
Siren-Pearl Jam
