I was mumbling and hadn’t stopped.
“I’m broken and I don’t deserve you.”
My brain finally took control of my mouth and I quickly shut it. I closed my eyes and wished I could rewind the last fifteen seconds of word vomit I just spewed out.
This was when he was going to gently unwrap himself from around me—because he was a nice guy—and head for the door.
Or so I thought.
But that wasn’t what happened at all.
“I’m glad you’re not scared of me and I make you feel things, but you need to know that it’s me that doesn’t deserve you.”
What?
I tipped my head back and blinked my eyelids open, needing to see his face. Was Huntley serious?
When my stare clashed with his, I could see he was nothing but serious. He truly believed what he’d said.
“Moving my hand to touch your head,” he told me as I stared at him.
His fingers met some stray strands of hair that hadflopped in my face and he gently brushed them aside before letting his free hand drop back to his lap.
“I think maybe now is a good time to tell you about my mother.”
I wanted to know about her, about his life, but something in my gut was telling me, as it had before, that it wasn’t going to be an easy going story. Especially after the way Lake had talked about her.
As anxiety swam through me faster than a fish headed upriver to spawn, I prepared myself for what I would hear. Our gazes held and I saw a touch of vulnerability shimmering in his eyes that matched how I felt.
“Tell me,” I said, pushing off his chest and turning to sit cross legged facing him.
He deserved my undivided attention. I gave that to my clients, but this was different. It was personal and he’d already done so much for me. For my kids.
“My dad was a real bastard,” he started, causing me to automatically suck in a gulp of air with only his first six words.
Noticing his hands tighten into fists, tension rolled off him and I watched as he fought to calm himself. Without thinking, or asking as he did me, I found myself reaching out and touching his thigh that rested close to my crossed legs.
Both our eyes widened in shock at my action, but it worked, the move had him relaxing. He uncurled one of his hands and moved it to hover over mine, then nodded down and looked back at me for approval. When I gave him a nod back he placed his palm on the top of my hand and a breath of air seeped from his lungs like a deflating balloon.
“Since the time I can remember, he beat my mother,” he said in a semi-broken tone.
His gaze didn’t leave mine. I knew he was watching for a reaction along with making sure I was okay. Those eyes of hisspoke volumes and I was learning to read him almost as well as he did me, I think.
I fought not to look away. To not hang my head and hide from the turmoil pumping through me as I worked to stay in the present and not let my mind venture into the past.
“As small as I was, I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it either. I was only five when she finally grabbed me one night when the asshole was at the bar, then we slipped away into the dark trying to find safety.” He ran his free hand through his hair, mussing it in frustration. “It was a good thing too because as soon as he got home she would have received another round of abuse for sure.”
All day long I listened to similar stories in my line of work. Some would probably wonder why I did what I did when it could bring my past rushing back at any moment. But I wanted to help people and I’d found a way to shut my personal life off for the most part when I listened to my clients.
That wasn’t at all the case as I heard Huntley speak.
This felt personal.
He meant something to me at this point. So not only did my demons rear their ugly head and bounce around inside me like one of those little metal balls in a pinball game, but my heart also ached for the man sitting beside me and the young boy who had gone through what he had.
I stayed silent as he worked to get out what he needed to. His thumb absently started brushing back and forth over the top of my hand, his eyes less focused on me as though they had shifted to the past and he was reliving it.
“He even verbally trashed her as wife, mother, and a woman. The things that came spitting from his cruel lips were enough to send someone over the edge.”
