But she’s still here. She touched the scars and she didn’t run, and now she’s asking. Not pushing. Asking.
“Fine.” I drop the shirt. “Not here.”
I head for the living room without checking to see if she follows. Buying myself another thirty seconds before I have to say this out loud.
The living room is dim. One lamp throws shadows across the walls. I drop onto the couch, elbows on my knees, and stare at the floor.
Sierra settles next to me. Close enough that I feel her warmth, but not touching.
The silence stretches. I should start talking. That was the deal. But the words are stuck somewhere behind my ribs, and I don’t know how to drag them out.
“You don’t have to,” she says quietly. “If you’re not ready.”
And that’s what does it. The out she’s offering. Because I’ve never been ready. I’ve carried this shit for fourteen years, and I’ll carry it for fourteen more if I don’t just fucking say it.
“My father died when I was six.”
The words come out sounding flat and rusty.
“Soldier in the Andretti organization. Same one I work for now, but back then? The don was a ruthless bastard who didn’t give a shit about his men. Used my old man as a human shield.”
I shake my head. Getting off track already.
“I don’t remember him. Don’t think he was around much.” A bitter taste coats my tongue. “Mom was lonely after that. So when I was eleven, and she told me she was getting remarried, I was happy for her. I was almost a man, right? Didn’t need to worry about her so much.”
The laugh that comes out of me sounds like it belongs to someone else.
“Scott was a drunk.” I force the name out. “That’s why I don’t touch alcohol. Never been tempted. When you watch a man turn into a monster every time he picks up a bottle, you decide pretty fucking fast you don’t want to risk becoming that.”
“But you’d never?—”
“Let me finish.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean. I soften it. “I just need to get this out. Okay?”
A beat. “Okay.”
“He started with me.” My jaw locks. “Easier target. Eleven years old. Skinny. Scared of my own shadow back then. Mom didn’t know how bad it was. At least, I don’t think she did. She was just grateful we had food on the table, someone to pay the bills.”
My back burns. Phantom pain.
“These scars.” I can’t gesture to them. Can’t acknowledge them directly. “I was twelve. Mouthed off about doing the dishes. Such a fucking small thing. He held me down while he...”
I stop.
I can still smell it. Burned skin and Marlboros and the cheap whiskey on his breath.
Sierra’s hand finds my shoulder again. Grounding.
“I grew up,” I continue, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat. “Got bigger. By fourteen, I was big enough to hit back, and Scott was too much of a coward to keep trying. Should’ve been a relief.”
It wasn’t.
“He went after Ma instead.”
The memory washes over me before I can push it down. Her wrist bent at the wrong angle, swollen purple. The way she cradled it against her body and told me she fell down the stairs. The lie that every woman like her has told a thousand times. The surgery she needed because she waited too long to get help.
I gave Scott a black eye for that one. He cut off grocery money for two weeks. Went out drinking every night while we starved at home. Ma couldn’t work with her wrist healing from surgery. I was too young to make enough to feed us both.
“He controlled her with money. She depended on him, and I hated it, but I was just a kid.” My fists clench against my thighs. “She told me to let her handle him. Told me to look the other way. And I did. I fucking did, because she was my mother and I trusted her and I didn’t know what else to?—”
