He shrugged and reached down, pulling the blanket up to my chest.
“What else do we have to do?”
I looked into his eyes, seeing nothing but concern, my heart feeling too heavy to try and understand why he’d care.
“My mom hated me,” I blurted out. “She hated me because my dad left, and she blamed me for it.”
He stayed silent, letting me talk, and I silently thanked him.
“My dad left when I was four. People don’t think you can remember things that young, but you do. I remember the day he left.”
I closed my eyes as I let that memory come forward, pushing all the others away.
“I begged him to stay, not to leave me. He packed his bags and even took some of the furniture with him. There was a woman outside waiting for him in one of those moving trucks. He took my bed, the couch, the kitchen table, and chairs. Said it was because he paid for them, so they were his.”
“Asshole,” he huffed, and I laughed.
“Yeah, kind of.”
I shifted and opened my eyes, pulling myself up and looking toward the wall behind his head. I couldn't bring myself to look him in the eyes.
“I stood in front of the door and tried to stop him, but he just pushed me. My mom didn’t say a word, just watched him from the corner of the room. That night, she drowned herself in a bottle of wine, leaving me to fend for myself.”
I wanted to stop right there, wanted to let everything else stay hidden, but I continued, the need to talk and get it out gnawing at me.
“When I was eleven, I found out he remarried. The woman who was there that day was his wife, and they had two kids together—a boy and a girl. I found out by accident when I saw them on my way home from one of my many trips to the grocery store by myself. Mom never had enough money for food, so I either had to steal it or beg people for money on the corner.
“I saw them across the street at some fancy house, playing in the front yard. The little girl couldn’t have been more than five, but the boy… he was a couple of years younger than me. Even at that age, I knew it didn’t make sense.”
Jason gripped my hand and pushed his fingers between mine, giving me some small sense of comfort.
“My mom was never physically abusive when I was younger. It was mostly just words, but that hurt worse than the physical part, I think. Then, when I turned fourteen, it was like something snapped inside her. She always left the bruises in places no one could see.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said, rubbing small circles along my back.
I shrugged and let out a sigh.
“When I turned eighteen, I got in contact with my dad, thinking maybe things were different since he seemed to have a change of heart. I hoped that he was just too afraid or ashamed to come back and see me.”
I finally turned to look at Jason, feeling his gaze burning a hole in me. His eyes were full of anger and pain, a hint of something darker swirling in them. I swallowed down a lump forming in my throat and pressed forward.
“The day I went to see him, his wife answered the door. At first, she had no idea who I was until I told her my name. She looked… disgusted. When I asked to speak to my father, she said no, said he wanted nothing to do with me. I begged and pleaded until my father finally came. He told me he wanted nothing to do with me, that I was part of a time in his life that he wanted to forget. He said I was nothing more than a distant memory and I had no place in his life anymore.”
Tears started to pour down my cheeks again, the pain of that day feeling like a fresh wound as I replayed his words in my head.
“He shut the door in my face and left me there crying, begging for a chance. That night, when I got home, my mother was furious when I told her where I’d been. She beat me so badly I blacked out. After I came to, I packed my bags and never looked back.”
Jason reached over, wiping the tears from my cheeks, and he scooped me up in his arms, holding me to his chest.
“I’m sorry for the life you had to live,” he said, pressing his lips against my cheek. “You deserved, no,deserve, better than that.”
My heart fluttered at his words, feeling the weight of them sink deep into my skin. Something twisted in my stomach, an emotion I’d long since buried, and I pulled away from him.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Your dad. What’s his name?”
