“Not really.”
“Eating?”
“Sometimes.”
Noah nods like that answer tells him exactly what he expected to hear.
For a few minutes, we just watch the TV over the bar while a couple of teams I don’t care about trade lazy neutral-zone turnovers. The silence isn’t awkward, which is probably why Noah’s good at what he does. He doesn’t force conversations open before people are ready to have them.
Noah leans against the leather and studies me for a second. “You know what everybody’s saying about you right now?”
I grimace. “That I’m psychotic?”
“No.” He shrugs. “Mostly that you lost your head protecting someone you’ve grown to care about.”
“That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement.”
“No,” he agrees calmly. “Because what happened was still ugly.”
The shame hits instantly.
I stare down at the label on my beer bottle. “I know.”
Noah stays quiet long enough that I finally glance back up at him.
“You know what concerns me more than the fight itself?” he asks.
“What?”
“The fact that you look like you think it proved something.”
My stomach flips. Damn him. Because it does feel like proof. Proof that the violence is still sitting there under my skin, waiting for an excuse. Proof that my father left fingerprints all over me, whether I like it or not.
Noah watches the realization move across my face. “You get it.”
I exhale hard and scrub a hand down my face. “I don’t know how to shut it off sometimes.”
“The anger?”
“The panic.” The word leaves before I can stop it. “It’s like my brain stops working the second somebody I care about is in danger.”
Noah nods slowly.
“I saw him hit the glass. I saw Remy fall,” I admit quietly. “And suddenly I wasn’t in the arena anymore.”
The noise of the bar fades into the background while I stare past Noah toward the TVs mounted over the liquor bottles.
“I was back in that house,” I say. “Listening to my mother scream while my father tore through the kitchen, throwing shit around. Until he caught her. Then he started throwing his fists around.”
The words settle heavily between us.
“I used to think if I got big enough, eventually I’d be able to stop him.” I laugh once without humor. “Twelve-year-old logic.”
Noah says nothing.
Which somehow makes it easier to keep going.
“I think part of me still believes I failed her.” My fingers tighten around the beer bottle. “If I’d been stronger or older, maybe she wouldn’t have had to stay with him so long. That if I hadn’t been born, she never would have had to stay to begin with.”
