Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“She’s always liked to drink with dinner,” he went on. “I didn’t see it as a problem. It was how I grew up. But then she got pregnant with Anna, and she kept drinking. I confronted her about it, of course, and that’s when I noticed that she’d covered a bruise on her arm. I was fucking livid. I had no fuse back then—not when it came to her asshole boyfriend.”
He’d stopped eating. Instead, he stared at his hands in his lap. If he’d been a woman, I would’ve thought he was inspecting his nail polish with how he held them out. But he was studying his knuckles. He drew a finger over a scar I hadn’t noticed before.
“You went after him,” I concluded quietly.
He nodded. “He worked at a construction site across town, and I didn’t even think. I just drove over there and beat the shit out of him.”
Christ.
“He was actually fired,” he said. “The official reason was that he drank on the job, which didn’t surprise me one bit. What did surprise me was that he cooled down for a while after that. I’d expected him to come after me, but he didn’t. He ignored me completely, and I tried not to be around when he was home.”
He cracked his knuckles absently and glanced at the horizon where the sun was dipping lower and lower.
“But an abuser never stops when he gets caught,” he murmured. “They just change tactics. I wasn’t around enough to see it either. I was always at a friend’s house or at the Quad.”
I cocked my head. “The Quad?”
“Ah, yeah, a place for teenagers. Usually those who don’t wanna be at home for one reason or another.” He reached for his fountain soda but didn’t drink from it. “About a week after Anna was born, I heard them fighting in the living room. He wanted her to shut the baby up.”
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, instantly flooded with anger.
“Yeah, sweet guy.” He nodded once. “I guess he couldn’t maintain the charade any longer—combined with my eyes opening a bit more. He’d never stopped beating her. He’d just gotten better at hitting her where the bruises didn’t show.” He squinted at something and scratched his forehead. “I’m rambling, aren’t I? Can I blame you for drawing it out of me?”
I ignored his weak attempt at humor and gave his knee another squeeze. “You can blame whoever you want, as long as you keep going.”
He blew out a breath and nodded slowly. “In short, it was a shitshow after that. I alternated between keeping my mouth shut—so I could be there for Anna—and getting into vicious fights with both him and my mom, because this couldn’t go on. I just watched her sink deeper and deeper into alcoholism, and I asked her what would happen once she got fired. When she could no longer keep a job. And she said she was working on it. She apologized to me over and over, drunk off her ass, looking like a complete fucking mess.” He shook his head to himself and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Shortly before Anna turned one, Mom blew his brains out with his own hunting rifle.”
Holy hell.
That one stunned me. Even knowing that a prison sentence had been involved, no one could’ve prepared me for that.
I swallowed dryly and wondered if I should pour him some rum. Or perhaps that was in poor taste, considering the theme of the story.
“A few of us testified in her defense,” he said tiredly. “She had coworkers who knew he’d been abusive too, so the lawyer managed to get it reduced to manslaughter. There was no evidence to support first-degree murder, but there was some doubt that it was strictly self-defense. Which it hadn’t been. So, she went to prison.”
She’d been gone six years, if I remembered correctly.
“She knew she’d been part of the problem.” Peyton cleared his throat. “She begged for forgiveness for leaving me alone with Anna—but she said she had to take herself out of the equation too.”
I had no words. Wanting to show him that I wasn’t going anywhere, I gathered his hand in both of mine and pressed my lips to his knuckles.
I couldn’t imagine what it must’ve felt like.
“This doesn’t bother you at all?” He seemed to ask just to make sure.
“Of course it bothers me, Peyton. It bothers me that you had to go through this—all of you.”
“Right, but—” He sighed and stared at me. “What would your parents think?”
I blinked.
Then I couldn’t help but laugh. I kept it short and managed to contain it with a cough, but goddamn.
“Some people care about these things,” he argued. “You’ve told me your folks are fancy as shit.”
I hadn’t used those words, but that was neither here nor there. “First of all,” I said with a chuckle, “they dine with Kennedys, not Romneys. Second of all, even if they were dining with the Queen of England and had a list of demands for me, it wouldn’t matter. They’ve never had that kind of hold on me.” I paused. “There isn’t a soul I would hide our relationship for. That said, I believe you will want us to stay under the radar at the office for a while. Because even if I made us exempt from the no-fraternization rule or scrapped it altogether, office gossip can get vicious, and you may want some form of a social life in Boston.”