“Well, I told you about that before,” she mumbled.
I could have guessed the rest, but I kept prodding her.
“When it…didn’t really work out…” Tria trailed off, and then sighed deeply. “Keith started yelling at me. He said it was no wonder…no wonder no one…”
I shouldn’t have pushed. I ended up holding her on my lap as she cried again, barely able to speak between sobs.
“He just…kept saying…it was because there was…something wrong with me!” she sobbed. “He said I was going to be a…a terrible…a terrible wife…and no one…would ever…want me…”
She took a long, shuddering breath.
“And I knew he was right!” she exclaimed. “My own mother didn’t want me, so why would anyone else?”
I wanted to go back to that fucker’s house and beat the shit out of him so badly, I couldn’t even see straight. He didn’t even qualify as a douchebag anymore. I didn’t know what the fuck he was, but as I held Tria and continued to tell her that I wanted her, I definitely considered a couple dozen ways to make him fit into a douchebag.
He had intentionally played on her worst fears of rejection, and for what? Did it make him feel better to blame her because she wasn’t turned on? Did he get off on it? Did he do it just to make her stay there? Did he really not know what he was doing, or was he just an ass?
Maybe another option: all of the above.
Despite my profession, I wasn’t normally a violent person. Something about people mistreating Tria brought it all out in me. Most of my vicious thoughts were nothing more than empty threats in my head, but when it came to Keith Harrison, I was becoming more and more convinced that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from hurting him if I ever saw him again.
“They never let you forget it, did they?” I asked her when she calmed down again.
“Who?”
Tria had finally stopped shaking. I wasn’t even sure what time it was anymore, only that it was late, even for us. She was lying across my chest at this point, apparently deep in thought or memories or something. All I could see in my head was the image of a little girl with tears in her eyes while her own mother walked away from her.
If I ever met Dana Lynn, I was probably going to hurt her, too. At the very least, I was going to dress her up as a light heavyweight and toss her in the cage. Of course, as much as I wanted to have a quick and easy target to blame all this shit on, I knew there were other culprits as well.
“Those fuckers you lived with,” I said, “the Harrisons. They just reminded you of that shit all the time, didn’t they?”
“They’re the ones who were willing to—”
“Bullshit!” I yelled. She jumped a little in my arms, and I held her closer. “That shit Keith was spewing at you wasn’t anything you should feel grateful for!”
“No one else would,” she whispered. “How else am I supposed to feel?”
“Like those fuckers did you wrong,” I replied instantly. “They could have told you none of that shit was your fault like they should have done in the first place. But no—they let it all fester to make sure you stuck around. Fuckers.”
“Your parents threw you out, too,” she said. “From what little you have told me, anyway. At least Leo let me stay.”
“Totally different,” I said.
“You going to tell me how so?”
She was treading on seriously thin ice. The way my family treated me was nothing like the way those assholes had treated Tria. The way Keith had talked to her was nothing short of abusive. My family had never been like that. Of course, as far as I knew, Tria’s adoptive family hadn’t contributed to anyone’s death.
I was never one to compare parenting styles, but I was pretty sure she had it worse as a child than I did.
Chapter 8—Remember the Good
I hesitated. I didn’t want to go into any of this shit with her. I didn’t want her to know about it, think about it, or ask me about it. If she did, I’d have to remember everything, too.
“You aren’t, are you?” she said as she sat up a little to look at me. “You don’t ever plan on telling me anything about yourself, do you?”
“I’ve told you some shit.”
“You told me about a very short time period.”
“You don’t want to hear it,” I muttered. “None of it matters now anyway.”
“There you go,” she said as she rolled off my chest and sat up a little against the pillows to look at me. “Telling me what’s best for me. You realize that’s the main reason I left Beals, right?”
I glared at her—not because she was wrong, but because she was right, and I didn’t want to admit it. There were things I hadn’t told her that I probably could, and it would ease her curiosity without actually saying too much. I took a long breath through my nose, opened my mouth to say something, but then hesitated again.
“What was it?” Tria asked again, prompting me. “The perils of being filthy rich?”
“It’s probably not what you think,” I said quietly. I considered the house where I grew up. “Filthy rich is about right, though.”
“What was it like?” She sniffed loudly, rubbed at her nose, and adjusted her position across from me.
At the very least, she deserved to hear something to take her mind off the shit she had been reliving, so I told her what I could.
“The house where I grew up would probably be better described as an estate or maybe a palace.” I snorted at the memory. “I don’t know how many acres of land—a couple hundred, I guess. The house has twelve bedrooms in the family wing—not sure about the other side, but probably similar.”
“Twelve?” Tria repeated with incredulity. “Did I hear you right?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “There is a theatre in the house to watch movies, an indoor Olympic-sized pool on the ground level, and another pool outside. You can actually swim from one to the other. There are probably a hundred people employed just to take care of the house and grounds. Outside there is one of those big mazes made out of hedges. You have to go through the maze to get to the stables.”
“Stables?”
“My parents have a bunch of horses, yeah.”
“You know how to ride horses?”
“English and western style, yes.” I eyed her for a minute as she took this information in. At the same time, memories came back to me in quick flashes, followed by floods of events that were once common but were now long forgotten: the pony I rode when I was just learning, getting lost in the maze and crying until Mom found me, and the way the vapor would form at the surface of the outdoor, heated pool when it was cold outside.
Tria’s eyes locked with mine as she waited for me to continue.
“Dad worked a lot,” I said. “His phone rang most every day when he was home, but he always had it turned off between six and eight in the evening because that was family time.”
Not surprisingly, Tria’s eyes widened, and she even moved away a bit in disbelief as I kept talking.
“When I was growing up, those hours were off limits to anything else,” I told her. “Dad said if we couldn’t take two hours out of every day to spend together that nothing he worked for mattered. He meant it, too.”
I could see the confusion in her eyes.
“Not what you thought, huh?” I gave her a wry smile.
“Not at all,” she admitted. “I mean, you never talk about them. I guess I assumed…”
“I know,” I said with a nod. “I guess given where I am today, that would be a logical conclusion, but it wasn’t like that. Aside from our daily family time, Mom and I did a lot of things on a regular schedule, especially when I was young. Thursday nights were always movie nights with popcorn and whatever. The best nights were Tuesdays, though.”
“What was on Tuesdays?”
“Game night,” I said as a smile crossed my face. “There was a game room off the theatre with a pool table and a jukebox. There was another big table for board games and card games
.”
“What did you play?”
“Lots of different things,” I said. “Parcheesi, cribbage, Mastermind…”
“Mastermind?” Tria giggled. “You mean the one with the different colored marbles?”
“Yep,” I replied. “That was one of my favorites. The best ones were backgammon and chess, though. Dad liked backgammon the most, but Mom and I loved chess. She was awesome at it, too. I was sixteen the first time I ever beat her at a game.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, and we started playing when I was five!” I laughed, remembering how Mom would play with nothing but her king, two rooks, and a pawn. I would still lose every time.
“It sounds really…nice…” She let her voice trail off, but I knew what she was thinking.
“They were good parents,” I said. “At least, during my childhood. They could be a little stuffy, and they dragged me to a shitload of boring-ass parties when I was a kid. Sometimes they pissed me off, but for the most part, they were good parents, ya know?”
“Not really,” she said quietly. “But I think I know what you are saying. So, was it the drugs that made them kick you out?”
“No,” I said. “Those came later.”
It would have been so much easier to lie to her. If I had just said yes to her simple question, then we could just blame everything on the drugs and forget the rest.
Definitely easier.
“My father and I…”
I couldn’t continue. Somewhere between my mind and my tongue, the words were lost. I couldn’t even picture the scenes in my head. A thousand metaphorical walls rising a thousand metaphorical feet into the air barricaded the memories of that time.
As it should be.
“We argued,” I finally said.
“Often?” Tria asked for clarification.
“Toward the end, I guess,” I said. “My father thought it was very important that I go into the family business, and I thought other things in life were more important. He didn’t care for my choices. Eventually it blew up, and I walked out.”
“He didn’t want you to fight,” Tria surmised.
I didn’t correct her. My teeth clenched together as a little skirmish inside my head broke out, and each side tried to rationalize whether or not the lack of correction on my part constituted a lie. Technically, the statement was true. Though he was supportive of the high school wrestling and martial arts as a hobby, he didn’t want me to continue fighting in college. He had expected me to focus on academics.
“I decided I was going to do what I thought was the right thing,” I finally said, neither confirming nor denying her assumption. “He said if I didn’t do what he wanted, I was going to be cut off, so I started to leave. He said if I left, I couldn’t come back, so I haven’t.”
“And this was when you were seventeen?” Tria asked.
“Yeah.”
“Ten years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“And you haven’t spoken to either of them since then?”
“I have not.”
“Liam,” she said in her it’s-time-to-chastise-me-for-saying-something-stupid voice, “you have completely avoided your parents for that long based on one argument?”
“It wasn’t just a simple argument,” I said, though my throat tightened up as I had to fight to hold up the walls. “Just leave it at that.”
“What did you fight about?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Then why don’t you contact them?”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Then what you fought about did matter,” she surmised.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I said again.
“Then tell me why you fought!” she demanded once more.
“No!”
Whatever was inside of me holding my shit together collapsed.
“Stop fucking asking me!” I screamed at her as I pushed myself out of the bed and marched to the closet. I grabbed my tennis shoes and pulled them on without bothering to tie up the laces. I left the room without another word, ignoring Tria’s calls after me. Even when I grabbed my jacket and walked out of the front door, I ignored her calling my name.
Thoughts of the movie Fight Club went through my head, and as I took off down the street, I wondered if I could actually hit myself like the guy in that movie did in front of his boss. I didn’t have any destination in mind; I just ran. It wasn’t long before I was exhausted though—the late hour and the cold contributing to my fatigue. I slowed to a walk and then dropped myself down on a bench by the bus stop.
“Hey, baby.” Some whore in six-inch heels slid up to me and tried to sit on my lap. “Having a bad night? I can make it all better.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered and tried not to give the idea any serious thought. I’d never paid for sex, but that was only because I didn’t have the money. It wasn’t like I was above it or anything. Still, a hooker was the last thing I wanted at the moment.
She got the idea, pouted, then strutted off down the street.
All these memories I wanted nothing to do with were engulfing me, and I could not stop them. Each one wrapped around me in turn, slamming the visions into my brain. First there was the look on my father’s face and his immediate response when I told him “the news.” Then there were Mom’s tears and looks of disappointment. A string of arguments came next, followed by my departure from the house, and eventually…
“No!” I shouted into the darkness. I gripped my hands into fists and pounded one of them against the wooden bench. A sharp pain echoed through my knuckles and up my arm, giving me something else on which to focus my attentions.
I rubbed at my knuckles and reveled in the pain.
I slammed my other hand into the bench, too, and then leaned back to stare up at the polluted sky. Vague sounds entered my ears: a car horn, people yelling at each other from across the street, the air brakes of a bus, and the hooker coming on to the next poor bastard she ran into as I just sat there and forced my mind to empty.
When I finally sat up again, I ended up with a bit of a head rush. I fished a cigarette out and then blew a long puff of smoke into the air. Slowly, I allowed more recent memories back into my consciousness: Tria’s hand on me, the feel of her between my legs on the motorcycle, and the taste of her lips the first time I kissed her.
Shit!
I’d run out on her again.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment before I stood and started to walk back to the apartment, feeling like a total shit. I had promised her I wouldn’t run out on her again, and yet here I was, wandering the streets in the middle of the night because I couldn’t deal with shit.
Unconsciously, my fingers rubbed at the inside of my elbow. The track marks there weren’t very visible anymore, but I could still feel the scars. Each one reminded me of how it felt to forget everything bad and revel in sweet release. There was a way to deal with the pain and the unwanted memories. There was a way to deal with it all, and I even had enough cash in my pocket to take care of it.
Shaking off the thought, I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes as I stood on the other side of the apartment door, wondering what the fuck I could say to her at this point. Standing there didn’t seem to be helping me come up with anything, so I twisted the knob and went inside.
She was still in bed, sitting against the pillows with most of the rest of the tissues in crumpled little blobs around her. Her eyes met mine, and I knew she wanted to yell and scream at me, but she just broke down instead.
“Why don’t you trust me?” she cried as I wrapped my arms around her.
“I do,” I replied. I gripped her tightly and felt my own body starting to shake with hers.
She dropped the bit of tissue in her hand and grabbed on to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against the skin of her neck. “I’m sorry, Tria, but I can’t. I can’t talk about that shit. I can’t. I won’t.”
“I don’t understand,” she replied
softly. “I just want to understand.”
“Please don’t ask anymore.” I begged as I pulled her against me. “Please don’t ask. Not about this.”
My hold on her tightened, and I felt her arms grip me tighter as well. I tried to force myself to think only of how she smelled and how it felt to be so close to her. I didn’t want to think about everything that had happened before, about my father’s reaction, or how it led to the circumstances that nearly destroyed me.
Later that night, as much as I tried not to remember, I couldn’t stop the nightmares.
Still angry at her refusal to tell anyone else what is going on, I stomp up the steps and call out her name. There is no answer. Inside the tiny house, there is still no sound. I know she’s here, and I’m filled with a sense of dread as I move into the hallway and head toward the bathroom.
The door is locked.
I pound until my fists are bruised.
She doesn’t answer.
I kick in the door, and the smell of blood nearly makes me vomit.
“Liam? Liam!”
“Fuck…no…no…fuck…no…”
I knew I had been dreaming. I knew I was awake now with Tria’s hands gripping my arms and her voice in my ears. Still, I couldn’t stop the images in my head. All I could do was collapse against her.
*****
The nightmares continued for several days. I woke up screaming each time, and each time Tria held me in her arms until I fell back asleep again. I was exhausted and nearly lost my next fight, which seemed to snap me out of it.
Tria never asked what the dreams were about.
Days later, I slopped a bit more drywall paste on the wall and tried to even out the edges around the repaired hole which may or may not have resembled the size of my fist. Leaning back a bit, I admired my handiwork, which wasn’t great, but it would at least keep the landlord from birthing a litter of kittens on the floor if he happened to see it.
There were a couple of pieces of sandpaper near my feet, but the smell from the kitchen convinced me to save the rest of the job for later. When I came out of the bedroom, Tria was humming and scooping something spicy smelling from the stove onto plates. I still got hard every time I saw her cooking in the kitchen, and this evening was no different.