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I sink down to the ground at my truck and hold my head in my hands. I hate this. I fucking hate this.
My dad squats next to me, his hand on my shoulder. I don’t look at him. When I don’t, he pulls a move he used to when I was little and wouldn’t talk to him. He takes my head in his hands and makes me. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “But there’s no way in hell you’re going after that boy tonight. You may be a man now, you’ve been to war, but you’re still my boy and I’m going to protect you when I can. Going there tonight will lead to no good, Grayson, and I won’t let that happen.”
Overwhelmed, I don’t know what to say to him. If you’ve lived through war, you’ve lived through a time when your mind was not your own. You were ripped of your safety and sanity and left to navigate a world where neither exist. And when you leave, you think you’ve escaped that. Until a moment, an experience, something brings the memory back.
This is my moment when I fall apart.
22
EVIE
Willie Nelson’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” plays in the distance. I hate the song, but it’s somewhere in the midst of that song, an outcome plays out before me, everything surrounding me bathed in a blue tint. My eyes, the side of his face, my cheek, it’s shades of blues he can’t erase.
I lie flat on my back and stare out a window. It’s clouded up with steam from the running shower, slow trickles of bubbled water streaking down. The low hanging sun shimmers against the drops, sparkling like a firecracker.
I feel like those water drops. Slowly filling, gathering strength before finally giving up and letting my fate fall where it may.
An entire week passes since that night at The Point. A week of avoiding family, friends, work… and Grayson. He’s called every day, until Shane cracked the screen on my cell phone throwing it at the wall. I quit my job, or rather, Shane quit it for me. It’s his plan. To have me fully depend on him.
Sunday afternoon, the soreness in my face is fading, but it’s a constant reminder of what Shane did, what he is doing. He touches me, his hand on my thigh, his apology on repeat.
Today, I have to be seen. My mom is threatening to file a missing person’s report if I don’t make an appearance. Tonight,Aiden, Grayson’s cousin, is in town. I have to make an appearance. I want to.
To my left, Shane sighs, his heavy arm weighs down on my stomach. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, pressing his lips to the spot on my shoulder. It’s yellowing, the marks of his grip fading, but the reality never will. “I guess I got kind of carried away.”
I don’t acknowledge his useless apology. “I have to make an appearance at Aiden’s parents’ house tonight.”
His grip tightens and he nods to the bathroom where steam rolls from the room. “I can’t let you go. Take a shower with me.”
“I have to go.”
His hand moves to my face and angles my head toward him. “No.”
I void my tone of emotion. “I don’t have to go alone. You could come with me.”
His jaw tightens, his eyes searching. “You’d want me to?”
I don’t, but I know him coming with me is my only chance of leaving this house. “I do.”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. He swallows and blinks slowly. “Is he going to be there?”
“It’s his cousin, so probably.”
Rolling onto his back, he sighs and reaches for his joint next to the bed. He lights it, takes a hit, and then blows the smoke into the air. He sets it down and sits up, a rough growl emitting from his chest with the movement. And finally the words “You’re not going” follow and their finality of my fate.
I hate him. I hate me.
My hands shake. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, they drift to the window and then his back, his muscles flexing when he breathes in and out. I’ve upset him, because his moods are dictated by me conforming to his demands. “I have to. If I don’t, my mom and Ethan will come looking for me.”
At first, he doesn’t say anything.
But I’m desperate and have to make him see that if I don’tgo, they’ll come here. “Do you really want them to come here and see me like this?”
He looks over his shoulder at me, a scowl plastered to his face. I sit up and gesture to the bruises on my face. The ones I can’t hide this time and when that’s not enough to convince him, I drop my eyes to the place above my left breast he bit so hard he drew blood.
“I said I was sorry. Sometimes I don’t think.”
“Sometimes sorry isn’t good enough. And it doesn’t make these bruises invisible.”