Page 89 of Dear Future Husband

“You know he doesn’t want to go with her, right?” He adjusted himself so his back leaned flush against the wall.

“Then why is he going with her?”

“Juliette, unfortunately, is our defensive coach’s niece. When Coach found out they were going together, he made a massive deal about it. Then he practically threatened bench time if Turner were to do anything to upset her. He’s taking her out of obligation. And—let’s be real—he’s too good of a guy to flirt with the possibility disrespecting her or Coach. Even though, he has every right to after the shit she pulled that night after the scrimmage.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Let me talk to him. A friend date to the banquet would be great, but I wantto make sure he would be cool with it first.”

I nodded. “Okay, just let me know.”

Suddenly, a fully dressed Larson popped his head in past the door, a wide smile splitting his face in two.

“Hey, boxes are unloaded, and I’m starving. You’re buying me lunch, May. Let’s go.” And he was gone, down the hall, trying to put Bear in a headlock who was entirely unmoved by the effort.

Williams sat up from the wall, putting a large, bare arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry. It’s on me.”

Dear future husband,

I’ve been in therapy with my mom and Liam since the move to San Francisco. The therapist we’ve been seeing is having me do an exercise. One that requires me to tell someone I trust my story…

Besides Mom and Liam, you’re the only one I have. But it’s time I’ve told you the whole story. The story I’ve struggled to find the words for until now.

Dad died when Liam and I were too young to remember, leaving Mom completely alone. As a young, single mother of two, twin babies, she hastily threw herself into a new relationship, barely knowing the man.

Richard Amos had been with our mother for years. We lived with him, and he helped raise us, but that man never earned a spot as our father.

Richard was a man made from money and a spoiled life. He was always clean shaven, dressed in neatly pressed attire and hair combed back. But we didn’t know Richard for the way the world saw him. We knew him for his frenzied anger, his unforgiving words and vengeful actions.

Mom told me in earlier years, he’d been good. She even loved him at one point. I can’t remember any of the good, no matter how hard I try. I only remember the bad.

I guess that’s what trauma does. It’s the wine-red stain, soiling the white silk of life, tainting enough of the surface to leave you questioning what color the cloth originally was.

We each experienced our own personal layers of hell through the years and the three of us did it quietly. I still don’t understand if it was out of shame or us trying to protect one another.

Either way, we isolated ourselves.

I watched Mom deteriorate in that relationship. While Richard may have started out as someone she loved, he manipulated and abandoned her for the bed of many others. After everything, Momexplained she endured the relationship out of necessity. Staying there to give Liam and I a roof over our heads while she went through school.

I think that was part of it, but I think a larger part of her also hoped he would stop. That he would choose her.

A wish I knew she regretted after the night it all changed.

Richard was always vindictive and aggressive with his words when Mom wasn’t looking. But when she started school and was gone for hours at a time, that was when the abuse escalated.

That night, Mom was gone at a study group for school. Liam was out with friends, leaving me home alone with Richard.

The times Mom was gone, I usually hid in my room, mentally running away to whatever book I was reading or writing in this book to you. I remained quiet, praying to whatever listened that I went unnoticed by the predator stalking outside my bedroom door.

But my prayers went unanswered.

My bedroom door splintered open as Richard forced his way in. I was frozen stiff on my bed, clutching to you—this book—as he stumbled toward me.

He was already yelling at me when he reached my bed and I was already somewhere far, far away. In my mind’s eye, I was on a beach. When his hand grasped my ankle and yanked at me, I imagined the tide cascading over me and pulling me into its deep embrace.

When his smell swarmed me, I held my breath, letting the waves swallow me. I held tightly to the scene in my head. Running away, just as I always did when his violent hands gripped and pulled my skin. I desperately listened to the fictitious sound of water lapping and not the vicious words he tore at my soul with.

But when the back of his hand caught my cheek, I tumbled back into reality. A reality where I was alone, blinking past the stars in my vision to see him standing over me.

I knew better than to plead my case, because no matter how innocent I was, I would still be punished. Instead, my body locked up, and I held still.