Page 46 of The Handyman

He frowned as confusion knit his brows.

A huge weight lifted off my shoulders as I muttered those seven words. I had said them before, but now it felt different for some reason.

Across the table’s corner, my dad stiffened, his eyes widening and lips parting in shock.

Where should I begin? When I was here last, my dad wasn’t exactly comforting, even though he did acknowledge that I was hurting. He never said Brandon attacking me was my fault, but that I should be more careful and maybe step away from my ‘preferences’.

Which was way more than my mom fighting with me about how it was my fault, admittedly.

I went on, “After I stopped contact with Mom, she hired someone to kill me— she hired Reece to kill me because he got the job when my phone number overlapped with his contacts.” I didn’t have any proof, but I knew my dad would take my word for it, just like I accepted his story. Clearing my throat roughly, goosebumps washed my arms and chest as he just stared in shock. “I guess, now…I know why she hates me, but I don’t know why she’d do that. So that’s—that’s why I’m here. To ask why—although I don’t expect the truth.”

“What are you implying!” My mom’s screech echoed in the kitchen as she whirled around to glare at me.

I winced at her shout as my eyes flew to her.

Her slightly sagging features blossomed with the red of rage, lip curling in a nasty snarl. “I raised you when I didn’t have to! How dare you!”

“How dare Iwhat!” Jumping out of my chair, I flung out my arm as years and years’ worth of degradation bubbled up in me like hot, black tar.

My mom’s eyes widened, like she wasn’t expecting me to yell at her.

I trembled with anger of my own searing a path through my chest. “You’re such a piece of shit! How dareyoutake your hatred out on a baby— on such a fucked-up situation! You did everything you could make sure I ended up beyond fucked as a person and look what happened! Yourson— who youlove— is way worse off than me! When was the last time he had a job, huh? He still lives here, drugged up and a loser, becauseyou love him! Well! I’ll take being hated by you than being loved any day! You’re a failure of a mom, and I’m glad I’m not your daughter! At least Dad acknowledges he’s a crappy husband, but he’s still a good dad!”

She shook as apoplexy flashed in her eyes.

I panted with the force of my screaming. The only thing between us was the table, but my mom would never dare lay a hand on me. She was too much of a coward for that, preferring to ridicule me with her words, and that had never even worked well. “You can hate me all you want. You’re disgusting fucking trash of a human being, and I came here to give you two options. Fuck off out of my lifepermanently, or I’ll have someone way scarier than Reece creeping through the back door. I have alist!” Okay— I didn’t have a list, but I knew Reece could come up with one. Or Vanessa. Probably. Shaking my head viciously, I swept my hair out of my face with a heavy breath.

My mom turned redder than a tomato. She was never good at confrontation on equal ground, let alone when I had leverage.

Flames melted my insides, and I felt sick, but I didn’t stop glaring at my mom— didn’t show any tentativeness. “Pick one,” I stated. I wanted to hear my mom admit defeat. I wanted to hear her back down after spending all my life trying to lord over me.

The vein in her forehead bulged, her neck muscles straining as she shivered, angry to the point of tears.

But I wasn’t leaving until she said the words.

33

Reece

This wasn’t going as bad as I’d expected…I kept one eye on Riley and her mom screaming at each other across the kitchen.Actually, none of this went as I thought it would.Turns out, facts can be lies, and lies can be the truth— who knew!

I wasn’t expecting that bit about the kid’s mom, though. That wasdisturbing. What’s even worse is that poor girl was screwed in the head enough to think that was okay. To be fair to the old man, he probably did all he could. Twenty-five years ago, things were very different and he seemed like a gentle guy…very earnest and strait-laced.

Which was probably why he looked so troubled as Riley and her mom hurled verbal sewage at each other over our heads.

“So. . .” Tapping my hands on the table, I nodded at the empty glass by Charles insistently. “Got another one of those?”

“You’re in luck. I have a whole bottle.” He pushed himself up, but neither Riley nor her mom noticed him or his hollow, strained words.

Riley might not have picked it up, but I could practically smell how awful he felt. Despite all the years, he never let it go, and he was right not to. This was his fault, after all, even though that kind of crazy doesn’t discriminate.

“You’reone to talk about being an entitled bitch! The only reason you agreed to take me in was so you could hate someone other than yourself!” Riley’s words became clearer in my scope of comprehension, and I glanced over as she panted furiously. All her mother could do was sling insults, but Riley was really keeping up with valid comebacks. “If I’m entitled to anything, it’s an apology, damnit! But you’re too pathetic to admit anything is ever your fault. You can misplace your keys and it’s somehow someone else’s fault, and you won’t apologize then, either!”

“Excuse me!You’re one to call me pathetic when all you’re good for is letting men abuse you and then turning around on them and ruining their lives!”

Oof.That one physically crammed in my ears.

Riley gasped in offense.