Page 27 of Resilience

Something so bad that a couple that had been loving on each other all day yesterday were suddenly over, and Athena was standing over a hot griddle in a hoodie and jeans, on a summer day with a forecasted high above ninety degrees.

Oh shit.

If he was right, he was going to hunt down Hunter Cruz and make a visual inventory of his organs.

He grabbed her arm. Worry propelled the movement with more force than he’d intended, and she jumped hard again and jerked away.

Sam didn’t apologize. “Tell me what happened,” he signed.

“I told you. We broke up.”

Athena was tough, but she wasn’t stoic. Her face was extremely expressive and showed all her emotions. ASL was more than hand motions; it was a full-body language, and facial expressions were important definitional and contextual elements. Thus, her face was almost never at rest. Now it was full of turmoil, and Sam grew more certain by the second that she wasn’t merely sad over the end of a relationship. She was traumatized.

When she tried to turn back as if those fucking pancakes were more important, he grabbed her chin so she couldn’t turn from him.

She responded by squeezing her eyes shut—her way of shutting down a conversation she didn’t want to have.

So he signed “Tell” on her body, tapping her chin just below her lips.

Her eyes still squeezed tight like a stubborn little kid, she shook her head.

He signed “Tell” again. And again. And a fourth time.

Then Athena did some Krav Maga move and broke away from him. She spun toward the door and bolted from the cabin. As Blanche tried to follow, the screen door swung shut and bopped her on the nose, but that slowed her down for only a second. She pawed the door and ran after her girl.

Sam turned off the griddle and the oven and ran after them both.

He wouldn’t ask again. If Athena couldn’t talk about it yet, that was okay. He didn’t need her account to know what that asshole had done. But he couldn’t let her go off on her own.

He would be there for her, wherever she was.

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~oOo~

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He found her sitting cross-legged at the end of the dock, her arm over Blanche, who sat beside her. Feelings his steps on the dock, Athena looked over her shoulder, then back at the lake again.

He sat beside her and dropped his legs over the edge.

She glared at him but didn’t make any words.

So Sam did. “You don’t have to tell me. I know. He raped you.”

She looked away again—and again made no words. And that pretty much settled the question, didn’t it? Motherfucker.

Sam wasn’t particularly violent. He could count on his hands the punches he’d thrown in anger. He’d been in plenty of recreational fights, and he handled himself well, but he didn’t have the bloodlust a lot of the men in their family had.

Not usually. At present, bloodlust churned through him. He looked at that bruise, saw the marks where Hunter’s teeth had dug in, and the image that exploded in his head threatened to take the top of his skull off.

They sat side by side, staring at the lake. It was still early, and the water was calm. Later it would be choppy with the wakes of dozens of boats, but now the scene was empty and tranquil. A light breeze rustled the leaves of the trees around them, and morning birds sang the world awake. The faintest hint of gasoline laced the air, from the boats that had traversed the lake throughout the previous day. Sam had always liked that scent, a memento of a good day.

On any other day, it would have been a beautiful moment. On this one, Sam resented the peace. This weekend had absolutely sucked.

What a stupidly insufficient thing to think.

He wasn’t sure how long they’d sat at the end of the dock, not talking or looking at each other, but it was a while. Then Athena slapped his arm lightly, and he looked over. She stared up at him, her eyes wide and pained and serious.

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