Page 21 of Fragments of You

I blow out a soft sigh of relief when I take the trail to the left and find him sitting on a big rock formation that overlooks the lake below, his back to me.

“Nash.”

His head turns just slightly enough to acknowledge my presence without actually looking at me. I know immediately that I was right... Something is wrong.

Nash always greets me with enthusiasm, like he’s been holding his breath since we last parted and he can finally breathe again. I both love and hate it. I love that I mean so much and that he relies on me so heavily. But I also hate that he has to. I hate that his home life is so bad that being with me is the only thing that brings him peace. I want to be his whole world, but not because he has nothing else.

“You okay?” I hesitantly approach, climbing up to take a seat next to him.

We’ve been coming to this spot since we were young. Nash came across it one day when we were playing in the woods not far from his father’s house. It’s been our spot ever since. Where we come when we need to escape, or when we just want to be alone, away from the chaos of life. And it’s where I always find him when he drops off the face of the earth, which happens more than I’d like to admit.

“Define okay.” He lifts a flask to his lips, taking a long pull.

“Well, it’s ten in the morning and you’re drinking, so I’m going to say no.” I reach out, taking the flask from his hand. I take a small sip, grimacing at the disgusting taste. “What is this?”

“Some cheap-ass vodka I found under the sink.” He takes the flask back when I extend it to him, careful not to look at me.

“Tastes like rubbing alcohol.” I slide my tongue across the roof of my mouth a few times, trying to get rid of the taste that lingers behind.

“Pretty much is,” he grunts, taking another swig.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.” His eyes remain on the water below.

“Look at me.”

“Nope.” He pops his lips.

“Nash.” I reach out, my fingers sliding across his chin as I urge him to look at me. “Please.”

He resists for another second before finally conceding. He’s never been good at telling me no. But it isn’t until I get my first real look at him that I realize why he didn’t want to look at me.

His eyebrow is split, barely scabbed at this point, with small droplets of blood still forming on the surface. I’m fairly certain it needs stitches, though Nash will never agree to see a doctor, so I don’t bother saying so.

The eye below is black. There’s some pretty bad bruising along the same side of his face, and there are still traces of blood beneath his nose, which tells me at some point it had been bleeding.

My heart cracks open inside of my chest.

“Tell me what happened,” I say instead of the slew of curses that filter through my mind.

I’ve never been a vengeful person, but if there is one person I do wish vengeance on, it’s Nash’s father, Terry. He is the worst sort of person. The kind of man who finds it acceptable to beat the shit out of his own child whenever he gets the itch to do so.

“What always happens. Someone set him off at the bar, and he brought it home to me. I was sitting at the table eating cereal when he came in. He didn’t say a fucking word to me. Just walked up to me, grabbed the half-full bowl, and threw it in my face. I think it’s pretty apparent what happened from there.” He gestures to his face, a humorless smile tugging at his lips.

“We have to report him, Nash. It keeps getting worse. He’s not going to stop until he’s killed you. You know it as well as I do.”

“I’m not going to end up in some foster home with people I don’t know. I’d rather my father beat the shit out of me than have some fucking pervert that’s being paid to care for me get his rocks off by touching my nuts. No, thanks.”

My parents called children services on Nash’s father when he was ten after he came over to my house with a busted nose. His father had smashed his face into a table. Within a couple of days, he was taken out of his father’s care and was placed in a home with a man who tried to molest him his very first night there. Nash was never going to just let someone do that to him, so of course he fought back. He ended up running away two days later. After that, he got placed with another family, and even though they never did anything to him, he was so convinced that eventually they would, that when he had the opportunity to go back to his father’s, he took it, swearing he would never go back into foster care again.

So for two years, when the social worker would come to check on him, he would lie and say that everything was good, that his father was staying sober, and that he was happy. Eventually, they stopped coming out to check on him.

He made me swear never to tell my parents about anything that happened between him and his father ever again. They still know, I know they do, but I don’t say anything, and neither do they. Believe me, I want to. I want that piece of crap to get locked up like he deserves, but I can’t betray Nash’s trust like that. Not when I’m the only person he can count on.

“Why do you always do that? You know that most foster homes aren’t like that. Just because there are a few bad seeds doesn’t make them all bad. Some people just really want to help. Why can’t you let them?”

“The devil you know.” He shrugs one shoulder, taking another long pull from the flask.

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