Page 33 of Pretty Broken Things

“I promise to keep you safe,” I whisper to her.

“But who looks after you?” she whispers back.

I can’t resist wrapping my arms around her again and holding her for a few more moments. “You don’t need to worry about me, Vixen. I can take care of myself.”

Finally, she wraps her arms around me tightly, and buries her face in my chest. I can barely hear her when she says, “You never have to handle things alone again. I will always have your back.”

ChapterFifteen

Ford

Twenty minutes separatesJefferson Park from Ocean Bluff, but this drive feels more like hours. Deep in the pit of my stomach I know I’m about to walk into a disaster, but what else can I do? It seems like my entire life has been building to this one tragic moment.

My fingers clench around the steering wheel, knuckles white from the strain. My body is exhausted from the game and the two hours spent on the bus, but my soul is weary from eighteen years of living on the edge of tragedy. Instinct has me calling my mom. When I get her voicemail I try again. Over and over, I call while praying she picks up. Each time I get her automated message I lose a little bit of hope.

There’s a fancy car in the driveway. Somehow I just know it belongs to my mom, and that Tessa’s dad got it for her. What the fuck was she thinking driving this car here? Why had she even come back?

The screen door has been ripped off the frame, and the aluminum front door is dented to the point it won’t close. The inside of the trailer isn’t much better. The ancient lamp from the eighties is partially imbedded in the wood paneled wall in the living room. The coffee table lays in pieces, and the glass top is shattered and littering the carpet. Some of the shards are covered in what can only be blood.

It takes me a second to hear the whimpering coming from the back over the thundering of my own heartbeat in my ears. My breathing is shallow, and my head is swimming. Here I am, six-foot-four, two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle, and I’m terrified. When I enter this house it doesn’t matter how old I am, or how much I can bench, I’m instantly transported back to a terrified eight-year-old hiding in my tiny closet, uselessly praying my dad will forget I exist. He never did, and I will always remember the fear I felt hearing his footsteps clomp down the hallway.

Past the kitchen there are holes punched in the walls, and one looks like it was made by someone’s head. No matter how scared I am, how much I want to run away from this place and never come back, I can’t leave my mom here alone.

She’s been a shitty parent recently, but when I was little my mom would step in front of me and protect me from my father’s wrath. No matter how guilty I felt each time she took a hit meant for me, I still let her because I was more scared of him. Even if she has all but forgotten me recently, I owe her for every time she was there when I needed her.

When I turn to go down the hallway where the bedrooms are located, I find him. He’s in a blind, drunken rage, beating his fists on the door to the room he and my mother used to share. Each hit causes the door to slam against something on the other side. I don’t have to be inside the room to know my mom has pushed furniture against the door to slow him down. I’m sure she’s inside, shaking, and calling 911, hoping this time they actually send someone to help.

The sad fact of our lives is no one gives a shit about people in the Park. Domestic violence is a daily occurrence here, and the sheriff takes their sweet time to respond. Once I heard them joke that if they were a few minutes later the problem would have taken care of itself, meaning one of my parents would have killed the other and there wouldn’t be anymore calls from our tin can home.

I have no idea how long she’s been here, praying help would come, and getting none. Then there’s this pathetic piece of shit making demands like any of us owe him anything. Lyle thinks that his measly wages and biological contribution make him important. My mom has always been the breadwinner, because she doesn’t spend the money we need on booze and pills. Yet, to hear him speak, we have been holding him down for years.

I’m always amazed how this man can harm everyone who has ever given a shit about him, and still manage to see himself as the victim. When he’s sober he’ll tell anyone willing to listen how we mistreat him. Apparently we use him for his money, let him take care of us, and turn our backs on him when he needs family. I’ve never hated anyone like I hate this man. Not even myself, and I’ve hated myself plenty over the years.

Here he is, oblivious to my arrival, and hell-bent on getting at my mom. I’m not sure he even knows what he plans to do when he gets to her. He’s muttering, “I’ll teach you, bitch! Serve me with divorce papers and shack up with a rich prick, and you think I’m just going to let you go? You think I’m going to let you use me until I’m nothing, and let you walk away? You and that little bastard you shackled me with owe me a fucking life.”

He punctuates his diatribe by kicking the door, probably to give the weak muscles of his arms a break. His clothes hang off of him, and his pants are cinched tight with a belt. I wonder when the last time he ate a proper meal was, but I don’t care. It’s like a clinical curiosity, if he were a stranger I noticed for the first time.

No, that’s not true. I think I’d actually give a shit if a stranger were starving to death before my eyes. When I see his emaciated body, I find myself wishing he’d just die already. No one would miss him. His father wrote him off years ago, and I’d throw a fucking party. Maybe that makes me a bad person that I’m looking gleefully toward a future where my father dies alone and miserable, but I can’t seem to shake those thoughts.

Rage like I’ve never experienced burns through my body. I don’t feel like cowering anymore. I know I’m bigger, stronger, and more motivated to leave this place in one piece. “Step away from the door,” I say in an eerily calm voice.

He moves in slow motion, turning to face me. His eyes are bloodshot, and he stumbles a bit. It’s almost too easy. I’m stronger, but he’s meaner which would make him a threat if he weren’t loaded. Of course there’s an empty bottle of whiskey on the floor near his feet. He must have paused his tirade to keep drinking. Lyle has his priorities, and they’re always Jack and Jim.

Jabbing his finger in my direction, he stumbles and bumps into the wall. “Don’t you come in here and start bossing me around in my own home, boy. You might think you’re hot shit, but I’ll beat your ass. Go ahead and try me you pansy ass, and I’ll show you what a real man can do. Not you pussies playing tough in your pads out on the field.”

I cross my arms across my chest, and force myself to stand like my heart isn’t trying to race out of my chest. My arms bulge and I can see a moment of apprehension while he takes me in. I think in his mind I’m still a weak child, and he forgets who he’s threatening now.

As usual, his overinflated sense of self overrides his better judgment, and he takes a step toward me. Forcing myself to stand still, I let him come. Every step he takes toward me is one step away from her. He needs to hurry, because I haven’t heard a sound from her for a couple minutes now, and I don’t know what state she’s in, but I’m sure she’s going to need a doctor.

“Are we doing this, old man?” I taunt him, trying to hurry him up.

His eyes narrow, and he stumbles toward me, but I’ve seen him cause a lot of damage in this state, so I don’t let my guard drop for a second. He swings, and it’s a sloppy hook, but I let it make impact. When I take my turn I’m not going to stop, and I’ve been through this enough to know that if I don’t have any marks on me I’m not going to get any sympathy from the police when they do finally bother to grace us with their presence.

Lyle might be a weaker version of the man he used to be, but he’s still a lot stronger than my mom, and strong enough to give me a black eye. He gets one more hit, which busts my lip, and when I taste the metallic tang of my blood filling my mouth I smile. I’m sure it’s a macabre sight with blood trickling over my lips, and me grinning like a demon. It must unsettle him a bit, because he takes a step back before I even uncross my arms.

Wiping off some blood from my lip with my thumb, I check that I am in fact bleeding, before I suck it off. “Now it’s my turn,” I tell him.

Before he can boost himself back up with his inflated and baseless ego, I unleash myself. A left to his solar plexus and a right hook to his temple, and he drops like a rock. The kick I send to his gut is probably overkill, but once I let my anger out it’s hard to hold it back. That’s the only thing scaring me right now, that maybe I’m a little bit like him after all.

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