Page 42 of Obsession

His words trigger a memory in my subconscious. My father sitting on the couch, groaning in pain as my mother dabbed at a wound with a wet washcloth.No hospitals.

My hands shake. I’m in a cycle. A vicious cycle where I repeat all of my mother’s mistakes. I wring my fingers, tugging on the joints as the memory assaults me.

“Madi?” Adrian’s voice breaks through the chaos in my brain, and I find his brown eyes watching me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I turn my head and avoid my gaze, trying to reset myself as I tremble, leaving the nightmares behind.

“Madi.” Adrian reaches out, his warm hand resting on my arm as he stares into my eyes. “Tell me.” He seems sincere, genuine even, as he waits for my response.

I try to laugh, try to let the sound leave my lips as if this is all a funny recollection. But the sound is harsh, painful even. “I just remembered something.” I test out the words, but my stomach feels sick at the thought of telling Adrian anything about my childhood.What happens in this house stays in this house.I can practically feel my father’s hands gripping onto the edges of my t-shirt as he shouts the words at me.

“What?” Adrian asks.

“My father.” Saying the title increases the sensation in my guy, like a lump of clay has settled down there, heavy and overwhelming. “He used to say that when he got hurt.No hospitals.”

“I’m sorry.” Adrian is quick with his apology. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay, you wouldn’t have.”

He’s quiet for a moment, thinking over what he’s going to say next. “How often did he come home hurt?” Adrian asks.

This time, I do laugh, a rough sound escaping my lips. “I don’t know,” I say with a slight shrug. “Often.”

“Geez,” Adrian hisses. “That must have been hard.”

How did we get on me?

“It’s fine.” I shake my head, trying to shake away these thoughts. “I’m fine. But you’re not. Please, let me get you cleaned up.”

Adrian stares at me for a long moment. I feel naked under that gaze, like he’s seeing into a part of me I didn’t mean to expose.

“Okay,” he finally says. “But tell me something,”

“Like what?” I ask, opening the first aid kit and pulling out the disinfectant.

“Tell me about your childhood,” he says seriously, gaze locked on mine.

My childhood.

My heart thrums quicker. Thinking about my childhood as my anxiety spiking. “I…I don’t know what to say,” I mumble, looking down at the bottle of disinfectant in my hands.

Adrian puts his hands on mine, uncapping the bottle and urging me to work as he continues. “What was it like? Were you happy?”

He braces himself as I dab at his wounds, getting them all cleaned with disinfectant. “Sometimes,” I answer. “I was happy around my grandparents; they had a lot of love to give us. And my cousins were always my safe space. Lily watched over me and Lana like a protector. And so did Sam and John, but it always felt like there was this divide between us.”

“What do you mean?” he asks as I open the band-aids to begin covering the open wounds.

“My mom and my Aunt Carlotta, Lana’s mom, always felt estranged from Aunt Cosetta and Uncle Junior. Like it was the older kids against the younger ones.”

“Because Junior was always the heir to take over the family?” Adrian asks.

“Bingo. My mom thought it should be her because she was the oldest. And when that didn’t work, then she pushed for my father, but Nonno would have never agreed to that. So finally, she wanted Marcus. But Nonno had always planned for it to be Junior, ya know.” I finish applying the bandages, but they do nothing for what I suspect are bruised ribs from the way he’s cradling them. “I should get you some ice.” I try to stand, but Adrian reaches for me, pulling me back down to the couch.

“No, stay.”

Nodding, I sit back down next to him, my skin tingling where he touched.

“Sounds like a lot of fighting,” he says, sounding solemn, going back to my family.

---