Page 173 of Edge of Unbroken

“You mean other than beating the shit out of me?” Ronan asks with a frown.

“I mean in a sexual manner.”

“No, she never did anything like that.”

Relief washes through me. The feeling is temporary, replaced once again by heaviness when the prosecutor shifts focus to July 5th—the day we returned from our camping trip to the Hamptons.Is there ever an end to the torture?

There doesn’t appear to be an end in sight, and I find myself incessantly correlating clips from last summer with days and moments I spent with Ronan, thinking about our time together just before or after he was hurt by his mom. I very vividly remember a moment from last year—August 15th, to be exact—when Rica walked up the stairs of her house and saw me kissing Ronan. It was one of the exceptionally rare occasions when I was at Ronan’s house. He hardly ever brought me home with him.

That particular day, Ronan and I stopped by his house long enough for Ronan to change into his Murphy’s shirt in anticipation of him working later that evening. We were there a total of maybe ten minutes. I had my hands on Ronan’s bare chest, kissing him deeply in between him switching shirts. Rica walked up the stairs and saw us. I remember her staring us down. Ronan had pulled on his shirt, taken my hand into his, then led me out of the house without saying anything to either me or his mom until we were in his car and on our way back to my house.

So when the prosecutor cues up the footage for the following day, the still image showing a time of just after nine in the morning, I sit up a little straighter still. I watch intently as Ronan can be seen making his way downstairs, his black sweatpants sitting low on his hips, his white t-shirt hugging his sculpted torso. His muscular chest and back are notable even in the weirdly angled surveillance video.

Ronan hesitates for the briefest moment before entering the kitchen where his mother’s standing by the counter, but he enters nonetheless, quietly taking a glass out of the cupboard and filling it with water from the tap.

Rica turns to her son. “Are you fucking her, Ronan?” she asks calmly. “Your little girlfriend? Are you fucking her?”

“It’s not really any of your business, Mom,” Ronan says under his breath.

“Excuse me? Everything that happens under my roof is my business.” Rica takes a step toward Ronan. “Are you fucking that girl in my house?”

“No,” Ronan says sternly, a frown on his face. “Nothing’s happening under your roof, Mom.”

“You call me catching you up in your room, with your shirt off, making out with your little blondie nothing? Seriously? How stupid are you?”

“I was changing shirts, Mom,” Ronan defends himself.

“Stop lying to me, Ronan!” she shouts.

“I’m not lying.” His voice is strained with the effort to keep his cool. “God, fuck. You know what, it doesn’t fucking matter. You won’t believe me anyways.” Ronan begins marching out of the kitchen.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me!” Rica yells after him.

Ronan stops, turning back around. “What do you want from me?” he says loudly, exasperation in his voice at the aggression from his mother just moments after he woke up that morning.

“I want you to stop being so god damn disrespectful,” Rica screams at him. “I don’t know what I did wrong with you. You’re absolutely fucking worthless, Ronan. All I ask is that you respect me and my house, but all you do is take shit for granted. You can’t fucking do as you’re told, and you fuck that little blonde bitch in my house.”

“I’m not doing any of that,” Ronan argues back.

“Oh no? You’re not disrespecting me right now?”

“No.”

“No? What do you call this then, Ronan?”

“God, Mom, I just woke up. I came down here for some fucking water and you immediately lay into me. I don’t fucking get it.”

“I don’t want you fucking around under my roof!” Rica yells again.

“I’m not fucking anyone in this god damn house!”

“Stop lying!” she screams even louder.

“I’m not lying!” Ronan shouts, matching her volume. He’s immediately silenced when Rica slaps his face, hard. Ronan blinks at her for a second, his jaw tight. “You know what, yeah, I’m fucking her. Right here, in this fucking house. All the damn time.”

That earns him another slap. “Knock it off, Ronan!”

“God, it doesn’t fucking matter,” Ronan mutters against gritted teeth, shaking his head.

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