Page 164 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
I wave a dismissive hand. “Honestly, I felt pretty rusty. I haven’t done that in a very long time.”
“Thatwas rusty? Lila, you were phenomenal. Like, you need to be on stage atAmerican Idol.”
I roll my eyes. “That was actually my senior superlative. Most Likely to Be onAmerican Idol.”
“Yes. Definitely. I concur.”
“I’m not sureAmerican Idolwould have me, but thank you. If nothing else, it felt good to be singing again.”
“Why haven’t you been singing? You should be. Everywhere. All the time.”
His praise fills me up like steam filling Grandma June’s tea kettle, except instead of whistling, I just want to squeal. And Ineversqueal.
“I singsome,” I say. “In the shower. In the car. To Jack when I’m tucking him in at night. I’m just not performing like I used to.” I take a steadying breath. We are inching toward very dangerous territory. I think I have to tell Perry. Ididsay we would share our secrets tonight, but—
A familiar swell of guilt pushes through me. My truth isn’t very pretty, which is why I don’t like saying it out loud. I never have. Not even to Grandma June. Only the grief counselor I saw for a year after Trevor’s death has heard all the ugly inside of me.
But this thing with Perry feelsgood.Real. After watching him with Jocelyn tonight and sensing the layers upon layers of tricky history between them, somehow, I think he’ll understand if I come clean.
He’s watching me, as if sensing the telling of this story isn’t easy.
I grab a pillow and tuck it against my chest. “I was actually singing in a club down in Columbia when I met Trevor. It wasn’t anything big. But I had an agent and was starting to book pretty consistently in smaller venues around the region. Asheville, Greenville, sometimes down in Columbia. The goal was to get to Nashville.” I shrug. “But then I met Trevor. He was handsome, charming. A man in uniform and all that. I was only nineteen when we got married, but he was twenty-five, already established in his military career. I moved down to Charleston where he was stationed, and I guess his life sort of swallowed me up. I didn’t mean to stop singing, but Trevor didn’t—” My wordscatch in my throat, and Perry reaches over, his hand slipping gently around my ankle.
It’s so small. That simple touch, but it somehow grounds me.
“At first, he loved to hear me sing. But then, I think it became something he thought would take me away from him. Something that might impede his control. I didn’t see it at first. When you’re in love, youwantto be together all the time. I just thought he really loved me.” I let out a laugh. “That I was so lucky to find someone so devoted.”
Perry’s thumb moves back and forth across my skin, his touch soft.
“After I had Jack, things got a little better. We had this beautiful baby, and of course, when you’re a new mom, you just stay at home and breastfeed. Me not going anywhere suited Trevor just fine.”
Perry’s grip on my ankle tightens the slightest bit, and his expression hardens. “I’m really sorry you went through that.”
I shrug. “He was always kind on the surface. It wasn’t abuse anyone else could really see, not even the people close to me. It was just little things. Little comments. Digs about my weight. But he always dressed them up. Like, he’d sign me up for a gym membership or book me a day at the spa, but instead of it feeling like, ‘Hey, you’re a tired new mom. You should take some time for yourself,’ it came across as, ‘Maybe now you’ll stop looking like a tired old hag.’”
“First things first, you do not now, and I’m sure you did not then, look like a tired old hag. But also, I know that feeling,” Perry says. “Like just being yourself will never be good enough.”
I nod. “A couple of months before he died, Jack and I were out of town visiting my grandparents, and Trevor had some friends over to play poker. He loved poker, and the longer we were married, the riskier he got. It seemed like he was always trying to scrape together the cash he needed to pay what he owed. WhileI was gone, he lost pretty big and had already tapped what little we had in our savings account. So he sold my piano.”
Perry swears, something I’ve never heard him do. I appreciate the sentiment, but somehow, telling Perry is making the story hurt less than it does when I relive it on my own.
“That’s when I decided I was ready to file for divorce. I was tired of feeling so beaten down all the time. But I never did file. Because then he left for training in California, and he never came home.”
Perry sits up and runs a hand across his face while I breathe out a shaky breath.
“I’ve never told anyone that,” I say, my voice wobbly. “How do you say out loud that your military hero of a husband was actually kind of a jerk? Nobody wants to know that. Not now that he’s gone.”
Perry turns himself around so his back is against the headboard, and he shifts closer. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him, my head resting on his chest just over his heart. He doesn’t say anything, which I actually sort of love. He just holds me.
“I don’t mean to sound heartless. It was still terrible to lose him. I loved him. I grieved his loss. But my grief was so complicated. All people wanted to do was talk to me about how amazing he was. And he was amazing. He really was an exceptional pilot. He just wasn’t very nice to me.”
“And you couldn’t say that out loud,” Perry says. “That must have been so hard.”
“For the longest time, I felt so guilty. I still get his military benefits. I’ll get them forever. And that feels wrong somehow. I’d already decided to leave him.”
“Lila, you more than deserve those benefits. You’re raising his kid.”
“I know. And that’s how I’ve been able to make peace with the whole situation. Those benefitsarefor Jack. And to his credit, Trevor was always a good dad. For Jack’s sake, I have to remember him that way.”
