Page 50 of Tear Me Down
“What's going on, D? Someone die?” He chuckles nervously.
“No. No one died. Well, recently.” I pull the evidence Carter and I found out of my backpack and hold it out to Zeke before I pull the DNA confirmation up on my phone. “Carter found the info on your bio family you wanted.” He scrunches his eyebrows together,fuck, just like she does, and takes the file.
“I can step out?” Ashia says sweetly, afraid she’s intruding.
“No, baby. I need you to stay.” She looks at me confused, and I can’t help but look back at Zeke as he starts to read the information. We gave all of it to him, the birth certificate, the records from both hospitals, the archives from DCFS, and when I show him the confirmation on my phone, that’ll be the end of it. The more he reads, the more confused his face looks, and then it twists with a hint of anger before slowly morphing to sadness. He gets to the last page before he shoots his gaze back at me with a surprised look, finally understanding.
“What is it?” she asks while looking at him, and he snaps at her with his eyes wide. They both jump like they’ve startled each other, and then a new emotion takes over his face. Guilt.
“Ash, I'm sorry, I swear to God I didn’t know,” he whispers shakily. “Did you?”
“No, Zeke, she…”
“Know what?” She interrupts me as she looks back at me. “Know what, Damien?” I open my mouth to answer her, but I can’t find the right words, left only to watch the despair on her face. She snatches the file from Zeke’s hands and starts reading it over, and after a few minutes, her eyes widen before she looks back up at me. “Is this a joke?” her eyes water and I can see her hands starting to shake. All I want is to reach out and steady her, but I shake my head instead, needing her to fully absorb what she’s learning right now. She looks over at Zeke in disbelief, as if the proof isn’t enough. “You're my brother?” I can see the moment it clicks in her head, the exact second something registers in her brilliant brain, and she can see the resemblance. She shudders harshly and stands up, like the mere image of his likeness to their father is enough to scare her.
“Ashia…” Zeke begins, but she cuts him off as she takes a step back.
“I’m sorry…I—I need a minute.” She walks away and practically runs up the stairs, obviously holding back a sob as I hear our bedroom door close. I want to run after her and hold her, let her beat the shit out of me if she needs to, but for now she just needs a minute to process. Zeke stares at the countertop, and I’m partially afraid that he’ll do the same, but out the front door instead.
“You good?” I ask cautiously, and he looks up at me as he takes a deep breath in.
“I'm good,” he lies, but I let it slide, knowing that he’s not the type to vent. We stay silent for a few moments, letting his thoughts steep and allowing the shock to settle in before I lay down my ground rules for him.
“I can get Alex to cover from this point,” I suggest not so moderately. If his presence is detrimental to her now, I can’t have him around her, and I have no issue putting him back on other duties.
“Nah, I'm fine. If she needs me and Alex to switch we can, but I'm good. I'll still protect her all the same.”
“I know that. I don’t doubt that you would protect her, Zeke. She’s not mad at you, you know? I just… She’s so hurt already. I just want what’s best for her.”
“God, D, I know that. I just can’t imagine how she feels,” he admits, and grabs his forehead with his hand, squeezing faintly before he runs his palm down his face. “I really dodged a bullet with those people, didn’t I?” he whispers, and looks at me with such remorse that it tears me apart to see one of my best friends feel this type of anguish. He doesn’t know Ashia’s past in detail yet, but we deal with trauma every day, and the reality that she was abused is no secret. I feel my phone buzz in my pocket, and I pull it out to see the notification from the front gate, signaling that Tay is asking to get in. I press the button to open the gate and pocket my phone.
“Hell yeah, you did.” I hear the timer for the oven go off, and I pull dinner out and set it down. While it smells amazing, I’m sure we won’t be eating it tonight now that this revelation has soured all of our appetites. “I let Taylor in the gate. You two take your time and eat if you can stomach it. I'm going to go check on her.” He nods and I make my way up the stairs, each step feeling like I’m walking into a wake. I can feel the anger and grief radiate from the door and prepare myself to take whatever she has to give right now. I open our bedroom door to see her pacing with one hand on her hip and the other twirling her hair with her fingers. “How you doing, little wolf?”
“I'm fucking pissed!” she shouts, and I shut the door behind me so Zeke can’t hear downstairs.
“You have every right to be angry.”
“I mean, it’s so unfair! Poor Zeke…” Of course, this sweet woman is thinking about him and not herself. While her beautiful heart is one of her best qualities, it often causes her to deflect, and that is not what she needs right now. “I mean, have you ever seen or read about what withdrawal does to a baby? Most of them die! If they’re not already dead before that! I mean, I knew my parents were horrible, but really?” She’s throwing her hands around as she talks, and her face is flushed. “Imagine what could’ve happened to him! He could’ve been born with so many issues! And what if he was never adopted? People don’t like drug users’ kids! What would’ve happened if he had to bounce around in the system until he aged out? He could’ve ended up being adopted by people…”
“Like them?” I interject, perhaps a little too harshly, and she sharply turns her gaze back to me. I interrupt her because she needs to focus on how she feels. She’s never truly let her anger towards her parents out before last week, and then never spoke of it again. Now, it’s overflowing. “Ashia, you're avoiding…”
“No, I'm not! I’m angry!”
I walk up to her and hold her face in my hands, caressing her jaw to bring her focus back to where it should be.
“You’re avoiding what you’re really angry about. Of course you’re angry about the state your parents left him in, but what did that lead to for him?”
“I mean, yeah, he got lucky. He was just talking last week about how awesome his parents are. But what if that didn’t happen?!”
“But it did.”
Her face softens, and I know she understands—knows what she’s refusing to say. Her bottom lip trembles, and I can’t help but run my thumb over it to steady her.
“That’s not fair…” Her eyes start to water.
“Ashia. It’s okay. It’s okay to be angry for yourself.” I wipe a tear from her eye, stopping it from running down her cheek. “It’s okay to be mad that he got the chance to have a good life and you didn’t. It’s okay to be enraged that the only pain they put him through, he can’t remember.” She takes a shaky breath in and pushes her face into my hand.
“I'm not angry with him…and it’s not that I want for him to have suffered like I did, because I don’t. I'm so happy that he had a good life…” Her voice cracks, and I hate the way she has to swallow back a sob.
