Page 91 of Honeysuckle
“This is different.” I pushed. "It’s not…” I stepped forward, closing the gap between us. “It’s not her telling you how it feels, it's her helping you manage it.”
“I’m managing just fine,” I snapped.
“No you’re not, you’re still angry and you’re allowed to be, shit Josh. But… It’s not healthy,” I said.
“Don’t preach to me about what’s healthy.” He whipped around and looked me up and down. "I was doing just fine until you started to dig under my skin. Why can’t you just leave me alone?” The words came out of his mouth, but I could tell that he didn’t mean them; it was just him pushing back like he was so used to doing.
“I can’t, Josh,” I said softly, dropping my gaze to the turf for a split second before reconnecting my gaze with his. I dug deep for the courage to say what I felt.
“You’ve been left alone enough,” I said. “It’s about time someone pushed their way in—because that anger you’re carrying is going to eat you alive. You don’t want to hear it, but that anger is a threat to everything you’ve built, despite your mother and in spite of him.”
“Big talk from a boy who can’t even face the press, Tuck,” he snipped.
“You can’t turn this on me, it’s not about me. I’ll deal with my shit, if you deal with yours,” I said to him.
Josh’s tongue slid out over his bottom lip in frustration as he looked away from me. Hook, line and sinker. He couldn’t resist having the power in the situation.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go see her, but if she starts bossing me around, Tuck, I’m out.”
I laughed, a smile forming on my face. “She’s a Cody,” I said, my tone lightening. “Bossy is her only setting.”
LOGAN
Deansatbesideme,knees pulled to his chest and arms wrapped around them, silent for nearly an hour.
“As far as I know he promised my mom that he was going to leave Mrs. Shore and then it all got screwed up. The second she got pregnant, he was done; he wanted her to get rid of me, and maybe she should have. It would have saved us all the trouble.”
Dean flinched at the dark humor.
“When she threatened to go to Mrs. Shore, he started paying her off with monthly checks but…” I sighed.
“She loved him,” Dean said softly, finishing the thought for me.
“Stupidly so, she was naïve. The way she talks about him to this day is like he’ll come home to us, as if we were some happy family.” I picked at my sweater. “She blames my… grandfather,” I stumbled over the word. “And Mrs. Shore, like they’re holding him captive,” I chuckled. “When she realized he wasn’t coming back, she started drinking, and then it shifted into drugs to numb it all. She felt pretty again, adored. But she was a revolving door for junkies and abusers.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, the taste of copper spreading across my tongue. “When the money was tight…” I took a long, shaky breath just to steady myself. I had never told anyone any of this, and I wasn’t even sure why I was sitting here telling him. But he was so quiet and patient with me that Iwantedto tell him more even if I knew it was a bad idea.
All I could think was,he’s going to think you’re fucked up beyond repair, as he waited for the next part of the story.
“The world is full of fucked up people, ones that find pleasure in things they shouldn’t, like little kids and hurting people…” I said with a tiny sniffle. "I don’t know how she did it, but she found all the worst of them, and she’d lock me in that room with them for the price of a bump of coke. She’s never been any better than Charles, she just was delusional enough to think she was.”
Dean’s jaw was tight as I explained to him what happened in that room, the details of nearly nine years of my life laid out on the turf in front of him as I quietly begged him not to leave me there. A silent plea to see past how messed up I was and see the person I could be, the person I had left on the other side of that locked door.
“I drank myself stupid for a lot of it, which sounds crazy.” A defeated chuckle left me. "A fourteen-year-old blitzed off vodka. But I understood why she did drugs then. It was the only thing that blurred the screaming and pain. The visits only stopped when I could get a job. I worked hard and gave all my money to her while I changed my grades, and did my best to get sober. It was hard, it’s still hard every day to know where I came from. And before you say shit about leaving her behind, I can’t…” I said, looking at him. “They all left her, it’s why she is that way and I…” I choked up and closed my eyes, my fingers brushed over the irritated scratches on my forearm.
“I know she’s done bad shit, but she’s sick—and I’d be just as bad as him if I walked away from her,” I said, eyes still shut.. I wasn’t able to look at him, to see the pity or anger in his eyes. I couldn’t handle his judgment.
“Josh,” Dean’s voice was quiet, and he silently shifted over closer to me. He held out his hand flat to me. "It’snecessary.”
He looked at my hand clenched around my forearm, and only then did I notice my nails digging into my skin. Little crescent shaped indents that melted into the lines my mother had left behind. I scowled and uncurled my hand allowing him to slip his palm under mine and tangle our fingers together.
I swallowed the urge to run. Bracing for that little voice inside my head that threatened to rage at another's touch, but it never came. I could feel the blisters on his fingers from the bat and all the healed scarring against my skin, but the nausea that typically followed wasn’t there. My heart slowed down as I stared down at our hands, and I was finally able to take a full breath.
When I took the chance to look over at him I noticed that there was no malice or judgement, just Dean Tucker being himself. Kind, soft and incredibly patient.
All the while being infuriatingly handsome. Each dumb golden blond curl I counted was a step toward calming down. Each shade of blue that danced in his eyes, all framed by long, thick lashes, reminded me to breathe through the pain that threatened to swallow me whole in the moment.
“I used to hate that smell,” he said quietly, his eyes flickering to our hands.
