Page 24 of Ky
I noticed shit, though I tried not to. Most nights when he got home, he wouldn’t even go into the house. He’d end up out here, sometimes staring out at the ocean for an hour. I never bothered him and I was sure he wasn’t even aware that I sometimes would watch him the entire time he sat in this very spot.
I finished my beer and brushed the sand off my hands.
“I should go,” I said as I moved to stand.
His fingers wrapped around my wrist and I froze halfway to standing. His hand was so warm and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t deny the zap of electricity that sparked the moment he touched me.
“Or you could stay,” he said as his eyes looked up into mine.
Those damn blue eyes. Tonight they were deep blue and filled with a hint of sadness. I wondered if I had been the reason it was there. I didn’t want to care as much as I did, but it seemed I couldn’t help it.
My legs gave out and my ass hit the sand with a softthud. His fingers remained around my wrist for a few more seconds and when they slowly slid away, I wished for his touch again.
“I think it’s safe to say that Ingram is a little different,” he said, his eyes set straightforward at the dark sea. I knew he wasn’t being negative or judging her, so I let him go on. “She takes everything in with the wonderment of a child. Seeing it sometimes makes me wish I could have that back—the unknowing.”
He let out a dry chuckle.
“Yeah,” I said on a sigh.
I knew exactly how he felt. Only thing was, once my eyes were opened to the real world, I realized two things. One, the outside world is scary at times. But two, it was even more terrifying to realize that what you’d been raised in most of your life was the real horror.
“You were like her once, yeah?”
“Yes,” I said, then tried to clear the lump that was clogging my throat.
I was torn between wanting to forget and needing to give in to the urge to confess.
“Tell me about it?” Chris asked and something in his tone let me know that he’d never judge me—not for the mistakes I’d made or the past that held me bound, though I tried so hard not to let it.
“I was four,” I started, my gaze cast downward at the sand between my legs. “I didn’t know what was going on. My parents pulled me out of preschool, away from my friends and my grandma. We moved, and I had no idea where to. Ronald, my dad, said that he needed to get away from the temptations of the world. ‘The whores that called a man to betray his wife’ he’d said. I’ll never forget that moment. I didn’t know what a whore was back then, but the way he was going on, I believed they were truly evil.”
The memories slammed into view with a collision that had me rubbing my head.
“We drove through the gates and I started to feel panicked, but my mother assured me that it was a good thing. When we stepped out of the car, a man embraced my dad like he’d known him for a lifetime—like he’d finally come home, if you will.”
Chris didn’t say anything. I needed that if I was going to keep telling my story.
So, I continued on. That man that greeted my dad would only go by the name ofFather. My mother remained my mother, and my dad became Ronald. It was like he held some sort of higher, yet lower, rank. It was confusing, especially to a four-year-old boy. And somehow my mom only being my mother, made her lesser than any being.
The camp was set up very strangely, like nothing I’d ever seen before. There was a ‘town center’ in the middle. I don’t know why it was called that, it wasn’t really a town. Long buildings made out of cinder blocks went on for rows, all of them creating an odd circle around the cleared out center area. All of them painted white with small windows. I learned later this was the housing for the people that lived inside of the gates—for us. There was one building that stood out among the others. A two-story building that could have passed for a farmhouse. Later, I was shown that the bottom part of that building was where church and school were held, and the top was Father’s housing. He liked to be raised above the rest of us. ‘His people’ as he called everyone. He liked to watch over us but it felt more like fear than comfort.
“The children went to school in the morning then worked the fields and did chores until dinner time. Though all the families all ate separately, dinner had to be ready by six. Lights out by eight. There were so many rules, and I remember wondering how I was supposed to remember them all.”
Something warm brushed by my hand. It was then that I realized I was gripping the sand tightly like I could hold onto the granules. I forced my hands to uncurl and relax on top of the sand. Chris moved his pinky to hook with mine but he still hadn’t looked at me.
It was a small gesture but it was big to me. My heart slammed against my chest and I felt like I was all talked out even though I’d barely started.
“So you’re telling me that you were raised in a—” he started to say but I couldn’t let him finish.
“Don’t,” I choked out. “Don’t say it. People look at you different when you say you were raised in a…”
“But you were, right?”
“In a sense, yeah.” I shrugged. I really hated this. “It wasn’t all that bad. Until that one night…”
I didn’t want to talk about what had sent me running.
“Ingram didn’t know any better,” I said, skipping over what I was avoiding. “She was born there, ‘pure in blood’ Father had called her. See I wasn’t. I knew the so-called dirty of the world. Never mind the fact that I didn’t remember much of it. But Ingram, she didn’t know what it was like to grow up surrounded by diversity. She didn’t get to have our grandmother there for holidays and birthdays. I wanted to take her with me so bad, but she saw me as a traitor when I tried. She screamed and told me that she didn’t want to be tainted. She looked me in the eyes and it was like she didn’t even recognize me. She told me she’d pray for my soul and that she’d never see me again because I would belong to the devil.”
