Page 74 of Out of Bounds
“You.”
“What me?” he smirks.
“Why the hell were you such a dick to me when you’re really this?” I blurt.
“I still be a dick.”
“No you aren’t. You’re actually nice. Why couldn’t you have been nicer to me?”
“Story for another time.”
“You said that before and I see no reason why I can’t hear your stories now. Do you know how curious I am? First you treat me like hell and call me weirdo and miss goody-two-shoes, but Amelia was hardly that much different from me.”
Oh God, why did I mention her?
My mouth kept going and the words flowing from my mind. I had no filter. Now he looks thrown and like I said something I shouldn’t have, because I did.
“I’m sorry, that’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have mentioned her.”
“It’s okay.” He looks away and I think he might not say anything more than what he’d said but then he looks back to me again and pulls in a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re completely right to ask me. So I’ll tell you.”
Chapter24
Bree
“My dad was an asshole. He was a drunk and he cheated. A lot. Every rumor you would have heard about him was true. My mother said he was good once, but I don’t remember that,” Ethan says riveting his gaze to me. “If he was ever good it wasn’t any time in my living memory. People say you can’t really remember the early days of your childhood, but I think if it’s bad enough, you remember things. My first memory of my old man’s fists was when I was five years old.”
“Ethan… my God no.”
“Yes. He’d beat me until I was black and blue sometimes. Especially during the school breaks so no one could see me and question what happened. At other times he’d hit me where I could cover it up. But it was nothing in comparison to what he did to my mother. Jesus she thought he would get better one day and be the man he used to be, but it never happened. He just got worse and worse. He threatened to destroy her if she left him but he never needed to worry about that because she wasn’t going anywhere.”
“I can’t believe she stayed.”
“Me neither Bree. Until this day I don’t get it, but I think she wanted to keep us together. All it did was screw me over because when I tried to protect her, things just got out of control and I know it’s no excuse but that’s why I was so bad. I was the delinquent no one could reach. A fucking asshole who acted out because I couldn’t control what was happening in my own home.” He pauses for a beat and I continue to watch him.
“When I first met you, I liked you. What’s not to like?” he looks back to the thick grapevines. “But the moment I saw you with your family and got to know you, I knew I had no business with a girl like you. I knew you liked me but I thought you could do so much better, but you kept trying with me.”
I’m completely shocked by what I’m hearing.
“I guess I just wanted you to like me and I couldn’t understand why you didn’t.”
“But I did, but I was so broken there was no way I could fix myself, and I still can’t. As for Amelia, I guess when we got together I figured she understood me because her mother was the same as my father in terms of the drinking and cheating. They even died near enough the same way, but for her it was drugs that killed her. She seemed to be just as broken as I was but I didn’t know she had other reasons to be broken too. I didn’t know how sick she was.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“She had a rare disorder. It was Juvenile Huntington's disease. She knew it was only a matter of time before she died and she was always having treatment but I didn’t know. When we graduated high school we broke up in college and she left. I saw her again sometime after when I was visiting my grandmother on my mother’s side in the hospital. I saw Amelia there in the rehab center in a wheelchair and I couldn’t believe it was her. That was when I first found out what was wrong with her and that she was sick. She could even talk properly to tell me. It was her dad who spoke for her.”
“Oh my God,” I rasp out. “I’m so sorry.”
I never knew what to assume of how she died. I just heard it was tragic. In the town we live when people give such a thing a label it could mean anything, but mostly the label is keep the truth close so not everyone is talking about it.
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“What happened after?”
“I stayed with her for the year she had left on this earth and watched her die. I knew her father from before I met her. He was the officer who always arrested me and he took care of me when I went into juvie. He’s the reason I became a cop. We still keep in touch. I’m supposed to see him in a few months to scatter her ashes. I guess that’s it the story for another time.”
We stare at each other and my heart is so full I don’t know what to say.
