Page 22 of A Love So Wrong
Standing directly in front of Ron now, Gideon crossed his arms, which made his huge frame against the thin, shorter man all the more imposing, and he smiled evilly. "More like an upgrade, don't you think?"
Standing from her seat now, Jade watched in terror as Ron seemed to vibrate with anger. His beady dark eyes shot from Gideon to her and narrowed maliciously.
"Oh, I see," Ron's voice dripped with venom as he boldly closed the gap between him and Gideon. "I know what this is. Mr. Perfect All-American football star doesn’t want me around because you're afraid I'll confirm the whole goddamn town’s suspicions on how you want to fuck your own-"
It only took one blink of an eye, one inhalation of breath, and it was all over. The words never made it beyond Ron's lips before Gideon's fist connected with sickening force, sending the older, shorter man nearly into the wall behind him.
The red and blue lights from the sheriff's car strobed around the front of their property, flashing against their house in the dark. Standing in the middle of the yard, Jade blinked as she looked at the scene around her. Standing in front of the open doors of the paramedic truck, Ron yelled and complained to anyone who would listen about the assault he just endured while his ever-silent girlfriend meekly nodded and attempted to comfort him. Gideon stood surrounded by four officers and Sheriff Grayson who kept his hand tightly clasped to Gideon's large shoulder as Gideon explained his side of events while never removing his murderous glare from Ron. Turning her head, Jade cast another glance at her mother, who was crying into the shoulder of the fifth officer standing with her on the front step. Jade felt numb. It was as if she was losing segments of time every time she blinked. One moment they had been eating, then arguing, and then this. She could hardly recall anything in between. This moment felt bizarre and dreamlike—no, nightmarish she corrected. It all felt like some terrible nightmare had descended on them, all because of one person.
"I'm pressing fucking charges," Ron wrenched away from Marie, who drew back as if afraid of being suddenly struck. Stepping away from the annoyed paramedics, Ron stepped closer to the group of officers buffering Gideon. "I want him out of my mother's house. He is nineteen, I think, he should have already been kicked out."
Sheriff Grayson angrily turned, still keeping his restraining hand on Gideon's shoulder. "Ron Lattimore, I told you to stay over there," he shouted.
As if there wasn't a small team of men holding him in place, Gideon took one menacing step forward, forcing the whole group to move as one. "You fucking moron, it doesn't work that way," his voice thundered like nothing Jade had ever heard before, and his beautiful face grew dark and volatile. "If you would have stayed in high school, maybe you could comprehend that Henry adopted me, meaning I was his son, and this is my house. Check the deed if you don't believe me, you'll find my name right next to mom's," he goaded.
Visibly seething, Ron looked to Sheriff Grayson. "I want to press charges, family violence charges. We don't feel safe with him around, look at my face," he announced, pointing to the swollen side of his face.
Turning back to Gideon with angered frustration Sheriff Grayson began speaking angrily to Gideon, who began to argue right back.
This couldn't happen, shaking her head slowly, Jade thought of what would happen if Ron pressed those charges. She couldn't let that happen. Finally, finding herself through the fog of her fear, she forced herself to walk across the lawn towards Ron.
"Jade!?" Gideon, who had been keeping an eye on her the whole time, shouted as she moved. "Jade, get away from him, right now!"
She flinched at the sound of Gideon's roaring voice behind her but ignored him and continued towards Ron, who was now eyeing her suspiciously.
Stopping in front of Ron, she tried to look past the severe swelling to the left side of his face. "Please don’t press charges, Ron," she begged in a low voice. It was as much as she could manage with the constriction in her throat and the stinging behind her eyes.
"Sorry, sis," Ron still managed to sneer through the giant purple knot of pain on his face. "He isn't staying here. Maybe Mr. Star Quarterback or whatever the fuck he is will learn how life really is with a few nights in jail."
Desperate now, she reached out to him and took his hand in both of hers, she could see the startled look of surprise in his expression as well as his girlfriend Marie shift uncomfortably at his side.
"Please, please don't do this," Jade begged. "Dad…dad told us…he made it seem if you ever showed up after his death, it wouldn't be a good thing. Gideon is just trying to be protective of mom and me. I know he said some hurtful things but…" she let her words trail off, not sure what else to say to convince him Gideon was only being wary.
"Wouldn't be a good thing?" Ron repeated, his eyes going wide. "How would that bastard even fucking know?! Did he care to reach out to me when I hit rock bottom and was in the hospital? Fuck no, I had left six voicemails for him that day, and he didn't return not one." Snatching his hand from hers, he grabbed her wrist with his left and dug into his jean pocket with his right before producing three-round, engraved medallions and slapping them into her open palm. "Did he know I have been clean for three years now? He didn't give a shit, not when he had you and his precious fuckingGideon," he said the name with such loathing Jade felt herself flinch. "All I ever heard from people I knew was how Henry and his new son were so perfect. How Gideon picked up where I failed. Well, fuck you," he screamed, stepping around her to look directly at Gideon, who was being physically detained by all the officers to stay in place. "That's my mom! Myrealmom! Go find yours in the gutter where she fucking dropped you."
It took another hour for Sheriff Grayson to convince Ron not to press charges on Gideon and to stay at the motel in town and come back tomorrow, and though he finally relented, Ron looked to Sandra and pointedly to Gideon, promising he would be back home tomorrow—for good.
Sitting at the dining room table, Jade's chest felt hollow. She had never gone through anything like that before. From the time she moved in with her new parents, her life had been a wonderful routine of love and safety. When Henry died, there had been a crack in that familiar pattern, but she and Gideon had held on and did the best they could to ignore the change and press forward. Tonight, however, that comfort had been shattered.
Looking up, she watched Gideon standing at the dining room window that faced the front yard. He had watched the sheriff's department slowly pull away after Ron's beat-up minivan, their flashing lights fading into the darkness. He was still seething. She could see the tenseness in his broad shoulders from where she sat. Turning in her chair, Jade looked to her mother, who was sitting sniffling on the couch, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Sensing her, Sandra glanced up and met Jade's gaze. For a brief second, the watery grayish-blue eyes looked at her with pleading want for sympathy before widening in guilty fear at the anger looking back at her.
Jade could not suppress the surging tide of anger building up inside of her as she looked at her mother. Closing her eyes and pressing her lips together, Jade took a calming breath before opening them and leveling her gaze back at her mother.
"Why did you do it?" Jade asked. Her voice was thick with suppressed emotions, but in the still house, she knew her mother heard her perfectly. "Why did you tell him he could stay here without talking to us first?"
There was a warmth at her back, and Jade knew without looking that Gideon was now standing behind her.
Blinking, Sandra gave them both a fearful, guilty look before looking down at her hands where she wrung the crumbled tissue until it finally shredded apart. Looking back at them, there was a sharp clarity in her eyes that surprised Jade.
"Your dad told me about your plan," she said evenly. "I think you both should do it. I think it would be good for you both to put some distance between yourselves and Ron for a while."
It was Gideon who reacted to that devastating blow first. "What are you saying? You want us to leave? Are you actually kicking us out?" he demanded, disbelief apparent in his voice.
"Gideon sit down," Sandra said, pointing to the chair next to Jade, there was a sternness in her voice that Jade hadn't heard in a long time. Slowly, reluctantly Gideon took a seat, sitting at the very edge of the wooden chair with his elbows on his knees, ready to spring up any minute. "Now just listen and stop letting that quickfire temper of yours get the best of you," Sandra rubbed her forehead with a weary sigh. "I'm not kicking you out, I would never do that. You're both my babies. I love you both more than you could ever know…" she breathed deeply, "but…I love Ron too, and I think he needs me. I never wanted to kick him out, but back then, he was doing so much and causing so many problems I just didn't know what to do anymore and let Henry take over. I think he has changed, and I want to be there for him now, but I don't want you two to have to…deal with him in the process."
"But I don't want to leave you, momma," Jade let the tears she had been fighting back fall down her cheeks before wiping them away.
"I don't want you to either," Sandra said, desperately turned completely sideways on the couch so that she was facing them fully. "It's up to both of you if you want to stay, but I can't turn my back on Ron, not again."
