Page 104 of The Way We Are

“Did you know!” he screams again when I fail to answer his first question.

“Know what? I don’t know what you're talking about.”

Hearing the confusion in my voice, Damon nudges his head to his left. My heart falls from my ribcage when I follow his gaze. My mom is cowering in the corner of the outside patio, struggling to conceal the bruises extending from the waist of her pants to the collar of her shirt.

“I came out here for a smoke because Ma asked me not to smoke in the house anymore. He was in the shed. He was hitting her in the back fucking shed like some kind of animal.” Spit flies out of his mouth during his last confession. “And what does she do when I try to protect her?! She fucking hits me.Shehitsme!”

“Damon, she’s sick. She doesn’t know any better.” I place my hands out in front of my body to show him I mean him no harm as I take a hesitant step toward him.

My mom squeals when Damon pulls back the hammer on the gun, wordlessly advising me to stand down.

“Damon—”

“No, Ryan,” he interrupts, still shouting. “I’ve tried it your way. It doesn’t work.”

“Then we’ll change tactics. We’ll make him pay for what he has done. Even if Ma doesn’t want to press charges, we’ll do it.”

Damon looks at me like I’m crazy, knowing years of keeping secrets and pretending everything is okay won’t change in an instant.

“We don’t have to keep quiet anymore. There are programs that will break the cycle. Domestic violence doesn’t just affect those being abused, Damon. It affects everyone around them. That’s why you hit Molly even knowing it was wrong. They wired us to believe this is normal. It isn’t. The fact you got upset shows that you know violence isneverthe solution. It doesn’t solveanything. It just makes more mess.”

When the moisture in his eyes triples at the mention of Molly’s name, I know I am getting through to him. That’s why he returned home months ago. He wanted to show Molly that he wasn’t the same boy he was when he left. His time in rehab turned him into a man, not just because he faced his demons, but because he beat them. He’s been drug-free ever since.

“Don’t look at him, Damon. Look at me,” I demand when my father’s snickering at his tear-stained face undoes all the work I’ve just put in. “He’s a nobody. His opinion doesn’t matter to anyone.”

I’m not even looking at my dad, but I can feel his anger burning up. It's so volatile, it has me forgetting I’m wearing nothing but a towel. “Do you want him to pay?”

“Yes,” Damon pledges, nodding his head so rapidly tears splash onto his cheeks.

“Then trust me enough to know I will follow through with my promise. Iwillmake him pay; I just need you to put down the gun.”

Damon’s hand shakes when he lowers his gun by an inch.

I continue chipping away at his hesitation. “Trust me, Damon. I willneverlet him hurt you again.”

With the determination of a man knowing he's moments away from paying for years of abuse, my dad uses Damon’s distraction to his advantage. He charges for him like a bull running for a red flag. A roar unlike anything I’ve ever heard leaves Damon’s mouth in a grunt when they smash into the concrete patio with force. Their brutal collision is quickly followed by the ricochet of a gun dislodging, then a mangled scream.

“No! No!” my mom yelps on repeat as she rushes to pull my father off my brother.

Because years of drinking has added to my dad’s midsection, it takes her several tugs to roll him onto his back. When I spot a large puddle of red blood seeping into Damon’s shirt, I fall to my knees next to him. I frantically search for the cause of the massive bloodstain as fury roars through my veins.

If he has hurt Damon, I am going to kill him.

“It’s not me. It’s not my blood,” Damon stammers out, clearly in shock when I raise his shirt to compress the bullet wound.

He turns his massively dilated eyes to the crazy lady sitting next to us, shrieking and hollering obscenities at the top of her lungs. Our mother is cradling our father’s head in her hands. His are clutching the bullet wound in the middle of his stomach.

Fuck.

“I’m going to jail. I-I-I killed him. He’s dead, isn’t he? I killed him.”

While Damon cowers away from the red pool of blood sliding our direction, I move toward it.

“No,” my mom shouts, slapping my hand away from my father when I attempt to check if he has a pulse. “Don’t touch him. You’re not allowed to touch him. This is your fault, Ryan. This is all your fault! You killed your father.”

The mangled cry rolling up her throat can’t stop my brain from registering her remark. “I didn’t kill him. This wasn’t me.”

“It was your gun. He’s your brother—your responsibility. Don’t touch him,” she screams again.

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