Page 62 of Total Obsession

I kept my features calm, but internally I wanted to scoff at her. I didn't leave. I fled. I fled because she'd abandoned me. Something she promised that she'd never do. People were always trying to hurt me, even still.

My feelings towards Zoey were still very much mixed, but hearing her say those words had me leaning back toward my original intentions with her.

"Tell me about it?" I asked her. "Maybe it would be helpful for you to get it out."

"I'm not so sure," she said.

I put my fork down and moved to the seat next to her. I ran my fingers through her wet hair, and she sighed. "You don't have to carry things on your own anymore, Zoey. I won't push you, and I don't mean to pry. But, I think in this instance, it might be good for you to let go of some things you've been holding onto. I want you to always be honest with me," I said to her, repeating back the same line she'd said to me the day before everything fell apart. I doubted that she remembered, but that line was etched into my memory.

She looked back at me with hope in her eyes. "Okay," she finally agreed. "But, do you mind if we wait until after dinner?"

"Take as much time as you need," I said, feeling a bit like I'd regained a piece of myself, likely at her expense.

* * *

I let her cuddle up on the couch next to me. She was nursing a glass of dark red wine, and I was playing with a tumbler of whiskey. The glass fireplace in front of us was turned on low giving the entire apartment a relaxed mood.

I didn't prompt her. I just let her dive into the story on her own.

"Things had always been okay at home," she said, "for the most part at least. My parents would bicker from time to time, but as a kid, you just sort of go with the flow and assume that stuff is normal.

"About a week or two after you left, my grandfather's health turned for the worse. My grandparents were still living on their own at the time, and my grandmother wasn't able to care for him on her own. My mother moved in to try and help, but even still, they needed to hire professional help.

"It was expensive and was a pretty intense draw on our family's resources. My father and mother started fighting a lot more at that point. I think the situation and the strain of everything just were too much for them.

"My grandfather passed after a few months of things being like that. My mother was devastated. As was I."

"I remember how close you were to your grandparents," I said softly.

She nodded her head. "I don't think that my father meant to be heartless about it, but I just don't think he's ever been one to really show emotion."

"I understand," I replied.

"My grandfather was my grandmother's entire world," she continued. "Once he passed, her mind just went with him. It's like she wasn't living here anymore. I remember saying to my mother that I felt like I lost both of them on the same day. She was here physically, but she wasn't present.

"My parents did the best they could, but she eventually faded away. I think she just gave up on a life without my grandfather in it."

"It's sort of romantic, in a way," I mused.

She shrugged. "I guess."

"So, what happened with your parents then?"

"My mother did not take the loss of her parents well. She started drinking heavily. In the evenings she would get completely hammered. My father didn't take that well. Their fights increased to the point where she would disappear in the evenings, coming home the next day smelling like booze and other men's cologne."

I grimaced. "So they got divorced."

"No," I said. "Not immediately. That would have been the right thing for them to do. Instead, they stayed together, because they'd never known anything else. They met when they were so young."

She sighed. "It led to a lot of violence in the home. I would have been on my father's side originally because I really thought the way my mother was behaving was unacceptable. She was burning through money at an alarming rate." Zoey wiped a tear from her eye. "She'd even pawned my grandmother's wedding rings that had been given to me before she passed away." She shook her head as if it was almost too painful to talk about.

"But, the way my father dealt with her behavior was also not okay. It got worse before it got better. Cops being called to the house all the time. My mother going to the hospital and claiming that she had fallen down the stairs or bumped into the door. I'm not sure how either of those things got you black eyes, but she refused to ever cooperate or press charges, so it all just stayed the same for a long time."

"I'm so sorry you had to deal with all of that," I said to her.

"It was like that all through high school. I stayed at the school as long as I possibly could. I never wanted to go home. I tried to sleep over at a friends’ houses. When I was 18, I immediately moved out. Got a job so I could get myself a tiny little studio apartment in town, finish school, and build something for myself."

"So, you don't talk to them anymore?" I asked.

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