“Please don’t freak out,” I begin and immediately regret it when his jaw pulses so hard, I hear the clack of his teeth. “I-I didn’t lie to you when you asked about… He never hurt me. He always hurt my mom, and whenever I knew he was going to… I hid. Maybe it was a shitty thing to do. To leave my mother to it, I don’t know. But I had Snow to protect, so I’d just take her with me and we’d get out of the house or just lock ourselves in the room. S-so no, I-I didn’t lie. He never laid a hand on me. Remember that when I tell you the next part.”
I blow out a breath and close my eyes for a second. “But there were times when he…looked at me. Strangely. Like, a little too l-long and… Especially when I g-grew up. And then when I turned twelve, he’d… stop at my door. My b-bedroom door. I don’t know when I noticed it for the first time, but I’d hear the floor creak. As he walked down the hallway and then, suddenly everything would go quiet, like he’d stopped. In front of my room. I’d hear his breaths and God, the rustling of his clothes, and I…”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know what it was. I could guess, but… So I stole a baseball bat from the school, and I started sleeping with it. Every night when he came home drunk and I’d hear him putter around the kitchen, I’d hold it close, thinking tonight could be the night, and… He tried a few times, I think. He’d turn the knob, try to open my door, but maybe he’d be too drunk or whatever, he never tried to break in.
“So when I… I left for St. Mary’s, I told Snow to start locking her door. Before that I’d sleep with her, in her room, but never told her why. But when I left, I had to. I told her to protect herself. I gave her my bat. But I want you to know he never did anything to her. Never looked at her differently or in a strange way,thank God. It was only ever me. It was also another one of the reasons I never came to you guys before. Because I thought… what if. What if he did the same to Callie? She’s my age and I could never let that happen to her. I could?—”
I have to swallow down my words then.
Because in a flash, he’s out of my puny hold. He’s extricated himself from the tangled web of our limbs and stepped back. Not only that, he’s already turned around and is now striding away from me before I can catch my breath. Before I can even begin to comprehend what happened. But then I don’t really have to think too hard about it, do I? I know what happened. Iknowwhat he’s doing. I even know where he’s going.
I can guess.
So I take off after him. It’s the testament to his tall body and lunging steps, his determination to get where he’s going, that I actually have to run quite a distance across the lawn to catch up to him. Although I do more than catch up, I crash into his body from the back because I know there’s no hope for me to stop him otherwise. Not that I’m really able to tackle him to the ground or anything. All I could do was run into him really fast, hurt my shoulder and make him stumble a couple of steps forward.
But at least he’s slowed down some. Which means I can quickly round him and before he can stop me, I climb his body.
I literally climb it and wind my thighs around his slim hips and my arms around his neck. And I don’t know whether to thank God or curse at Him that the night is bright enough for me to see his face, but I can read every single emotion on it.Every single thinghe’s feeling right now, I can see and sense. Rage, fury, pain, disbelief, violence.Murder. His need for blood. I can see it all and throw myself at him.
I hug him. Tightly. With all my might.
And chantno. I keep chanting it. No, no, no, no,nononono. Until that’s the only thing I hear and I hope he does too. More than that, I hope helistensand he stops. But of course, that would be too easy because his arms—that had come to wrap themselves around my body—flex and squeeze, and he says in the softest voice possible. “Let go of me.”
I hug him tighter and shake my head. “No. No, no, no. I won’t. I won’t. Because you’re not going. You’re not goinganywhere.”
His chest shudders. “Let me go.”
“No, I won’t let you go. I’ll nevereverlet you go.” To emphasize, I climb even higher on his body, hold him even tighter. “You’re not going to see your father. That’s where you’re going, aren’t you?” His body shudders again, confirming my suspicion. “You’re going to do something to him. I know it. Iknow.But I won’t let you do anything. I won’t let you?—”
His hand creeps up and fists my hair, his voice still low and soft but now with a hint of gravel. “Let me the fuck go, Jupiter.”
I squeeze my thighs around his waist and fist his hair too. “No, I’m not Jupiter. Don’t call me that. You called me by my name that night too, at the club and I hated it. I’m your Little Strawberry and I’m not letting you destroy something you’ve worked so hard to build. You’re leaving tomorrow. You’re going to have the best season of your life. I’m not going to let anything stand in the way of that. Not even you. I’m not letting your asshole father take more from you than he already has, okay? He won’t win. He?—”
His fist tightens in my hair as he speaks. “I didn’t sleep.”
“What?”
“The night he left us,” he says. I’ve had my eyes closed so far, but at his words, they snap open and the night comes back into view as he continues, “Mom told us he’d left after we got back from school. She was devastated. Could barely hold herself up. Callie was just born; she was crying, wailing. Stellan took her. Conrad sent Mom upstairs. I got started on dinner. In all that confusion, we lost track of Ledger. Apparently, he’d run away to the playground and Con had to drag him back home. It was a mess. All of us were a mess. But somehow, we all went to sleep. I couldn’t though. I couldn’t sleep. I had this…” His chestshudders again, his breath hitches. “This rage inside of me. I wanted to… I wanted to hunt him down, and then beat the shit out of him. I wanted to…” Another shudder and a hitch. “So I stayed up all night and I played soccer. I practiced my free kicks. And I practiced and Ipracticeduntil I twisted my ankle.”
I gasp and try to break out of his hold.
But he keeps me where I am, wrapped around him in the world’s tightest hug. And I realize maybe he needs it. He needs my arms, my soft body, my hard hug to be able to do this. Make his confession. So I keep holding him.
“Until I buried that rage deep within me. Because I couldn’t bringmyrage into it. I couldn’t bring my anger when we were all so fucking angry. When Ledger was throwing tantrums. When Conrad was trying to control everything. When Stellan was being his aloof self. When there was a baby in the house that needed changing and feeding. So I bandaged my ankle, iced it, elevated it, fucking did everything I could and kept playing every night until my anger passed.
“And then, I kept doing it. I kept burying things, do you understand? Because there was no space for any more dysfunction in my family. Any more rage or anger issues or grief. My mother died of cancer. She was wasting away up in that bedroom that smelled like death and Clorox, that no one could go into. Our family was breaking apart. All my siblings were grieving before she left this earth. So I went for a run. I’d run every single night. I’d run circles around this town until myurgeto scream, to break something, to fucking break everything would pass, and…”
Another shudder but it doesn’t stop with that, no. He keeps shuddering now. His chest keeps shaking with choppy breaths and his arms are vibrating. It’s like there’s a dam inside of him. A big, thick,strongwall, a fortress that’s been holding everything, all these things, all these hidden secrets, and now that dam isbreaking. The wall is cracking. There are deep fissures running through all his defenses and he’s coming apart.
This is what it is, isn’t it.
He’s coming apart at the seams and it feels like my arms, my body are the only thing holding him together as he keeps going, “But I don’t… I d-don’t fucking know…how to… H-how to let this go. I don’t f-fucking know how to…” His teeth chatter with his next word. “D-distract myself. I can’t… I need to… I have to fucking k-kill him for?—”
“Kiss me,” I whisper, cutting him off and making him go still.
Which sounds so ridiculous when I say it like that. How can my mere whisper still the tsunami within him? How can I calm his rage down with a simple command, a request? I don’t even know what it is. All I know is that this is the only way.
The only way to distract him.
