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He stops short of pressing send, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. Which, on the one hand I get, but on another, is a little crazy. I know we haven’t officially labeled our relationship, but what have I ever done to make him think I’m the type of person who would entertain another guy when I’m living with him? I’m not an asshole.
Jealousy isn’t always logical, though, and it’s got a firm grip on him right now. He drops the phone and leans down, sliding his fingers around my throat and leaning close so he can threaten me. “Let me make one thing perfectly fucking clear, Brynn. And I’m gonna preface this by saying that I know it’s crazy and maybe even colossally unfair, but it’s also the truth. If I ever, ever see you with another guy, I will retaliate, and I’ll make what I did to Kyle look kind.”
I swallow, feeling my throat work beneath his tight grip and my heart start to race.
“It really is my mom,” I say softly. “I don’t talk to her, so if you send that message, it’s just… it’s going to open a whole Pandora’s box that I don’t want to deal with. I went no-contact before I moved to Boston. She texts me every now and then to bait me into responding, but I know better, so… I don’t.”
His grip eases ever so slightly, but he doesn’t let go of my throat. “Why?”
“Because if I did, she’d never leave me alone, and I don’t have time for that.”
“No, not why… Why don’t you talk to your mom?”
Oh boy.
I swallow again, and he must interpret it as discomfort because this time he lets go of my throat.
To be honest, I would rather be choked out than talk about this.
I don’t even know where to begin.
The idea of talking about it is so overwhelming, I have to close my eyes for a few seconds and gather my thoughts. Finally, I open them back up, and attempt an explanation.
“My parents split up when I was really little. I think I told you that before.”
“You mentioned it.”
I nod. “When it comes to this, I usually mention just enough to make people feel like they know the story and it’s boring, so I don’t have to worry about them asking follow-up questions.”
His brow furrows slightly, but he waits to hear more.
“So, of course, my mom dated different guys as I was growing up. But there was this one guy, AJ, who… well, he liked my mom, but he didn’t like me. So my earliest memories are of him being mean to me. He used to push me around and call me names and act like it was funny. And then he started hitting me. My mom never stepped in, and I was really little, so I didn’t know any better. At the time, I thought it was normal to be treated that way. I would just work extra hard not to get in his way. The abuse only stopped because my mom got pregnant, and he didn’t like the responsibility of having kids around, that’s why he didn’t want me around, so once she had the baby, he left. He stayed gone for years, but then he got laid off and was out of work for a while due to an injury, and he started drinking, so he couldn’t get hired anywhere else. The girlfriend he had at the time got sick of his shit once he wasn’t bringing home a paycheck, so she kicked him out. He didn’t have anywhere to go, so he asked my mom if he could stay with us.”
Memories flood me of that time, how betrayed I felt when she told us Geli’s dad was moving in.
I shake my head to clear it. “Anyway, my little sister—his daughter—Angelica was excited because she never really knew him so she didn’t know what it would actually be like having him around, she just liked the idea of ‘her dad’ coming home and us all being one big happy family. I was older then. I was twelve, Geli was ten. I’d been so little when the initial abuse happened, I only really remembered parts of it and had to rely on my mom to fill in the blanks, and since she was invested in moving him back in, she tried to diminish it as him ‘picking on me’ and just… trying to make it seem like I took it too personally, and it hadn’t been as bad as I remembered it. I was overreacting.”
Killian’s jaw locks, but this time, I know the anger isn’t pointed at me.
I swallow. “When he first moved in, he wasn’t so bad. He even made efforts to hang out with me alone. He said he knew he’d been kind of a jerk to me last time, but he wanted things to be good between us this time so he could stick around for Geli. He said he didn’t want us not getting along to be the reason he had to leave again.”
Unable to help himself, apparently, Killian interrupts, his voice tight with anger. “He was trying to pin the responsibility of keeping him around on you.”
“I know,” I say softly. “Well, I know that now. I didn’t back then. But it worked,” I say with a limp smile. “You know me, I feel bad when an animal doesn’t have a family, so imagine how I felt about my little sister who was all excited about her dad being back.”
Killian sighs knowingly. “Yeah. I can imagine.”
“Anyway, since it seemed like he was making an effort that time, I began to think maybe Mom was right. Maybe I had overreacted before. I was young, so maybe… maybe I remembered it wrong.”
“Let me guess. You didn’t.”
I shake my head. “He started ‘picking on me’ again, but it was a little different this time. He would make remarks about my body. He’d pinch me and touch me in ways you shouldn’t… pinch and touch your stepdaughter. And I began to dread his visits to my bedroom, because when it first started, we would just talk, and I liked that he would listen to me about things that bored my mom. But once he gained my trust… the pinching and ‘ribbing’ shifted. He would make remarks about my body and then challenge me to ‘show him’ to prove… whatever stupid thing he came up with. And I didn’t want to, so he made me feel stupid about that. Then the looking led to touching, and… I knew it felt bad, but I was afraid to… to say anything. Geli liked having him around, and Mom was happy. Only I was unhappy, so maybe I could cope. For them,” I say softly.
Probably realizing he shouldn’t be straddling me like this for the conversation this has turned into, Killian climbs off me. I try to ignore the whispers of the past as I quickly pull my underwear and shorts up, but I stay lying there, looking up at the ceiling.
“When I was fourteen, I finally told my mom I didn’t want him coming into my room at night anymore. I told her I was getting older, so it didn’t feel appropriate anymore, and she told me he was basically my dad, and she just… set me off. I was not a willful or disrespectful child by any means, but I screamed at her that he wasn’t my dad and never to call him that again. I stormed out of the house and went walking around the neighborhood, fuming and thinking about running away. But while it was a nice dream, I knew I wouldn’t get far with no money, no way to make money, no family to turn to. It was probably my out of character response that first alerted her that something was up because she told him to stay out of my bedroom going forward. He did. For a while. When I was sixteen, since he couldn’t go to my bedroom, he started finding excuses to keep me downstairs after my mom and Geli went to sleep. He’d say I hadn’t done my chores and make up chores no one had ever told me to do, or he’d ask for my help with something. And then, once whatever made up task was done, he’d be like, ‘come on, let’s catch up. We never hang out anymore.’” I sigh. “He did weird things. I don’t really want to… go into detail.”
“You don’t have to,” he says softly.
