Smooth and disarming. He moved with the confidence that comes from success or a bucket-full of ego. The personal army means he is important and loaded, but it also means he is dangerous or, at least, he expects danger to pursue him. He’s blunt in his honesty, considerate, unafraid of emotional outbursts, can lie if he needs to, and trusts absolutely nobody around him. Except maybe Aiden, but even I trust Aiden more than most people I know, and I’ve only spent fifteen minutes with him.
I’ve ended the night with more questions than answers, more punishments than rewards and only one certainty;I’m attracted to a man I can never dream of having.
There are so many reasons stacked against me. The Vale, my education, my social standing, my age, my job, and the worst reason —my family. I could surpass all the other things if I work hard to escape the environment I’ve been born into, but I’ll never be able to escape my family—my father. Even if Dax was just another guy from the Vale, my dad would shoot him down before he got through the door. People like Dax, people with any culture or ethnicity different to his own, aren’t acceptable sorts to my father. Considering he is the worst of the low, he has a goddamned cheek to accuse anyone else of beingless than.
Thanks to him, I learned a long time ago not to judge people by the colour of their skin, or the country they came from, or even the family they were born into. People are just people. What you need to separate are the good people from the bad people. Dax resonates with me. Despite the trouble surrounding him, he feels like a good person.
I close my eyes but keep my ears trained on the corridor. If I nap, perhaps I can get Mum to hand me out a change of clothing before I go toButchers? She should be up by the time I’m due to leave.
Darkness and silence swallow me up. The ever-present chill forces me to wrap myself tighter and the thin linoleum does little to cushion my backside from the concrete floor. I allow myself a second of indulgence, and make-believe it’s someone else holding me tight. I imagine a soft sofa, a beautiful view, and a warm embrace. Though I can never pin a face on the man in my dreams, tonight I catch the sharp outline of hazel eyes that occasionally morph and reform to rounder eyes of honey-amber. Sometimes his whispers are fierce and determined and sometimes they are soft and gravelly.
Both Dax and Aiden feel safe.
But as always, my safety is short-lived.
The chain rattles on the slide and then clicks as it’s pulled out. I shoot up, readying to face my dad while hoping for my mum. What I don’t expect is TJ.
“Why are you still awake?” I whisper fiercely.
“Dad said you were bad. But Dad is bad too.”
“Did he hurt you? AJ? Casey?” He shakes his head with each guess. “Mum?” I try, fearing the worst. TJ nods. My stomach sinks. He hit her. Probably because of me. It explains why she isn’t waiting up to let me in. “Okay, kiddo. Thank you for letting me in. Go back to bed, but tiptoe, okay? And don’t tell anyone you helped me.”
TJ steps back, sliding his little plastic stool against the wall, and lets me in, then turns and takes big exaggerated steps toward the room he shares with the other two. I stand in the entry for a moment, wondering if being here will only make things worse. If he’s already punished Mum for my lateness, then there’s no chance he’ll hit her again before her shift at the factory. She’ll be hurting, but he needs that money. If I stay, I can kiss my shift atButcher & Bakergoodbye today. He thinks they pay me half of what I earn atCarlito’s, anyway. He’d rather I just pick up day shifts at the barinstead. Staying means kissing college goodbye too, because he’ll beat me so I can’t get up until tonight’s shift.
He’s done it before. Last week the fucker literally stood on me all damn day to make sure I couldn’t go anywhere until he allowed it. I’m still nursing the bruised ribs he left me with.
I can’t go through that again.
I pull off my shoes and tuck them between my arm and the books I’m still carrying, then sneak to my room. I’ll grab a change of clothes and leave early. If I explain the whole melodrama of a night to Charlie, my boss, then she might let me shower in her apartment before work.
The runners on my drawer rumble like a goddamned rockslide. The harder I try to stay quiet, the louder everything sounds. I grab the only other pair of jeans I own and snatch up the shitty moth-eaten t-shirt sitting right at the top of the drawer, rather than pulling it out any further and risk waking Dad.
Fuck it. I don’t much care anymore. It’s not like I have nice things or pretty clothes to impress Dax or Aiden. They’ve already seen me covered in blood. Moth holes won’t matter.
I repack my bloodied backpack, shoving the books in the bottom, then the clothes on top. I make sure the envelope is still shoved deep inside my back pocket and make my way out of the house.
TJ pops his head around his bedroom door.
“You okay, kiddo?” I whisper, flicking glances back and forth between my brother and my dad’s door.
“You going out?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to go to work.”
He rubs his bleary eyes with his fists. “Already?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m so hungry, Juju. Can I come too?”
Fuck. “Didn’t you get any dinner?”
He shakes his head. “AJ found peanut butter, but the fuzzy bits tasted funny. We let Casey lick Daddy’s gravy. He gave us bread, butit was too hard to eat.”
Dad likes to laugh at the kids, making them eat out of his plastic microwavable containers like animals. Especially Casey. That bread was only a couple of days old but he likely left it sitting out on the side after making himself a snack, leaving the kids with hard, stale crusts. And I can’t even remember the last time we bought peanut butter. I have no idea where they found that, but clearly it was mouldy.
Fuck my father. Fuck this life.
