He’s about to open a door he hasn’t walked through in a very long time.
I’m sure there are a whirlwind of thoughts taking shape in his mind right now. His eyes are locked on that starry canopy as though it's anchoring him.
“I used to pretend the stars were a magical blanket over me and Mum,” he begins. “As if they stood a chance of keeping us safe.” A dappled glow flickers softly across his face. “When I looked out my window at night, I could almost imagine a world withouthim. Without all the shouting, without fear or pain.” His jaw tightens slightly. “And I so badly needed there to be a world beyond those four walls. Because it was my own private hell.”
The words sink like a stone, heaviness blooming inside my chest.
He pauses before braving the deep.
“My name was Mark Watford back then. I grew up in a tiny town called Jundah.”
I’ve never heard of it.
“Where is…?”
“Middle of nowhere. Population one hundred and thirty on a good day.” The warmth drains from his voice. “Only time Jundah gets mentioned on the news is when it floods.”
I try to picture it.
A town that small, a region that remote.
“I’d never even been to a real supermarket until I was sixteen.” I turn toward him in surprise. “But it wasn’t so much the town I loathed, it was my dad. Selfish prick never gave us a chance. Drank all our money away, gambled the rest. Raised his fists instead of dealing with his anger like a real man.”
He stares into the fire.
The flames match his mood.
“Homophobic slurs. Mind games. Intimidation. He used to lock me outside during thunderstorms before I was even potty trained, just to hear me cry. Mum would end up paying for it if she tried to help me. He loves to wind her up.”
The knot in my stomach tightens.
He’s been dealing with this his entire life?
I’m guessing that the panic attack during our beach trip wasn’t his first.
My brave sweet boy.
“We were trapped in that place. We didn’t even have a car or a phone. He left us both with bruises, black eyes, or broken bones whenever he lost his cool.”
Inside my veins, the blood begins to boil.
My hand grips the arm of the chair as he speaks.
“Sometimes we had to go hide next door at the neighbor’s house until things blew over. But Mum would always take him back. Every damn time. When I was little, I was terrified of the monsters tattooed on his arms. Skulls and demons, that kind of thing.”
???
So many things are beginning to make sense.
No wonder he stays away from booze and ink.
I swallow hard.
But Marco's face softens.
“When I was five or six, I stole a page from this book I found while playing with the kids two doors down. It was a photo of a house at the beach." His smile is bittersweet. "I noticed power lines in the corner of the picture. They looked kind of similar to the poles on my street. And I was convinced that if I just followed those lines out of town, I’d eventually reach the sand. I made pretend sandcastles in the back yard out of dirt. I was too young to understand that the nearest coastline was a two or three day drive. Even the closest bus stop or dentist was more than two hundred kilometres away.”
The fire crackles as his story unfolds.
