“Maybe,” I answer slowly.
He laughs, and the sound warms my chest for a second.I glance down as he chops cucumber for the salad and notice his right hand, gripping the knife, is red and cracked.
“Oh my god, what happened?” I grab his hand, forcing him to drop the knife onto the cutting board.
“Okay, don’t freak out…” He cups my hands over his to stop my inspection.
“You know saying that actually does not stop anyone from freaking out.” I shoot him aplease be seriouslook. “Did you get into a fight? With who?”
He sighs and abandons the salad. After checking the oven, which still has twenty-three minutes left, he brings me over to the couch. He sits, angling his body toward me, while I sit crisscross, waiting for him to tell me what’s going on before the chaos in my stomach gets worse. He places his hand on my knee and draws small circles with his thumb, as if he’s grounding himself. I cover his cracked, clearly bloodied hand with mine.
“Do you remember that boy Trevor I told you about last semester?”
“Yeah, why? Did you fight him?” I joke.
“No, of course not.” He scoffs, tucking a stray piece of hair that escaped back behind my ear and lingers a bit with his fingers brushing the strands. “I had been noticing things.” He starts the circles on my knee again. “Bruises. A black eye a couple of times. Random scratches. A split brow. I thought maybe he had been getting into fights at school, but I asked around—other kids, teachers—and no one could account for where they came from. I know he has a full-time job at the mechanic shop on Bleaker in South Wind. I mean, Christ, he’s only fifteen.”
The room is quiet except for him, and I keep my eyes on his face so he knows I’m listening.
“So, I started asking him to come in increasingly, just tosee. Then one day, he comes in with a broken arm and this whole story about how he tripped and fell. But it was all too much to explain away by accident. He made some offhand comments about his dad…” he trails off, raking his hands through his hair, the distress clear on his face.
“Oh, god.” My hands fly to my mouth as I realize what he’s telling me. “His dad is abusing him?” I implore gently, taking Kane’s hands from where he’s anxiously twisting his rings and holding on to them.
“I’m pretty sure. He has never outright told me. But today when I got back to school, there was a note about him. He was in the hospital over the weekend. They brought him in unconscious and covered in bruises, most of which couldn’t be explained by a “fall.” CPS tried to get involved, but he wouldn’t spill. His fucking asshole of a father pulled him out of the hospital.”
“CPS couldn’t do anything?”
“Not if Trevor won’t admit to abuse. He stuck to the story they had already told. The kid is so scared of being separated from his sisters that he refuses to help himself,” Kane rasps, broken and on the edge of despair. I can tell how deeply this situation is affecting him. There’s a sheen of water over his eyes, his leg is bouncing under our joined hands, and I know he’s itching to get up and move. The only reason he is still sitting here is because I have him in a death grip.
“So how did your hand end up like this?” I ask, unsure I want the answer.
He huffs out a breath, guilt and apology written all over his face.
“I lost it when I heard he was in the hospital, so I went to his house to check on him. I just needed to see he was okay. Except he wasn’t there, and his sorry excuse for afather answered the door. He reeked of alcohol and bad decisions. So, I may have hit him.”
I gasp. “Kane!”
“I know. I know I fucked up. I also threatened him. I just could not see that kid walk into school with one more bruise on him,” he chokes out.
“Are you in trouble with the school?”
“They don’t know. Dawn saw me leave, but she figured I just needed some air.”
“You could lose your job, Kane.” I grab his face and stroke his cheek, trying to quiet the anxiety I can now see taking over his body.
I don’t know how I never noticed before. The way he pulled his hair, twisted his rings, paced for no reason. I wish I had paid better attention. I wish I had opened my eyes sooner. Tears well at the thought of him battling all this while I was too blind to see it.
“Don’t cry, pretty girl. Please. I can’t bear to see it anymore.” He wipes away my tears.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t see how badly you were struggling. I feel so stupid and so blind.” The tears rack my body harder, and suddenly I’m lifted from my spot and settled in a warm lap. The feeling of safety blossoms through my chest.
“This isn’t your fault, baby.” He strokes my hair and kisses the side of my head repeatedly, trying to calm me down.
“I know, but I should’ve seen it.” My argument is weak, but I can’t seem to shake this immense feeling of guilt that we could have avoided these past couple months apart if I had just looked harder.
“No. It was my job to recognize something was wrong and that I needed help. You are not to blame for whathappened.” He rocks us until my sobs ebb into small hiccups. “I don’t want us to keep dwelling in the past. It happened, and it was hard, but I think now we’re better off for it. Now we know better. We know to talk, to trust each other in the silence, and to come to each other at the first sign of unease.”
“How do you do that?” I ask softly into his neck, letting the scent of him fuel me, making me never want to move from this position again.
