Page 46 of Rough

“I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath, and then began. “My dad left, and when he did, he took a piece of my heart with him. I grew up wondering if it was something I did, or if maybe it was that he just didn’t love me. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn’t. By the time I was a teenager, I found myself trying to fix everyone else because I couldn’t fix my own life.”

“What do you mean, fix everyone else?”

“My boyfriends. I found myself more attracted to the bad boys, and I tried to fix them. Deep down inside, I really don’t think I wanted them to be fixed, though. I liked them more than the nice boys. The problem was that most of those kinds of boys were abusive, and abusive relationships never last.”

“Well, at least you had the common sense to leave them.”

Somehow, I managed to laugh a dry laugh.

“I didn’t leave one of them. That’s not what girls like me do. We stay much longer than we should. Most of us stay in abusive relationships until we’re so beaten and battered that our boyfriend’s in jail. And then, we’re standing there waiting for him when he gets out.” I forced a smile. “No, they left me.”

He looked up. Sorrow covered his face. “Did you love any of them?”

“I thought at the time I loved them all, but I didn’t. There was one I did, though.”

“Was he abusive to you? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“It’s okay.”

I didn’t like talking about it what happened, and decided to keep my response as brief as possible. “He wasn’t. He was the only one who wasn’t abusive.”

“And he was your only love?”

“He was.”

His eyes lit up. After a few seconds, he grinned. “Did he love you?”

“He did.”

“What happened to him?”

I should have known he would ask. I tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t. The pressure in my chest increased with each heartbeat until I thought I was going to burst. Thinking about it was painful, and talking about it was impossible. I hadn’t thought about it for years, and in the last two days, I’d mentioned it twice.

Avoiding lengthy responses with Pee Bee was easy. With Bradley, it would be impossible. He would pry and pry until he got what he wanted.

A response was necessary.

It was the price I paid for allowing people into my life, I supposed. I gazed beyond him, and into the small landscaped area in the back yard. “He uhhm. He didn’t work. He hustled for his money. You know, made a little here, a lot there. But he always provided, so I never asked. He didn’t use drugs, if you’re wondering. So, we’d been together for a few years, and I was in college, studying for my nursing degree. Back then, I lived in a house, not an apartment.”

I paused, remembering the night the police crashed into our home.

“He had this friend, Josh, who I never liked, by the way. I wouldn’t let him in the house. Ever. That was my rule. We had another rule. We never lied to each other. That’s where the evasive responses come from. I think I picked it up from him. Sometimes he’d talk in a circle to keep from lying to me.”

I took a shallow breath. My soul ached. What happened wasn’t my fault, and I knew it. But, I was forced to live with my memories of the time we were together, which included his execution of the crime.

“We were in bed one night. Sleeping. The police came through the windows, through the walls, and through the front door. They uhhm. They drove one of those things through the side of our house.”

I took a short, choppy breath and although I didn’t want to, continued. “They took him away, and other than one visit in jail, I haven’t seen him since.”

It wasn’t enough. I wanted it to be, but it wasn’t. He would certainly ask. I needed to finish the story.

My eyes fell to the floor. I couldn’t look at Bradley.

At least not yet.

My stomach soured. I pressed the heels of my palms against my ribs and struggled to swallow.