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What?
By now I was sure my cheeks were positively flaming and I was actually glad I still had some lingering bruising that might hide the proof of my embarrassment.
“For what?” I choked out.
“Tutoring. My grades were for shit. Almost got held back my freshman year.”
“Did you find one? A tutor I mean?”
Cain shook his head. “It wasn’t a priority after that.”
The cryptic statement made no sense to me, but I didn’t ask him what he meant because I could tell from the dark look in his eyes that he wasn’t about to expound on it.
“How about college? Maybe you ended up with the Freshmen 1?” I said jokingly, hoping to draw back some of that lightness I’d seen in his eyes for the briefest of moments.
“Didn’t go to college.” I saw his fingers start to flex and un-flex and I found myself needing to remind myself that he wasn’t Eric. His agitation wouldn’t result in me with a split lip or bruised cheek.
“How come you stayed away from home for so long?” Cain asked.
The switch back to me wasn’t ideal, but something about talking to him helped relax me.
“A few months after I met Eric, I brought him home to meet my parents…before I knew what he was really like. I thought myself so completely in love with him that I was blind to everything else. But my family didn’t suffer from that affliction and instead of hearing what they had to say, I cut them out of my life.”
“They didn’t like him,” Cain said.
I shook my head. “They saw things I refused to. Like how he’d put me down, how he talked only about himself, how he ordered me around. I was angry with them for not seeing how good he was for me. When he said things about my weight, I saw it as him caring about my health. When he put down one of my accomplishments, I saw it as him saying I could do even better. When he talked about himself, I just saw it as him being more interesting than me. I was just so blind,” I murmured.
“Why?”
The bluntness of his question caught me off guard, but when I looked at him, I didn’t see any judgment in his gaze. He looked…curious.
“I guess because he was the first person who ever truly wanted me. I mean, I knew my family loved me and stuff, but I felt like he saw me without the unconditional love that your family sees you with and he liked what he saw. He chose me despite all my flaws.”
“Flaws?” Cain asked, his voice low.
“My weight, my awkwardness, my oversensitivity to things…he was always encouraging me to overcome those things to help me be better,” I explained.
“Better?” Cain said softly.
“Yeah,” I said, confused by his reaction.
Cain shook his head and made a move to unbuckle his seatbelt. I grabbed his arm without thinking. He stiffened and I instantly yanked my hand back. “Sorry,” I quickly said.
“It’s okay,” he said after a moment.
When he started to unbuckle again, I said, “What did you mean by that?”
He didn’t respond and I knew it was because he didn’t want to lie to me.
“Please,” I said softly.
Cain hesitated before finally settling his flinty blue eyes on me. “Seems like the fucker told you all that shit so you wouldn’t realize how much “better” you were than him. I’m glad he failed…on all counts, Ethan. Except the weight,” he added gently. “I wish he’d gotten that wrong too because I think you’d look just fine with a few extra pounds.”
With that, he got up and went to the back of the plane. I sat there in stunned silence as I absorbed his words. He returned a moment later and wordlessly handed me a can of soda along with a bag of potato chips. My stomach growled at the sight of the salty goodness, but Eric’s voice in my head was louder.
You like being a fat pig, is that it, Ethan?
Logically I knew I hadn’t been fat when he and I had met and I certainly could use the calories now, but I couldn’t make myself open the bag. Tears of frustration stung my eyes. I glanced at Cain who was watching me intently, but he didn’t tell me to eat the chips.
Why had I been able to find the strength to leave, but I couldn’t find the strength to open the damn bag?
“Talk to me, Ethan,” Cain said softly.
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” I whispered.
“Are you afraid you’re disappointing him somehow?” Cain asked. I flicked my gaze to his as the shame crashed over me.
I managed a nod, but my throat was too tight to actually speak.
“My father used to beat my mother.”
The admission got my attention and I tore my eyes from the bag of chips.
“Just my mother,” he said. “Not me, not my brothers and sisters. She’d bend over backwards to please him, but nothing she ever did was good enough. She could do something like cook him his favorite meal perfectly every single time, but there’d always be that one meal that wasn’t quite up to par.”
