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“Bullshit,” she said. “Look, you gave me a rule about communicating. You told me to always be honest, to speak openly. If you’re not ready to talk yet, that’s okay. But I’m not leaving. I’m not mad, I promise. You haven’t —”
“You should be.”
She stopped, frowning at me. “What?”
“You should be mad.” I sat back down, leaning against the tree behind me as I gripped my knees, wishing the pressure would relieve some of the tension inside me.
She sat beside me, leaving a gap between us. But she reached over and laid her hand on top of mine, and the words spilled out before I could stop them.
“You should be mad, because you shouldn’t have to see that. You shouldn’t have some guy throwing his fists around like he can’t control himself. Raising his voice like a child. It’s not right. It’s not safe.”
She shouldn’t have to see what I’d grown up seeing. The adult tantrums, fists thrown into walls; plates, cups, and valuablesbroken. Using violence as strength, as intimidation. It made me sick to see it come out of me, leaking like an infected wound. But that was all my dad had left me with: festering wounds that refused to heal.
“I’m safe with you, Manson,” she said firmly. “There isn’t a single doubt in my mind that I’m safe with you. You got angry. Everyone does. That’s okay.”
No. No, it wasn’t. She was wrong. I flinched when she touched my cheek, turning my face toward her. That tightness in my chest was swelling to a breaking point. But she held my face there, and I couldn’t look at her and lie. She disarmed me so completely that it didn’t matter how ashamed I was to be like this.
She deserved to hear the truth. All of it.
“I saw the way my mom looked at him,” I said. “I saw how afraid she was every time he spoke, every time hemoved. And I —” My voice broke, and I hated how it sounded. Hated the way my own mind berated me for it. “Every second of every day I spent in that house, I was afraid. I was never safe there. He couldn’t control himself. He didn’tcare. He wanted to cause pain. It made him feel powerful. And you know what really fucking sucks? I loved him. Mom loved him. What do you do when you love someone so goddamn much that you’ll let them hurt you and even let them destroy you? Just hoping they’ll love you back? Hoping you’llearnit?”
The tightness had broken. I felt so raw I shuddered, and Jess’s fingers swiped gently at my cheeks. Well, fuck, the tears were coming and they weren’t going to stop.
“How am I any better?” The words tasted bitter in my mouth. “How am I any fucking better than him? It’s like he infected me, Jess, his genes are a fucking cancer. The way we play…even though we call it a game…I hurt you and I like it. I like the way you sound, the way you look when I do it. I crave seeing yousuffer for me. How thefuckis that okay?”
I was spiraling, and I saw no way out. The darkness around me was only growing, and I swore it would suffocate me.
I wanted to speak, but I hated my own words. I wanted someone to understand, but I also didn’t want anyone to know. These weren’t things that were easy to admit. They were dark, panicked thoughts that lurked at the back of my brain, packed away right next to tightly sealed memories of my childhood. I could try to lock them away, but I couldn’t hide them when they lived in the same house, when they echoed in the walls, specters of pain lurking in every corner.
“I’m broken, Jess.” I took her hands in mine, enfolding her fingers and kissing them.
I could smell Lucas on her, and it reminded me of all the times when it was only him and I. When he’d meet me out here in the dark, or I’d pick him up in the Bronco and drive around until we found somewhere to sleep. All the breakdowns neither of us knew how to handle, because we’d only been kids trying to figure out how to grow up alone. Holding each other through tears and rages, hoping that if we clung tightly enough, we wouldn’t lose each other.
I clung to her hands the same way, with words I couldn’t say. I’d lose her because I wasn’t good enough, because I was too broken, too fucked in the head.
“I told myself I’d never be like him,” I said, staring down at her small hands in mine. “I don’t want to hurt people, Idon’t. But sometimes I feel so angry, I don’t even know who I am. I could destroy everything I touch, even things I love. Even myself.”
“Manson, you arenothinglike your father.”
Her voice was so fierce. She held my hands like she could squeeze the words into them, but that wasn’t enough. She put her arms around me, pulling me against her. I was frozen, stiff and shaking with the effort to hold myself together.
“I was awful to you and you never hurt me back,” she said, her voice soft against my ear. “You showed me what it meant to be taken care of, did you know that? No one had ever bothered to talk about a safeword with me. No one had even bothered to ask what I’m into. You won a silly bet at a party and you didn’t doanythingI didn’t want you to. Youcared, Manson. You’ve always cared.”
My brain screamed that her words weren’t true. She was lying, she pitied me, she hated me. There was no way I could ever be good enough for her. But she didn’t let me go, and as fierce as she sounded, her words were thick as she said, “I trust you, Manson. Lucas trusts you, and he doesn’t trust anyone. Vincent and Jason trust you. They’d follow you to the ends of the earth. You’re not some evil, awful person. You’re strong and kind, and you take care of people. But you can’t only take care of other people all the time and have no one take care of you too.”
Her chest swelled with a long, deep breath, and I lifted my head. She kept her arms around me as she kissed me, and the ugly darkness inside me died a little more.
“I’m here because I want to be,” she said, leaning her forehead against mine. “Because I chose to be. And I really don’t know what the hell is going to happen or how any of this will work out in the end. But the only things I’m scared of are the same things you make me forget.”
“Fuck.” Somehow, blessedly, the pressure released from behind my ribs. I could breathe again. I couldthink. Panic still ached in me, but it was manageable now. It wasn’t the same raging storm as before.
Some things went beyond words, and we held each other until those things felt clear.
Lucas was sitting on the metal barrier when Jess and I cameback. He stood abruptly when he heard us coming, stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette in his fingers and shifting from foot to foot until we’d reached him.
Then, he threw his arms around me and held onto me so damn tight he practically crushed the air right out of my lungs.
Jess stepped away, giving us a moment with each other. His heart was hammering, his chest swelling with every deep breath.
