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“My father acted like that with me,” she says after resting her hand on mine still cradling her belly. “Like a guy trying to get to first base.”
I’m not particularly shocked to learn Landry’s father was a piece-of-shit pervert asshole. Someone hurt her early on in life. I feel her long-healed scars covering deep pain. There’s nothing fresh about her suffering. That’s why she took Neal’s elbow to the mouth like a pro.
“He’s why you left home.”
“Yes and no. I watched him after that night when I realized what a flirting guy was like. How he hugged me. The way he complimented me. It was overtly sexual. He was always touching me. My mom used to say he was a sex addict. I thought he was sick and needed help. Like, I could get him an appointment with a doctor who’d fix that shit.”
Landry pauses when Brigitte kicks my hand hard enough for me to flinch. She grins at how I rub her belly.
“She’s strong,” I say, grinning at the kid stretching inside her. “So are you, Landry.”
“But not smart,” she mumbles and loses her smile. “I’ve never been good at reading people or situations. I take everything too literally. If someone says they’re my friend, I assume they’re telling their truth despite knowing how everyone lies.”
“What did your father do?”
“Is this really what you want to talk about?”
“If you can love me, I plan to marry you, Landry. Hell, I might just make you my wife even if you only tolerate me.”
“Why?” she asks despite me explaining more than once.
“I really like this feeling you’ve created inside me,” I say, needing her to feel valued. “I don’t want to give it up.”
Without a doubt, Landry’s thinking about Kati. I seem like a broken record, playing the same damn song until I get the lyrics right. Except I know how I felt then, and what I feel now. I’m not a lovelorn bitch, begging for love from just anyone.
There were women between Kati and Landry. I didn’t chase them. Nothing they offered hooked me like the sad smile from the woman watching me right now.
“Tell me what went down with your family and I promise I won’t hassle you for more info for the rest of the night. We’ll just rest together, dreaming of when you’re no longer pregnant and I can go berserk on this sweet flesh.”
I’m so fucking stupid sometimes.Landry’s talking about her dad wanting to rape her, yet I’m talking about how horny she makes me.
I’ve never been good at saying the right shit. One time, when I was in deep with Kati, she whined about how I wouldn’t share cool stories with her friends. I remember thinking, “Why would I change for you?” Hell, I even said something like that out loud. Kati pouted, but she knew the kind of man I was and how I’d never be anyone else.
Chatting casually isn’t in my wheelhouse. Most days, I wish everyone would shut the fuck up.
Right now, though, I want Landry to open up and reveal her every secret. If she needs me to be soft and sweet like a bizarro alternative version of me, so fucking be it. She’s worth the struggle.
“Sharing with me will make you more real. That’s all I want.”
“My mom was one of those parents who shared too much,” she says and looks at the ceiling rather than me. “I knew every bad thing my grandparents did to her. Every sin my father committed. Her first fuck, the time a guy made her suck him off, every damn thing she ever went through was shared with me when I was too young to understand. That’s why I thought we were friends. Like, she trusted me with her secrets, so I could do the same with her.”
Landry speaks the words like she’s reading off a grocery list. The only thing keeping her from completely icing me out is her hand gripping mine on her belly.
“I told her how Dad seemed to be flirting with me. That I felt uncomfortable. Though he hadn’t hurt me, I worried he would push me to do something.”
Getting lost in her thoughts, Landry falls silent. Brigitte rolls around inside her mama’s belly, bringing her back to the present.
“When I told her, my mom slapped me and claimed I was a whore trying to steal her man. I don’t know why I was shocked. She hit me all the time. Not usually hard enough to leave bruises. My parents were angry people who needed to lash out to feel better. They would fight each other, but I think they preferred someone who wouldn’t fight back.”
“Your parents are dead, right?”
When Landry nods, I frown at how I’ll never be able to kill them. Maybe I can piss on their graves. We could make a vacation out of the experience. Take the kids somewhere fun, piss on the graves of pervert grandpa and psycho grandma, and stay in a nice hotel.
“I left home after that. For a while, anyway. But after some time with Darlie, I accepted if I was living at home, I could finish school. At eighteen, I’d be able to leave in a real way. I could get a job, go to community college, and be successful. I tried going back, but my mom refused to let me in the house. She said I was trying to destroy her marriage. My father claimed I was spreading lies about him. They wouldn’t let me stay.”
“I don’t know if you would have been better off at home or where you ended up. I’m sure you understand how your parents being garbage isn’t your fault.”
“I wish I had been smarter. Not told my mom. Dodged my dad. They might have helped pay for college. I could have survived those last few years at home. Or I could have called Child Services and ended up somewhere else. If I had the state looking over my aunt’s shoulder, she would have let me go to school instead of working. My life would have turned out different, but I didn’t think of those things until it was too late.”
