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Even when he hated me.
He doesn’t like that however. That I’m giving him credit.
So he growls, “No, I didn’t. I —”
I would’ve gladly argued with him all night till I’m blue in the face, but I don’t want to do that. Not right now.
I want to soothe him.
Talk to him. Somehow make him feel better.
So I interrupt him. “So your father has always been like this then?”
But that’s not all. I don’t just interrupt him with my words. I also do it with actions.
I rub my palms over the globes of his shoulders, my thumbs gently pressing on his tight muscles, and his eyes turn liquid. And molten.
As if he’s liking it, my impromptu and inexperienced massage.
“Yes,” he rasps.
I knead the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. “But only with you?”
“Yes.”
“N-not with Homer or…”
“No. Homer’s the good son. The obedient son. The kind of son my father always wanted.”
“And what were you?”
“The opposite. Bad. Disappointing. A rebel.” His lips quirk up in a small, humorless smirk. “I was the kind of son he didn’t want, didn’t know what to do with, so he had all his fun with me.”
“What… What kind of fun?”
He stares into my eyes, stares and stares and it feels like I’m this close to getting lost in them. “The kind where you sometimes end up with a split lip or a broken nose.” Then, licking the tiny drop of blood off his lip, he continues, “So as you can see, Iama fighter. Not just a soccer player.”
“He…” My fingers clutch him tightly,protectively, as my heart thuds. “He h-hit you?”
“Sometimes, yeah. When other things didn’t work.”
“What other things?”
“Things like locking me up in my room. Taking away my toys and all that crap.”
“Reign, that’s —”
“Every time he punished me, I did something worse to retaliate. And then, he’d punish me harder so I’d turn around and do even worse things, and so it went on and on. Until he gave up when I got older. I guess I grew taller than him, stronger. He knew he couldn’t take me, couldn’t hit me, couldn’t lock me up or scare me. So he sent me away to Connecticut.”
That boarding school.
That everyone said he was sent to because his father didn’t know what else to do.
Hisfather, the mean, evil bully. Who picked on Reign, someone smaller than himself.
That’s where it comes from, doesn’t it?
Reign’s protective instincts. His urge to save people.
