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“I used to wonder if she drove her car into that guardrail on purpose…to get away. But deep down I know she would never have left me.”
“No, she wouldn’t have left you, especially not that way. She loved you so much, Mick. She wouldn’t want you blaming yourself for any of this.” Dee places her palms on my cheeks. “There is no one to blame but Malcolm. He tried to break you. To make you think you were weak. You are not. You are a survivor. And you are one of the strongest men I know.”
“I wanted to be strong. Good. I wanted to make Cayo and Rita proud of me.”
“Of course they were proud of you.”
“I didn’t deserve it. I turned down the NYU offer. I went off to NC State and made a total mess of it all.”
“Because I left.”
“No!” My refusal is swift and steadfast. I remove her hands from my face and place them in mine. “I can’t deny that I was busted up over losing you. But in hindsight, that was an excuse, not the reason. The truth is, basketball was the easier choice. I didn’t have to face a confrontationwith Malcolm. I didn’t have to take on a new challenge or put my creativity out there and possibly fail. I could just drink, play ball, and go along. It was a cop-out.”
“That’s unfair criticism.”
“It’s not. I’m being real, Dee. You didn’t see me back then.”
“What were you like?” She sits back on her seat but keeps her face and body angled toward me.
“Apathetic. Indifferent. I shut down. I didn’t write. I ignored my family, the people who looked out for me, who loved me even at my lowest. I got drunk on the daily, skipped classes, and started flunking.”
“I can’t imagine you like that.”
“I wouldn’t want you to. One day, after weeks of not returning their calls, Cayo showed up at my apartment.” I avert my gaze. “I’ll spare you the details, but he caught me in a bad way. Still, he didn’t judge or give up on me. He convinced me to get help.”
“Is that when you went into rehab?”
“The first time.” I look back over at her. “Papa and Mama T footed the bill for the entire thing and Cayo stayed in a hotel until I got out of the in-residence portion of the program. They did all that for me.”
“You were their son, Mick.”
“I know. Cayo and Rita never made me feel like I was anything less than theirs. I wanted to be worthy of all they had done for me. I wanted to stay sober. To do better. To be better. I actually thought I would.”
“What happened?”
“After rehab, I started hanging out with a good group of guys. I got my grades up. I went to the therapy sessions. I even told my coach that I was quitting at the end of the season. I was planning to reapply to NYU. But then Malcolm showed up.” I can feel the hate in the blasted heat of my breaths. “I knew he wasn’t just going to let me quit like that. But what could he really do, I figured? I was nineteen. I could make my own choices. I stood up to him. I told him my plans. He laughed in my face and threatened to tell Cayo and Rita about the abuse.”
Dee blinks, perplexed. She would expect threats to hurt them—to somehow ruin them. But for Malcolm to threaten to reveal his own despicable secret… “I don’t understand,” she says.
“You couldn’t. You can’t fathom how his twisted mind works. Play ball or destroy my family. There was no choice. Not to me. What could they do about the past? I was an adult, in college. Knowing then would have been worse.”
“You thought they’d blame themselves?”
“It would have plagued them, Dee. They would have picked through every memory looking for signs or inventing them to fit with the knowledge. Rita and Cayo were my salvation, but they wouldn’t see that. They wouldn’t see how adept I was at hiding the abuse. They would only see what they missed. And they would never have forgiven themselves. I was not going to do that to them. Not after all they’d done for me. I wasn’t going to let them live with something that wasn’t their fault.”
“So, you stayed and started drinking again?” she asks gently and without judgment.
“It got me through the days. Mostly. And when it didn’t, I just drank more and more until it finally landed me in the hospital—alcohol poisoning. But I still wouldn’t have quit drinking. Not on my own. It took Cayo, Rita, and Victor to pull me out of that hell again. That’s when I knew no matter what I had to endure with Malcolm, I wasn’t going to keep doing that to them. Thanks to my family, I stayed sober.”
“You did the work.”
“I just found a way to cope. Fame, money, women. Everything he wanted and I promised not to be.”
“You didn’t abuse people, Mick. You didn’t hurt anyone. You can’t compare yourself to Malcolm.”
“I did exactly what he would have done. Mackie put me out there and I seized the opportunity. Took advantage of it all until Cayo got sick. That was one hell of a wake-up call. The man I considered my real father was looking death in the eye and I was doing the bidding of the man I hated. I couldn’t do it anymore. I quit.”
“How did Malcolm take that news?”
