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We open the door to outside and slip out, tiptoeing up the side of the house. Sassy puts her arm out to stop me from going any further and peers around the edge.
“Wait till he’s inside.” She barely breathes the words out loud. I take her hand, wanting to protect her from whoever this beast is. I’m vaguely surprised she doesn’t stop me.
When we hear the front door slam shut, she motions for me to run. We both crouch down and run as fast as we can to my car. Jumping in, I gun the engine and we tear off down the street as fast as I can drive.
“Fuck!” I exclaim when we make it around the corner, my heart beating fast in my chest. “What the fuck was that about?”
Sassy was looking out the rear window. Now, turning around, she slumps back into her seat.
“You should have seen your face.” She laughs, but I can hear a thread of worry in her voice. She’s acting tough, but she’s as rattled as I am.
“Is Brittany safe in that house? Do we need to get her out?”
“She’s okay,” Sassy says firmly. “He’s an asshole to me, but he’s great with her. He’d never hurt her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Colt.” Sassy narrows her eyes at me. “Do you think I’d leave her there if she was in danger? You really think that poorly of me?”
“Of course not,” I frown as I take another turn towards home. She has a point. Sassy is tough. She wouldn’t back down from a fight. Not for something important. “Sorry. I’m still trying to catch up with what just happened.”
Sassy relaxes now that she knows I’m not trying to accuse her of leaving a child in an abusive situation.
“He’s my mum’s ex,” Sassy says. “Well, one of her many exes. But her relationship with him lasted for a while. She moved us in with him and we stayed for a couple of years.”
“How long ago?” I ask. Sassy looks out the window and taps her nails on the armrest.
“We moved in when I was about fourteen and left when I was sixteen. He got my wonderful years.” She says sarcastically.
“What made him hate you so much?”
Sassy shifts in her seat and I can see she’s uncomfortable talking about whatever happened.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I assure her.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m just not proud of it, that’s all. Something about me you should know is I don’t believe in having regrets. Most things I do are intentional. On the occasions that I fuck up, I get over it and move on. But,” she exhales. “This is one of my rare regrets.”
“Go on,” I encourage her. I don’t want her to lose her nerve and decide not to tell me.
“It’s just me and Mum in our family. And her steady stream of loser boyfriends. But Gav was different. He was a nice guy for a change. She must have known it, because she moved us in with him almost immediately. It was convenient that she met him right when the lease on our rental was up. That’s Mum for you, always thinking a step ahead. She met him when I was at a tough age. I was going off the rails pretty fast by my teenage years.”
I glance over at her. The prickly demeanour, the steel in her eyes. I can imagine what a handful she would have been as a teenager.
“Gav’s a good dad. He showed me what a parent should be like. He and Brittany were living a reality I had only dreamed of. I guess I could have had a father figure if I’d given him half a chance. Instead, I hated him. And I wanted him to hate me, too.”
“Why?”
“Because he would have hated me eventually, anyway. Everyone who gets to know me does.” Sassy says this quietly, looking out the window, watching the streets go by. She’s never dropped her guard before. I stay silent, hoping she’ll continue talking, and to my relief she does.
“It didn’t help that I was going through my most rebellious stage. Like I said, I was going off the rails. Mum had always let me do whatever I wanted, so you can imagine my delight when I suddenly had rules and boundaries from Gav. But I knew Mum would get bored and break up with him, like she always does, so why let him boss me around in the meantime? We were at each other’s throats every second of the day. Then it caused problems between him and Mum, so she hated me, too. All I wanted was to get the inevitable break-up over and done with.
Then one day I caught Mum cheating on him. I felt sorry for Gav, but mostly, I felt relieved. Finally we could move out. But, she refused to tell him. I guess she didn’t want to give up living in his house yet.
“So, he caught your mum cheating in the end?”
“Nope,” Sassy gives a wry smile. “To this day he still doesn’t know. The break-up wasn’t about that. It was all to do with me.”
Her voice catches, and I glance at her. The hard expression is still firmly in place.
