AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Roan?” I tried again. When he didn’t answer, I headed for the bedroom. He was sitting on the bed with his elbows resting on his knees and his head hanging in his hands. I set my wineglass on the tacky dresser we found in the alley behind the apartment building and rushed to him, dropping to my knees in front of him. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
I got nothing. He remained deathly silent and still. I cupped his cheeks when he wouldn’t look up, tipping his head so I could see his face. When I finally got a look at him, I sucked in a sharp breath at the state of his face and clapped my hands over my mouth in shock. His lip was busted open, dried blood flaking in the corner of his mouth. His cheekbone was split open and swelling below a black eye.
“Oh my god! What the hell happened?”
He shoved up to his feet so fast I nearly tumbled backward onto my butt. “Don’t want to talk about it,” he gritted out as he stormed out of the bedroom. I jogged after him, catching him in the kitchen where he was unscrewing the cap on a bottle of bourbon we kept in the cabinet above the fridge. He pulled down a squat plastic cup and filled it halfway before tossing it back in a couple short gulps and refilling the cup again.
“Roan, honey.” I stepped up beside him, placing my hand on his arm to keep him from shooting back the second dose of bourbon. “Just stop for a second and talk to me. What happened to your face? Who did this to you?”
He set the cup down on the cheap laminate counter with aclunkand braced his palms on either side of it, lowering his head as he sucked in a deep breath.
“Went to see my mom today,” he said in a voice so low it was practically a whisper.
I knew the moment those words left his mouth that this was going to be bad. In the year and a half we’d been together, Roan had shared about the tumultuous relationship between him and his family. His father, Randall, was a twisted, evil, abusive son of a bitch. I’d only met the man twice in the time Roan and I had been living together, and neither of those times had been anywhere near the ballpark of pleasant. If I could go through the rest of my life with Roan and never have to lay eyes on that man again, I could die a happy woman.
The problem was Roan’s mother refused to leave the asshole, even though he beat on her regularly, and had beaten her own son when he was an innocent kid. Any time Roan confronted her about why she stayed with him, she had one excuse after the other. I’d tried putting myself in her shoes more times than I cared to admit, knowing that enduring years of abuse took a toll on a person mentally. I tried to understand why she would stay, why she would still claim to love a man who hurt her over and over again. If I tried really hard, I could empathize. But what I couldn’t possibly wrap my mind around, what I refused to understand or excuse, was not protecting your own flesh and blood, the child you brought into this world, from the monster you’d made the choice to share your life with.
Elenore had chosen Randall, but Roan had no control over who his parents were. He’d been born into a situation completely beyond his control. Every time the topic of his parents came up, I couldn’t help but think about my own kids. I might not have had any yet, but Roan and I talked about our future family all the time. I couldn’t fathom letting someone hurt my own child, whether that person was its father or not.
Roan loved his mother with every bit of his big, accepting heart, making things harder for him. As much as he loved and adored his mother, he hated his father just as much. He tried constantly to help her see she deserved so much better, but it never seemed to penetrate with her. Or if it did, she simply didn’t care.
It never failed that he’d come home from a visit with her feeling like a failure when he wasn’t able to talk her into leaving the bastard she called husband. That made the visits he tried to schedule regularly harder and harder, because he refused to be in the same house as Randall, so he only got to see Elenore when he was at work.
I moved to the fridge, filling a plastic baggy with ice and wrapping it in a towel. I squeezed my way between him and the counter and lifted the icepack to press it against his cheek. I implored his eyes to meet mine and hated the pain I saw lurking inside them when he finally did. “Talk to me,” I pleaded, wishing I could somehow take his pain away.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” he rasped. “He was supposed to be at work, but apparently the fucker’s temper isn’t only relegated to his family. He got into it with his boss and ended up getting fired. He took himself to a bar afterward and got shit-faced, then came home to take his bad mood out on Mom.”
I pulled in a breath and pressed my free hand to his chest, right over his heart, as I lowered my forehead to rest right beside it. “You put yourself between him and her, didn’t you?”
He reared back at my question, his face pinching up with disbelief. “What kind of question is that, Alma? Of course I did. She’s mymom.”
I swallowed down the words that wanted desperately to come out. I wanted to scream that she never showed him the same devotion and safety, even when it washerjob to do it. Not his. My anger at the woman was growing more bitter with every passing month, and keeping my thoughts and feelings on the matter to myself was getting harder and harder to do.
“I let the piece of shit get a few hits in, just like he’s been used to all my life. But I ended the fight when I put his ass on the ground.” His eyes grew distant, like he was lost in the memory, and a tiny grin played on his lips. “He hadn’t been expecting that.”
I fisted my hands in his shirt and gave him a little jerk. “Good, Roan.Good. The son of a bitch deserves that and so much worse. You stood up for yourself and your mom, and I’m so proud of you for being so strong.”
The grin fell and his eyes went dark, and I knew the worst was yet to come. “You’re the only one who feels that way, Freckles,” he said as he traced his finger down the bridge of my nose, across my freckles he loved so much.
“What do you mean?”
“After I knocked him on his ass, my mom kicked me out.”
The air froze in my lungs, my vision went hazy and tinged with red as the blood started to rush in my ears. “I’m sorry.What?”
I didn’t realize I was gripping the fabric of his shirt to the point of ripping until his fingers wrapped around my wrists and gently pried me off. “Easy, Alma. You look like you’re about to go feral.”
“Oh, that’s because I am,” I growled, pushing away from him so I could start to pace our tiny galley kitchen. “I’m so freaking pissed I can’t see straight!” I cried, losing my hold on the calm I’d been trying to hold on to for Roan’s sake. All the words I’d been swallowing down for the past year and a half came spilling free, like a dam breaking. “Howdareshe,” I raged. “How dare she kick you out when you’ve been nothing but supportive of her!”
“Freckles—”
I stopped mid-pace and spun around to jab my finger in his face. “I didn’t say anything when you told me about your childhood. I didn’t say a word the first time she called you for money because your waste-of-oxygen father lostanotherjob, or again when they were late on their car note.”
“Alma—” he tried again, but I was too far gone.
“You’ve worked your ass off trying to make a career with your music, and every time you come into a little money, she’s there on your father’s behalf, with her freaking hand out. And I’m done! You’ve bent over backward for a woman who’s never returned the gesture.” I pointed at his face and barked, “And you’re still bending! And you know what, Roan? She’s theonlyone in your relationship that should be bending! You’re her son, and she never once tried to protect you the way you protect her. I know you love her, baby, and it kills me to see how you are in pain every time you come home from a visit with her. It kills me every time you get that faraway look in your eye when you’re thinking about your father and the terrible things he’s done to you.”
I clutched my chest, feeling helpless and sad and pissed and so many other things I couldn’t put my finger on. “I want to take it all away, but I know that’s not possible. I look at you right now, see your busted lip and split cheek, and I want to drive over there and have a go at him with a baseball bat for hurting you!”
