South Row (17 page)

“
Why am I even here?” I say to myself, running a hand over my face. “Fuck it.”

Grabbing my briefcase by the door, I leave the confines of this lovel
ess condo. I wonder how long it’ll take her to realize that I’m gone?

Daddy is chasing me again. I know if he catches me I’m dead. I’m sure of it. He’s madder than the last time when he broke my arm. Mommy is lying down on the floor in the kitchen, but she doesn’t come to protect me like she used to. Why won’t mommy come help me? Why won’t she move?

I chance a look beh
ind me but the figure I see isn’t my father. This is a snarling, scary figure and the sight of him makes my breath catch in my throat, and causes me to trip over my loose laces.

The scary monster releases a loud and bone-chilling laugh. I back myself into a corner and pull my legs up
under my chin, hugging them. I’m crying uncontrollably but I tuck my head down so he doesn’t see my tears.

“
Tears are for babies,” he’d always taunt me saying. “Are you a baby, Southie? Babies don’t wear pigtails. Babies don’t backtalk their daddies. Babies don’t know how to take a hit like you do.” After which he’d sweep my legs from under me and kick me in the gut.

I hate Daddy.

The figure hovers closer to me and I ball further into myself, shaking like a leaf.
Please go away. Please go away. Please go away. Please go away.
I chant this over and over and over again, hoping that this is just a dream; a nightmare.

“We’re going to have fun,”
the monster says.

I know that voice. Fletcher.

No. No, please. No! No! No!

“
Lynnie? Wake up, honey. Lynnie!” That’s Lydia’s voice. What’s she doing here? No, Lydia, run away.

“
Pippi, wake up, baby,” another voice, Connor?

No, Connor, he’ll kill you. Stay away!
I try to scream, but no sound comes out. No! He’ll hurt them, I know he will, and I can’t warn them.

Panicked conversation swirls around me as the monster hulks over me. He twists his head around trying to find the voices. I want him to
keep his attention on me. I don’t want him to hurt my friends. All of a sudden there’s a hush. The voices disappear and the monster gives me a menacing smile. He thinks he’s won and for all I know, he has. But I still have fight within me.

Do your worst
, I will him with my mind.

But, a voice,
that
voice cuts into the horror, and with that voice comes rescue. That voice.
His
voice.

“Red.” It is softly spoken, but I hear it. It reverberates in my heart. It is a caress to my senses.

“Red,” he whispers again. And this time I see him clearly. He reaches out to me and the evil apparition vanishes. His hands frame my face and all my troubles, my worries and my monsters are vanquished.

“Red.” Just that simple word, ut
tered with so much love, awakens me from my fears.

I squeeze my eyes shut as tears seep from my lids. When I open them, I am catapulted back to reality. My friends are in my bedroom, standing at the foot of my bed and Collin, my knight, my frog prince, is next to me, smiling at me and brushing
my fallen hair from my face.

I launch into his arms and proceed to unload a nightmare’s worth of tears on
to his shoulder. And that’s what it was, thank God. It was a nightmare. A nightmare that he brought me out of.

Collin holds me tight to him and I feel the strength of his protection engulf me. I feel safe in his arms. All my anger at him had been swept away after Connor and Luke explained a few things to
me last night. The fact that he’s here right now, after spending a night in jail – albeit because of me – speaks volumes. It tells me that this is where he wants to be, so this is where I’ll let him stay. In my bed, my heart, wherever. What’s mine is his from here on out. Body, heart, soul, and everything else.

**********

I realize that I had dozed off somewhere between bawling my eyes out and pressing myself further into Collin. I just couldn’t get close enough. I wanted to lose myself in him. I guess the exhaustion of the night before as well as the tears and being in the comfort of his arms knocked me out.

As I stir, I find myself locked in the arms of a sleeping, shirtless Collin. He looks s
o peaceful, so beautiful. There’s such a vulnerability to him like this. I see the shadows over his face, though, in the slight crease of his brows. I can’t imagine what troubles him but I hope he will talk to me about it.

An overwhelming urge hits me.
An urge to tell him everything I wasn’t able to tell him, Connor – or anyone else for that matter – before because I feared my Dad. These are memories that have terrified and haunted me for most of my life; memories that kept me from going back to Blue Ridge even when Aunt Addy asked if I wanted to visit.

As though he senses the warring within, Collin peels his eyes open and stretches his body out on a yawn. He cocks his head to
one side, appraising me, a small smile playing on his lips. Reaching out, he strokes my cheek.

“
Hey, Red,” he croaks, his voice still riddled with sleep.

Taking a deep breath, I let it all out.
“He starved us.”

Collin’
s face takes on a hardness, visible in the flexing of his jaw, that makes me know he knows exactly who I am talking about. He pulls me closer to him and kisses my forehead roughly. Sitting up, he turns to face me in bed and I do the same.

I continue,
“He would go off on these weekend benders and refuse to leave food or money for food for us. He said that if we ate anything, he’d know and that we’d pay for disobeying him. When he returned, he’d bring home all this food for us and for a moment, all the bad things he’d done to us wouldn’t matter. For a moment, I thought he loved us.”

Memories, all bad, sweep over me
– the taunting, the pushing around, the hits, the bruises and broken bones, my mom’s pain and degradation – and I inhale a shaky breath.

“
He’d make us eat our fill and we’d be so happy. But he was a cruel, sick fuck. Right after we’d finish eating, he’d grab my mom and bend her over the sink and force her to throw up every single thing.”

A hot tear rolls down my face at the cruel memory. Collin tenses in front of me, but lays a gentle hand on mine in support.

“That’s why my mom was always so tiny. He made her bulimic, the sick prick.” I dash the angry tear from my face.

“
For years, after I moved to Nebraska, I battled with it,” I reveal. “I was so unhappy. Every time I ate something I’d feel waves of guilt about it. I hated food because my mom wasn’t around to eat it with me. She couldn’t enjoy it with me. I felt unworthy and guilty about being able to eat freely, so every time I ate I threw it right back up.”

I chance a look at Collin and his face is ashen. His lips are parted and his fingers are squeezing mine
. I should stop speaking, but I’m on a roll.

“
When I told you that my aunt taught me how to love food, I meant that she helped me heal. I owe her my life, my happiness.” Fresh tears stream down my face, but not because of all my prick of a Dad had done to me and my mom, but for the unconditional and healing love of my aunt. She was my tower of strength and the reason I’m still fighting to have a better life.

Clearing my throat, I take in a big gulp of air and
expel it heavily. The next thing I’m about to say I haven’t ever told anyone. Not even my Aunt Addy.

“
I saw him kill her. It was my fault.”

Collin’
s grip on my hand tightens to the point of pain, but thankfully he says nothing. I don’t want pity right now and he knows it. I know I’m taking a major risk divulging all of my secrets, but whatever I say, I know he’ll be there for me. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.

“After we, uh, you know…” I know I’
m red in the face, but that day is a sore subject matter in more ways than one. Who knew that having sex would have been so painful? Surely not me, because if I had I’d have decided against popping my cherry…ever.

“
I went back home to get my backpack and saw them in the kitchen. He was drunk – surprise, surprise – and had her on the floor, his hands around her neck, demanding to know where I was. She refused to say anything so he shook her, banged her head on the floor a few times and kicked her across the floor. He kicked her again and told her to get up but she wouldn’t…couldn’t. That’s when he realized what he’d done. He’d killed her. He killed her because of me.” I am sobbing now. That day is still the worst day of my life.

“No, baby,” Collin contends. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“No–”

“Listen to me, South.”
He grabs the back of my neck and pulls me closer so that we’re nose to nose.

“
It. Is.
Not
. Your. Fault,” he insists earnestly. “Your father was an evil son-of-a-bitch who would’ve killed you too, baby. It had nothing to do with you. It might have been an accident, killing your mom, but it was only a matter of time before he did you both in. Baby…” He sighs, closes his eyes and reopens them. “It’s not your fault.”

He’s so fucking right. I’
ve been blaming myself for my mom’s death for so long; I failed to realize that it was probably only a matter of time before he’d have killed me too. I nod my head and he leans in and kisses away the tears on my cheek, before placing his lips gently on mine and urging me to continue.

Taking a
deep, steadying breath, I do. “After realizing that he’d killed her, the monster fell to his knees and had the audacity to shed a tear for her. Where were those tears when he was hurting us?”

Collin strokes the tears from my face that keep falling and wipes my nose with the slee
ve of his white linen shirt. He’s such a sweetheart. God, I love this man.

“
When he reached for his gun, my only thought was that he was coming after me. He was gonna kill me. It was still dark but coming up on dusk, so I just took off. I never stopped running, even when I heard the single gunshot. I didn’t stop until I reached the train tracks. I calmed my raging heart beat and gathered myself enough to cross over the tracks and over to the bus station.

“
When my mom gave me the instructions to go, she also gave me two letters – one for my aunt and one to give to the conductor when I purchased my ticket. She promised that she’d meet up with me at Aunt Addy’s, but she lied. No…she just didn’t make it.”

I close my eyes from the pain of it, from the pai
n of losing her, and press on. “I had no idea how I was going to get there without money. My mother didn’t have a dime to her name because my Dad didn’t give her a cent. He was cruel, but he was also smart. He knew that if he gave her money that it would’ve been a matter of time before she saved up enough and got us out of there, away from him. And that’s the same reason he didn’t give me lunch money either. He always made sure mom packed my lunch because we were
never
leaving him.”

The cruelty of the man knew no bounds. He got off on our suffering.

“My mom told me to borrow the money from Connor, but I knew Connor didn't have that much. I was the guy’s best friend and I knew he spent any money he had on comic books and wood that he used to build his miniature houses. So, my next bet was you.”

Collin give
s me a hard stare and I know he’s probably thinking that I used him. In a way, I did, but nothing about that night had been a mistake. I don’t regret seducing him, and I don’t regret giving myself to him. It was a last hurrah, if you will.

“
I knew you were saving that money to buy yourself a car. And I knew that was the money you’d made that week from helping out Mr. Jenkins at his stables,” I admit. Heck, he had even talked to me about his plans and about working with Mr. Jenkins. “But, I had to get out of there. Sleeping with you was a bonus, Collin, and I don’t regret giving myself to you. Neither do I regret stealing from you.”

I reach behind me to my bedside draw
er and pull out the envelope that I’ve had with me for five years. This envelope has a small piece of paper in it along with some money. I hand it to Collin.

“
I wrote that letter five years ago the minute I made back the money I stole from you,” I tell him.

He opens the envelope and his eyes widen, but his fingers dip past the cash and pull out the paper that has just five sentences on it. I know the exact words on that paper and as he opens the folded paper and reads it, I recite the words in my mind.

I’m safe, please don’t worry about me.

I’m sorry I stole from you, here’
s your money back.

I miss you.

I love you and have been in love with you all these years.

Please forgive me.

Back then I didn’t know how to express all I had been feeling. Telling him everything as I’m doing now was out of the question. I felt it safer to write succinct sentences so I didn’t feel compelled to pour my heart out to him.

I was scared. Scared of mailing that letter. Not because I was scared that someone would steal the money, but because of the words I had written. I was laying my feelin
gs out for him. What if he didn’t care about me the same way I did him? What if he laughed at what he thought was a mere schoolgirl crush? What if he was mad at me? What if he didn’t write back?