The Dark Light of Day (14 page)

“I’ve answered this one for you before. Because there are some dangerous people out there.”

“Yeah. But you’ve never said if you were one of them or not.”

“What if I am?” he asked. I had the feeling that he was
completely serious. “Would it matter?”

Would it matter?

I wasn’t sure. “I’ll have to think about that one.”

Jake grabbed another beer from the fridge. “Now we can eat!
What’ll it be—steak or pasta?”

“Steak,” I said. “The answer to that question is always steak.”

“Good answer. I love a girl with an appetite.” He went about
prepping for dinner, but his words hung heavy in my mind.
I love a girl with an appetite.
Who did he see me as? A girl he was caring for, or a friend he was helping out?

Could I be something more to him?

Of course, I couldn’t be
someone more
. I was barely able to think about that kind of relationship, let alone be in one. Besides, Jake was
the kind of guy that girls threw themselves at for a chance to be
touched by him.

Why would he ever want one who was only capable of running from that?

While Jake cooked and plated the most beautiful steak and
roasted asparagus I’d ever seen, I thought about the game of secrets we were playing.

As much as it was meant for us to learn about each other, it
seemed as if the only thing it really did was expose which secrets we fully intended to keep.

A LOUD CRASH WOKE ME.
The little blue digital clock on the nightstand read two-fourteen a.m. I sat up straight, my heart racing.

What was that?

My eyes strained as I tried to see through the dark. The door
knob slowly screeched as someone turned it from the kitchen side of the door. I pulled the covers up to my chin. I wanted to ask who was there, but when I opened my mouth the words caught in my throat.
There was something too familiar about the entire situation. It
stopped me in my tracks. The knob began to jiggle violently when whoever it
was out there realized it was locked. They weren’t too happy about
it.

Please be Jake. Please be Jake.

I froze. I felt like I was watching a movie when the bedroom
door
sprang open, and pieces of wood flew from the hinges. The dark
outline of a man appeared in the shadows.

“There you are, you little shit!” The deep voice was slurred and filled with bitterness. “You think you can come back here and hide from me, do you? You think I wouldn’t know where you were?”

The smell of whiskey hit my nose right before the man lunged forward and wrapped his massive hand around my arm, squeezing
tight enough to cut off circulation to my fingers. My entire arm
burned at the sensation of his touch, like he had doused me with gasoline and set fire to it. I tried to pull away, but he was too strong. His powerful grip held me still. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t catch my breath. It was so dark I didn’t even see his fist flying toward my face.
A shattering pain rippled across my right cheek, my jaw bone
vibrated from the blow.

Just as quickly as the beating had started, it ended. The man flew
off me like he was attached to a rope that had been yanked backward. He crashed into the closet, knocking both doors from their hinges. They snapped in half as he landed inside, a tangle in the clothes and hangers.

Moonlight shone through the window, highlighting the pure rage on Jake’s face as he stood over the man in the closet. His
usually-blue eyes were as dark as the surrounding night. He wore only a pair of black draw-string sweat pants. His chest and feet were bare.

He knelt next to the man crumpled in the closet, placing his
hand behind his neck and forcing him to look in my direction. “Look at
her, old man!” Jake commanded. I held the sheets up around my
chest, one hand clutching my cheek. It throbbed in time with my racing pulse. “Does that look like me, Frank? Does she look like someone you can get drunk and beat up on, you stupid old man?”

A look of horror crossed the old man’s face. His shoulders
slumped
as he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I thought…” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.” He dropped his face in his hands and
started to cry.

“Are you sorry for beating on her, or are you just sorry it wasn’t me? Cause either way, your apology don’t make shit better. What a piece of shit you are, coming here in the middle of the night, tanked off your ass. What part of this seemed like a good idea to you, you stupid fuck? You could have
killed
her!” Jake pulled his pistol from
the back of his sweats and held the barrel to the old man’s temple. He
leaned down close and looked the old man in the eyes. “I'm here because you have fucked up everything Mom worked for her entire life.”

Mom?

“I’m here so the house she loved, the home you spend your time
rotting in, doesn’t end up with the tax collector, and Reggie and Bo
don’t end up on the fucking unemployment line. Because you sure
as
shit don’t seem to give a fuck about anything but drinking whiskey
and wallowing in your own shit.” He cocked the gun.

My breath hitched.

This man was Jake’s dad...

The old man kept his eyes closed while Jake continued through gritted teeth. “While I’m in town, you are never to come here again, and if you so much as lay a fucking finger on Abby, I will blow your motherfucking head off.” As he spoke the last words, he nudged the gun against the old man’s temple, pushing his head against the wall
of the closet. “You’re lucky I don’t just end you now, you sorry
bastard.”

“Just kill me, then!” The old man cried. “Just fucking kill me, boy!” His face reddened, strings of saliva connected his top and
bottom teeth.

Jake yanked the old man up by the back of his shirt. “Not today,
old man,“ he said. Then he shoved him stumbling toward the hall and out of the room. The front door squealed open, then slammed
shut.

Once again, there was only silence.

Some people threaten others in the heat of the moment, or as a
reaction to an argument. I’ve heard boys fist-fighting in school
threaten
to kill each other while they traded blows in the parking lot after class. I know what that sounds like. But there was something different about Jake’s threats to his father, and it was more than just
the obvious gun pointed at his head. This hadn’t sounded like the random anger of
someone caught up in the heat of a moment, or the idle ravings of someone who had no intentions of following through on them.
Jake’s words were solid descriptions of what was to come if the old man didn’t stay away. They weren’t threats at all.

They were promises.

***

Sleep was impossible after that. Not only was my mind racing, but my cheek exploded in pain every time I turned on my side. The pillow might as well have been stuffed with concrete.

The silence was interrupted when Jake came back into the apartment. The front door squeaked. Keys fell onto the coffee table. I
could tell he
was trying to be quiet, but even the cricket outside the window
sounded like he was playing his song on a trombone.

Jake came into the room. As soon as he looked at me he cursed.
“Shit.” He turned back around, disappearing down the hall, and I
heard
him fiddling around in the kitchen. Drawers slammed shut, the
contents
rolling and rattling as he searched for what he needed. Then, he
appeared again holding a plastic sandwich bag filled with ice. He sat next to me and reached out to place the ice pack on my cheek. I grabbed it from him before he could make contact.

“I got it,” I assured him. “Thanks.” I placed the ice pack against my face, cringing at the sting of the cold.

“Bee, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think he would ever come here, let
alone in the middle of the fucking night. Nobody’s seen him in
almost a
year. I don’t even know how he knew I was here.” He leaned in
closer. “Are you okay?” There was hurt and concern in his voice.

“I’m fine,” I said. And I was. I was perfectly fine, because I was numb. Numb people can’t be anything other than fine.

“It’s all my fault,” he told me. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went out on the patio for a smoke. I didn’t even hear him come in.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“I threw him in the bed of his truck and drove him home. He
was passed out when we got there so I unloaded him in the front yard. He was lucky I didn't toss him in the canal. I walked back.”

“Is that why you and your dad don’t get along? He drinks and beats up on you?”

“Among other things.”

“Like what?”

He took a deep breath. “The night I decided to leave town he
tried to kill me. Told me that it was me who was supposed to die instead of my brother and he was just righting a wrong. He was so drunk, but he meant what he said. He took a swing at me with an ax, and
when he missed I came pretty close to killing him with it myself.
Then, I
took off, and I haven’t seen him since. Until tonight, that is.” He reached out to touch my cheek. It had started to swell. I flinched,
turning away
from him. He frowned and withdrew his hand. “Bee, how come I
can’t touch you?”

“Because you can’t.” It was the truth. My truth.

He couldn’t, because I wouldn’t let him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, concern in his eyes.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be like this! There is no way you can be fine
right now!” Jake smoothed his hand over his goatee. “Someone
bursts in here in the middle of the night and attacks you, and you’re just fine? Cause I’ll tell ya, I’m not fine!”

“Calm the hell down! I’m okay, really. I promise.”

“Okay is worse than fine. For fuck’s sake, I would rather you
scream, and yell, and cry, and blame me!” Suddenly, he was quiet. “I just...I just want to hold, and comfort you.” He made a move toward me, but this time I refrained from flinching.

As long as he didn’t touch me, he couldn’t break me.

“Why do you want those things from me? It doesn’t change anything. I’m okay because I choose to be okay.”

I'd been saying it my whole life. It was all I knew.

“No!” Jake shouted. He jumped off the bed and started pacing the room. “No, you’re not
okay
because
you choose to be
—you just
think
you're okay because you choose to avoid the situation. You’re not honest about your feelings, and that’s
not okay
at all!”

He reached for me, and I scurried to the other side of the bed as if he were wielding a knife instead of offering comfort.

“No,” I screamed. My heart was racing. I didn’t want to feel the burn. I didn’t want to be pulled down into a place I didn’t know if I could ever climb out of.

I didn’t want to feel.

“Just let me hold you, Bee.”

“No. Fuck you. Leave me alone!”

“Why don’t you want me to touch you?” he asked again, this
time louder, his voice laced with anger.

“Why do you
want
to touch me? I’m nothing. I’m no one.” My voice was shaky. I was on the verge of my first real tears since I was a child, and I was hell bent on not letting them come.

“Why do I want to touch you? Are you fucking kidding me right now? I want to help you. I want to hold you. I want to make it all okay for you. I want to fucking touch you because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, and I can’t imagine never being able
to hold your hand or kiss you.” I thought that was everything, but
then he added, “And yes—I want to
fuck
you, too, like I’ve never wanted anything in my whole life.”

Why would he want me?

Sincerity played behind his eyes, the same eyes that had held so
much hatred for his father no more than an hour earlier. “You’re not
nothing
. Don’t ever fucking say that again, because you’re
everything
.” He said it again, quietly this time, “You’re fucking
everything
, Bee.”

It was all I ever wanted and didn’t want to hear at the same time.
We hardly even knew each other. We couldn’t have a real
relationship. I could never give him what he needed or wanted, and there was no way in hell he was ever going to be able to make things okay for me. He didn’t even know what he’d be trying to make okay.

Who the fuck did he think he was?

“How?” I snapped at him. “How the fuck are you going to
make it
all okay for me? Huh? Are you going to travel back in time and make my parents treat me like I'm worth more than the neighborhood dog? Are you going to tell them to take me to school
instead of keeping me home to torture me? Are you going to read to me and teach me how
to cook? Are you going to close my bedroom door when they're
having a fuck-party in the middle of the goddamned living room? Is that what you’re going to do, Jake?”

He stayed silent.

“You think a hug is going to heal me? You can’t help me.
Nobody
can help me! I help myself. I’m okay, because I fucking want to be okay! I don’t want to be touched, because I don’t want all the shit that comes with it.” The next part spilled out of me before I could
reconsider. “It burns, okay? Is that what you want to hear? It burns down into my bones, and it physically fucking hurts me to be touched!”

I sank from the bed onto the floor so I didn’t have to see his
reaction to my confession.