Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
The funny thing was, Rory used to wish he could be more like him. He could put on a smile and act like he didn’t care—but he’d never been able to pull off the straight macho act. It would have saved him so much grief with his father if he could have.
No more need for lying Rory. Not anymore. Not if he was doing this for real. Younger thinks you’re fearless. He lifted his head to look at David. Where would he even begin?
“There’s something you and Rig should read.”
***
Rory had called him a hero. David touched the words again, reliving one of their earliest moments…the moment when Rory Finn knew he’d love David Mills for the rest of his life—and that he’d never risk losing him by sharing that information.
David clung to the sweet, seventeen-year-old’s declaration, because the rest of the journals were almost too horrifying to endure. They painted the picture of an outwardly handsome and well-respected police chief whose children had been held hostage by his impossible expectations and ever-increasing bitterness. A man who’d used his youngest son as a verbal, and sometimes physical, punching bag. A man who’d convinced a little boy that he was so bad he’d killed his mother, and so flawed that no one could ever love him.
The Rory in this journal had already learned more survival skills than David would ever know. Like how to hide his emotional hurt and his occasional bruises from his brothers by being obnoxious. He’d say something shocking or do something to irritate them and they’d leave him alone more often than they would if he seemed withdrawn. In school he’d excelled at everything to put people off, because the more people you knew the less they knew you. It helped to camouflage his insecurities.
He’d literally written the book on emotional survival as an abused teen. A psychology professor might not have approved of his choices, but they’d sure as hell worked.
Rory’s last year of school, the year David had met him, he’d hardly gone home at all—couch surfing with Noah and Wyatt or visiting his uncle. But when he did, with no one as a buffer Sol was unrelenting in his disapproval.
Rory wrote that spending time with David had been his salvation. That their long talks and conversations about college had made him hopeful about the future, even knowing his romantic feelings would remain unrequited forever.
Not quite forever, Roar.
Rig stomped into the living room and sat down hard on the couch, tossing the other journal on the coffee table before burying his face in his hands.
David knew exactly how Rig was feeling. He’d read those same pages an hour ago and nearly lost his lunch.
Rory had only been sixteen and David had still been in Oregon, but that didn’t erase the ache that came with the knowledge that the man he loved had been violated by an adult against his will.
Worse, that his father had known, but hadn’t done anything about it.
It was a fellow man in blue that was known for working to keep teens off the streets. He’d been written up more than once for crossing the line to get his point across. At sixteen Rory had gotten drunk and had his first real kiss under the tree in their backyard. His father had found him and gone ballistic.
The next day he’d handed him over to be “straight scared”, as Rory put it. And he had been. David didn’t want to imagine the scene he’d spelled out in his journal.
When his father found him curled up in a ball in the bathroom, it was obvious what had happened. He’d put him in the shower, handed him the same liquor he’d gotten the belt for drinking and disappeared for two days.
After he came back he told Rory he was not allowed to talk about it with anyone, and that was the last time either of them ever did.
That had enraged David. His father was a big guy, but soft as a teddy bear. Still, if anyone had ever touched them? He’d seen his father transform into a grizzly to protect his family.
Sol had been the fucking police chief and he’d done nothing.
He rubbed Rig’s back gently. “Where is he?”
“Taking a nap.” Rig’s voice had an exhausted rasp to it. As if he hadn’t slept in days. “He said we didn’t have to read everything today. Or ever. I—” Rig yanked at his hair and sent a sad, lost glance in his direction. “How do you punish the dead?”
David had been wondering the same thing. “I think the best way to do that is to make sure the living are happy. Loved. Safe.”
Rig reached out and squeezed his hand. “I like that. I think we can handle that.”
David squeezed back. “You had a feeling, didn’t you? That it was something like this?”