Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 119680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“Not much has worked out in your favor, has it?”
“I try to enjoy the good things while they last, but this…” I shake my head. “The night before my mom fell, my dad and I got into it, which is obviously a pretty freaking regular occurrence. I told my mom I was at the library, but I was with BJ, and my dad saw me on the lake, which pissed him off because it meant I wasn’t home doing chores or whatever. But it got worse when he found my acceptance letter to college, and the money I’d saved for tuition. I’m trying to take more than one course at a time so I can complete my degree faster. I kept the money in a lockbox in my dresser. I planned to put it in my account when it was time to pay for classes. But he took it all, and my mom just…let him.”
His expression darkens, so I rush on, compelled to defend her. “I don’t blame her. She can’t take him on the way I can.”
His cheek tics. “What does that mean, ‘take him on the way I can’?”
I pick at a hangnail. “I think you know what it means.”
“Can you spell it out for me, so I’m sure we’re on the same page?”
I look away. “Sometimes he gets physical.”
“Physical how?”
“He’ll push her around. Or me. One time he went after her, and I’d been playing a lot of hockey—street and ice, lots of time slapping a puck around, and he’s…wiry. I stopped him before he could do any real damage.”
“How’d you manage that?” He’s so calm, his voice even and gently inquisitive. But there’s a tic in his right eye that gives away the undercurrent of rage. I appreciate it, even if I don’t need him to defend me.
“To be clear, I know that violence isn’t the answer, but he was hurting her, and I needed him to stop. So I knocked him out. With one punch.” I’d been so scared. Afraid he would do something we couldn’t come back from. Afraid I’d done just that. But he came around five minutes later. Washed down a couple of Tylenol with beer and went to the trailer park for a couple of days.
His jaw tics. “Seems like self-defense. Did it stop after that?”
“The physical stuff, yeah. But the other night when he took all my tuition money and found out I’d been lying, he got real angry and grabbed my mom’s arm. She might even have bruises. It was only a couple days ago.” It feels like a year has passed. I explain what happened, how I backed my dad into a corner to scare him, how I told him to take a drive and cool off, and how the next night my mom fell off the deck in the exact same spot. “I’m worried, though, because even if she does remember, she might still say it’s her fault—and not because she’s lying for him, but because she believes it’s true. They’ve been together since she was in high school. She had me when she was seventeen. Twenty years is a lot of time with someone telling you it’s always your fault. It’s hard not to believe it’s true, you know?” I bite the inside of my cheek and fight to keep my emotions locked down. “She’s conditioned to believe she’s the problem.” And I’m conditioned to protect her from him. To take the heat off her. To absorb the abuse. But I’m so damn tired.
“It doesn’t sound like much of a coincidence.” Logan rubs his chin, his frown deepening. “I think you probably already know this, but I’m going to lay it out for you anyway. Without a corroborating story from your mother or some proof, like a video or photos, it’ll be hard to prove he’s at fault. But what I can do is take the information you’ve given me and start building a case.”
I press my fingers to my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. “I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t remember, or worse, if she owns it.”
“Sometimes people have to find the bottom before they start looking for a way back to the surface,” Logan says softly.
“I don’t want the bottom to be a grave.” I dash away the stupid tears as they fall.
He pulls one of those little tissue packs from his pocket and hands it to me. “We’re going to do everything we can to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“But how?”
“You’re hooked up with families who have a lot of connections. One thing at a time, though.” His expression is full of empathy. “This hamster wheel your mom is stuck on, it doesn’t have to be yours too. I know you want to protect her, but who’s protecting you?”
“She doesn’t know how to get out.”