She was silent, staring into the open drawer at the shirts she’d just placed inside. Jesus … I knew I couldn’t begin to know what it was like to be her. To be a victim in this way. To be hurt repeatedly, physically … mentally. To be used and broken. I couldn’t begin to understand what it was like for her, and I wouldn’t pretend to. But what I wanted was to help. To protect her, to save her. And how the hell was I supposed to do that when she wouldn’t try to protect herself?
“You were going to kill him,” she finally whispered.
“Yes.” I nodded to her back.
“You weren’t going to think twice. You were just going to do it.”
“Yes.”
She turned around then, revealing her tearful eyes to me for the second time that day. “And the cops would’ve arrested you. They would’ve taken you away from me.”
My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach as I blinked and turned away. “They could’ve said it was self-defense. It could’ve—”
“Okay. Maybe. But then what? Even if Seth wasn’t around anymore, you don’t think word would’ve gotten back to his friends? You don’t think Levi wouldn’t find out? God, Soldier, why do you think I’ve never said something before?”
My jaw shifted. “I—”
“Because I’ve always been scared of what would happen to us. And now, with you …” She huffed and ran a hand over her face. “You didn’t want them knowing where you were, but guess what. They do now. And if you weren’t here? Nobody would be here to keep us safe.”
I was flabbergasted and stunned. Because, fuck, she had a point. It wasn’t a great one. I still felt she should’ve pressed charges and gotten a restraining order, but I understood now why she hadn’t.
It wasn’t just that she was afraid of what might happen to her.
She was afraid of what might happen to me.
“Ray …” I smoothed my hand over my hair and shook my head. “Rain … I—”
“I love you,” she said abruptly, sure and sincere. “That’s what I wanted to say this morning when I only told you I really liked you. I love you, Soldier. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone else … apart from Noah. And I love that you would’ve committed the worst crime in the world to protect us. I love that you want to see him go away and never ever, ever come back. I love you so much for that and for everything else you’ve done for us. But I need you here more than I need him gone.”
My mouth was dry with the revelation of her words passing round and round and round in my head.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
When the fuck was the last time someone had told me they loved me?
It was so long ago that I couldn’t remember who had said it or when. And now, I didn’t know what to do, what to say. How to appropriately react without making a complete ass of myself.
“Um …” I cleared my throat and rubbed at a random spot above my eyebrow. “Wow. I …”
“I don’t need you to say it back,” she said, cutting me off. “I just want you to understand why I keep avoiding the police. Because I’m scared of what steps Seth will take next, never mind what his friends would do if he were thrown in jail.”
I had to laugh at that while my heart begged me to find a way to tell her how I felt too.
“You know, maybe they wouldn’t care,” I said, a feeble attempt at lightening the mood. “They might even be thrilled to get rid of that hotheaded asshole.”
“Maybe,” she said, quietly turning back to the open drawer to finish putting away her things. “But I don’t think I care to find out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GRAMPA’S SECRET
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would one day be living with a girlfriend and acting as a father to her son, I would’ve laughed in their face and told them they were insane.
Because what woman in her right mind would look at me—a six-foot-seven felon with a scarred face and shitty tattoos—and think, Yeah, that’s the guy I wanna build a home with?
Yet there I was. Flipping burgers and turning hot dogs on a hot day in June with Noah at my side while Ray plucked a few stray weeds from the garden full of baby cucumber, strawberry, and of course, tomato plants. A neighbor from the community—a younger woman named Julia—rode by on her bike and waved, wishing us a good night, and we waved back, wearing smiles and smacking at the mosquitoes that relentlessly bit at whatever skin they could stick themselves into. Like a real, normal family.
Despite the lingering threat of the bogeyman hanging over our heads, it was starting to feel like we actually were.
“So, your birthday’s coming up,” I said to Noah as he flipped a burger, just as I’d shown him.
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. Like it wasn’t a big deal that he was turning thirteen.
All things considered, he was still somewhat better off than I had been when I was thirteen. And that, to me, was a big deal.
“What do you wanna do?”
He glanced up at me like I had lost all my marbles somewhere. “What do you mean?”
“How do you wanna celebrate?”
Noah wrinkled his nose and scratched at a fresh mosquito bite. “I dunno …”
“I mean, do you wanna have a party or something? Or do you just wanna chill out with us and have dinner? Or …”
He sniffed a laugh. “Whatever. I dunno.”
Since the attack in the house next door, Noah had been quiet, more reserved. I knew he was confused about his mom’s choices to not press charges. I knew he was scared. But with the way he’d been hanging around me the past few weeks since that day, even to the point of coming to work with me every day he didn’t have school, I also knew he felt better when I was around.
I was even starting to feel a little grateful that I hadn’t snapped that asshole’s neck.
But while I respected that Noah had to handle things in his own way—which included seeing a therapist once a week—I was worried that kid I’d met all those months ago would be lost in his head somewhere. I was worried he’d fade away, just as I had. Forced to harden to accommodate for the circumstances he had been born into. And I needed him to know he didn’t have to. If he had any choice in that, he didn’t have to do a damn thing as long as I was around.
“Well, I mean, we could go fishing, if you want to,” I suggested, reminding him of something he’d wanted to do badly before the attack.
A small glimmer of excitement sparked in his eye as he looked up at me. “Yeah, maybe we could do that.”
“That would be fun.”
He nodded. “And, I mean, if you want to, maybe we could have pizza or something. Like, on my birthday.”
“So, you don’t wanna go fishing on your birthday?”
“Well, we can, but …” He shrugged and turned a sizzling hot dog. “I kinda like the idea of having a party too.”
“Yeah,” I said, catching his mom’s eye and the small, affectionate smile that had begun to form on her beautiful face, “I do too.”
***
And so, despite the dark Seth-shaped cloud that hung over our heads, we threw together a little impromptu birthday party for Noah. We invited his grandparents and aunt Stormy, Harry and his wife, and a few kids from Noah’s class. It wasn’t a big gathering of people, but they all fit perfectly in the place we now called home.