on their own isn’t easy to deal with—combined torture. When I was a kid, I could sense how bad the night was going to be as soon my dad got home. We had three options; he’d come home all smiles and praise my mom and brother, he’d come in and immediately start belittling, or he’d come in and sheer evil would roll off his tongue. The first I ignored, the last two I tried to shield CJ from.
“The problem with that was CJ wasn’t stupid, he found a way to play my dad. It’s like the two of them are co-dependent in their dysfunction. My dad is a textbook narcissist. He’s never wrong, he believes he is more important than anyone else, therefore the smartest, the best, and everyone around him should stroke his ego and give him proper credit. And when CJ was a teenager, he learned if he stroked Dad’s need and kissed his ass, Dad would mostly leave him alone. But if CJ idolized him, worshiped him, and crawled up Dad’s ass, then Dad not only stopped ripping into him, but returned the worship.
“So the cycle began and they became a team. I don’t know if it was something that CJ was born with, therefore destined to become a narcissist as well, or in a desperate attempt at self-preservation, CJ learned it. I don’t know if CJ truly hates me or if he says and does things he knows will impress my dad, even inwardly, so he stays in his good graces. There’s no way CJ could forget how bad it was when we were growing up. So part of me, albeit a tiny sliver, understands why my brother cuts me down.”
“Did he hit you?”
There was a wobble in Addy’s voice that made my muscles tighten and I forced them to relax before I answered, “No, baby, he didn’t use his fists. He found other ways to strike.”
“Your mom?”
The wobble turned into a tremble and I really didn’t fucking like what that tremor was saying. So I went gently but I still went for it.
“Did Keith take his hands to you?”
I watched her flinch, and the shutters slammed down before she responded.
“Why are you asking about him?”
Why? Christ, how could she ask that?
“Twice, I saw it. Once, when you thought I was telling you who you could be friends with and once when Bass wouldn’t let you go. While it’s uncool any man has a hold of you and you ask him to let you go and he doesn’t. But I was there—that time, I didn’t only see your reaction, baby, I felt it. And your reaction didn’t say uncool, it said scared as fuck. Now, you being in a room with your sisters close—me close—no way should you be scared. So, to me, what I felt coming from you, it screamed flashback.”
The shutters locked and her face closed down at the same time her body got tight.
Fucking, fucking, shit.
Motherfucker put his hands on her.
White-hot rage scored through me.
“Baby,” I whispered, uncaring it sounded as tortured as it did. Not giving two shits I wasn’t hiding my anger.
“He didn’t. Um. Not really. Not, um, like, punch me.”
Punch?
“Adalynn, I’m gonna say this as plain as I can—a man puts his hands on you in anger, no matter he balls up his fists, kicks, slaps, holds you down, grabs you, or any other matter it can happen, he’s wrong. Flat-out wrong.”
We were on our sides, lying close—so close, I couldn’t miss it but even if we were miles apart, I was looking for it so I wouldn’t have missed it. It was just that up close when it happened I didn’t just see it, I didn’t feel it, I absorbed it.
The lock she’d turned wasn’t strong enough to keep back what had been piling up behind it. Her green eyes flared, fear flashed, then wet pooled before it spilled over and ran down her cheek.
Then she delivered her blow.
“I can’t talk about it. Not that I don’t trust you to take it, I don’t trust myself to give it. I shoved it down into a dark place, so dark I can’t feel it. I’m afraid if I open the door it will explode all over the place and I’ll never get it back. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, Trey, it’s that I can’t.”
During this time, my muscles coiled tighter and tighter until I felt like I was going to snap.