snacks.” Dash heaved a sigh and played absently with a button on Jensen’s shirt.
“I wasn’t big, and at school I’d spend more time reading than anything else. Football, sports in general, I detested with a passion. We were having a craft fair at school, and Gran was teaching me how to knit. I was so proud of the scarf I was making, and I was sitting upstairs knitting when Gran brought him up to see me.” Dash was silent for so long, Jensen wondered if he was going to continue.
“He got really angry. Crazy angry. He said Gran wasn’t raising a girl and she was ruining me. He didn’t give me a chance to even go home and pack my things, just hauled me to my feet. Gran was trying to calm him down. Said we could all go back to hers for something to eat, and that I could show him my report card which showed how well I was doing.” Dash was breaking Jensen’s heart. He didn’t want to hush him because he didn’t want to stop his story. Dash needed to talk, and Jensen wondered how many—if any—opportunities he had gotten to tell this story.
Very gently, because it felt right, Jensen bent and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Dash stilled for a moment but then seemed to shuffle in even closer to him.
“I was numb by the time we got to his house. He lived in Rochester, and I used to get carsick.” Dash’s voice was barely a whisper. “It was never any big deal to Gran. We didn’t go on any long journeys anyway, but he made me just cover the seat next to me with my jacket. He had the air-conditioning up because of the smell, so I was freezing.”
“Ellie told me your gran called the cops.”
Dash nodded. “She did, and they came to see me, but she had no legal claim on me and he wasn’t hitting me or anything, so there was nothing they could do.”
“When did you get scared of the dark?”
“I always was a little scared, but no more than most kids I think, but Steven made it his mission to toughen me up. So, no lights. If he thought I was taking too long in the shower, he would just pull the breaker for upstairs. I wasn’t allowed a phone. Something that would have gotten better as I got older, became more and more of a problem because he wouldn’t leave it alone. School was a nightmare. My old school was small, but this was part of the same complex with the middle and high school, and I was terrified most of the time.” Dash shuddered, and Jensen kissed his hair again. “I didn’t know then, but he was drinking. One minute he’d be the life and soul of the party and we had a houseful of his friends, and the next he would lock me upstairs and not let me out for what seemed forever. Once it was two days.”
“What about school?” Jensen croaked and tried to swallow his anger down. Jensen didn’t want Dash thinking he was angry with him. Dash shrugged. “I had a bad attendance record because by this time I was having panic attacks, and they were convinced I was anorexic. He made a great show of taking me to therapists, but how could I tell them I just didn’t eat because I was afraid of the dark?”
Dash swallowed. “I ran away three times.”
“Good for you,” Jensen managed to reply although he didn’t know how when he just wanted to put his fist through something.
“The early ones were useless as you can imagine. I got barely three miles until I was picked up by a patrol car the first time, and the second because I was seen by one of his neighbors.”
“And they didn’t help you?” Jensen didn’t understand how anyone could let this happen.
“They didn’t believe me. He’d successfully convinced everyone I was ‘troubled,’ and he threatened if I ever ran to Gran’s he would get the police to charge her with kidnapping a minor.”
“And the third time?”
Dash nodded. “I was sixteen. It had taken me six months to plan, and it took me two days to hitchhike home. I had this crazy idea I could hide in the store, but when I saw her, I just walked into the shop in front of everyone.”
“And you were okay?”
“He turned up two days later when he missed me,” Dash said bitterly.
“But