next few minutes, the only sound to breach the silence was the sound of water moving, the standoff fraught with tension.
“Are we going to talk about it?” he finally said in a quiet voice.
Sighing, I swallowed down the embarrassment and pushed aside the shame. “What do you want to know?”
“Who did that to you?” His voice was underscored with so much palpable fury I debated how much to tell him.
I’d never talked about it with anyone other than my therapist for a number of reasons. Most of which were all on me. The number one reason: I didn’t want to be perceived as weak, as a “survivor.”
I didn’t survive anything. I thrived despite my history.
“My grandfather…my grandmother’s weapon of choice was a solid wooden spoon she liked to use on my knuckles when I was really young––”
“How young?” The words sounded like they’d been pushed through a grinder. The tendons on the side of his neck were painfully taut. I wanted to kiss him there, kiss away the pain and turn it into pleasure. Let him give me some in return.
“Five…around five. He started in with the broken fishing rod when I was ten. Only the tops of my legs so no one would see. Didn’t want anybody at church talking. You know––because that was important.”
“Sick fucks. Was that how they justified it?”
“No. I’ve met plenty of religious fanatics and some were perfectly nice people. My grandparents hid behind religion, but they were standard-issue abusers. Told me repeatedly it was for my own good.”
“And your parents?”
“They were teenagers. My mom got pregnant at sixteen. Dad was seventeen. They ran away and were killed in a car accident in Oregon––outside of Portland. I was three at the time and somehow survived. My grandparents on my dad’s side didn’t want me so Bill and Claire Evans took me in. Tried to fix all the ways they went wrong with my mother.”
Scott reached into the tub and fished out my hand. I gave it to him willingly. Later, I would see it for what it was, his tender heart offering to share the pain. In the moment, however, all I knew was that it felt good to tell him. We’re not built to be alone. We need to connect. We’re designed to seek common ground, to hold each other up, to nurture one another. And he did that for me instinctually.
Holding it gently, he scrutinized the scars on my knuckles, where the skin was paler than the rest of my hand.
“Lasers. Bleaching cream. Alpha hydroxy. Lanolin cream…I’ve tried it all.”
“Are they dead? Because if they’re not––”
“He’s been dead for ten years. She died two months ago.”
He turned back around, facing the wall. “How can you be so cool about it?”
That induced a cynical smile. He was angry on my behalf and wanted me to be angry too. But I couldn’t meet him there. Anger hadn’t served me. It had only managed to keep me closed off. My past was more barren than not, the rest was littered with the carcasses of so-called relationships that never lasted more than three months––if that.
“I’ve been processing it all my life, Scott. I’ve got a head start.” He got quiet, head bowed, and I began feeling increasingly uncomfortable, the water turning cold, telling me I’d overstayed my welcome. Maybe I’d said too much. Maybe he’d see me as weak now. My mind went straight to all the negative stuff. “I don’t want your pity, Scott.”
That was the last thing I wanted or needed.
“You don’t have it,” he said softly. “You have my admiration.”
Chapter Sixteen
Scott
“Can you please leave?” Laurel glared at me from above the rim of her reading glasses. “You’re being very annoying, Scott. Hey, I got an idea––why don’t you go home and annoy your wife?”
Laurel went back to doing payroll.
A few days after Sydney’s confession and I still hadn’t recovered. That and her brush with death. Rationally, I knew she was out of danger, but I couldn’t get the rest of me to accept it. I couldn’t silence the voice that said it was my fault she’d almost been killed. That I’d been seconds from losing her because I’d been, once again, caught up in my own bullshit.
Consequently, I’d been cutting my workday shorter and shorter since the accident––anxious to get home and see for myself that she was alright––when what I really wanted to do was stay home altogether. But, no, she’d demanded that I not hover, so I’d physically gone back to work