Unconditional (The MacArthurs #2)

Preface

T he world around me was moving in such a way that I wondered if this was how kids in earthquake zones felt. The closet was so dark and the only light coming in was through the crack of the door. I could see her and knew she was trying to warn me, trying to tell me without words that I shouldn’t—no, I couldn’t— let my presence be known to the vicious woman grabbing her by her hair. My stomach had turned, lurched at the sound of the girl’s gasp, at the way it didn’t sound so surprised. She had been ready to hide me, ready to keep me away from the monster who was screaming so loud and so savagely that spit dripped from her mouth like an angry dog. Except when dogs are barking and growling like that, you can usually find their own fear in their eyes. When their teeth are bared and their hair is sticking up, telling us to be afraid of them, their eyes will tell you the truth.

That was not what I saw in the angry woman’s eyes as she told her daughter she wished she hadn’t been born. I saw hatred, cold and furious, in all of its pure awfulness as she reared a large fist back and sent it flying into the girl’s face. The girl went down, hitting the floor with a thud, but the woman didn’t move to check on her. Didn’t kneel down and scoop her up, didn’t see if she would be okay. Instead, she backed out of the room, slamming the thin door hard enough to rattle hinges on the closet.

My body felt paralyzed, unable to move from where I was curled on the floor of that puny closet. For several long moments, my heart felt like a rabbit’s when you pick them up for the first time; jack hammering in my chest like it was trying to escape my body. For the first time in my life, I understood why thriller books used phrases like ‘cold sweat’ because I was sure that it trickled down my spine. I was scared to move. Scared to crawl out of the closet or make any kind of noise in the now eerie silence of the small house. The calm after the storm. What if the evil woman came back? Would I be her next victim?

But looking to the girl, her body contorted awkwardly against the end of her mattress, I forced myself to be brave. Where the woman had not, I scooped her into my lap. She was lighter than me, even though she was taller, so it was easy. A big purple bruise was forming over her eye, swelling until it was enormous, and dark red blood dripped from her nose. I shook her, not sure how else to wake her, waiting for what felt like hours before her other eye fluttered open. I expected to see fear, heartache, or confusion at what the woman had done.

Instead there was only resignation and embarrassment, as if she could have somehow prevented the attack. As if she had expected it to happen. But I was confused because while my own parents had never been particularly sentimental or tender to any of us children, they had never once laid a hand to harm us. If nothing else, we were safe in our own home. Fed. Provided for. And now the girl was telling me she couldn’t go to the police. That the police would make things worse. She made me promise I wouldn’t either.

However, I went to my parents because surely, as living, breathing human beings who had children of their own, they would not stand to hear their daughter’s friend was being harmed. But instead of the fury and concern I’d hoped to find, their doe eyes, so full of love for one another, turned to me where they changed to exasperation. Words like dramatic , and intrusive and busybody were thrown at me and I couldn’t understand. How could two people who had the means to do something stand by and tell me it wasn’t their business? Years went by, and the girl’s bruises got worse, and still my parent’s looked to one another with adoration while they sent me on my way, telling me again to mind my own.

I wondered how a couple could love one another so deeply, so truly, and obsessively that they were able to turn a blind eye to the atrocities that happened around them. How anyone could.

It didn’t matter now because it felt like the fate of this girl was in my hands when nobody else would speak up for her. The counselors said they had the situation handled and the teachers told me the adults had it under control. I wanted to believe them, but how could I? And when the girl gave up, and all the adults had failed, I was left alone to know that in some ways I, too, had failed and I couldn’t ever, ever fail like that again.

I told my parents the fate of the girl I’d tried so hard to protect but received no sympathy. Only longwinded sighs and maybe a little confusion, like they’d been too caught up in each other to remember the countless occasions where I pleaded with them to please , act like parents. Please help this child. Then I was sent back on my way, back out of their bubble with silly words like, ‘you’ll make new friends,’ as if any new friends would bring the girl back.

But now I knew what I had to do. The only thing I could do to redeem myself after this horrible loss. I’d make myself into a soldier for the unloved, the battered, and the ignored. The girl would always be with me in my heart, and she would guide me to be better than every grown up who had passed her along like she wasn’t worth the time to save. Because if her parents couldn’t love her— wouldn’t love her—I would. And if my parents could only love each other, then I’d make my heart big enough for everyone else.