Chapter 24 #2
His jaw clenches, and his lips press into a line. I don’t say anything, just wait for him. Having learned that long ago. The sound of the ticking clock fills the space until he sprinkler system outside whooshes on to water the hedgerow. The little droplets ping against the base of the window panes.
“Do you remember that lexicon we did when I was a kid?”
Lexicon. Linguistics. We did them all.
“The one about feelings?”
His head dips, a side glance at his friend, and I wonder if he’s embarrassed or ashamed of the tactics we had to start using in elementary school.
“I do, but are you sure you want Hollister to stay for that?” I glance at him. He straightens in his chair.
“Yeah, I can wait in the other room, if you—”
“No, stay. You know how fucked I am. It doesn’t matter.” His words are cutting and harsh, insulting to himself, and abandoning the agreement with his girlfriend to keep the profanity in check.
“Okay.”
Hollister settles back into his chair, looking very uncomfortable. As if he’s invading something private and sacred. It is, but if Dom wants him to hear, then I will follow his lead and support him.
“You remember the rules, right?” His gaze pins me to my chair. Rules around feelings. It was the only way we could operate after things took a turn for the worse.
I lick my lips and exhale. “I do.”
“Good.”
He looks up at the ceiling, his breath a bit heavy for this exercise. My anxiety has gone down by how calm this is starting, but feelings have a way of exploding and leaving messes all over people to clean up. Usually, his mess is left for me to deal with, remaining calm and handling the aftermath.
“I feel pain in my head.”
This is how we always started. I try not to get misty-eyed when he looks at me. I blink rapidly to get a hold of myself. His voice is almost robotic. Removing all bitterness and venom, to focus on the feelings and label them as he used to. I breathe in, keeping my voice even.
“I feel pain in my heart.”
Naming the thing so it doesn’t name you. I never understood that statement, but this helped Dominic, and that’s all that mattered. His hands grip his knees. His eyes flick to me, and I see it. The smallest crack in his stoic shell. The boy I raised. Still inside. Still hurting.
“I feel pressure in my chest.”
“I feel heat in my face.”
“I feel like I’m shaking even when I’m not.”
“I feel guilt in my stomach.”
Our voices overlap. A dance, in matching tempo and matching weight. He swallows hard, voice rasping.
“I feel anger in my fists. I feel confusion in my brain. I feel betrayal from you in my back.”
It’s new.
That last one.
It lands like a sucker punch. I nod slowly, repressing my emotion so his can escape. It’s hard on me. It takes a toll, but it opens the door to more communication.
“I feel sadness in my spine. I feel grief in my ribs. I feel longing in my hands.”
He stares at me. That sharp, analytical gaze I know so well. Reading me like a neurochemistry book. The fragile thread of trust hangs delicately between us as we knit our relationship back together.
“I feel fear in my legs because I think I’m gonna run.”
I take a breath.
“I feel courage in mine. Because I’m not.”
A long silence stretches between us. Hollister’s still frozen in place. His mouth parts. His eyes widen. As if he blinks or even moves, he might break the spell.
Dominic tips his chin down. His voice, when it comes again, is barely audible.
“I feel hurt when I love.”
My hand curls over the edge of the chair, crushing the wood under my grip. Like Hollister, I don’t dare move. Scarcely breathe. He doesn’t look up again, but he doesn’t need to. That statement says everything.
“I feel sorrow for everything.”
His head darts up, fast and sharp. I freeze, wondering if I ruined it. Wondering if I broke one of the many rules around this lexicon. My mind races through the past, trying to recall the exact therapist’s office we had to go to for this.
“Do you mean that? You’re not just saying that as a part of the lexicon?”
The plea in his voice and the angst on his face say it all. That beautiful, brilliant boy surges forward. Past years of bitterness chiseled from the hardness of life and its disappointments.
“I do.”
“What part? What brings you sorrow?”
He moves forward, almost out of his seat, and is hanging on every word, relinquishing his power to me. I could wield a sword that could forge our relationship in steel forever. Or if I say the wrong thing, I could sever it for good.
“Not loving you like I should have,” I start slowly.
My mind flashes between the grown man with a shadowy beard who curses far too much and the little boy who would sit at my feet when I got ready for charity events, counting the hours we would be apart.
“How should you have loved me?”
I sigh, lips pressed together, tears shimmering in my lower lids.
“With everything. Despite everything. I was so young, I didn’t know how to take care of a baby.”
Tears careen down my cheeks, and Hollister moves to give me a handkerchief from his pocket. His hand crosses in front of Dom’s face, who barely flinches. I dab my cheeks and continue.
“But you looked just like me. Dark hair, dark eyes, and I thought this was my own little baby. Someone I could love and protect, no matter what. But life got in the way. Your father, his expectations, my failures. I let them all come between us. I let them define how I loved you, and that was wrong. I should have loved you fiercely, with all my heart, despite the chaos around us.”
A sob escapes my throat as I recall the early days of his life. How overwhelmed I was. How I looked to my ex for help, but he gave none. Only emotional manipulation.
“But I didn’t know how. I didn’t have the tools, the wisdom, or the support. I was drowning, and I took you down with me.”
Dominic’s eyes glisten, and he clears his throat. Shaking his head as if in my head, traveling down the memories with me.
“I thought I finally had everything figured out. Had something that worked for us. Then your sister came along, and the overwhelm started all over again. Even with help, I had a hard time managing both of you. She demanded as much time as you did. As you got older, it only got worse. This rivalry formed. Everyone I knew said it was a silly thing. But since I’m an only child, I didn’t understand it. Couldn’t handle it.”
The tension seems so stifling, absolutely sucking the life out of the room. Taking all three of us down into that darkness. I look at Hollister, wanting to say I’m sorry for all this, but his eyes are on Dom, tears streaming down his face.
“That’s when the bullshit started.”
The harshness is back.
Raw, pure pain exposed to the naked truth. I wouldn’t blame him for hating me. I’ve hated myself for years over how everything transpired.
“Yes. I sought help for myself. I couldn’t get out of bed. Violette was off with her nanny, but you wouldn’t go with yours. You’d sit and cry at my bedroom door, wailing for me.”
“You shut me out.”
His rasp from smoking is thick with unspoken heartbreak. His heart bleeds from wounds I caused years ago. Not healed, not gushing open, but deep and infected.
I did this.
Not the ex. Not his sister. Me. I carved crevices so vast and intricate that he’s become this harsh and hardened version of himself to survive me. The guilt and knowing are enough to make me physically sick.
Those were dark days for me too. I hated myself. Hated my life. Couldn’t bear the burden of that life and house anymore. Barrettmoor was a prison, and I was the prisoner. My children were the wardens back then.
“I did. I had nothing to give. I wasn’t caring for you properly. I was so lost. So caught up in my despair that I had to get help or the ex was going to take you children away from me. I took you to every specialist I could find to fix me and fix you. So he would love us. Stay with us.”
“That fucking worthless sack of shit.”
Dom jumps to his feet, the room seeming to shake under his rage. Redirected so quickly and so easily. He’s pacing, hand ripping at his hair, seeming to want to rip it from his scalp.
His boots strike the floor in heavy thuds. Like each step is a desperate attempt to stomp out a memory that won’t die. His breath grows shallow. Rage radiates off him, but beneath it is barely concealed betrayal and pain.
“I used to wish he’d hit me,” he spits out, spinning back to face us. “At least then it would’ve made sense. At least then I could’ve hated him for something real. Not just the way he made me feel, like I was a fucking experiment he never signed up for. Never fucking wanted.”
His hands claw the back of his neck. A shudder runs through his whole body. He bends slightly at the waist, hands on his thighs, breath ragged. Hollister moves like he might stand, but I stop him with my hand in the air.
This isn’t a moment to interrupt.
Another tactic learned in therapy. Never interrupt. Let him get it all out, or he’ll stuff it back in and explode later.
“I felt defective, you know?” Dominic’s voice is breaking at the edges.
Tears slide down his face and drip on the rug.
“Like I came out of the womb wrong. Too smart, too much, too intense. And no one, not you, not him, and not the whole fucking army of therapists ever just said I was okay. That I was enough. That I was loved.”
The last is a desperate whisper.
I press a hand over my mouth, but the sound that escapes is part sob, part gasp.
All these years, and I still feel completely helpless and unworthy of him.
More tears flow, blinding and hot, but I don’t wipe them away.
I want them to fall. I want to feel every drop because I deserve to feel like the horrible mother I am.
The devastation.