17 Meatball Bomber #4
When I finally broke free of him, I was hyperventilating.
He came after me again. My only hope was to get inside and shout for Spencer.
I couldn’t face Monty alone, no matter how many boxing lessons I’d gotten at home.
But before I got away, he punched me in the ribs.
He’d never done that before. I fell back on the stairs, struggling to breathe, terrified that more violence was coming. But when I looked up, he was gone.
My ribs ached. I grimaced as I stood, wondering if something was broken. When I lifted my shirt, I could see a huge red spot where he’d struck me that spread almost to my belly button. I only hoped it wouldn’t bruise.
At least I could forget Monty now, I thought.
He’d never dare come near me again after that.
I wondered if I should tell Spencer. If I did, my whole family would go after him to make him pay.
But what if they took it too far? I thought of the shotgun in the closet and decided it was better to keep this story to myself.
Anyway, I just wanted not to think about it.
Besides, I couldn’t just run to my family every time something bad happened to me.
I needed to learn to fight my own battles.
And I’d stuck up for myself, right? I wasn’t sure, but I decided to go inside, say nothing, rush to my room, and change my sweater.
I hoped that was the right choice. When my brothers asked what I’d been doing, I just told them I had to make a call.
They believed it. I flopped back on the sofa and petted Biscuit when he came over, grateful that he seemed to want to console me.
The next day, when I got up, the first thing I did was look at my ribs.
I saw a small purple circle surrounded by a much larger red one.
It didn’t hurt too bad, but the sight of it made me want to faint.
Then I tried to get dressed. Immediately, a sharp pain extended from my side all the way down my arm, and when I stretched out, it hurt every time my heart beat.
If getting hit once hurt this bad, what did boxers feel after a fight?
My sweater was torn, ruined. What else could happen?
I was starting to be thankful I only had another day there.
My plane was at eight, which meant my time with them was short, and I should try to take advantage of it.
I spent the morning with Mom and Dad, going to the mall—thank God, I didn’t see anyone this time—and then helped my brothers out in the workshop, or tried to.
Since I didn’t know the first thing about cars, all I could really do was change the radio station for them and wash my hands every time I touched something, because there was nothing in there that didn’t have grease, oil, and dirt on it.
Naturally, my brothers just complained that I was in their way.
Spencer went out for lunch with his girlfriend, and Steve and Sonny went off who knows where, so I hung out with my parents, washing up after we’d eaten. Looking out the window, I saw the back wall of the old tree house, and Mom told me no one had gone up there since I’d left.
“No one?”
“We didn’t want you to come back and have a freak-out over it,” Dad said.
I knew where he was coming from. My grandparents had built that tree house for my brothers and me, but I was the only one who ever used it.
They said it was kids’ stuff, and after that, I declared it mine.
The only person I’d ever allow inside was Nelle, and that was just one time because she spilled a soda on the rug up there and I decided she wasn’t responsible.
Oh, Nelle… It still hurt when I thought of what had happened.
I’d tried to reach her the whole time I’d been away.
Now I didn’t want to. I knew we’d have to talk again sometime about what had happened.
But not now. Just dealing with Monty had been enough for me.
I walked outside, with Biscuit circling me at my feet.
As I started climbing the ladder, he looked up at me curiously.
My head popped up through the trapdoor and I saw the dusty interior of my little cabin.
I hadn’t been up there since I started going out with Monty. It was weird, almost like I’d forgotten the real me once our relationship started. Why hadn’t I realized that?
I wasn’t sure, but I needed it back. I needed to recover the old essence of myself. And since I didn’t have much to do, I opened the little windows that looked out onto the ocean, and for an hour, I wiped up all the dust and dirt.
There were my old board games, my favorite dolls, a set of toy cars, my red backpack, the aforementioned rug—it was so soft, I just loved to curl up on it—and a table with the magazines I liked to read when I was a little girl, full of the guys from TV I used to think was so hot back then before…
Before you met Jack Ross .
Brain, I think you need a cold shower.
By the time I went back inside, Shannon and Owen had arrived for a visit. Owen hugged me tight, and I played video games with him. I was terrible, but it entertained me to log in with my brothers’ accounts and ruin their stats.
“When are you coming back?” Owen asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll be back soon. And you’re getting so big! Soon you’ll be bored with me and you’ll tell me you don’t have time for me anymore.” I wished I could tell him I’d see him anytime he wanted, but I had no idea what my future held.
Owen didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t argue with me, either.
Eventually, it was time for me to go to the airport. Obviously that was Mom’s cue to burst into tears. Shannon rolled her eyes at her, and Dad told me he would drive me. Spencer had already complained that he’d been the one supposed to take me, and Steve and Sonny… Well, they were Steve and Sonny.
As Dad grabbed his keys, Mom came over and hugged me so tight, I had to tell her I couldn’t breathe. She sighed, blew her nose, and cupped my face in her hands.
“You’d better eat right,” she said. “And keep warm. I watch TV. I see those college kids walking around in shorts and flip-flops in the middle of winter. I’d better not find out you’re doing that.”
“Don’t worry,” Sonny said, “Jack Ross will keep her warm.” He and Steve started laughing. Spencer, who was standing next to them, gave them each a smack on the back of the neck.
Mom ignored them, telling me she’d put some food in my backpack and that she’d gotten paid the day before and had given me a check to pay my boyfriend back.
“OK,” I told her. I’d given up on telling them he wasn’t my boyfriend. They wouldn’t let it go. Uncertain, I asked, “Can I take food through security?”
“What, you think they’re going to single you out as a terrorist?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, watch out, TSA, the Meatball Bomber’s on the loose,” Sonny added, and they both started giggling again. The rest of us looked at each other in despair. They were idiots—they always had been—and there was nothing we could do about it.
“Don’t worry,” Dad said. “I’ll warn them I’ll sic your mother on them. That should do the trick.”
Shannon managed to shove Mom aside to give me a quick hug of her own.
Too quick for my taste. She was the one I always missed the most. My best friend, if I was honest with myself.
She made me promise I’d call and keep her up to date, and she smiled sadly.
Owen grabbed onto my leg. I had to peel him away, the poor thing.
Spencer hugged me, too, Biscuit licked me all over, and Mom forced Steve and Sonny to look up from their PlayStation and say goodbye, and I stuck my tongue out at them on my way out the door.
Once in the car, I put on my seat belt and let out a long breath of air.
I was nervous. Anxious. And I wanted to go back home.
To Ross’s home, I guess I should say—but it felt like my home now.
Dad didn’t say much on the way. I’d always liked that about him.
At the same time, I had the feeling we should be talking about something, so the silence wasn’t as pleasant as usual.
And on the short ride to the airport, I got sad watching my neighborhood thin out and fade into the background.
I thought about the beach, which was one of my favorite places, and how the seniors at my high school used to all start the winter season by jumping into the ocean fully dressed.
I had skipped it. Unlike my brothers, I didn’t want to ruin my clothes, and they still threw it in my face to this day, calling me chicken.
Dad spoke up, “Who were you talking to last night?”
Shit. I hated this. And I knew him. He wasn’t just asking. He knew exactly what had happened.
“It’s fine, Dad. It doesn’t hurt.”
“Where did he hit you?”
“In the ribs.”
He pursed his lips. It surprised and sometimes scared me how well he could keep his cool. “Does your mother know?”
“No. Of course not. She’d have lost her mind. The same way Shannon and the guys would have.”
Dad was different from them in that way.
He didn’t see it as his role to solve my problems. Instead, he tried to make me see what I needed to do on my own.
And that was probably the right thing to do, even if I was afraid I’d made a mistake by letting Monty get away with it.
Since he didn’t respond, I added, “I’m fine, Dad, OK? ”
“Sure.”
I knew he was thinking something, and I was feeling defensive, so I asked, “What?”
“Nothing. Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Dad, I hate it when you do this to me. And don’t tell me you’re not doing anything, because I know you are. It wasn’t my fault he hit me, OK?”
“I never said it was.”
“What, then?” I asked.
“Jenny, neither of us is surprised that he hurt you. You have to recognize that. We’ve both known for a long time that this wasn’t going to end well.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do, Dad? Come in and tell you guys, Hey, my ex-boyfriend just punched me in the ribs. Do you feel like going to grab some tacos ?”
“This isn’t something to make light of.” I could see he was getting mad.
And while that happened rarely, when it did, hell could rain down from above.
He continued, “For God’s sake, I’m not blind.
Maybe your mother doesn’t notice these things, but I know it’s not the first time.
I saw you with a bruise on your arm where he’d grabbed you last summer. I saw the bruise on your shoulder.”
I was ashamed to respond because I knew he was right. When Monty got mad, he’d grab me and shove me, and more than once it had left a mark. Until the night before, he’d never punched me, it was true, but in a sense, that didn’t matter because I always felt like shit after those fights.
“Is that what we taught you? To go out with guys who abuse you? That a loser like that is the best you can do?”
I don’t know why I was defending him, but I replied, “Monty’s not a bad guy.”
“Of course he’s not. He sleeps with your best friend and hits you, but apart from that, he’s the life of the party.”
“He only hit me once.”
“I’m going to warn you: Don’t lie to me.”
“So what? So he slapped me that other time. It was just a slap, and I was the one who provoked it.”
“Do you not realize you have a serious problem when someone’s hitting you and you’re trying to say it’s your fault? Seriously. Stop defending him. If he’s really out of your life, make sure it stays that way. And have a long, hard think about who you are and what you’re accepting for yourself.”
“I do think about that stuff.”
“If you did, you would have given him a kick in the balls that would have dropped him to the ground. We taught you to defend yourself from worse things than some loser who’s too free with his hands.”
I clenched my teeth and said, “Violence isn’t always the answer.”
“Maybe not, but when somebody forces you and the situation does turn violent, you better make sure you’re the one who comes out on top.”
I almost wanted to laugh, but the situation was too tense for that. Why was he making me feel so ashamed of myself? I asked him if he really wanted me to go through life ready to strike out at anyone who pissed me off.
“No. What I want is for you to be who you really are. My daughter. A girl I taught not to go out with guys who don’t love her, guys who hit her. A girl I didn’t teach to just take it when someone mistreats her and then blame herself.”
I stared out the window, trying to think of some sharp reply, but nothing occurred to me, and he went on. “At least, with you being away from home, you’ve started to open your eyes a little bit. I’m glad for that. When you were here, you treated him like an angel fallen from heaven.”
I had to admit that he was right there. Monty had never been a catch, but I sure had tried to act like he was.
“And on that subject, you’ve got, what, another month before your break?
Have you thought about what you’re going to do?
I know your mother’s hammering on about how she wants you to come home, and look, I’d love to have you around more, but I’ve got to be honest, you look a lot happier now than when you were here.
I realize it’s not just the months away, that there’s a certain person involved, but…
well, from what little I know, this Jack Ross sounds like a good guy. ”
Now I knew what he was getting at. We had always understood each other in that way. It was incredible; sometimes all it took was a glance. “Don’t tell me you want to meet him. You’ve never cared about anyone any of us have gone out with.”
“None of my kids have ever gone out with anyone who seemed worth a damn, pardon my French. And this Jack boy, he’s done a lot for you.
I’d like to thank him. So yes, bring him to meet us sometime.
And there’s one more thing: if you hear another word from Monty, promise me you’ll notify the police.
Men like him are not to be toyed with, Jenny. ”
Those words echoed in my head two hours later when I got into the plane. And all I wanted to do was to see Ross again. As I looked out the window, I was nervous, anxious, tired.
But I was going back home.