Chapter Thirty-six
Brynn
“Who the fuck is Victor?”
Despite stating just a few seconds ago that I’m not afraid of him, I can admit Killian looks pretty fucking scary when he glares down at me, my body pinned down by his weight, my arms shackled to the ground by his strong hands.
His jaw is locked and his eyes are dark with anger, and for a split second, I can’t even figure out what he’s talking about.
I don’t know anyone named Victor.
“What?” I ask, my confusion clear on my face.
His dark eyes rise, and he releases my arms to grab my phone off the ground next to me.
Oh.
It hits me then, and I grab for the phone, but he holds it up out of reach.
“It’s not funny, Killian. Give it back,” I say, lifting up as far as I can with him on top of me to reach for the phone. “It’s not—I don’t know anyone named Victor. It’s a joke, I forgot I even did it.”
He can be unreasonable when he’s jealous, and admittedly, my desperate ramble and reach probably didn’t make him think it was nothing, so he swipes the screen open despite my protests.
“It’s my mom,” I finally blurt. “Please don’t read it. I don’t know what it says, but it doesn’t matter. I always delete her messages.”
Killian frowns down at me skeptically. “Your mom’s name is Victor?”
I roll my eyes at my own stupid private joke with myself. “No. I changed her name in my phone when I was reading Frankenstein for class.”
As the words are coming out, I’m hearing them and realizing they sound like a desperate lie.
“I can’t believe you went to Paris without telling me,” he reads aloud. “Who is that guy?” he continues. “Are you ignoring me?”
I grimace. “I can see how that sounds… not great.”
Killian types something on the phone, and my eyes widen.
“Please, please don’t do that. This isn’t like Addison, it’s not funny. Killian, I’m serious,” I say, grabbing his wrist and looking up at him pleadingly.
He stops short of pressing send, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. Which, on the one hand I get, but on another, is a little crazy. I know we haven’t officially labeled our relationship, but what have I ever done to make him think I’m the type of person who would entertain another guy when I’m living with him? I’m not an asshole.
Jealousy isn’t always logical, though, and it’s got a firm grip on him right now. He drops the phone and leans down, sliding his fingers around my throat and leaning close so he can threaten me. “Let me make one thing perfectly fucking clear, Brynn. And I’m gonna preface this by saying that I know it’s crazy and maybe even colossally unfair, but it’s also the truth. If I ever, ever see you with another guy, I will retaliate, and I’ll make what I did to Kyle look kind.”
I swallow, feeling my throat work beneath his tight grip and my heart start to race.
“It really is my mom,” I say softly. “I don’t talk to her, so if you send that message, it’s just… it’s going to open a whole Pandora’s box that I don’t want to deal with. I went no-contact before I moved to Boston. She texts me every now and then to bait me into responding, but I know better, so… I don’t.”
His grip eases ever so slightly, but he doesn’t let go of my throat. “Why?”
“Because if I did, she’d never leave me alone, and I don’t have time for that.”
“No, not why… Why don’t you talk to your mom?”
Oh boy.
I swallow again, and he must interpret it as discomfort because this time he lets go of my throat.
To be honest, I would rather be choked out than talk about this.
I don’t even know where to begin.
The idea of talking about it is so overwhelming, I have to close my eyes for a few seconds and gather my thoughts. Finally, I open them back up, and attempt an explanation.
“My parents split up when I was really little. I think I told you that before.”
“You mentioned it.”
I nod. “When it comes to this, I usually mention just enough to make people feel like they know the story and it’s boring, so I don’t have to worry about them asking follow-up questions.”
His brow furrows slightly, but he waits to hear more.
“So, of course, my mom dated different guys as I was growing up. But there was this one guy, AJ, who… well, he liked my mom, but he didn’t like me. So my earliest memories are of him being mean to me. He used to push me around and call me names and act like it was funny. And then he started hitting me. My mom never stepped in, and I was really little, so I didn’t know any better. At the time, I thought it was normal to be treated that way. I would just work extra hard not to get in his way. The abuse only stopped because my mom got pregnant, and he didn’t like the responsibility of having kids around, that’s why he didn’t want me around, so once she had the baby, he left. He stayed gone for years, but then he got laid off and was out of work for a while due to an injury, and he started drinking, so he couldn’t get hired anywhere else. The girlfriend he had at the time got sick of his shit once he wasn’t bringing home a paycheck, so she kicked him out. He didn’t have anywhere to go, so he asked my mom if he could stay with us.”
Memories flood me of that time, how betrayed I felt when she told us Geli’s dad was moving in.
I shake my head to clear it. “Anyway, my little sister—his daughter—Angelica was excited because she never really knew him so she didn’t know what it would actually be like having him around, she just liked the idea of ‘her dad’ coming home and us all being one big happy family. I was older then. I was twelve, Geli was ten. I’d been so little when the initial abuse happened, I only really remembered parts of it and had to rely on my mom to fill in the blanks, and since she was invested in moving him back in, she tried to diminish it as him ‘picking on me’ and just… trying to make it seem like I took it too personally, and it hadn’t been as bad as I remembered it. I was overreacting.”
Killian’s jaw locks, but this time, I know the anger isn’t pointed at me.
I swallow. “When he first moved in, he wasn’t so bad. He even made efforts to hang out with me alone. He said he knew he’d been kind of a jerk to me last time, but he wanted things to be good between us this time so he could stick around for Geli. He said he didn’t want us not getting along to be the reason he had to leave again.”
Unable to help himself, apparently, Killian interrupts, his voice tight with anger. “He was trying to pin the responsibility of keeping him around on you.”
“I know,” I say softly. “Well, I know that now. I didn’t back then. But it worked,” I say with a limp smile. “You know me, I feel bad when an animal doesn’t have a family, so imagine how I felt about my little sister who was all excited about her dad being back.”
Killian sighs knowingly. “Yeah. I can imagine.”
“Anyway, since it seemed like he was making an effort that time, I began to think maybe Mom was right. Maybe I had overreacted before. I was young, so maybe… maybe I remembered it wrong.”
“Let me guess. You didn’t.”
I shake my head. “He started ‘picking on me’ again, but it was a little different this time. He would make remarks about my body. He’d pinch me and touch me in ways you shouldn’t… pinch and touch your stepdaughter. And I began to dread his visits to my bedroom, because when it first started, we would just talk, and I liked that he would listen to me about things that bored my mom. But once he gained my trust… the pinching and ‘ribbing’ shifted. He would make remarks about my body and then challenge me to ‘show him’ to prove… whatever stupid thing he came up with. And I didn’t want to, so he made me feel stupid about that. Then the looking led to touching, and… I knew it felt bad, but I was afraid to… to say anything. Geli liked having him around, and Mom was happy. Only I was unhappy, so maybe I could cope. For them,” I say softly.
Probably realizing he shouldn’t be straddling me like this for the conversation this has turned into, Killian climbs off me. I try to ignore the whispers of the past as I quickly pull my underwear and shorts up, but I stay lying there, looking up at the ceiling.
“When I was fourteen, I finally told my mom I didn’t want him coming into my room at night anymore. I told her I was getting older, so it didn’t feel appropriate anymore, and she told me he was basically my dad, and she just… set me off. I was not a willful or disrespectful child by any means, but I screamed at her that he wasn’t my dad and never to call him that again. I stormed out of the house and went walking around the neighborhood, fuming and thinking about running away. But while it was a nice dream, I knew I wouldn’t get far with no money, no way to make money, no family to turn to. It was probably my out of character response that first alerted her that something was up because she told him to stay out of my bedroom going forward. He did. For a while. When I was sixteen, since he couldn’t go to my bedroom, he started finding excuses to keep me downstairs after my mom and Geli went to sleep. He’d say I hadn’t done my chores and make up chores no one had ever told me to do, or he’d ask for my help with something. And then, once whatever made up task was done, he’d be like, ‘come on, let’s catch up. We never hang out anymore.’” I sigh. “He did weird things. I don’t really want to… go into detail.”
“You don’t have to,” he says softly.
“And that went on as often as he could find an opportunity until I started dating Mitchel. That was my high school boyfriend. I don’t remember if I told you his name. Anyway, once I was seeing Mitch, I got meaner at home because I was protective of my relationship. AJ would try his old tricks, but they wouldn’t work, I’d tell him no and not care if he called me a little bitch or told my mom I had an attitude problem. And for a little while, that worked, too. But then he got tired of hearing no. One night, he’d been drinking when I came home from hanging out with Mitch, and he was on the couch waiting when I got back. I was wearing a short skirt, so he told me I looked like a whore, that I’d started dressing like a whore ever since I started dating Mitch.” I glance at Killian. “Before I started seeing Mitch, I mostly wore baggy, ugly clothes that wouldn’t draw unwanted attention from AJ.” Getting back to that night, I say, “But that night, I wore a skirt. And apparently seeing that much leg emboldened him. He… pounced on me and threw me down on the couch, and he was going to rape me, but then I started having a panic attack. It freaked him out, and he put his tiny dick away, and he went upstairs. I knew I couldn’t live with him anymore, so as much as I dreaded it, I told my mother the next day. I told her everything, about how he’d touched me in my bedroom years earlier, about how weird it felt when he asked me to ‘help him work out’ the nights he’d keep me downstairs and he would…” I shake my head, not even wanting to put it into words. “And then I told her about the night before. And she sat there, white-faced, while I told her everything. And I felt like I was… scooping out my soul and putting it on a plate for her. And she didn’t say a word. After an uncomfortable silence, I asked her to say something, and she said she’d take care of it. I went to school, and then I went over to Mitch’s house after. I felt… optimistic, I guess. It felt like a weight had been lifted finally telling her about everything. There were times over the years I got this feeling like she knew, but she couldn’t have possibly known. What kind of mother would allow a man to keep living in her house knowing he was preying on her daughter?” I swallow. “But she said she’d take care of it, so I knew things were finally going to get better. I even stayed at Mitch’s house later that day, thinking AJ was probably moving out his things and I didn’t want to have to see him.” I shake my head, remembering how fucking stupid I felt when I came back home that night. “When I got back, I remember walking in the door and seeing she’d made one of his favorite dinners. And I thought, ‘how strange.’ Why would she make his favorite dinner on the day she was kicking him out?”
Killian sighs, and I glance at him. He grabs me and tugs me up, dragging me across the mat until I’m planted between his legs, then he wraps his arms around me.
I smile sadly. “She didn’t kick him out.”
“No,” he says quietly.
Tears well up in my eyes. I don’t let myself feel sad about it anymore, but I still feel sad for the version of me I was that day. I’ve never been that girl again, but I have made a lot of progress this year, and I’m proud of that.
“I was just so fucking stunned,” I tell him. “I had no doubt when she said she’d handle it that she meant it, and I was so sure she would fix it for me. She would make sure it never happened again. She would protect me now that she knew, because the story I told myself about why she never had before was that she didn’t know.”
His arms around me tighten. He has already figured out that she knew, so he whispers, “I’m so sorry, Brynn.”
Those words open the floodgates. The apology I never got from her, and I never will.
“Since he wasn’t leaving, I did. That’s when I lived in my car.”
He brushes a tear off my cheek. “I figured.”
I’m quiet for a moment, then I tell him, “The worst part was how alone I had felt all those years. I thought I was bearing a burden all by myself to protect the people I loved, and…” I clear my throat. “I was angry after I told her and she did nothing. I wanted to lash out. To punish her for not loving me enough to keep me safe. I was spoiling for a fight back then, and living out of my car was hard, so I did have to go back eventually. But I couldn’t stand to look at her anymore. I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her, and she infuriated me because the way she would talk to me… it was like the way she texts me now. Like everything is normal between us. Like nothing happened. Like she fucking expects me to live in denial with her and pretend… pretend she didn’t choose that bastard over me. Or to accept it, I guess. But I could never do that. The excuse I always made for her was that she didn’t know, but the truth was that she didn’t care. As long as she didn’t lose him, she didn’t care what kind of hell he made my childhood. She just didn’t care. All she cared about was herself. And that made me so angry. You’re supposed to care about more than just yourself, and you’re damn sure supposed to care about the people you bring into this world. So we got in a fight one day, and Geli came downstairs because she heard us yelling. And she joined the screaming match, and she called me a liar, and said I was making it all up, that her dad would never do that and I was just trying to make her lose her dad because I didn’t have mine.”
I swallow, but I can feel my emotions settling. The practiced detachment I needed in order to leave all of it behind.
Back then, it hurt like hell to hear the people I loved turn on me. It confirmed all my very worst fears.
But I got past it. I learned to stop needing their love. I learned to be okay without it.
I’m calmer, my tone more normal, when I finish the story. “Her denial of my experience felt more like cruelty than anything because… I loved her. I loved them both, and I endured so much to protect them, to keep that family intact for her, and there she was, accusing me of jealousy. It was salt in the wound. I thought they loved me, but you protect the people you love, and that day, I just felt like they didn’t love me anymore. Maybe they never really loved me, so as soon as it stopped being easy to love me, they gave up the charade. So, I packed as many of my things into my car as I could, and I left. I never went back. When I graduated, I moved here, and… that’s the end, I guess.”
“Jesus. Fuck, Brynn.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I say, glancing back at him. “I know that’s heavy. I didn’t want to bring it up, but…”
“I was an asshole,” he says with a nod.
I crack a smile, stretching to kiss his cheek. “No. I mean, yeah, a little bit, but it’s okay.”
“Why didn’t you block her?” he asks, genuinely curious.
That question triggers a slight twinge of shame. Or I guess the answer does. “This may sound bad.”
“After what you just told me, I fucking doubt it.”
I still hesitate before I admit, “I have no desire to talk to her anymore. I’m past wanting that, but… after everything that happened and feeling so… thrown away by her…” I sigh. “I like knowing she still wants to reach out to me. I like knowing… or believing, I guess,” I correct myself. “I like believing that means she regrets her choices, at least the tiniest bit.It’s the story I tell myself because it makes me feel better, and no one else has ever given a shit about making me feel better, so I had to look after myself, but I like to imagine she wouldn’t reach out if she didn’t care in some little corner of her heart. The truth is probably that it isn’t that. She’s a bad person, but she needs to believe she’s a good person, and good people tend not to have kids who just stop talking to them. So in reality, I’m sure it’s more about her than any genuine feelings she has about me. She’s looking after her own image, not genuinely working to mend a relationship she blew up. But… it’s a comforting lie, and I went a long time without any comfort. If I delude myself into interpreting every unanswered text as an apology, a useless attempt to retrieve my lost love… it just makes me feel better.”
I’m deeply embarrassed to admit that. I never have before, even to myself. But Killian doesn’t judge me. He holds me tight, and he says, “I think you should do whatever makes you feel better about it and fuck what anyone thinks. It’s not their trauma, it’s yours.”
I nod. “That’s what I think, too.”
“And Brynn?” he says, grabbing my jaw and turning my face so I’m looking up at him. “I’m gonna take care of this for you.”
I hold his gaze, and I know exactly what he means. Not only because of what he did to Kyle, but because of the crazy threat he just made when he thought I was talking to someone else.
Killian doesn’t share, and his protection is retroactive.
And I know the right thing to do is probably to argue with him, to plead for mercy for people who had none for me. Because after everything I went through, I fought the hurt and the anger and the temptation to just shut off and feel nothing. I healed, and I had the courage to open up again. I overcame my baser impulses to punish everyone for the pain I felt. I chose to be a good girl and walk away instead of lighting their world on fire.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see it burn.
There’s a reason, as I spent all those years alone in the darkness, I was attracted to the masked madman who watched over his orphaned angel from the shadows and pulled any string he needed to so his beloved could have the things she wanted but would never dare ask for.
I’ve spent nearly all my life doing what I thought was right for other people, but if there was one dark favor I laid awake nights wishing I could call in for myself, it would be this.
And what are the odds I would actually meet a masked man who’s willing to kill for me?
I’d say the odds were pretty slim, and it seems ungrateful to look the gift horse in the mouth.
So instead of being the magnanimous good girl who gets walked all over and turns the other cheek one more time in her life, I’ll let my madman grant the dying wish of the little girl I laid to rest a long time ago.
I’ll let him avenge me.
And then I’ll thank him for it.