Chapter Thirty-Three
Taking a deep breath and focusing on his inner calm, Enrique began, “Not really, but I will. I understand why it’s important to you. Something you need to understand, Leighann, is that I’m not an easy man. Many who knew me in the past would say I’m not even a good one. My brothers and I have worked hard to reform ourselves, but even though most of them were misjudged and labeled bad boys erroneously, I was not. I was a bad boy. I was a thief. I was angry, violent, and mean to my very core. That isn’t something you wake up one day and change. It’s a constant fight to be better. My family put in the time and effort to help me become the man I am today, but I still struggle with those darker emotions. I am also wealthy now. Even though I didn’t grow up in a fancy house, I grew up knowing I belonged in one just like the fancy folks that occupied them, and I imitated the behavior I saw so that one day I would fit in. When Anthony met me as a child, he said I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas, and anyone who walked by it was going to get cut. That was pretty much it. If a person looked at me wrong, said something I didn’t like, did something I thought was a threat in even the slightest way, like bumping into me… I would punch them. Attack them even. I was in fights all the time. Didn’t matter the size or the number. I was bad news. My brothers in the Bad Boy’s Club had no reason to take me in and try to polish me up. I brought them nothing but trouble. And my brother Julio, we were oil and water. From the wrong sides of the same streets, and I constantly pushed his buttons to get him to fight with me. The other brothers never quite understood our dynamic; you can’t unless you lived it. But we regularly tried to kill each other, sometimes literally, but we would kill anyone who even thought of harming the other. It’s a street code that few understand. I’m loyal to a fault and stubborn. Nothing is impossible. The harder the challenge, the harder I will fight to conquer it.”
“Is it a matter of pride? Or a way to get recognition and approval? To say, ‘Hey, look what I just did!’ Or is it something else?” Leigh questioned.
“It may have started out as a way to get my parents’ or teachers’ attention when I was little, but it became a beast of its own as I got older. So many people had counted me out because of my small stature, my difficulty reading, my clumsiness, my poor behavior, or whatever other reason they had. At some point, I would hear someone say I couldn’t do something, and it became a challenge. I would achieve it or die trying. That got turned into a weapon used against me by my parents and other kids. It got me into a lot of trouble. As you noticed with the slope, it is still getting me into trouble. As soon as I hear someone say I can’t do something, it triggers something inside me, and I can’t see or hear reason anymore. I have tunnel vision and a single-minded focus. That is how I managed to become a billionaire by age thirty-two, but it has also put me in significant danger. Like now.”
Leighann was starting to understand what happened that day. “So, when I told you that you weren’t ready and that you couldn’t do black slopes this trip, I triggered you. You wound up tuning me out, only hearing the echoes from your past telling you that you weren’t good enough, smart enough, would never amount to anything, and had to prove them wrong. It wasn’t about not listening to me. It was about proving me, and by me, it was really the ghosts from your childhood, wrong. Am I understanding this correctly?”
Enrique looked at her, stunned by just how clearly she was understanding. He’d had so few people even try and even fewer succeed. He felt for the first time in a long time that someone was looking past his outer shell and into his soul, getting him at the fundamental level.
“Yes, that sums it up pretty well.”
“I bet the other boys, the other truly troubled ones, had a field day when they discovered this… ”
“Weakness. The gaping hole in my otherwise impenetrable armor. Oh, they did, and so did my parents. For some, it became a sport to see how much danger they could put me in before I would refuse. The answer was there was no limit. I almost died a number of times. Or like my parents, who weaponized it and got me to do some really bad stuff. And then there were people like my brothers and Hannah who used it to help me.”
“How did they use it to help you?” Leigh asked incredulously.
“Well, I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day psychoanalyzing me, but I have a really hard time saying no to a challenge, especially if it is worded as something I can’t do. My brothers were desperate to help me turn a corner into a “good boy” instead of the “bad boy” the nuns had labeled me. So, they would challenge me to make good choices. Over time, as I began to value their opinion of me more than my reputation as the worst boy in the house, I would shift my behavior to meet their challenge, which always had my best interest at heart. All my brothers had power over me in that way, but Julio, man, he could pull me out of rip-roaring rage with his taunts. He knew just how to word them to make them true challenges. Like, “You can’t walk away from Toad Face without giving him the shiner he deserves. He pushed your little bro down, and there is no way you are walking away from that disrespect. I see you; you can’t do it!’ Fernando stood beside him, saying, ‘Enrique, I challenge you not to punch Toad Face.’ but that didn’t really work. Not when I was mad, anyway. Part of me always wondered if Julio just really knew me and knew what to say or if he really, truly doubted my ability to walk away. Either way, it worked. Over time, the real bad boys in the home lost their power over me.”
Enrique leaned back further into the corner and stretched his arm along the back of the couch, relaxing after the worst of his confession was told.
“But you still struggle with the triggers?”
“Yeah, every once in a while, something pops up and catches me by surprise, and I lose control, like the black slope. There was so much going on in my head that day. That is one reason I never left New York. I live two hours away from my brother Anthony, Hannah, and their girls. If I am struggling, I stop by. Hannah has a special radar for her boys. She can read us like newspapers. If I am really just stopping by to say hello, she knows. If I’m stopping by because the darkness is getting too close and I am losing the fight, she knows. She knows when to ask questions, to insist I go for a walk, to talk to a brother, or just give me a hug. I never had a hug until Hannah hugged me, and it rocked my world. I knew if I ever moved away, I would be lost. God sent them to me, all of them, for a purpose. I was never shown unconditional love, any love, actually, until my family found me. They changed me, but I still have pretty rough edges.”
“Well, that explains a lot. Does my brother know about this particular challenge?”
“Curtis? I can’t honestly say it has come up in one of our adventures. He runs a tight ship. There isn’t a lot of monkeying around or funny business, and he isn’t the type to dare someone to do anything. Either you feel comfortable, or you don’t. One thing for sure is that you are as safe as possible on his watch. I certainly have never explained my issue to anyone but you. Hannah knows, but that woman has the gift of discernment. She picks up on the smallest details, at least when it comes to her boys and now her little girls. That or Anthony told her. They don’t have secrets, which is good for them but bad for the rest of us,” he said with a chuckle.
He envied the relationship his brother and sister shared. Their love was true and faithful—a one in a million, he always said. They put each other first, never wavered in their support, loved passionately and openly, and held each other in the highest regard.
Looking at Leighann, he wondered yet again, could she be his one in a million?