26. Booker
Booker
“That first night I spent with him, after the funeral, I thought I was going to die.
“We got home from the airport, and it was like he couldn’t stop. He kicked and punched and kicked some more. Then he called a doctor—the same guy he’d call when someone overdosed or got hurt at one of his parties—to look me over, and Ross gave him a fuck-ton of hush money.”
I feel Maya take a deep inhale, but if I stop now, I’ll never get the words out. Speaking them aloud feels foreign and wrong, like my dad is going to show up any moment and stop me from exposing him.
“Over the years, it all just started blending together. I’d be punished for something, then he’d explain his way out of the bruises—it’s why he kept me in hockey.
I don’t know if any of my teachers ever questioned him, but they never did anything to help me, either, so I’d assumed he’d paid them off, too.
“When I was thirteen, he made me come to one of his parties. Said I was a teenager now, and he had to teach me how to be a man.”
Nausea rolls up my stomach as the images flash through, one after another, waking something in me I’d tucked away deep within. Fear, panic, disgust.
“He…he gave me liquor and paid girls to let me touch them. The first time, I refused, not understanding what he wanted me to do, and he broke my wrist.”
Maya lets out a soft sob, and my heart breaks for her, but my voice stays steely. Cold.
“When I was fourteen, he spiked a drink he’d given me, and then paid someone to take my virginity. I remember pieces of it, and I remember I couldn’t move.
“As I got older, bigger, I tried to fight back, but it never went in my favor. But I think he realized that, one day soon, he wouldn’t be able to keep fighting me off. I was growing stronger than he was, playing hockey, and he was getting scared.
“One night, he…he gave me some pills, told me to take them, and I was too afraid of what he’d do to me if I refused, so I did.
I don’t know what they were, but I was high as a fucking kite, and I was…
not myself. My adrenaline spiked. I felt aggressive, but also scared.
Whatever he gave me, it made me so incredibly anxious, and I remember I was freaking out and yelling.
They also made me…made me hard. I remember thinking my fucking dick was going too explode, it hurt so bad.
“Then, another one of his girls came to sleep with me, started touching me and…and that’s the video he has. A video of me at a party, seventeen years old, popping pills, and then mindlessly fucking some chick I don’t even remember fucking just trying to get the pressure and pain to stop.
“He said if I ever tried to fight him again, he’d release the video to the media, and that he’d pay the woman to make a statement saying I…raped her. He’d get me thrown in jail and there’s literally nothing I can do to stop him.”
I can’t turn over. I can’t look at her. I can’t do anything except lie there and let the darkness that just pour from my lips settle around us.
“Why?” she whispers feebly. “Why would he go to all that trouble? What does he gain from it?”
I shrug. “He resents me, resents having to take care of me. Hates me for being alive but he also knows he has to save face for the public. He wants me to love him on camera, but he’s sadistic and likes to torment me behind closed doors.
He’s rough with the women he’s with, too.
He’s just become a master at covering it up.
” I heave a breath as I try to fight the weight of the proverbial anvil that’s sitting on my chest.
“And now I’ve dragged you into it. He never had any interest in who I was with before. Girlfriends or hook ups or whatever. But I think, somehow, he recognized you from the funeral. You called me Jamie and he saw your curly hair, and he knew I cared about you more than the others.”
All those years I’d spent pushing Maya away, it wasn’t because of Ross.
Honestly, it never crossed my mind that he would want anything to do with her.
I figured he would ignore her existence like he ignored all the other girls I’d been with.
It’s not like I ever took any of them home to meet him, anyway.
Last week, when I decided to give this a shot with her, Ross was the last thing on my mind.
As if she can hear the direction of my thoughts, Maya tugs on my chin, forcing me to sit up and look at her. My dry eyes meet her teary ones, and my chest aches.
“I’m not scared of him, Jamie. We’ll figure something out, but I’m not going to lose you again. I just got you back.”
Her voice is firm, steady, sure.
But I’m not. I lean in, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, hating myself inside.
Her soft lips part, and I deepen the kiss, my tongue tangling with hers in a mind-numbing sensation of bliss.
I kiss her, taste her, savor her.
Because after today, I won’t touch her again.
I won’t let Ross drag her into his hellhole of a life. I’ll tell him she’s nobody to me, and I’ll have to prove it.
I’m going to have to break her heart all over again, and it might just kill me.
But for now…right now, I’m going to love her.
I’m going to end out the year with the one person who reminds me that I have a soul trapped somewhere deep in this broken body.
After much coercion on my part, Maya goes home to shower and change with the stipulation that she’s coming back tonight for the party, and I don’t have the heart to argue.
When she’s gone, I spend my day in bed. I no longer feel dizzy—at least Ross didn’t give me a concussion by beating my head against the wall—but my ribs hurt like a motherfucker.
They aren’t broken, but the persistent dull ache tells me they’re bruised down to the bone.
The slight red tint when I used the bathroom suggests he might’ve bruised a kidney, as well.
I drift in and out of sleep for a few hours, but get woken up when the boys get home from practice and Drew barges in my room without knocking.
“Asshole,” I grumble, shoving my face into the pillow.
“No, you don’t get to call me an asshole. Not when you’ve been keeping a secret like this.” He stands at the foot of my bed looking astronomically pissed, and I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew he’d figure out about Ross eventually; we’re too close and Drew’s too smart to not notice the pattern.
I sit up, trying and failing to hide the grimace of pain that breaks through my mask as my abdomen flexes.
His anger morphs into guilt, then into despair as he unclenches his fists and sits on the edge of my bed. “How long?”
“The whole time,” I answer, not needing to elaborate.
Drew mutters a curse under his breath. “And you haven’t…fought back?”
God, I’m not ready for all of this to come out of the wash so soon. First Maya, now Drew, within the span of a few hours.
Gritting my teeth, I repeat the story from this morning, and Drew goes ashen, looking like he wants to be sick.
I have no doubt that Maya felt copious amounts of sympathy and horror when I told her how I grew up with Ross, but Drew understands on another level, and I can see in his eyes that he’s, once again, pissed that I kept this from him.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me? You know about my parents—about all my bullshit. Why…?” He’s stiff as a board, muscles taught, arms leaned forward on his knees as he stares at the wall, undoubtedly imagining all the things I went through in vivid detail.
“Because I knew you’d act like this. And I knew you’d want to try to help, but there’s nothing to be done, Drew. I’ve thought it out, and—anything short of murder—Ross wins every time.”
Drew’s silent, thinking, trying to come up with some angle I haven’t thought of and falling short.
“I actually do need your help with something now, though,” I say, bringing his focus back to the present.
“What?”
I tell him about what happened in the stairwell after the game, and about my father’s fixation on Maya and wanting me to bring her to California in April.
“I won’t do it—I can’t take her to that house,” I insist, “so I need you to help keep her away from me…I’m going to have to go back to how things were before with her, and she’s going to hate me for it. She’s smart enough to know what I’m doing, and I need to convince her to move on.”
Drew nods, a look of anguished understanding taking over his features. “Fuck… Okay. How do you plan on doing that?”
I relay my thoughts from the last few hours, and he only protests briefly before I convince him that it’s the best way to keep her at arms length.