Chapter Twelve #2
He shifts in his seat. “I took a break from school when Marlin died, because I needed to come back here and settle his affairs. When it was clear no one was going to take this fuckin’ place off my hands, I ended up having to stick around longer than I thought, costing me a potential draft into the MLB.
I had a wife and a baby I needed to think of.
I couldn’t handle college and trying to sell this place at the same time.
When Trista thought I wasn’t making good enough on my promise to go back and keep trying to get into the major leagues, she left. ”
“Okay.” I nod, waiting to see where this is going and how Ryann comes into play. Maybe she was a rebound? My gut churns at the thought of it, irrational jealousy rearing its ugly head again. We both have pasts, obviously, so this shouldn’t bother me the way it does, but I can’t help it.
Not that mature enough yet, I guess.
He takes a deep breath in, then puffs it back out. I can tell he’s getting worked up, and it kills me to know that I’m intentionally instigating this, but I fear that if he continually bottles all this shit up, he’s going to explode eventually.
“I got… pretty dark for a while,” he grits out. “There was a point where I just wanted to, you know, end it—or at least numb it, because I’m a c—”
“Going to stop you right there,” I interject, “because if the next word out of your mouth is coward, I won’t hesitate to jump over this couch and throttle you.
Wanting to live does not make you a coward, Gordy, so don’t even think that.
Surviving, staying, means you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. ”
Another breath comes out in a whoosh. He continues, “Anyway, as I’m sure you know, Marlin was an alcoholic.
I didn’t turn to alcohol, because I, even in those dark days, couldn’t stomach the thought of it.
So, I thought of drugs. Because of my baseball career, I’d never used before, so I thought, I don’t know, maybe I’d have a low tolerance.
It could be a one shot deal, and I’d be done. ”
I yearn to reach for him right now, to hold him in my arms and tell him that I’m sorry he ever felt so low, so broken, that he thought perhaps he needed to end it all. But I know he’d just shut down on me if I did that, so I just sit, rooted in place, while my heart aches for him.
“I went to the sketchy side of town, looking to score some hard shit, and that’s where I met Ryann.
She was prostituting at the time, not selling, but, at the very least, I figured she’d be able to point me in the right direction.
I paid her to get in the car with me, and I took her to a motel outside of town.
We ended up spending an entire month there, since I wanted her and her daughter to have somewhere safe to stay while Ryann withdrew from drugs. ”
Oh shit, this is where he gets to the part where they ended up screwing around with one another. Then, a sudden realization hits me, and I gasp. “Oh, fuck! Gordy, are you—Is Morgan—”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m not her father.
We never—it wasn’t like that. Ryann had emotional scars, just like I do, so we only ever spent our time there doing—baring our souls to each other.
Forming a friendship. I shared with her my past, and she trusted me with hers in return.
I kept an eye on her daughter and did my best to aid her through her opioid detox.
She wanted out of that life so bad; she wanted it for Morgan.
Well, at the time, she called her Marie, but I think it was to safeguard her identity—rightfully so, she was fiercely protective of her.
Both of us having young kids at stake, she reminded me why I needed to, you know, to stay alive.
It’s what she used for leverage when she convinced me to go get help, instead of turning to drugs. ”
“You got help? What kind of help?”
“I went into a nearby residential treatment facility for victims of domestic violence.”
“Domestic violence?” I ask him, my brows puckering. Christ, did Trista abuse him? She’s such a petite person, I don’t see how she could—
“Marlin,” Gordy snaps, cutting off my mind’s inner workings.
My heart damn near drops out of my chest. “Everyone knows Marlin was a drunken asshole, but no one knew the extent of it. He used to beat me and my mother, scream in our faces if we ever fell out of line, and lock me in the basement for days at a time. It was fuckin’ horrible, the way he treated us. ”
He takes a deep, trembling breath before continuing, “Mom eventually fled to a women’s shelter here in Ternbay.
She tried to take me with her, but I was too focused on just keeping her safe.
I stayed with Marlin so she wouldn’t be a bigger target than necessary, and to keep her hidden longer.
Doesn’t matter anyway. He tracked her down somehow, and we moved here.
You already know what happened after that. ”
“Oh, Gordy…” It’s all I can say as I heave out a heavy breath.
I can’t imagine having to endure years of torture at the hands of his own flesh-and-blood, but I’m starting to see now why he did what he did to Evan.
He needed to do whatever he could to get away from his father, from the abuse. “What happened to your mother?”
“She’d been ill for a while but hadn’t ever known it, between the abuse and the fact that Marlin had never let her go to the doctor’s.
It sounds so fuckin’ horrible to say, but the day she didn’t wake up, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders.
She’d gone somewhat peacefully, and not at his hands.
I mean, how fucking sad is it when you’re actually relieved when you find out your mother passed of natural causes so she didn’t have to endure his drunken rages anymore?
” He buries his face in his palms, his shoulders shuddering with silent sobbing.
Fuck it. I can’t take that bullshit no touching rule of his anymore, as my heart splits in two for him.
I scooch down to his end of the couch. I’m taken by surprise when he feels me near him, and he reaches for me.
I wrap my arms around him, and he crowds me, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
I feel his tears soaking into the jersey-cotton of my shirt.
He sniffs while I rub his back, then continues, “I made Ryann promise to try her damndest to get out of that life, if I agreed to let her friend from the women’s shelter—the same one my mother went to years before, and the one Ryann often went to with Morgan—get me into the treatment facility.”
Realization dawns on me. I know who would have been the head of the women’s shelter back then. “Miranda…”
“What?” Gordy blinks at me, tears rimming his eyelids.
“I’m willing to bet my sister-in-law was that friend. Gordy, Miranda had just been promoted to the head of that shelter back then…”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “I doubt she would have helped me. Evan would have rather I offed myself, I’m sure of it, after the harassment I put him through.”
“That’s not true at all. Evan wouldn’t wish death on anyone.
And yes, Miranda would most definitely have helped you.
She was a good person like that. She’d give you the shirt off her own back, if she thought it would help.
The world lost a good woman the day she died,” I reassure him, because Miranda was a light that went out way too soon, for sure.
“I bet she wouldn’t have if she’d known I would eventually cause Ryann’s death, years later.
The night before I checked in, I snuck out of that hotel, found out who her pimp was.
I beat that motherfucker to nearly an inch of his life for making her sell herself, just so she could afford pills to keep herself high enough to prevent her from having withdrawals.
All that rage I harbored for Marlin? I took it out on him.
I nearly fuckin’ killed a guy, Gannett. In doing that, I set off a chain of events that took Ryann from this world… ”
He sobs some more, and all I can do is hold him tightly as he falls apart in my arms. “You didn’t kill the guy, though. So, why do you feel that’s what led to Ryann’s overdose?”
“I never gave up my hunt for Ryann and Marie after I got out. A while later, I found out that Ryann had overdosed and passed away, and that her brother took custody of Mar—uhm—Morgan. I’d bet anything that crowd she was messed up with retaliated somehow for what I’d done, for putting that motherfucker behind bars and exposing that little sex-trafficking and drug ring.
They kept her in that life, against her will, and it’s all because I let that anger consume me. ”
His cries of agony reverberate around the room, and I can’t help but tear up along with him.
My heart is torn to shreds for him, for everyone involved in this terrible series of events.
I don’t know what to say to him right now—because how the fuck can a few strung together words even come close to mending this level of hurt he’s held onto for so long?
We stay just like this, him crying—wailing with his face buried on my shoulder—for a long time. Not once do I stop rubbing his back or offering him tiny reassurances that I’ve got him. Finally, he collects himself, straightening up and looking into my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, knowing that a million apologies could never be enough. No amount of words could ever erase that kind of emotional damage.
“It’s not your fault,” he rasps, swiping at the residual wetness on his cheeks.
I shake my head. “I made you talk about it. I didn’t know—”
“Getting it off my chest, it—it helped,” he admits, cutting me off.
“Brooks told me that I needed to start letting people in. So, I guess I owe you a thank you for being stubborn enough to open that door. He obviously doesn’t know any of this.
I mean, he knows about Marlin, and me going to treatment, but I never told anyone about how I got there. Not until you.”
“I feel honored that you trusted me with that, then. But please, Gordy, know that I will guard this with my life. While I do feel like you should tell Brooks, that has to be on your own terms—when you’re ready.
I know, right now, you feel responsible for Ryann’s death, but, you have to know, you’re not.
You can’t shoulder that kind of weight your whole life.
If what you suspect is true, then, well, those assholes she was messed up with are to blame.
You didn’t force her to make that kind of choice, they did.
The best thing you can do now, if not for yourself, then for her, is to really live, you know?
Right now, you’re just surviving. You need to thrive. ”
“I don’t know how,” he tells me, his cracked voice barely above a whisper.