Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Enoch
My leg bounced erratically as I kept my eyes trained on the exit my family would be appearing from any moment. Their flight landed thirty minutes ago, and this wasn’t a large airport. They would be coming out any minute now from the doors we told them we were waiting outside of.
I could feel Jae’s stare on me, and I turned my head to eye him.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked, adjusted the collar of my hoodie. Not that it was doing much to draw the attention away from the bruises on my throat.
Jae sighed, scrunching his face. “It’s kinda bad, yeah.”
“Shit.” I groaned, leaning onto my knees to hold my head in my hands.
“She likes to go for throat, huh?”
I turned to give Jae a glare, and he put his hands up in a placating manner.
“Sorry, too soon. My bad.”
I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my jaw. I hadn’t shaved in the shower this morning because I’d forgotten to retrieve my razor from where I’d hidden it in the garage, out of sight from Shiloh.
“For real, though, what, um, actually happened?”
“Fuck, man, I don’t…” I paused taking a deep breath. I wanted to kill that fucker. I hadn’t lied to make her feel better. I genuinely wanted to kill the motherfucker.
“Is this about her ex?”
My head whipped to face him. “She told you about him?”
“Well, I mean, not really. Just showed me that scar on her shoulder and then went on some bullshit about how he loved her too much.”
I scoffed, pressing my fingers into my eyes. “Yeah, if you call whipping your significant other with a belt until she’s covered in scars, forcing her to get pregnant seven times and making her believe it’s her fault every time she miscarried love, then, sure.”
“The fuck?” Jae muttered with what I could only guess was a face of horror, though I avoided looking over to confirm it.
“Yeah. That’s what the dream was about last night. She told me yesterday about the miscarriages and it must have triggered her to have a nightmare about him and a reality in which she did actually have a child with him,” I explained, looking up to scan the crowd huddled by the exit again.
“Holy fuck, bro. That’s…cheese and fucking rice. Please tell me that piece of shit is in prison right now.”
I shook my head, “He’s unfortunately still living too.”
“Where is he? What’s his name?”
“He’s in Texas and his name is Theo.”
“Last name?”
I turned my head to see Jae with his fingers poised over his phone ready to type this guy’s name into Google.
“I don’t,” I paused, lips parting, “Hang on. I actually might have a way to find him. She said his dad was running for senate. For Texas. Try Googling the list of Texas senators. Maybe he actually won.”
I stared impatiently at Jae’s phone, watching him scroll through a Wikipedia page.
“Maybe try—”
“You said Theo, like Theodore?”
I nodded, leaning over into his shoulder to read the screen.
“Theodore Walsh.”
My heartbeat pulsed in my ears. Theodore Walsh. Jae pulled up a new search, but the first page of results was all about his dad.
“Wait. Go back,” I said, using my finger to scroll back to the headline that had caught my attention. “New head of Reformation Church, Theodore Walsh, plans to expand church property.”
Jae scrolled through the article and my heart skipped a beat when he stopped.
The monster. He didn’t look much like a monster, but I knew you couldn’t judge a person’s character by their outward appearance. My dad’s work as a military special agent and the stories he told were more than enough to prove that to me.
I studied his face, committing it to memory so I knew who to picture every time I hit the bag wishing it was him. He looked older. At least ten years older.
Jae looked at me as I pulled away, unlocking my own phone.
“She’s been saying some odd shit lately. And now it makes sense. He was a pastor or whatever and must have been some crazy conservative Christian,” I said as I pulled up the church’s website.
I found the staff page and my stomach dropped.
There was Shiloh. In all her beauty. Red hair, freckles, hazel eyes…and short hair. But the words underneath were what had me nearly vomiting.
Theodore Walsh and his wife, Olivia Walsh.
Jae slapped my arm a few times and I sighed looking at him.
“What?”
Only, he wasn’t looking at me. The sound of Babushka’s voice reached my ears before I turned my head to see them, my family. My mom dropped her duffle bag on the concrete and raced towards where Jae and I were sitting on a bench. I was barely on my feet when her arms wrapped me in an embrace.
I sighed, wrapping my arms around her back and breathing in her familiar perfume.
“Hi, mom,” I said, kissing the top of her head before she pulled back, holding me at arms distance.
“My baby,” she whined with a pout, eyes bouncing up and down my frame. “Look at ya. Have ya been eatin’ okay? Your face looks thin.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “Yes. I’ve been eating well.”
My mom’s eyes narrowed, and my stomach dropped as I knew she’d noticed the marks on my neck.
“Enoch?” She asked with concern, reaching out to brush her fingers over the soft bruises.
“Hand necklace,” Jae said through an obvious fake cough.
My eyes flew to Esty who choked, mouth open.
“You did not just say that?” she said, glancing between Jae and I like she could determine whether or not she had hallucinated his sex joke.
“Huh? What’s a hand necklace mean?” my mom asked, looking to Jae and then Esty who was fake gagging.
“It means he likes be choked during s-e-x,” Esty said gagging again as she silently spelled the word out, probably so the kids wouldn’t repeat it.
My mom’s brows went up as she eyed me and my dad snorted, covering up his laugh with a cough. I completely ignored my grandparents and the rest of my family, the back of my neck burning with slight embarrassment.
I focused on sending Jae an ‘I’ll give you a matching fucking one later, dickface’ glare. But he just smiled like he was an angel.
“He’s. Joking. Mom.” I turned to smile at her. “He’s just joking. We just got a little carried away sparring yesterday. I’m fine.”
“Jesus, Jae. You know you boys are supposed to tap out, right?” Uncle Q said. Auntie slapped him upside the head yelling at him in Korean.
I felt bad that he was taking the blame for this, but I didn’t have any other viable explanation. And to be fair, he seemed to be enjoying this a little too much, humiliating me in front of our entire family. What a fucking reunion.
My mom sighed, before finally releasing me, allowing my dad to pull me in for a hug. I clapped him on the back as he pulled away.
“Good to see you, bud. You look good.”
I nodded with a tight smile, and my sisters pulled me into a hug.
“I know you’re lying dip,” Esty whispered before releasing me.
“Hi, Nox, we missed you.”
I rolled my eyes and playfully shoved Esty away. She punched me in the pec, and I winced, the scratches on my chest sore. She eyed me skeptically.
“Shut up, that did not actually hurt. You’ve gone soft.”
I rolled my eyes again, pulling out of Eden’s side hug and waving at Seb who was holding the hands of their two kids.
My chest ached with how much they had grown.
I cleared my throat, eyeing Baba and Ded who were standing watching the reunion unfold.
I hadn’t seen Baba since I left for basic training, except for a FaceTime call over the holidays.
She eyed me with an equally tight smile and my shoulders rounded with shame.
“Um, car rental is this way.”
“Right,” my mom said with another bright smile, swiping tears off her face. “How should we do this? Who’s ridin’ with who?”
I eyed the group of them, overwhelmed by seeing every person I’d been avoiding for the last four years.
“I’ll take my mom and dad, and Baba and Ded?” Jae paused giving them a look to confirm and they nodded.
“I can drive four people,” I said, eyeing the rest of the group.
“I’ll ride with you, honey,” my mom said, looping her arm around my waist like she was afraid I’d disappear if she wasn’t next to me.
“Okay,” I strung the word out, anxiously eyeing Eden and Sebastian.
“We were actually going to do the rental car, that way we didn’t need to worry about car seats fitting in the back seat.”
I nodded at Eden. “Alright. So, dad, mom and Esty, you can follow Jae to the car, and I’ll meet you there after I make sure Sebastian is squared away.”
My mom seemed reluctant to leave me but gave me a squeeze before following Jae towards the crosswalk and the parking garage.
I offered to push the luggage cart that had two car seats on it and a Pack ‘N Play and Sebastian obliged with a grateful smile, taking the suitcase from Eden.
Sebastian squeezed my shoulder as he walked beside me. My stomach sank, thinking about how I was hiding from him the biggest secret of my life. Thinking about how happy he would be if he knew the truth.
“Jae’s got an interesting since of humor,” he said with a smirk.
I cringed and chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah. That’s Jae. He loves a good sex joke.”
Sebastian chuckled, a knowing look in his eye. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.
“I can’t believe y’all have got your own damn house and Jae…the gym. I mean, you’re not teenagers anymore, huh?” He asked with another squeeze of my shoulder before he withdrew his hand. “It’s been too long.”
I nodded, glancing over my shoulder at the mass of people walking away from us.
At the people I had missed beyond measure.
At the people I was forcing myself to lie to.
I swallowed against the bitter taste in my mouth, eyeing my sister as she picked up Benji who was pointing at one of the cars as we passed them.
He's never even met me in person before. Does he even know who I am? That he has another uncle besides Jae. I turned back, following the signs to the rental car.
“Hey, congrats on making Senior Airman,” he said. “You like your new unit?”
I cleared my throat and nodded. “Thanks. Yeah. It’s been good so far.”