Chapter Thirty-Eight Don’t Deserve Her #2
We're here. She's here.
I let out a deep, ragged sigh, the sound scraping raw against the quiet of the room. With a heavy heart, I finally force the words past my lips.
“My mom left when I was nine,” I whisper.
Hadley’s fingers freeze against my chest. She doesn't speak. She just listens, and I slowly force the words past my lips.
“She didn’t just disappear,” I continue, the words tasting like ash as I keep my eyes locked on the dark ceiling.
“I actually saw her leave. It was the middle of the night, right after this massive, screaming fight between her and my dad in the kitchen.
I remember standing at the top of the stairs, clutching the railing, watching her drag a suitcase toward the front door.
I begged her to stay. I was crying, asking what we had done wrong.
What I had done wrong. And she just looked up at me with this cold, hollow face and told me she was leaving because this life, because we, weren't enough to make her stay.”
I swallow hard, taking a moment to control the emotions bubbling up inside me before I continue.
“After she walked out, everything went to hell.
My dad blamed us. He screamed at my brother and me, telling us we were the reason she couldn't stand to be in the house. He was already barely staying sober before she left, but after that door slammed? He completely lost his grip on the bottle. And when he drank, he needed someone to bleed for it. My brother was four years older than me. He took the brunt of it for years. He’d step right in front of me, shield me from the worst of the beatings.
Take the punches until he was black and blue, just so my dad wouldn't touch me.”
I swallow hard, the metallic taste of old memories flooding my mouth.
“But the second he turned eighteen, he couldn’t take it anymore, just like Mom.
He packed his things and left in the middle of the night.
No goodbye and no note. He said he’d always be there for me, but apparently I wasn’t enough of a reason for him to stay either.
I was thirteen, and suddenly, I was the only target left. ”
I feel Hadley’s chest heave against mine.
“The next five years were a fucking nightmare,” I mutter, my hands curling into fists against the sheets.
“The abuse, the bruises…the cigarette burns on my back. There were nights I’d lock myself in my room, wedging a chair under the doorknob.
I’d just sit there in the dark, trembling, waiting for him to pass out or break the door down.
I had to get random jobs under the table wherever I could just to make enough cash to keep from going hungry, because he’d drink or gamble away every dollar that came into that house.
We barely kept the utility bills paid. The only reason we weren’t kicked out of the house was that it was my late Grandpa’s and already paid off. ”
I pull a deep, ragged breath into my lungs.
“I tried to keep to myself. I hid in the shadows. Wore long sleeves in the dead of summer. Mrs. Clay…she lived next door. She noticed. She saw the bruises on my arms and legs and noticed how skinny and dirty I always was. She started cornering me after school, forcing me to come into her kitchen to eat. She’d help me with my homework, feed me until I stopped looking like a skeleton, and she supported my love for hockey.
Slowly, over those five years, she became the only stable, safe thing in my entire miserable life. ”
I hold my breath, waiting for her reply. Half-expecting her to tell me she wants to leave after hearing how fucked-up my life has really been.
“She was there for you when no one else was,” Hadley murmurs.
“I never had plans to go to college, Hadley. I knew I couldn’t afford it.
And my grades weren’t nearly good enough for an academic scholarship because I was too busy working just to survive.
My dreams of playing for the NHL? I thought they were impossible.
I was always too busy working and taking care of my old man to get onto the school team or any elite travel teams that actually had a chance of discovery by scouts. I wasn't like the other guys.”
My voice starts to accelerate, a sudden edge creeping into my tone as the faces of my teammates flash through my mind. I fight to get the next words out.
“I wasn’t like Jensen, or Zander, or Carson. Those guys…they were NHL-bound from high school. They had the financial backing and the support. Even now, they have futures after hockey. I have…nothing.”
The words hang in the air like soot settling over the clean white sheets.
This is the moment. This is the part where the illusion shatters.