Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
When life knocks you down, stand the fuck up and say ‘You hit like a bitch.’
—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations
Remy
“Sebastian,” she sighed out, her heart filling with something big and unnamable for this unexpectedly kind, thoughtful man.
“You offer people the gift of escapism. You bring stories to life. You help illuminate and entertain. I can tell you fr—” her voice caught, “from personal experience, the chance to lose yourself in fantasy, even if only for a few hours, is powerful.”
“Arabella—”
She stood abruptly, moving to the mantle.
His realness. His openness. His massive, beautiful heart.
His authenticity today at the shelter sharing an important part of her world.
It galvanized her. And it was time. “I’m ready to tell you.
About me. My childhood.” She touched the clown figurine, adjusting it slightly so his smiling visage faced Etta and Tasha Remington.
“You don’t need to—”
“I want to.” She shook her head. “I need to. If you want to hear it.”
Sebastian scanned her face from his spot on the couch. Over in his pen, Chicane chirruped for attention. “Let me get our little prince. I think we both might need some emotional support.”
Remy nodded, already losing herself to the vortex of crushing memory.
“I suppose the best place to start is the beginning.” Remy turned her back to Sebastian, instinctively knowing his natural empathy would break down hard-earned internal scars she required to prevent deep wounds from bleeding out.
A devastating emotional hemorrhage was not an option in this moment, or in her life for that matter.
She toyed with the figurine.
“My mother was from a middle-class family. Classic Wonder bread, Leave it to Beaver stuff. After a high school mixer early her senior year, she was hanging out with friends at a diner. She met a guy there who was a few years older and apparently fell in love at first sight. By her account, and according to the only photo I saw of him at that age, he was striking. Dark hair. Blue eyes.”
Remy huffed a sarcastic laugh, as much at her apparent physical likeness to him as at her mother’s professions of love. Because Remy had been quite sure whatever it was between her parents, it hadn’t been love. Far from it.
“He was from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.” She paused, swallowing past an onset of dry mouth. Some memories were harder to bear than others, and revisiting these always left her wrecked.
“My grandmother gave my mother an ultimatum to end things.
Instead, she got pregnant. Dropped out of high school and moved in with him.
Apparently, my grandmother offered her money for an abortion—which my sperm donor then stole to fuel a drug binge with his buddies.
When my grandmother found out, she washed her hands of everything to do with my mother. Including me.
“My father’s favorite pastime was getting drunk or high, or both, then beating my mother.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sebastian sitting rigidly upright on the edge of the sofa cushion, every visible muscle taut, hands clenched, jaw popping.
“Did he—did he hurt you, too?” His voice was low, controlled. But Remy could hear the vein of anger lacing the question.
She huffed, her laugh devoid of any amusement, taking a moment to steady herself against the mantle before turning to fully face him.
“Not physically. Well, actually that’s not true.
He’d shove me. Threaten me with worse. But he never hit me.
” She halted, struggling with the words.
“Even so, the emotional damage was horrific. Verbal abuse was an everyday occurence—that is, the days he wasn’t passed out, dealing drugs, or pretending to find work.
He’d put me down. Mock my physical appearance.
Tell me I was as stupid and worthless as my mother. ”
Remy laced her fingers together, squeezing hard until they ached at the webbing. What she was about to share was the worst of this part of her story. But not the worst overall. By far.
Her brimming tears spilled over and down her cheeks, and she quickly dashed them away with the heel of a hand.
She dragged in a breath. “He would make me—make me watch while he h-hit her. Told me if I turned away or ran away, he’d”—she swallowed painfully past the unforgiving knot in her throat—“he’d kill her. ”
Remy closed her eyes, fighting to control her breathing, like Etta had taught her.
“Jesus,” Sebastian breathed out, coughing and clearing his throat. “Jesus, Arabella. I—I don’t have words to— I don’t know what to say.” A tear slid unchecked down his cheek.
She shook her head. “Not much to say. His cruelty was relentless. Anyhow,” she continued, needing to move through the story so Sebastian could go ahead and run away from the ugliness he’d unwittingly connected himself to.
“We moved around a lot. I think I lived in nine places before high school.
Different cities, different states, and we eventually ended up in Baltimore.
“Sperm donor was making his living dealing drugs and mom waited tables. Sometimes he’d beat her so badly, the cops—who were frequent fliers at every shabby place my parents lived—would talk her into going to the hospital, where some persuasive social worker would occasionally convince her to seek support at a shelter.
That would be…a time of respite. Where I might get some new-used clothes.
Be able to study in peace. Eat three meals a day.
Feel…safe. Protected,” she finished in a whisper.
“And that’s why I make sure to give back now. To help others in the same situation.”
“Arabella, we don’t need to talk about this now.” Sebastian stood and started to move toward her, Chicane in his arms, little nose wiggling as if he sensed her distress.
Remy held up a staying hand. “Please. Please don’t come closer. I just—I need space. And now that I’ve started, I need to get this out.”
Sebastian’s gaze moved carefully over her face, assessing. Eventually he nodded, eyes sad, and sat back down.
Remy pinched the bridge of her nose, dropping her head against the weariness weighing her down.
“She never stayed long at the shelter. A handful of days at most. He had a hold over her I could never understand. But I used to wish”—she caught the sob that almost erupted from her—“used to wish that he’d hurt her enough that she’d finally see reason. Not physically. But…emotionally.
“Instead, one afternoon, he beat her senseless. I’d just started high school, so I didn’t have to witness this one. Thank God.” Remy winced, flinching at brutal memories best left untouched. “Apparently he left her crumpled in a corner and proceeded to invite some friends over and get high.
“I was pulled out of biology by the principal. The school’s guidance counselor was waiting for me, along with two police officers.
They’d responded to a 911 call for a suspected overdose.
Apparently, one of sperm donor’s fellow junkies called.
The police found him dead, my mother still unconscious in the kitchen. ”
“Arabella—”
She continued woodenly, as if Sebastian hadn’t spoken.
“My mother had been transported to the hospital and admitted to the ICU with a traumatic brain injury and multiple broken bones. The police removed his body. I never saw him again. The guidance counselor asked who she could call for me. I couldn’t even respond, because… there wasn’t anyone.”
Remy shifted and reached for the picture, tears brimming in her eyes.
She traced the beloved face as she had so many times when she was feeling lost and low.
“One of my classmates happened to be in the office. A beautiful, funny girl who absolutely radiated joy and love. It was early in the semester, but she was already the most popular girl in our class. Only…Etta Remington was the opposite of a mean girl. She was beloved,” Remy choked on agonizing, guilt-ridden sorrow, “b-because she was so, so kind. Later, she told me something elemental and soul-deep had whispered at her to step forward and help me. But she shouldn’t have. Her kindness…it set in motion—fuck.”
The dam broke and a wave of tears streamed down Remy’s face, her body shaking with the agony of remembering. She put a staying hand up to keep Sebastian away. She couldn’t handle his tender touch juxtaposed with such ugliness and pain.
“Anyway,” she eventually managed, composing herself and not ready to go there yet, “Etta informed the principal we were best friends and that her mother, Tasha, would be happy to take me in as long as necessary.”
Remy wiped her face with her sleeve. “Mind you, this was the mid-nineties. The school safety precautions so common today hadn’t yet been put in place in the overcrowded city school I attended, which was filled with all backgrounds of kids, some of whose stories were as bad as mine. Or worse.” She shook her head.
“They allowed Etta to call Tasha at work. To her credit, Tasha took it in stride and affirmed Etta’s statement.
” Arabella traced the much-loved picture with her gaze, wishing for the chance to go back in time and change so many things—except that day.
Selfishly, she wouldn’t change that day for anything, because it gifted her the Remingtons.
“She’d never even met me. Simply took her daughter’s word for it.
Their relationship was so loving. Trusting.
It was everything I’d ever wanted and never had. Until then.
“I went home with the Remingtons that day. And during the week I stayed with them, until my mother was released, Etta’s declaration of best friendship manifested into reality.”
Sebastian stood again, moving closer to hand her Chicane before taking a few steps back, honoring her space. It was like he could read her emotions, her needs, as clearly as he read his beloved romances.
“The E necklace you wear—”
“It was hers,” Remy affirmed. “More on that…later. If I can.”
“You don’t need to—”
“I do,” she asserted, so forcefully Chicane jumped a bit in her arms. “Sorry, my darling.” Remy nuzzled his silky fur until he settled back down.
“I do,” she added, this time more softly.
“The Remingtons became my family in the truest sense of the word. My mother quickly devolved into her own alcoholism—grieving that sonofabitch as if he’d never made a vicious habit of pulverizing her.
It wasn’t until much later in my life, and after a fair amount of therapy, that I recognized she’d identified herself only through him.
She was so tied up in him, and her feelings for him, she became co-dependent on him and borderline obsessed.
She used to fly into jealous rages then drink until she passed out when she caught wind of another instance of his rampant cheating. ”
Remy blew out a long breath. “Isn’t this uplifting?
Doesn’t it make you want to just run to the nearest courthouse and marry me?
” Sarcasm dripped from her words, her only defense against what was emerging as a terrifying realization.
She finally understood one tiny piece of her mother—that longing to be loved and cherished by the person who captured your heart, even if you know it can only end in misery and heartbreak.
Sebastian covered the distance between them in a heartbeat, gently wrapping her and Chicane in his arms, stroking the back of her hair. She allowed it, sinking into the embrace.
“Arabella,” he soothed, “I hate that you went through all that. But nothing about you makes me want to run away. You hear me? It makes me want to enfold you fully into my heart, my life, and give you all the lo—”
Remy braced herself for the unwanted—but, in truth, deeply craved—L-word.
“—give you everything beautiful in life,” he finished.
Something inside her was both relieved and sad that he didn’t say the word.
“It wasn’t all bad,” she murmured from the safe harbor of Sebastian’s arms. “Tasha and Etta were phenomenal people. They opened their home and their hearts to me without question or judgment. I essentially lived there during high school—only going home to clean up the squalor my mother lived in. Looking back, I’m pretty sure she suffered from an undiagnosed outcome from her traumatic brain injury.
She devolved so quickly from bad to worse. ”
She shuddered at the memory of the stench and detritus of one of her mother’s frequent depressed binges. Vomit. Empty, broken bottles. Stale urine. Roaches. Maggots in old food.
“Her name was Lottie. I refer to her as my mom, only because I recognize now she was as much a victim as I was. It was maybe the only grace I could give her, though she never did anything to deserve the honor of that title. She was far too broken to worry about the child she never wanted. Not once she realized a baby wouldn’t be enough to tie the man she was obsessed with to her.
There was no warmth. No compassion. No maternal desire to protect me, even if she couldn’t protect herself.
But, still—” Remy stared into the middle distance.
“She was so young. And her family… They just…abandoned her. I can’t imagine the evil that was my maternal grandmother.
If that’s how she was, no wonder Lottie turned out so messed up. ”
“No grandfather in the picture?”
Remy shook her head. “He apparently died in a car accident when my mom was around eight or so. Wrapped his car around a tree during an ice storm. I know that much from one of Lottie’s drunken, maudlin tirades.
” She briefly closed her eyes and rolled her neck, tension radiating in aching waves through her jaw, neck, and back.
Have to keep going. Have to debride the wound before it can heal, right Etta?
“In an oddly parallel scene, two different cops came back to my school halfway through my senior year. My mother had killed herself. Sliced the veins in both arms—long ways, so she’d bleed out fast.”
Her retelling was almost dispassionate. It was the only way to get through. Because that ending became the terrible beginning to the worst part of the wreckage of her life.