Chapter Nine
Ryden
Seventeen Years Ago
One whole year later.
Sometimes, time does fly with broken wings.
“Why do you live there?” Scarlett asked me.
I thought it was a stupid question. “What do you mean why do I live there? It’s my home. My mom lives there.”
“But…” She sat next to me on the play gym, staring at the grass. “So does he.”
I knew who she was talking about. Corban.
This whole year, I told her everything. At first, it was because I needed to get it out. Then it turned into reliance. Into companionship.
Maybe that’s why Mom stayed with Corban.
She leaned on him.
Even when he didn’t catch her.
“I can’t just leave,” I said, defeated.
I wanted to.
I didn’t want to.
Corban.
Mom.
Corban.
Mom.
“Sure you can,” she piped up. “I do it all the time.”
“No you don’t.”
Scarlett protested. “Yes. I do.” And threw a fistful of soil at me.
“Hey!” I gave her a little shove. She held my fingers to her bare arm. “What is –” I turned her arm over and saw a patch of fleshy skin, raw and red like her hair.
She yanked free and for the first time in a year, I saw Scarlett panic. “Don’t touch me!”
Fear.
I saw fear in her eyes.
The same fear I saw in my mom’s when Corban would slam the door at one in the morning.
When Corban would crack open a beer. And another, and another.
That fear that lingered beneath the smile she wore.
The one Scarlett was ashamed of wearing.
“Don’t –” She repeated, as if I were moving forward, coming at her like – like someone did…
Someone did this to her.
Someone did this to my Dove.
The thought was weird, jarring. It struck me like an electrode, zapping me straight.
My Dove.
Why did I call her that?
Mom was my Dove.
Mom said doves protect.
She protects me… doesn’t she?
She – she’s there for me.
[Not when Corban’s around.]
[Not when Corban’s yelling.]
[Not when Corban’s violent.]
[Not when Corban’s…]
[This is the first time Ryden experienced anxiety.
At only eleven years old, the trauma had seeped into the tiny wells of safety he tried so hard to fill.
He would come to write about it, in all his songs that you love, that you listen to.
But now, Ryden is just a kid, who didn’t know if his mom was hurting him more than Corban was hurting her.
After all, physical violence can be overlooked after someone weeds their way into your psyche.
That… that hurts way more than a bruise. That’s a wish of pain.]
“Ryden!” A voice.
A distant voice.
No, no it was close.
There were hands on my shoulders, on my neck.
Her hands.
“Ryden, hey, Ryden!” Then –
A slap.
“Ow!” I yelled, before my mind could react to the situation. To what happened to… to me.
“What?” she asked, as if she hadn’t just hit me.
I rubbed my cheek. “Do you ever apologize?”
“I’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” A shrug. “Your hands were shaking and you were sweating and I was talking to you and you ignored me or didn’t hear me or whatever.”
“I couldn’t hear you.”
“That’s what I said.”
I stood up, “No, Scar, I couldn’t hear you.”
She glanced up at me, big brown eyes twinkling. “Scar. I like that.”
“Can you take anything seriously!” I yelled, stomping away.
But she grabbed me, just like I grabbed her, and pressed my fingers to her heart.
“You told me not to touch you,” I whispered, staring at this girl made of fire, made of steel, who managed to calm me down in a single motion.
And in the strangest turn of events, she pulled me closer, and wrapped her slender arms around my middle, hiding the burn mark I knew she had beneath my armpit.
That was the moment that solidified what we were, even before I could accept it myself. Two protectors, two survivors.
“You look like an eagle,” she’d said, the first day we met.
I held her tighter.
And you, my Dove.