Love is Silent

Chapter 13

The entire left side of his chest was covered in scars. They extended to the bottom of his ribcage and went up over his shoulder. I took his arm and gently turned him around and saw that the scars continued on his back, though they didn’t go as far down as they did on his back. I trailed my fingers over them lightly and he shivered before turning back around to face me. “It’s a long story,” he said.

“I have all night,” I replied. “Can you tell me how this happened?”

He took my hand and sat back down on the couch, tugging me down beside him. “I guess I should start at the beginning. My mom was about eight years younger than my father. She came from a pretty messed up home; her dad was abusive. My dad was a cop and he responded to a domestic violence report at her house. She was eighteen at the time and my dad helped her get out of there and set up on her own. They ended up falling in love and getting married. She cut off all contact with her family, and never saw them again after that day.

“My dad was an only child and his parents had passed away already, so the two of them were on their own until I came along. They wanted more kids, but my mom had some complications and wasn’t able to have anymore. So they loved me with everything they had and we were a fairly happy family. I know my mom worried about my dad a lot because of his job, but she was a pretty good cop’s wife.

“The day they died was supposed to be the first day of their first vacation together. I already told you that I was staying with a friend of theirs while they were gone. When they died, the courts searched for any living family members that were able to take me. Apparently my mom’s father was still alive, but they wouldn’t place me with him because of his criminal record.

“Instead, they located my uncle; my mother’s older brother. He had a steady job and seemed like a decent guy who was willing to take responsibility for me, so they placed me with him. For the first few months, everything was okay. I had a hard time adjusting to not having my parents any longer, but I was slowly coming around.

“Then one night he came home drunk. I’d never seen him have a drink before, but on this night he was completely plastered. He shoved me around a little and said some things that didn’t make much sense to me at the time. The next morning he was back to normal and didn’t mention anything about the previous night, so I decided it was a one-time thing.”

He paused here and ran his fingers through his hair. “I quickly learned that I was wrong. He started coming home drunk at least once a week and he would push me around and hit me. He’d also tell me that there was nothing I could do about it because I was just a kid and no one would believe me if I said anything. He said that kids who lied got thrown into jail. I was young and still recovering from my parent’s deaths, so I believed him. I stopped talking, because everything I said just pissed him off. It continued this way for almost three years before he finally went too far one night.  

“He came home drunker than he’d ever been and started his usual routine. Only this time I fought back. That shocked him and he stopped for a few minutes. He started making some coffee, saying he needed to sober up so we could talk like men now that I’d shown some backbone. I don’t know why I believed him, but I did. I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I sat at the kitchen table and waited for him to start talking.

“The next thing I knew, he had grabbed the pot of coffee and poured it over my shoulder, screaming at me that I was an ungrateful brat who had ruined his life, just like my father had ruined my mother’s by tearing her away from her family. He then grabbed a knife and came at me, so I ran. It was the middle of winter and I was only wearing pajama bottoms and my shoulder felt like it was on fire, but I knew if I didn’t run then he would kill me.