My Future Husband

Chapter 71

“Mum... I thought the first time was after I caught him with...” Tara shakes her head, Dad shielding her with his arms as her tears spring free. “He hit you before then?”

“It was the week before your birthday p-party. I thought... I didn’t think. I just asked, I was...” I can’t just watch her like this, squeezing in next to her and Dad, holding her head to my shoulder.

“It’s okay, take your time.”

Valerie tries to hold it back, but I don’t think she’s ever understood Mama T more than in this moment. Two women from opposite ends of society, who know exactly what it’s like to be beaten down by the fists of a monster.

“I called him B-Boom. I didn’t mean to, I thought it would help him remember who T-Tick was to him, but something about the word snapped him. Jayce was on the bed, I was changing him, then the next thing I knew my head hit the w-wall.” I’ve never been happier Antonio killed that cunt. “I couldn’t even get my arms up, he just kept hitting me, over and over. I could hear Jayce crying, I was trying to crawl to him but my eyes sealed shut from the punches. Nigel just screamed at me ‘Boom! You want Boom!’ and all these things that didn’t make sense. It was like I wasn’t even human to him. Then I felt his hands around my throat... they were so tight.” She clutches her neck. “I thought I was going to die. I was listening to my baby cry for the last time... I thought that was it.”

“Mum...” Josh keeps Milo on his feet, his whole body trembling. “You... Why did you stay?”

People think it’s that easy, that you can just leave, but it’s not.

“I was a s-sixteen year old mum with no family, where could I go?” She sobs. “His mother found me, she threatened to throw him out, that she was going to take care of me and Jayce without him. He was in pieces, crying on the floor, telling me it was a mistake. I’d seen him angry but never like that, that was something else. Then a few weeks later things were fine, good even. He didn’t have any other outbursts, and his mum thought it was just something that happened because of his childhood, just a freak incident that wouldn’t happen again. It’s funny how when you look back with hindsight, you see everything differently.”

“How?” I go back to sit with Brie when I see her shaking too, although I’m pretty sure it’s more out of anger than anything else.

“Nigel was a lot of things, but he was never stupid. He realised quickly that day that he’d gone too far, but it didn’t stop his abuse, it just slowed it. He acted like he was the perfect boyfriend, the model son, the best dad. He supported me through law school, worked hard, would practise ball with Jayce until they passed out. He was always there... Except it was all manipulation. He’d let me go to school as long as I never asked where he was when I was there, he worked hard but controlled all our money. He was calculating, didn’t lay another hand on me until he had so much control over me he thought I’d never leave. He cut me off from everyone, kept us caged up like animals. It was slow, and it only really escalated to the worst of him after he started his affair with Anna, but when I look back at it, it all started that day, with that word: Boom.”

No wonder she collapsed. That one word was the beginning of the end for her. She thought she’d be trapped in that vicious cycle of abuse forever.

“You said they stopped seeing each other not long after you had Jay? That would’ve been around the same time that Tick left Westbrooke.” I may not be the most vigorous vibrator in the drawer, but I’m putting these pieces together. “He walked out on him too, disappeared on everyone. Maybe Nigel just couldn’t hack his brother turning his back on him, it flipped his fucked-up little mind from bad guy to psychopath.” What the hell could’ve been so bad that Tick would run from not only his baby, but his brother too?