Protection

Chapter 17

I furrow my eyebrows in concentration. I don't know why his dad matters since he never mentions him. And I don't know how I'm supposed to know him either.

"My father was...extremely abusive." He slides his fingers together and apart repeatedly and focuses on the action. "For as long as I can remember, he would hit me and my mother. Our daily beating."

Oh, God. I try not to throw up in my mouth when I think of a miniature Tobias getting pummeled by his so-called father.

"I'll spare you from the details, but let's just say that it was bad enough to leave us both bruised and bleeding nearly every night. And I mean, if he was going to do it, he might as well have had a reason. But no, he was just grumpy when he came home from work and needed something to take his anger out on. Or in this case, someone."

I cringe at the image he paints in my mind. How would that affect you to grow up in terror of being cruelly punished when you were innocent? How would that affect you to have a dad who you were supposed to love but couldn't because of the way he treated you? How would that affect you to have your own father, your own blood, turn on you for no reason?

I'm glad I never had to find out.

"He had a decent amount of money too—I remember seeing stacks of cash in his briefcase when he left it out on accident on numerous occasions—but he never spent it on us. We would get a tiny amount to spend on clothes and groceries and that was it. He wanted to keep up his reputation as the politician who has a lot but doesn't use it because he doesn't want to show off. While buying alcohol for himself on the side.

"So one day, my mom is done, right? She files for a divorce. He lets her go because he is fed up with her. Good for her, she got out. But I didn't," Tobias states, staring across the room at a wall because he is unable to face me. "They both fought for me at the trial. It was rough. I was only six years old, so of course I didn't know what was going on."

Every time he brings up his young age, my heart breaks for him a little more.

"My father paid off the judge, threatened my mother, and was able to win full custody of me. At the time, I didn't know what I was witnessing, and for a long time I convinced myself that she didn't fight for me. She told me the truth a little bit ago, that she fought an impossible battle but that she did fight."

I hold onto his arm and lean into him to offer support. His mother is still a tough subject. It shows too, in the way his voice wavers slightly and how he has to pause to regain his composure.

"After that, I went out of the frying pan and into the fire. The beatings got worse. He started using his belt. And then the belt buckle."

By now, tears have gathered in my eyes, but I force them down by biting the inside of my cheek.

"Joining the Marines was my escape," he explains. "I could get out at seventeen, and by the time I came back, I would be too old to live with him anymore. So I did. And then they called me back at nineteen because nobody could pay my mother's cancer bills, the mother who I wasn't allowed to see for thirteen years. You can imagine how well that went over."

I stifle a laugh at the idea of such an awkward position. Tobias's temper most likely didn't help the situation.

"Anyway." He turns towards me and hesitates before hinting, "You asked the other night how I knew Marcus Eaton. I think you can put two and two together."

That wipes away any amusement I had, and I have to cover my mouth in shock. Marcus Eaton, my father's friend and coworker, is Tobias's father.

I try to recall all that I know about him; I have only met him a few times, but I heard a lot of gossip from other politicians when I followed my mom around at a younger age. They would say the same thing: Marcus was married to a psycho woman who left him, and his estranged son abandoned him because he was selfish. Proves that you can't believe everything you hear.