But he knows now. Maybe he’s always known. Maybe I was the naïve one, thinking I could keep his father’s drunken rage focused on me, that I could spare him.
He’s sixteen now. A young man.
And he’s not blind.
For a moment, Josh is silent, breathing erratically before he shoves David off him and stumbles toward the front door. He swipes his keys off the table on the way.
“Fuck you both,” he spits, and then he slams the door.
A sob chokes me, and in an instant, David is by my side, checking the wound on my head, the bruises already appearing on my arms as he curses.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, tears streaming down my face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The words flow out of me automatically, guilt and shame and terror webbing together in a terrible, sticky mess.
“It’s not your fault,” my son promises.
I don’t believe him.
After my sobs quiet, David helps me stand, and then he sighs, grabbing the keys to my car off the hook by the door.
“What are you doing?” I sniff.
“Going to get him.”
“No!”
“Mom, he’s drunk,” David says, his eyes that are so much like his father’s pinning me with the truth of that. He’s not angry, not emotional at all, really. He’s calm, rational. “He shouldn’t be driving right now.”
I bite back the urge to cry again, to beg him not to go.
“I don’t want to be alone,” I confess.
The words must break my son as much as they break me, because he swallows and looks away from me, his jaw trembling for just a second before his eyes are steady on me once more. “Greg will stay with you.”
He looks toward the staircase then, and I follow his gaze, realizing that Greg is perched on the bottom step. He’s been silent this whole time, but one look at him and I know he wanted to do what David did to Josh and maybe more. His elbows balance on his knees, hands clenched together between them, one foot nervously tapping as he sniffs. One glance at me and he forces a breath to calm himself, standing and running a hand back through his shaggy hair.
Greg slipped into our lives what felt like overnight.
He went to the same high school as David, but he was a senior when David was only a sophomore. The first week of school, David got caught up with the wrong people. He was bullied — horribly so — and Greg stepped in to protect him.
They became fast friends after that, and they’ve been inseparable since. Either Greg is here at our house, or David is over at his. I always prefer the latter, both because I know David is safer there, and because the way Greg looks at me unnerves me.
He sees me. He knows me.
And even though I know it’s silly and stupid and wrong, sometimes I think he wants me, too.
He nods to David — my son, his best friend — with a look that only best friends can have. It’s one that doesn’t need words, one that promises loyalty and love and respect with just a single glance.
“I’ll be back soon,” David promises, pressing a kiss into my hair.
I nearly cry at the touch.
“Please be careful,” I beg him. I know now, even as his mom, that it’s useless to try to stop him. He’s just like me — stubborn as hell — and he’ll go whether I want him to or not. I can either give him my permission, know that he’ll call me as soon as he has Josh in the car, or I can force him up to his room only to have him sneak out later.
“Always am,” he answers, and then he’s gone.
I cover my mouth as the sob I’d been holding back finally breaks free, and for a long moment, I just cry, shoulders shaking and heart splitting in two. I don’t even care about the bruises or the cut still bleeding on my forehead.
I just can’t believe this is real, that this is my life.
How did I end up here?
How did I bring a son up in a house as unsteady as this one?
And will it ever stop? Will Josh ever get clean? Will he ever go back to being the man I married?
The man… I almost laugh at that.
He was just a boy when we married. And I was just a girl.
Now, he’s a monster.
And I’m his favorite toy.
When I finally stop crying, I sniff, wiping my eyes just as a pair of dirty Converse sneakers come into view where I’m staring at the kitchen floor. I observe those shoes for a long moment before a young hand reaches out, palm up, the fingers long and tan.
I slowly bring my gaze to his, but he doesn’t say a word.
Greg just watches me, waiting, his brown eyes telling me without a word that he sees me, that he recognizes my struggle, that he isn’t judging me even when I deserve to be judged.