God huffed and took a couple more breaths before he released his secret to his best friend. No one knew this story except him and the DA of Clayhatchee, Alabama.
“When I was young, my mom and I really didn’t have very much money. She was a single mom after the sperm donor she’d dated for about a month dumped her after she’d gotten pregnant with me. She did her best though. She worked at a local grocery store part-time, which was barely enough to pay the rent, much less keep us clothed and fed.
I was only ten when my mom got fired from her job for trying to steal some bologna to feed me. Her employer called the cops and even tried to press charges. Well, the cop that responded was a man named Jake Whittmen.” God rubbed his hand through his now mostly dry hair.
“One thing led to another after he took her home instead of taking her to jail. Next thing you know… I have a new father.” God huffed. He took a breather and watched Day take a sip of his coffee. His eyes were focused on the floor, but God knew the man was taking in even the minutest details of his story.
“Things were actually okay. He moved us into his small house in Clayhatchee, and it was better than where we’d been. It was obvious he never liked me, but my mom showered me with enough love so it was cool.” God shrugged. “After my mom got pregnant with Gen, he seemed happy to have his own son so he laid off me a bit, and I tried to be invisible when he was home. I hung around with friends, did my football thing, and worked little odds-and-ends jobs to give money to my mom. All hell broke loose one day when me and him were arguing about me turning eighteen soon and still living there. My mom stepped in when he started pushing me around; he pushed her and she slipped and fell, breaking her hip.” He gritted his teeth at the memories.
“While she recovered in the hospital, things turned from worse to flat-out unbearable. It didn’t matter what I did he was on me. Gen was seven and I was seventeen. I was crazy about my baby brother. Still am. He was always with me if my mom wasn’t home. I never left him home with dad.” God put his hands up in air quotes when saying the word dad. “I didn’t trust him with Gen, especially after the man had a few beers.
"Anyway, fast-forward a few months to me turning eighteen. He wanted me out. Trust me, I wanted to leave, but I had to protect them from him. I was big and he liked fighting with me… called it our own fight club, but really it was him taking out his frustrations on his own personal punching bag. He’d start a fight, usually when no one was home, then he’d tell my mom I was a troublemaker fighting at school and shit, or I was in a gang.
“He told me he’d take it out on my mom if I ever told the truth about my bruises. I didn’t know if he meant it or not, but I refused to risk it. I’d seen him push her and hurt her before. I was in my room sleeping after football practice when he came in from fishing with one of his buddies.”
God saw Day tense but he kept talking.
“He started letting his buddies have a go at me. It was getting harder to explain the bruises, and my mom started really pressing me for answers. I wanted to tell her so bad, but I wasn’t sure if she would leave him and he’d turn into an even bigger psycho, or if he’d follow through on his threats to punish her if I told the truth. So I told my mom I was in a gang.” God shuddered a breath. “She hated it. She and I grew further apart. When I tried to stop fighting with him and his friends, he said he would have a go at Genesis. I definitely wouldn’t risk that. Maybe he wouldn’t have abused his own kid, but I wasn’t going to chance it. He was so damn drunk all the time by then, and his buddies on the force covered for him so he never got in trouble. One time he brought a few friends to my room who wanted to do more than fight. They held me down while two of the guys raped me. My dad wasn’t in the room. He thought they were getting the best of me in a fight. After they were done they told my dad that I was a homo and I'd forced myself on them.”