Killer (Savages 2)

"Then one night, I walked out to find her like that, her hands wrapped around my father's leg, sobbing, as he just kept walking toward the door, dragging her with him. And I saw that he had a bag in his hands. Not his briefcase for work, a big suitcase. And I was little and I don't think I fully comprehended what was happening except I knew that that bag was for when you were going away. He was going away and... and he never told me he was going anywhere. And my mother just kept crying, saying he couldn't do that to her, he couldn't leave her, that if he loved her, he couldn't leave her. He yanked back from her, getting his leg free. His hand hit the doorknob and his head jerked up to see me standing there. He stared at me for a second and then... then he was gone."

His hand stop stroking, but only because both of them moved to wrap me up tight. "What happened after?"

I felt my shoulder shrug. "Nothing. Everything. Life went on. I guess child support checks came in because we never needed to move. The lights never got shut off. Mom always had booze money. She kept searching for answers at the bottom of empty bottles and I kept on... keeping on. I went to school and did my homework. I tried to keep anyone from finding out the truth."

"So you kept anyone from getting to know you at all," he guessed correctly.

"Yeah."

"Baby..."

I shook my head at his sympathy. I couldn't take any more goodness out of him. "Then I was eighteen and angry and confused and on a mission to understand..."

"Understand what?"

"Addiction? What, exactly, had allowed my mother to throw her life away and, in a lot of ways, mine as well. I was so hateful and resentful and I wanted to not feel that way."

"You got there, baby," he said with a squeeze.

"Yeah. But by that time, mom had drank herself into an early grave," I said, the words coming out almost dismissively and I winced at them.

"How old were you?"

"Twenty-one."

"Baby..."

"It's fine," I said, shaking my head, trying to shake it off. "Plenty of people had it worse. Johnnie, you had it worse."

"Amelia, it ain't a contest," he said simply and I realized that was how I always viewed it. Like, yes, my mother was a drunk, but at least she didn't whore herself out for drug money like so-and-so's mom; or, It sucked that my dad walked out and left me with an addict for a mom, but at least he didn't stick around and molest me like so-and-so's dad. I was always trying to belittle my story because someone else had a more horrific one, as if trying to convince myself that my damage wasn't as worthy of acknowledgment.

"How come you came out so well adjusted?" I asked out loud, not meaning to.

At that, I got a small chuckle. "Baby, I shoot people for a living. What about that suggests I am well adjusted?"

"That's not what I mean..."

"What do you mean?"

"Johnnie, your dad knocked out your baby teeth. He made your life hell for fifteen years. How do you not greet every morning with anger?"

"Honey, what he did to me, that wasn't about me; that was about him. I ain't taking his damage on as my own."

"But doesn't it bother you that he did that? That he took of his pain or anger or whatever on you when you were too young to defend yourself?"

"Sure. And when I was younger, I took that shit out on the dickheads in town who dared try to tease me about it. I took it out on them; though it wasn't about them. Just like my Pops did to me. And I didn't stop doing that until I got away, until I met Break, until I saw there was more to life than the anger and resentment."

"So you could just... magically let it go?" I scoffed.

"Might have helped that Break employed me to help bust faces for a while. Anger creeps up, you bleed that out so it doesn't poison you."

"You think I let it poison me?" I asked, suddenly too concerned with his opinion of me.

"I think you want it to poison you," he countered, making me stiffen. "I think you want it raging through your veins so that if anyone tries to get under your skin, it gets on them too." He paused, his fingers squeezing me as if to soften the blow of his words. "I think you spend your life walking away first, before people... before men come to the conclusion that you aren't worth staying for. I think you learned that lesson from your father young and I think you believe it; I think you put your faith to rest in it; I think you can't imagine a world where a man could want to be with you."

I closed my eyes tight against his words, against the truth of them, against the knowledge that he, once again, got me.

I was in so, so much trouble.

God, it was going to hurt when he became one of the ones I had to walk away from first.

"Come on baby, that's enough of that for today," he said, knifing upward suddenly, taking me with him and I whimpered against the soreness the jostling caused. Johnnie winced, kissing my forehead in apology as he gently set me on my feet. "You wanna take a shower?" he asked and I nodded. "Alone?" he asked, knowing that was what I wanted, but I nodded anyway. He patted my ass a little with a nod. "Try as much as you want, honey," he said, slipping into his shorts again, "but those shields are in pieces. You ain't getting them back up."

I felt the tears pool behind my eyes and rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door before he could see them. I brought my hands up to press the heels of my palms into my eyes as I let the first waves of emotions rush through me. I turned slightly, looking at myself in the mirror and taking a deep breath. "Pull it together," I demanded my reflection, moving to turn the water in the shower on.