Eternally North (Eternally North 1)

It took ten minutes. Ten minutes to let it all out, ten minutes of holding him tightly in my arms and ten minutes to stop the crying. With a final shudder, he pulled back and lifted his head, his eyes severely bloodshot from all the released emotions and his face all battered and bruised.

I sat staring at him, trying to control my rage towards the man in the police car who I assumed had hurt him. He tried to read my eyes, searching my face for a sign that I still wanted him, before tentatively leaning forward and kissing me. It was soft, brief and full of need, and this time, I kissed him right back.

He pulled away, his hand pressed to my cheek as he looked around the room. I followed his gaze with my own, surveying the chaos and destruction. Tudor cleared his throat, his voice cracked and strained. "I need to get out of here."

"Of course," I whispered, and I stood and took his hand leading him out of the carnage.

When we were out in the hallway, Samantha and Henry rushed over. Henry wrapped an arm around Tudor's neck and pulled him into his chest. They were both struggling with their emotions and clung onto each other for support.

Henry pulled back, bracing Tudor in his arms. "Are you okay, little bro?"

Tudor nodded weakly.

Henry swallowed and whispered. "Thank you, again. You shouldn’t have to keep dealing with this shit. Somehow it always falls on you."

Tudor bowed his head once in acknowledgement.

Samantha moved in and kissed his cheek and then moved to kiss mine. I smiled weakly at her, and Tudor took my hand in his, leading me to a door that led to the basement. “I need to be alone right now with Tash, I… just need some time away from all that,” tilting his head in the direction of Boleyn’s trashed room.

Henry tapped him on the arm and let us past, and we descended the stairs to Tudor’s basement. It was unlike any basement that I had ever seen – it was practically a palace. It was bigger than most houses and it was decorated with wood and leather. A total man-cave, complete with separate kitchen and living area, but I loved it. In any other circumstances, this would have been a total turn-on, but these were not normal circumstances… These were unprecedented, these were… Well, I wasn’t entirely sure. I was still completely in the dark to exactly what had happened and what it all meant.

Tudor led me through the dark-wood-and-chrome kitchen and sat us down on a huge black L-shaped couch, never once releasing my hand and never once uttering a single word. I rested my head on his shoulder, giving him the time he needed to talk, or not talk – I wouldn’t push this time. This time it was up to him.

I honestly didn't know how long we stayed in the same spot, my head on his shoulder, his hands holding both of mine as if they were a lifeline. It was obvious that he needed time to cool down, and I was happy to just be there as a support.

The sun had begun to set when he shifted and for the first time since we moved downstairs, Tudor relaxed some and settled back against the cushions, tucking me under his arm, desperately close. I looked up at his face and his eyes were closed and tense, like he was battling with the image of something. When he finally spoke, his voice was gravelly from the strain of the day’s events.

"When I was younger, things were okay at home; at that time we lived in Victoria, BC, that’s where Henry and I were born and raised, and we were a typically normal family. As I grew up, I realised all was not as it seemed, not at all. I first noticed little things, like my mom would sometimes walk funny, like with a limp or a twisted ankle, and then sometimes she would have these bruises on her arms and legs, but I was too young to know what was really going on.

“I was about eight; Henry, ten, when we walked in from hockey practice to see my father pinning my mother down to the floor and beating her, punching her over and over with his fist while he was practically raping her. We didn't know what to do, we were so young – we didn’t even know what sex was, for Christ’s sake! Henry pushed me back to protect me and tried to pull him off her but my dad just swatted him away like a fly. The man we idolised, our hero, was hurting our mom and we didn’t know how to stop it. It was after that when we left the first time. We lived with our grandparents for a few years in Kelowna, BC, and then one day he showed up again, right out of the blue. We had no idea how he had found us but he said he'd changed, he seemed to have changed and my mom took him back. She wanted us to be a family, for her boys to have a dad.”

He sucked in a breath, and I slipped my fingers underneath his T-shirt to run my fingers over his stomach to comfort him. I didn’t want to push him. In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined that this was his secret.

After a couple of minutes, he lifted my chin and kissed me softly on my mouth. I smiled and cuddled back in, and he picked up where he had left off.

“At first everything was great, he was the perfect father, but then the signs appeared again: the flinching from my mother every time he moved, the bruises in places people wouldn't check and the baseball bat he started using to keep me and Henry in line. We were bigger then, both of us teenagers who trained hard at hockey. I was starting to get into weight-lifting to help with my junior varsity career and I was gaining strength by the day. Henry and I both knew how to handle ourselves, but he had my mother wrapped around his little finger, and if we stepped up to him, she would beg us to stop. He used her to control us. It went on for years and there was nothing we could do.

“I was fifteen when I found my mom crying on the bathroom floor, holding something in her hand – a pregnancy test. My father was at work. She was pregnant with Bee and that was the day we left for good. We got in the car, without any of our possessions, and moved to Vancouver and never looked back.