He’d been nine fucking years old.
“The next morning, I told my mother I was sick, but my dad said I had to go to school. My school was only a couple of blocks away so I usually walked instead of taking the bus. I left the apartment, but instead of going to school, I went to the back of our building and crawled behind one of the dumpsters and stayed there for the whole day and that night too. The building’s maintenance man found me and took me home. My dad beat me for skipping school and my mom yelled at me for causing them trouble since they already had their hands full with Ricky.”
“Did you ever tell them what happened?” I managed to ask.
He shook his head. “I was too afraid he’d follow through on his threat and hurt them. But when it kept happening, I started acting out. I…I was so mad at my parents for not knowing there was something wrong…” Levi murmured. “One morning when I was ten or eleven, I lashed out at my mother because she wouldn’t let up on how I was letting my grades slip. I told her to shut up and called her a bitch.”
Levi pulled back from me a little and wiped at his face. “I…I didn’t mean it. I was just so scared and angry. I couldn’t sleep anymore because I was always waiting for Ricky to come after me. I kept falling asleep in school and it had already been hard for me to keep up to begin with. My mother looked at me the same way she’d always looked at Ricky. She left a few days later.”
“Left?” I asked.
“Walked out. She came back a month later to get her stuff and to tell my father she wanted a divorce…she’d met someone else. I…I was so sure she would take me with her so I ran to my room to pack, but by the time I got back to the living room, she was gone. She…she didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” I said as I leaned down to wrap myself around him.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” he whispered.
“I know you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”
We sat like that for a few minutes before Levi shifted and turned around so he could face me. “The tattoo…” he began, but then his voice faltered.
“Take your time,” I said softly.
He nodded and then crossed his legs so he could sit more comfortably. I was glad he was willing to face me as he spoke.
“My father wasn’t as bad as he is now, but he always talked shit about people. Black people, Hispanic, Asian…didn’t matter. He blamed them for things, too. Like when he lost his job and we had to move into our apartment…he said his boss, who happened to be Hispanic, had it in for him. At another job, he lost out on a promotion because of an Indian guy. And my mother…we found out she left my father for a black man.”
My insides went cold at his words.
Levi dropped his eyes. “I…I believed him when I was younger. I thought there was truth behind his words and when my mom left…I blamed the guy. I needed someone to blame,” he admitted quietly. “But as I got older, I wasn’t so sure. One of my teachers in school who always encouraged me and told me I wasn’t dumb like the kids said I was…she was black. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school, but there was this girl in my Math class who would help me out whenever I got stuck on a problem during study time. She was Hispanic. But when I tried to say something to my father, he’d get so mad…”
Levi fell silent for a moment and then fingered the bandage on his wrist. “Ricky believed everything my father said…I think he just liked having that permission, you know? To hate. It was…it was like it brought him and my father closer. I knew I couldn’t change their minds, so I just stayed quiet. I didn’t want the tattoo, but I knew what Ricky would do to me if I said no. I was fourteen at that time. He was still…at night…”
Levi’s voice faltered, but I knew what he was trying to tell me. The sexual assaults had continued. I pulled him forward so I could press a kiss to his temple. “It’s okay,” I murmured.
I felt his fingers close over my arm. “He only did it when he was really mad. He had girlfriends by that age, so he didn’t come after me unless he needed to punish me for something or if something set him off. He and my dad were getting along better, so he wasn’t as angry all the time.” Levi turned his head and stared down the length of the beach for a few minutes. My heart broke for him as a few silent tears slipped down his face.