Why that pisses me off is beyond me, but it does.
“Father,” he states, his eyes narrowed.
And now three languages. Fuck. That.
“Padre? Papa? Father? That’s not you.” I push away from the bar and stand, using my hand to mimic someone annoying talking. “How about you and your”—sexy—“stupid accent go screw yourself?” I sidestep him and feel a draft. A big draft.
“Hijode puta.” He reaches over his shoulder and pulls his shirt off, and I step back, but he grabs my shoulder firmly but gently.
No one has put their hands on me in any way since Marcello. I have kissed at least twenty boys, but none grabbed me in a way that reminded me of the one thing I missed.
My body responds with a physical shutter. Internally, I swear I feel my soul sob, and then everything goes black.
I wake to quiet whispers and open my eyes to see Dad, Mom, Tricks, Uncle Xavier, and Ranger hovering over me.
I look around the room, confused, wondering if I just took a step closer to the edge of sanity and imagined everything that had just occurred. But when I smell the scent of clay, leather, and musk, I sit up and look around for Matteo.
“You can’t do that shit, Tris.” Tricks is pissed. “You can’t hang out in your robe in a bar and not expect to end up all over social media.”
“Fuck,” I mutter as I look down and see I’m clothed in a dark gray shirt that smells like him, because it is his. I smile as I roll to my side.
“Tris, we need to talk about this,” Dad says sternly.
“It can wait until morning.”
Uncle Xavier pulls back the room-blackening curtains and light fills the room. “Morning, Trouble. Let’s chat.”
“Why couldn’t we fly with everyone else?” I grumble as I try to get comfortable in the vehicle with a damn seat belt on.
“Road trips bring people closer and …” Dad says as he reaches across the console and takes Mom’s hands. “Did I ever tell you about your parents first date?”
“Did it involve whips and chains?” I ask, hoping it cuts the conversation to the quick.
“Nope.” He pops his P. “I knew from the moment I saw your mother—”
“I’ve heard this story at least a million times in my almost eighteen years.”
“You’ll hear it ten million more, because it’s how you came to be, and how you came to be means more to me than anything in this world.”
“Zandor, she needs to rest. She has a show,” Mom whispers.
“It’s cool. I’ll just focus on the sound of the wheels turning and shut him out.”
“Never seen a woman so stunning in my life. She had me tripping from day one.”
“Day one was when she lied about being a tattoo artist and had fake tattoos on her body?” I try to fluff the travel pillow again.
“She was an artist. Hell, she was a hustler, too.”
“I get it. Mom was the yang to your yin. Soul mates. You both slept around, sowed your wild oats, and then finally found your one true love,” I say in a tone that’s just as boring as this story has become.
“Yeah, but she didn’t come easy. I—”
“Okay, yeah, it’s bad enough I know about the sex club wedding, I don’t need to know how hard it was to make her—”
Mom’s gasp cuts me off. “Oh, Lord, Tris, that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying I was adamant that I would never date him. He’s saying that—”
Dad chuckles. “I pulled the plugs on her car so she had no choice but to let me drive her down south to see your grandfather. I knew—”
“Cute story, but you’re my parents. And, seriously, I’m not a kid who found a safe while snooping, and you’re not the parents who hid the key in plain sight anymore. I found an album, while hiding under your bed when too many people were around. He found me because he always knew where I was hiding.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Mom’s whisper sounds a lot like a prayer.
Not all prayers are answered. In fact, none of mine ever have been.
“Just be happy it was an album and not a gun, or I would probably be dead by now.”
“Tris!” Mom gasps.
I ignore her shock because, seriously, how shocked can she be by anything at this point?
“Marcello image-searched the picture, because surely it couldn’t be our parents, and boom! BDSM.” I make an explosion with my hands. “Hormones woke way too young, and we got caught up in all the dirty little things we found online.”
“Okay, Tris, that wasn’t the point,” Dad says in a soft, gentle tone.
I ignore him, too. He thinks it’s to be disrespectful, but it’s not. The more I say it, the more the blade dulls, and I hope, someday, I will stop bleeding.
“We moved. Things weren’t okay. He said he felt like I left him behind. Reality? He missed the physical feeling of intimacy.” So did I. “I slept with him, got knocked up, was afraid and withdrawn.” The monsters woke up. “He believes I betrayed him, so he did it back. I found out I was pregnant two weeks before that, and I took care of it. He doesn’t know. I hope he never does.”
I was fifteen, and alone.
“And none of those situations were your fault.” Dad tries to remain calm, but he’s not.
They don’t think I know the hell he is raising with any lawmaker who will listen to him tell the story about a fifteen-year-old girl whose life was drastically altered because a law allows them to make a choice like that at an age when their brain isn’t even developed, without ensuring they get help. He rants about the system failing her.
Her? Me.
He tells them how she almost took her life because of how badly things spiraled out of control after that. He also threatens to find the right judge so that no other father will physically have to reach his hand down his daughter’s throat to make her throw up a bottle of pills she took.
Some days, I agree. Others, I think about the fight women have had to fight for years to get to make that choice and wish he would stop.
“At least I had the choice.”
Silence.
Storytime over.
I often wonder about what would have happened if that book were a gun. Would I have accidentally shot myself? But then I realize, in a way, it was. In a way, I was that jackass who missed the target, and now, for the rest of my life, I will be living with a traumatic brain injury.
I guess I should be happy that the damage is on the inside. If it wasn’t, the world would see how ugly I truly am.
I glance up in the rearview mirror and have another moment like the one I had that night in the looney bin, but this time, I don’t want to make them suffer.
“I love you both. Now, please, let me sleep.”
London, England
Matteo
Between the concierge level bar and the point where I stepped off the elevator to her floor, handing her off would have forever haunted me … had I not seen the deep concern for her as her father, mother, manager, and the long-haired man, whom I assume is her bodyguard, rushed toward me as I carried her to the door that was held open by another man and woman. Again, I assume they are related.