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Pursing his lips, he turns to look at me. “What the fuck is going on, Etta? Why do you look like you’re going to shit a brick? And why the fuck aren’t you answering my questions?”
“I’m fine.”
“Clearly, you’re not. So, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine.”
Sighing, he slides the cooked pancakes onto a plate then circles the counter, storming over to where I’m sitting. The moment he’s close enough, the scent of him or his shampoo fills my lungs, and I find myself relaxing. Cupping my cheek with one hand, he collars my neck and tips my head back so I’m looking up at him. “What’s wrong, Little One?” he purrs.
“I’m not great with the smell of meat cooking,” I whisper, bracing for his reaction.
Exhaling, he sighs. “Fuck,” he murmurs beneath his breath. “You should have said.”
“It’s your house.”
“It’s our house now. I’m sorry, baby, let me open the door.”
“Oh no, you don’t need to do that,” I rush to say, panic heating my cheeks as he steps away from me and opens the back door, carrying the pan of cooked bacon outside. “No,” I gasp. “I didn’t…you don’t have to…this is your home you shouldn’t?—”
“Stop,” he snaps, closing the distance between us again and curling his palm around the nape of my neck.
My mouth snaps shut, and I hold my breath, wondering what he’ll say or do.
“I didn’t think the bacon would bother you. Is it all meat or just bacon that you don’t like?”
“No, it’s fine, it’s a me thing, you don’t need to?—”
“Henrietta,” he hisses angrily, interrupting me.
Clamping my lips together, a tremor of fear ricochets through me at the anger in his voice, and a memory of him and Bruce fighting flashes into my mind. Back then he rarely used my name, instead he referred to me as her or Maureen’s kid. But when he did use my name, he’d drag it out, the sneer and revulsion so clear in his voice that I feel goose bumps rippling across my arms just from the memory. Henrietta. Until Oscar had said it, I’d never heard my own name used as an insult. It’s one of the reasons that I started asking people to call me Etta.
“I’m sorry,” I instinctively say, unsure what I’m apologizing for but doing it anyway, just like I did when we were kids.
“Etta.” This time when he says my name, it’s softer, and when I lift my eyes to his, there’s regret shining in his depths. “Jesus, I really fucked you up, didn’t I?” he asks bluntly.
“You were my monster under the bed,” I confess, then immediately wish I could swallow the words back down again.
“Fuck.” Sighing, he leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “It might take me the rest of our lives, but I’ll make it up to you,” he promises reverently.
Reluctantly retreating, he goes back into the kitchen and finishes making the pancakes in silence.
We eat in uncomfortable memory-fueled quiet, and any hope I’d been secretly harboring that this could work between us fades away. From the very first time he kissed me, I’d known there could never be a future for us, but feeling the tension bouncing between us now has cemented it.
This isn’t a romance book where the bully falls for his victim and changes into her hero. This is real life, and even though Oz and I aren’t kids anymore, the memories of the anxiety, fear, and trauma I felt back then have never really gone away.
It’s possible that I was always destined to be a quiet, reserved person. Maybe Oscar’s short time in my life wasn’t the catalyst that activated the anxiety that has plagued me ever since. Maybe my fear of being heard and seen was always inside of me, dormant, just waiting for a trigger to be switched. Maybe I’m just a huge scaredy cat, and I’ve built him up to be a bigger monster than he actually was.
Or maybe he’s every bit the monster I remember him to be, and I’m just trying to alter my own memories to convince myself he’s not as bad as I remember him to be.
But whether he’s the reason I’m the way I am or not doesn’t change the fact that his time in my life was damaging to me. So many of my adult issues stem back to him, and I can’t forget that or brush them under the rug simply because he tells me to.
Once we’re both finished eating, he takes our plates into the kitchen and places them in the sink. Lifting his wrist, he looks at his watch and exhales. “I have to go back to work.”
“Okay,” I whisper, knowing that this is it. That once he leaves, this will be over. Just one more strange, life-altering event that will impact me more than it should because of him.
His brows are drawn down low as he strides back toward me. “Just because I’m not here, the rules don’t change. I expect a picture of each of your meals, no skipping. If I text, you reply, if I call, you answer.” Pausing in front of me, I expect him to head for the stairs or to go back into the kitchen to load the dishwasher, but instead he lifts me off the stool, carries me to sit on the sofa, then lowers himself to kneel at my feet.
Reaching up, he cups my cheek in his huge palm. “Fuck, Little One, I’m sorry. I wish I could take back all the shitty things I did when I was a kid, but I can’t. I don’t know if I’m still the monster I was back then. But I’m not your monster anymore. You don’t need to be scared of me, because I’d kill myself before I hurt you again.”
