AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My vision blurred. Why couldn’t I fucking see anything? I blinked rapidly, trying to clear that shit away. “It’s really good,” I told her. Fucking hell, my voice was all wobbly and shit.
I covered my mouth with one hand and stood on weak legs.
The therapist at the table watched me carefully.
I hardly noticed, because it felt an awful lot like all the carefully constructed blocks of my world were coming down in a spectacular crash, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. What was left in the aftermath was a cloud of dust and me standing like an idiot in that room, with wet cheeks and a painfully tight chest.
My breaths came faster and faster, and I shoved a hand through my hair as I stared back at the door leading to the office I’d just exited. My fingers tingled ominously.
“If you need a minute, my office is empty,” the woman at the table said in a gentle voice.
I didn’t need a minute. An hour wouldn’t help.
I needed this out. I needed to slice out the poison because it felt like it was choking me, and I couldn’t handle the bitter taste in my mouth anymore.
I wanted the sweetness I’d gotten glimpses of before.
Mint and chocolate and whatever else she’d given me.
After taking only a few steps, I shoved open the door to Carol’s office.
Zoe glanced up in surprise. Her eyes sharpened when she saw my face, mouth falling open.
“I don’t like talking about my old man,” I said.
I wasn’t yelling. I didn’t bark it out. Every shred of control I was capable of summoning funneled straight into that one thing.
Carol sat back in her chair and watched wordlessly, but I kept my eyes on Zoe.
“The only thing I remember about him is how he sounded when he yelled, which he did a lot. When he called my mum names and kicked a chair into her path to trip her when she walked past. And what he looked like when he punched her in front of me for the first time.” My hand curled into a fist—it was huge when I looked down at it. “Full on, no holding back, and I was sitting five feet away. I’ll never forget what it sounded like when his fist hit her face.”
Zoe sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes filling immediately.
“After he hit her, I screamed at him to stop,” I rasped, “and he turned right toward me, so fucking pissed off that I’d tell him what to do. That fist never disappeared, and my mum jumped right in between us. Told him that if he was still mad, he should take it out on her.”
My entire frame trembled, and I forced the words out. They were bitter and vile. “He didn’t. Probably just smart enough to know people would notice if she turned up completely black and blue. He went to the pub instead—where they always fucking idolized him, treated himlike he walked on bloody water. She packed us a bag each, took all the cash she’d been hiding in her sock drawer, and we walked out of the house. Never went back. Never saw him face-to-face again.”
Silent tears tracked down Zoe’s cheeks, every single one of them carving up my heart.
With a closed fist, I tapped my chest. “But I see him every time I look in the fucking mirror because I look exactly like him. My whole life, I’ve been reminded how much I’m like him, and when you hear that enough at seven and eight and nine and ten years old, you start believing it. Even worse when you’re older. I promised myself I’d never put myself in a position where I could hurt someone like he hurt her.” I was choking on the words, so they came out tight and urgent and fierce. “I did everything I could to not end up like him. Found a way to channel all this anger I have rooted deep inside me. It’s ugly, and I hate it. I won’t do it to you, Zoe. Or her.” My voice cracked. “It scares me fucking witless to think I might. I’d never forgive myself.”
Zoe had a hand over her mouth now because she was crying openly.
I dashed my palm over my cheeks. “I don’t like talking about him,” I said brokenly.
She inhaled raggedly. “Why are you talking about him now?”
“For her,” I managed. But that wasn’t true. Or not entirely. So I held Zoe’s gaze and thought of all the ways she’d shown me how to be brave. “And for you.”
Her chin trembled.
Carol cleared her throat, a delicate sound that echoed like a gunshot.
I blinked.
“Thank you for sharing that, Liam,” she said.
I nodded, but even if she paid me a million dollars, I wouldn’t make eye contact with that woman while I had tears in my eyes. I already felt like I’d been stripped naked in the middle of the fucking room.
