Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen
“I think I should go, give you guys room to talk.” I took Martin’s assessment folder and went to the study to look through it., leaving mother and son to discuss in private.
It was the furthest room from the stairs, but that didn’t help at all.
Their voices came through the walls anyway, muffled but unmistakable, rising and falling in the rhythm of an argument that had been had many times before and would be had again.
Mrs Dawson’s patient, careful voice came first as she tried to reason with her oldest son. “He called the house phone, Jace. He just wants to talk to you. I think he’s really serious this time..”
“What the hell does any of that have to do with me?’
“He’s your father..”
“So I’ve been told.”
“He asks about you every time he travels abroad for…”
“Mom.” He paused, his voice lowering. “Drop it.”
She didn’t drop it. I could have told her that was a mistake, that her son was a bully and a tyrant and there was no reasoning with him, but it wasn’t any of my business.
So instead I read the same line on the assessment for the fifth time over, losing my concentration.
“Martin watches everything you do, you know that. He sees how you handle things, how you respond, and when you shut your father out completely it sends a message to him that…”
“Don’t.” His voice dropped even lower, which somehow made it worse. “Don’t use Martin on me right now. That’s not fair and you know it.”
“I’m not using him, I’m simply trying to make you understand that this family needs…”
“This family needs him to stay exactly wherever the fuck he is and leave us alone. That’s what this family needs.”
I gave up on that first page completely and turned to the next one.
The folder was open in front of me and I was looking at it but seeing absolutely nothing.
Martin’s neat careful handwriting blurred on the page while his brother’s voice came through the wall and I sat very still and tried to be somewhere else entirely.
“He’s not a bad man, Jace. He just doesn’t know how to…”
“Stop.” I flinched when I heard a loud crash. Then another crash, the sound of something heavy being thrown across the room while the mother screamed in terror.
“Stop defending him! How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want to hear it! Stop!”
Silence, thumping sounds across the floor that sound like angry stomping.
His mother’s voice came again, this time quieter. “I just think if you would try, even once, to…”
“I will only try for Martin’s sake, not his! Not anymore!” Another crash. “Besides! What the hell is your deal anyway? This has nothing to do with you. What goes on between him and me is none of your business, so stay out of it. Sit down, focus on your own shit, and stay out of it.”
I winced. How could anyone talk to their mother that way? This family was so dysfunctional, like something out of a bad TV show.
Martin, The thought popped into my head. He’ll wake Martin up.
I looked at the ceiling as if I could see through it to the little boy asleep upstairs with his train tucked under his elbow. I couldn’t help but wonder how he slept through any of this constant noise.
Were the screaming matches in this house so common that he’d had no choice but to grow used to it? I sighed and shook my head, Poor kid.
I didn’t have any of the luxuries he had while I was his age, but at least I’d had two parents who loved me and each other, and did their best to keep the peace. Maybe that was the most expensive luxury of all.
I turned another page.
Tried to read Martin’s comprehension answers. He’d done okay enough, his instincts were sharp and his reasoning was clear once you got him past the words themselves and into the logic underneath them.
I should have been pleased. I should have been making notes about how this could be used to get through to him and teach him better.
But no. Jace Dawson had to ruin it like he ruined everything else in her life, yelling at his mother one minute, and whispering erotic threats in my ear the next.
Make me, he’d said. His voice was low and dark and so completely unfair I could’ve died.
I pressed my pen hard against the paper.
His fingers had been on my pulse. He’d known exactly what they’d find there and he’d pressed in anyway, as if he had every right to know that about me. Like I belonged to him, another one in his long line of conquests that he would possess and use then throw away.
Stop thinking about him, Lena. Enough. Focus….. but his hand at the back of my neck.
That one I couldn’t shake, the gentleness of it was what got me, after everything else, after all the cruelty and the ugliness and the words he’d used about my father. One hand at the back of my neck pulling me in and it had been soft and almost peaceful and that was enough to make me insane.
Princess.
Where has that pet name even come from?!
Twice he’d said it, and both times it had landed deep inside my heart and made a home there, and I couldn’t shake that either. I wanted… needed him to call me names. Darling, sweetheart, sunshine… slut.
I groaned and put my pen down, then put my face in my hands, asking “What is wrong with me?”
I hated him. I was completely certain of that. He was cruel and calculated and he went for the thing that would hurt the most because that’s who he was. That was a fact.
So why was I sitting in this study at eleven at night not reading Martin’s assessment?
Because you’re an idiot, I told myself. Because he’s tall and he’s possessive and cool, and you know that if in your wildest dreams he falls in love with you and takes you as his own, he will never let you go.
From the hallway, Mrs Dawson’s voice came again. Softer now, trying a different angle. “I only want things to be better between you both. For Martin’s sake if nothing else..”
“I said I’m done talking about this. Good night!” I flinched again at the sound of the loud door slam, causing the whole house to shudder.
Then complete and total silence, except for the distant sound of a car engine starting and pulling away at high speed.
I sat very still, unsure of what to do now. I could hear small sobs coming from downstairs, would it be appropriate to go comfort his mother?
Was it even my place to do something like that?
Dad would know what to do with all of this, I thought, before I could stop it. He’d sit across the kitchen table and listen to everything and then say something so simple and so obvious that I’d feel like an idiot for not seeing it myself. And then he’d give me a hug and it would all somehow be manageable.
But he was getting buried tomorrow.
He was never coming back.
And here I was, the night before, sitting in another family’s house thinking about a boy who had dragged my father’s name through the dirt. Feeling things I had absolutely no business feeling, and turning it over and over like maybe there was something worth finding underneath it.
Dad would be so disappointed in me.
I closed the folder.
The house was quiet now. The monster that was Jace Dawson had gone to God knew where and now the coast was clear. I should get some water, take something for the headache that had been building since dinner, and go to bed.
I stood up.
Just as I was about to open the study door, I felt the room tilt slowly to the side, the floor coming up at the wrong angle, and the doorframe sliding sideways. I felt a sudden urge to close my eyes, go to sleep and throw up all at once.
I reached for the desk and but I couldn’t grab it fast enough to stay upright, and I collapsed down on the carpet, feeling too weak and dizzy to get back on my feet.
The world had started to fade away when I heard fast footsteps approaching from somewhere far in the distance.
“Lena! Oh my goodness!” Mrs Dawson’s hands were on my shoulders, her voice close and sharp with alarm. “Lena, can you hear me?”
“Margaret!” Her urgent voice rose toward the stairs, “Margaret, come down right now. It’s Lena.”
And then the world went dark and quiet and still.