M A D I E

November Twenty-Sixth

Three

You aren't quite sure if ignorance is really bliss.

—

"You can imagine my surprise when your mom told me you ran away to LA with some guy."

I sat down in the sand, making myself comfortable. Dad had a skeptical eye on the beach, probably thinking about how sitting down would ruin his pair of dress pants. Not that he didn't have a million others that looked exactly the same. But eventually, he grimaced and sat gingerly next to me.

"I was scared," I murmured. "And my friends were scared for me, too."

"Because of Quinton?" Dad raised an eyebrow. Was he surprised? Surprised that I was scared of a guy that had bashed my head into a wall?

"Yes, of Quinton." I resisted rolling my eyes. Because of course it was about Quinton. "He was still on campus when I got out of the hospital." I paused. "You and mom made sure of that."

Dad sighed. "Look, there are some things you should know."

I didn't say anything, waiting for him to go on. Meanwhile, my stomach tightened. Was it from nerves or some kind of strange hope? If I was honest with myself, I desperately wanted there to be a logical explanation for why he'd made that deal with Quinton's parents and the university.

"It's not really his fault," my dad began, and the words destroyed any of the hope mingling inside of me. So, he thought it was my fault.

I had to ask.

"Whose is it then? Mine?"

I think he heard the acid in my tone because he was quick to shake his head. "No, Madie. Of course not." There was a slight pause. "It's my fault."

"What?"

He fidgeted in the sand and then began to pick particles from his pant legs in a way that would actually take ages to remove it all. "I messed up when it came to that boy. And you."

"Dad..." I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He stopped messing with the sand. He looked out at the ocean, eyes all glassy.

"I've worked with Devon Reid for ten years, and he's been a bastard for every single of them."

I turned, staring at him, trying to figure out why we were talking about Quinton's dad.

"Sometimes he would invite your mom and me over for dinners with him and Lanae, you know?"

I nodded. Quinton's parents and mine were always having dinner together. Quin and I would usually take advantage of the empty house to curl up and watch movies without a parent looking over our shoulders.

"The way Devon would treat Lanae...I mean, damn. It wasn't much of a surprise when Lanae eventually confided in your mom how much of an abusive asshole he was."

"What?" I breathed. My toes curled into the sand. A shiver from the breeze ran through me.

"Lanae didn't want help, though. Even though Quinton was suffering, too. Devon hurt both of them."

I sucked in a breath. I continued to stare at my dad, but I didn't really see him at all. My mind had taken over my sight, wondering why the hell I hadn't known. But then again, we never went to Quinton's house to hang out. We were always at mine. We never went places with his parents. We were always with mine. We never talked much about his family. We always talked about mine.

Blindness came in many forms.

Dad shook his head again. "I probably could have done something about it. At the very least, I could have confronted him about how he treated them when I was around. But our business collided so often. I didn't want to mess things up, and it never really felt like my place."

I opened my mouth to say something, but there was nothing.

"Quinton was just becoming what he knew, Madie. And I wish I had seen it coming. Well, I wish I had stopped it. Figured out a way to do something, anything."

The world was quiet. The ocean, deafening.

"Lanae was never going to marry him, you know." Dad's offhand way of speaking was catching me off guard. He was usually so direct, so calculated and posed when he spoke. But it was like his thoughts were just rambling off his tongue, and he didn't care to stop them. "Devon was abusive even when they were dating. Lanae was going to leave. Told your mom all about it that night when everything came spilling out of her with her fifth glass of wine."

"Why did she stay then?" I couldn't help but ask. Lanae, I honestly hardly knew her. Until now.

Dad turned, looking at me for the first time since he'd begun talking. "She got pregnant, of course."

I blinked, realizing there were tears in my eyes. Somehow I think I'd known.

Dad saw the wetness on my face, his grey eyes briefly flitting over me. He put an arm around my shoulders, stiffly comforting. "I think Quinton became the way that he is because there was a whole slew of adults that let him down, and I was one of them, Madie. And that's all I was thinking about when I arranged that deal."

"You did it because you felt guilty?" My voice was squeaky.

I couldn't see Dad's face, but he sighed. "I suppose so. I wanted him to have a chance to not have his life ruined by what his dad did to him—by what his dad showed him to do."

"I think it might be too late for that," I murmured, though it hurt to admit. I looked at my hands and realized they were shaking. Clasping them together, I tried to stop the trembling. "Do you... do you even realize what he's all done?"

Dad wasn't able to bring himself to look at me.

There was a part of me that was breaking inside for the boy I'd known and what he'd gone through without ever realizing it. But—and maybe this was selfish to admit—I was equally broken from the idea that that mattered more to my parents than how I'd been hurt.

"What about my life, Dad?" I whispered.

"I know," I heard him say quietly as he continued his perusal of the shore. He cleared his throat, clasped his hands together. "That's why I'm glad you're here."

The businessman was back.

"What?" My head was spinning.

"I do want you to be safe, Madie. And this seems like a safe place to be. Although I'm not certain about you living alone with this...Bren. You're too young to be out here on your own." I could hear the frown in his voice.

"He's a really good guy, Dad." I pulled my knees up to my chest. "Give him a chance." Swallowing, I added, "Besides, I wasn't left with much of a choice."

Dad grunted, and that's how I knew the conversation was over.

Bren gave me a funny look when I walked in, his eyes more alive than I'd seen them in a few days. It scared me a bit to think about what he and Mom had been talking about. I certainly hadn't meant to leave them alone together so quickly, but it appeared that Bren came out unscathed.

My dad wordlessly motioned for my mom to follow him out to the car, still needing to grab their luggage. As soon as they were out of sight, Bren reached out and pulled me into him. Uneasiness had invaded my mood, and Bren's touch was just what I needed. I couldn't help but feel a smile tug at my lips whenever I saw him, whenever he held me.

He found my ear and whispered huskily. "I know I've been kinda an ass the last few days. But there is no place I'd rather be than with you." He kissed me, just a peck. "Wherever you are, whatever you're doing. No matter the circumstances, no matter the company. Okay?"

I nodded, trying not to crumble from the weight of everything. But Bren somehow always kept me from falling completely. And the way he was talking and the frenzied movement of his hands as they ran up my back and the shallow breaths coming from his lips, skirting my ear, it all made me think that if we hadn't heard my parents' voices coming back, he might have let me fall—but with him. Into him.

And I wanted that.

It wasn't a distraction from everything. It's just, he was everything now.

But Bren broke away and stalked to the other side of the kitchen, resting his arms on the countertop. Everything about his body language was suddenly nonchalant as he kept his attention on the front entryway.

"Bren," I whispered, trying to catch his eye before my parents got closer.

He obliged, turning to look at me.

"Thank you."

There was a faint laugh, a murmured chuckle.

"You gotta stop thanking me, Madie. For what? For being completely...shit." He glanced away, shaking his head before looking at me with another dry laugh. "Obsessed with you?"

I shook my own head. "For saving my life."

His eyes trapped me in that dance of his, and then we were spinning together with our feet standing still. Bren either couldn't speak or didn't know what to say. But his gaze smoldered, and we were burning again.

"Fuck, I wanna kiss you right now," he finally moaned.

My parents' footsteps grew closer. Bren stepped closer to me. His voice dropped. He wasn't done, lost in whatever was happening between us. "I wanna take you upstairs, Madie, throw your clothes to the fucking floor." His eyes flicked to my approaching parents, arguing about something in the doorway, and his last words were like the fourth beat in a waltz. Nonexistent. But we were still dancing, and there were no rules, and I heard them. "And then I want all of you."

The last words drifted off, my parents chattering loudly as they interrupted us. But I couldn't look away.

"Well, kids." My dad clapped his hands together as he strolled into the kitchen and plopped his suitcase down, making me jump. "Where should I put this?"

My throat was too dry to talk, lips sticking together. I tried to wet them, running my tongue between over rough skin. I also tried not to look at Bren while I did it, but I failed, and his eyes darkened. I swore I suddenly knew what the term weak knees meant. I gripped the countertop for support and cleared my throat.

"I'll show you, Dad."

The rest of the night was uneventful. Bren and I tried to avoid each other's gazes, hoping to ignore the unbearable pull.

The hardest part was actually going to bed. Because he couldn't do all the things he told me he wanted to do, not with my parents in the next room over. And besides, I still had to tell Bren what my dad said. I needed to tell him.

And so I did. And then Bren sat there for a while, thinking about it. He was perched on the edge of the sofa in the corner of our room, watching me closely. The flare had never left his eyes from earlier. And now that my parents were out of sight, he wasn't trying to hide it. He was tense, all wound up. I saw it easily.

"How do you feel about all this?" he asked.

I closed my eyes, falling back into the pillows on the bed. I didn't know how I felt.

"Can I tell you how I feel?" Bren asked after I was silent for a few minutes.

"Yeah."

"It's still not fucking okay." I opened my eyes to see the hard glint in his. "And if anyone can say that, Madie, it's me. I don't want you to start thinking—"

"I'm not going to, Bren."

I scrunched my face, trying to ignore the headache that felt like it was coming my way. But if there was one thing I knew, it was this. And I wanted to tell him.

"Two months ago, I'd probably be walking back to him, honestly. Two months ago, I would be shouldering the same guilt as my dad. Two months ago, I'd be telling myself to forgive him and making excuses. It's awful—I feel awful—but I still know it's not okay. I'm mad. I'm mad at all of it. But it's not okay."

A morose smile appeared on Bren's face. As if to say he hated the whole shitty, fucked-up thing, but he was proud of me. And I felt the same way.

"I'm not going to lie," Bren said softly. "I...I don't know." He couldn't seem to say it. So he simply said, "It's still not okay." It was an agreement of sorts, low and true.

"Quinton didn't love me, Bren," I added. "But I think more than anything, he just wanted for someone to love him."

And I had. I had given him all the love I could. But it probably never would have been enough to heal him.

So I fell asleep in Bren's arms, softly sniffling because of this boy I'd loved and how the world had destroyed us both.

But then I woke up with a sliver of a smile because of the boy who I'd gained. And because I suspected that with him, I could rebuild anything.

—

November Twenty-Seventh

Four

There's pain in knowing things,

in being aware.

But you can't really live in the dark.

Sunshine is waiting for you, after all.

It might burn occasionally,

but then, it fades.

🖤
Something I've learned in my adult life, from the stories I've heard, the people I've worked with, the people I know who had just never said anything before, etc—is that abuse is lurking behind more closed doors than you could ever imagine.

I'd really been hoping to finish up this story by the end of the summer and before the craziness of fall, but I'm not sure I'm going to make that deadline! Oh well.
Appreciate you!
-A