Beneath the Surface, page 17
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately … about our childhood.”
She raises her eyebrows and takes in a slow breath. Clearly, she didn’t expect me to say that, but she almost seems relieved that I did. “I figured you’d be ready to talk about it eventually. Want to sit down?”
For the life of me, I don’t know if I prefer to stand or sit to have this discussion, but I choose to sit on the living room couch anyway.
Cassidy sits down next to me. “What’s on your mind?”
“Dad wasn’t always abusive, was he?” Asking feels like a disservice to both her and Mom, but there are so many gaps that I need to fill in. “I mean, I don’t think he was violent our entire lives, right?”
“He wasn’t violent at first, but he was verbally abusive toward Mom,” she agrees, setting her mug on the coffee table. “I don’t recall anything physical though until I was about eight. I guess that would’ve made you roughly five years old.”
“He hit Mom with our car.” I didn’t remember that until just now. I recall how she stood up, completely disoriented, before falling to the ground. “She got a concussion.”
She nods. “That wasn’t the first time he got violent with her, but, yes, that happened. They’d gotten into an argument, and he threatened to leave her. She was trying to stop him from driving off when she got hit.”
I wish she’d just let him leave. Maybe he wouldn’t have ever come back.
“I can’t believe I forgot about that.”
“My therapist says, sometimes, people block out unpleasant memories to cope with them,” she replies. “Dad’s drinking and outbursts got worse after he lost his job, and then it became this vicious cycle. He didn’t even want Mom working in the first place. So, when he couldn’t land another job and became dependent on Mom financially, he became even more insecure, and that led him to drinking heavily. The excessive drinking prevented him from functioning and finding another job.”
I nod, realizing what she’s saying makes sense. Not that it was an excuse for his behavior.
“Why did Mom allow Hannah to stay at our house?” I ask. “I mean, she knew Dad was prone to violence.” I’m hoping Cassidy can shed some light on it because I’ve pondered it for years and it’s never made sense to me.
“I didn’t understand it either,” she agrees. “So, I asked her about it once, long after the divorce. Mom explained to me that Hannah was only ever supposed to stay over that one time. She’d offered to watch her as a favor to Hannah’s dad because she wanted to help him out—you know, make a good impression on her new boss.”
“If it was only supposed to be a onetime thing, why did it continue? Why did she invite her to come to our house when she knew Dad was a loose cannon?”
“Well, for two reasons. The first is, once you became friends with Hannah, she wanted to stay at our house. Hannah specifically asked her dad to leave her with us when he traveled. The second is, Dad was good at hiding the abuse from other people—most of the time. He always put on a good show for Hannah’s dad, and when Hannah was there, he seemed to hold back on his anger.” Cassidy pauses, then sighs. “I’m not saying it was right, but I think Mom saw Hannah as a means of self-preservation. Over time, she equated Hannah with a peaceful night at home—with safety.”
Her words instantly make me feel guilty. I saw Hannah in the same way—as my personal life preserver. Everything was better when she was around, and as selfish and horrible as it was, I didn’t want to let her go. I held on to our friendship far longer than I should have, putting her in danger.
“There were close calls. More so after you left.” I could name several off the top of my head, not counting the time I caught him coming into Hannah’s room.
I squirm on the couch, the entire conversation making me uncomfortable. Continuing to avoid it all would be so much easier, but if I’m going to help Hannah, I need to think with a clear head. Right now, I’m consumed with the past because she was so entangled in it all.
“Dad didn’t try to stop you when you moved in with Jeremy’s family. Why?” I hate putting her on the spot like this, but it’s a question that I’ve never posed to her. I’ve only made assumptions, but now, it’s time to face the truth.
She looks away, deep in thought. I know the answer is complex, and I brace myself for her to get emotional, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she collects herself and turns back to me. “I threatened to go to the police if he interfered.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I had my reasons. For example, I didn’t know what would happen to you if I did. I was afraid they’d put you in foster care or something.”
“Mom wasn’t violent toward us though.” I can’t recall ever even getting a spanking from Mom.
“It’s complicated. I also didn’t want the whole town to know our business.”
“I ended my friendship with Hannah because I was worried Dad was going to hurt her,” I say, cringing as the words leave my mouth. I’ve never said them aloud before.
“You never told me that.” She creases her forehead. “I mean, I assumed you didn’t want her messed up with our crazy family, but I didn’t realize you thought she was in actual danger. Did she witness Dad get into one of his fits?”
I want to ask her why Dad would allow Hannah to stay at our house. He always threatened us with what would happen if we ever told anyone about the violence. Why wasn’t he afraid that Hannah would pick up on it and tell? Why did he allow her to continue to stay over?
Then, it hits me like a ton of bricks. He wanted access to her.
Fuck.
My father was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He knew Hannah was obedient to authority and nonconfrontational. She never wanted to ruffle feathers or make anyone upset or disappoint them. She was easy prey for someone like him.
My blood boils at the thought.
“Did Dad hit her?” Cassidy presses.
“No,” I reply, running my hand through my hair before dropping it into my lap, trying my best to keep my cool. “But I caught him going into her bedroom in the middle of the night.”
She pales and immediately looks down at her hands in shock. Her reaction is all the confirmation I need.
My eyes burn, and I blink a few times, trying to keep it together. “I’m sorry, Cass.”
She looks at me, confusion written all over her face. “What are you sorry for?”
Isn’t it obvious?
“I’m your brother. I should’ve protected you.”
Her expression softens. “Oh, Jax. No.” She reaches out and puts her hand on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “You were just a kid. How could you have stopped it? Or even known what was going on? That wasn’t your fault.”
I can tell she believes what she’s saying, but her words do little to soothe me.
When Cassidy was about ten years old, Dad chased her through the house. She tried to lock herself in the bathroom, but he kicked the door down. As he beat her, she slipped and took out the glass shower door. She needed seven stitches, but thankfully, she wasn’t severely injured. From that point on, I started getting in the middle of their fights. After that incident, I can only remember a handful of times when he hit Cassidy more than once before I antagonized him, taking the heat off her and bringing it on myself.
At the time, I thought I was saving her. Meanwhile, that sick bastard was still hurting her but in a different way.
“Does Mom know?” I ask, afraid to know the answer.
“She found out after I moved in with Jeremy, just before she filed for divorce. I’d asked her to come meet me for lunch, and I’d told her everything.” She lowers her hand and returns it to her lap. “That was the day you found her unconscious. She’d gone home and confronted him. She’d threatened to go to the police, and he’d beaten her up, then pushed her down the stairs.”
That memory remains fresh despite my attempts to forget it. I came home from school to find her at the foot of the staircase, knocked out cold. At first, I thought she was dead until I finally found a pulse. Dad was nowhere to be found when I called 911.
I stand up with my fists clenched at my sides.
Cassidy must notice the change in me because she jumps up. She attempts to grab my arm, but I’m already charging for the front door.
“Don’t do what I think you’re going to do,” I hear her call after me. “He’s not worth it.”
All I see is red when I pull up to Benny’s Bar & Tavern. There’s no rationalizing with me. Despite being able to walk away from the fight with Chase, I know there’s nothing anyone can say to calm me down now. Thankfully, there is no one here to try.
Although my uncle’s bar is open, it’s still technically morning, so there’re only two cars parked out front. I have no clue what my dad drives nowadays, but I’m hoping one of them is his.
I get out of the car, and without hesitation, I enter the bar. I’ve never been here before, mainly because I wanted to avoid my dad, but my eyes immediately land on the main bar. I search the backs of the heads of the two guys sitting there to see if either looks familiar. To my disappointment, they don’t.
“Jax?” Uncle Benny calls out from behind the bar when he sees me.
“Where’s my father?” I ask, not in the mood for pleasantries.
As I approach the bar, I notice both the men sitting there avoid looking at me. They must sense that I’m on the verge of completely losing my shit.
“He’s not here yet, but I reckon he’ll show up soon.” Uncle Benny tosses a white bar towel over his shoulder. “Why don’t you pull up a seat and wait for him? I’ll get you a drink, on the house.”
Uncle Benny eyes me as he pours a draft beer. “What brings you by? I didn’t know you were in contact with your dad.”
“I’m not,” I reply as he places the beer in front of me. I don’t plan to touch it though. It’s not why I came here.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. I have ten missed calls from Cassidy and two from Hannah. I was so focused on getting here that I didn’t even hear it ring. As I’m holding the phone, another call comes in from Hannah. Reluctantly, I answer it.
“I can’t talk right now,” I say instead of hello.
“Jax, Cassidy called me in a panic. Is everything okay?” she asks, ignoring the point of my greeting.
“It will be.”
I can tell she’s flustered. Cassidy must’ve gotten her all riled up.
“Where are you?”
“I won’t be here long,” I reply, not answering her question. “I’ve gotta go.”
With that, I hang up. I doubt Cassidy filled her in on our discussion, but I know if I stayed on the phone long enough with Hannah, I’d eventually tell her what I was doing here, and that’s not a conversation I want to have with her over the phone in my uncle’s dingy bar.
“Girlfriend?” Uncle Benny asks I slide the phone back into my pocket.
I take a sip of the beer that I don’t even want. “No. Just a—I don’t know.”
I was about to say friend, but that doesn’t seem right. To me, she’s so much more than that, and to her, I’m probably a great deal less.
Uncle Benny opens his mouth to ask me another question but pauses when the door to the bar opens. The way he’s looking over my shoulder tells me that my father just arrived.
I swing around, and sure enough, Dad is standing in the doorway. He just couldn’t resist coming to the bar to get completely shit-faced before lunchtime.
He stares at me, and even though we haven’t seen each other since I was a teenager, I can tell he recognizes who I am.
He seems smaller now. As a kid, I thought he was a powerful giant, capable of destroying me with a single blow. But now, he’s aged. The drinking and his miserable life have taken a toll on him, and he’s weathered. He’s still tall, of course, but he’s much thinner with very little muscle mass.
Me, on the other hand? I’ve grown and bulked up. If there was ever a doubt in my mind about him overpowering me in a confrontation, it’s all gone now.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks me, his leathery face twisted into a scowl.
I press my back against the ledge of the bar as I fold my arms across my chest. As much as I want to pummel his face into the ground, I want the satisfaction of leaving him in anticipation of it first. I want him to get a taste of the type of fear he inflicted on me for almost half my life.
“I wanted to see what my old man was up to,” I reply, aware of the smug expression plastered across my face. “Apparently, you’re as much of a loser as I remember.”
“Jax,” Uncle Benny says, trying to get my attention, but I ignore him. He knows my dad’s temper as well as I do, and he senses that I’m on dangerous ground.
I don’t care though. I welcome it. It’s what I came here for after all.
“Look at you,” Dad replies with a smirk. “Finally trying to grow a pair. Took you long enough.”
He walks up to the bar, and Uncle Benny already has a shot of vodka and a draft beer waiting on him. He quickly downs the shot, then climbs on top of a barstool, leaving one empty seat between us.
“I visited Cassidy this morning,” I tell him, not that he cares.
He gives me a side-glance as he sips his beer, but says nothing. The man hasn’t seen Cassidy since she moved out at seventeen, and he doesn’t even bother to ask how she is.
“She told me why she left home, why you shoved Mom down the stairs—the real reason Mom was in the hospital for almost two weeks.” I say it calmly despite how angrily my heart is beating in my chest. Right now, I want nothing more than to rip him from the barstool and cram that beer—glass included—right down his throat.
He pauses, the mug lifted halfway to his lips. “She’s always been a liar,” he replies before taking yet another drink.
I clench my fists so tightly that my nails cut into the palms of my hands.
“I think you and I both know how truthful her story is.” I say it to remind him I already know his dirty secret.
An antagonistic smile tugs at his lips. “How is that pretty girlfriend of yours these days?”
The next thing I know, I’m on top of him. He’s on the ground, trying to wrestle me off. He gets one shot in before I completely overpower him.
“You enjoy hurting little girls?” I ask before slamming my fist into his face. Blood gushes from his nose. “You sick fuck.” I hit him again. And again. And then again.
My fist already aches as Uncle Benny and the other guys at the bar pull me off him. It takes all three of them to do it. They let me go, and I’m fully prepared to resume rearranging my father’s disgusting face when Uncle Benny jumps in front of me.
“Move,” I say between gritted teeth.
“I can’t let you do something you’ll regret, Jax.”
“You think you’re so much better than me?” My father sits up, wiping blood from his mouth with his sleeve. “You’re just like me.”
I force myself to walk away, heading down the hallway leading to the restrooms. In the background, I can hear my father spewing profanity as Uncle Benny helps him to his feet.
I face the wall and lean against it, my head resting on my arm. Closing my eyes, I attempt to breathe and calm down.
“You should probably go,” Uncle Benny says to my father.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Dad protests, and I tune out the rest of what he says.
I should be the one to leave, but I don’t know if I can. The fire inside me is still raging, wanting to destroy what’s left of my pitiful excuse for a father.
None of this is real anyway.
Even if the world resets once again for me tomorrow, I’m uncertain I’ll be able to live with myself if I beat my father to death with my own bare hands. When I came here, I thought that was what would happen. I believed that was what I wanted. Now, the words you’re just like me keep repeating in my head.
I can’t allow myself to be like him, not even in this twisted alternate universe I’m trapped in.
I pull my fist back and punch the wall twice instead, trying to expel the hateful energy that’s built up inside me, the anger that I want to continue releasing on him. As much as I want to finish what I started, I decide to leave. I push off the wall and walk back into the main bar area.
Dad is holding a rag to his face while Uncle Benny sweeps up broken glass from the floor. When I tackled Dad to the ground, I must’ve knocked his beer mug off the bar. The other two patrons sit at the bar again, as if nothing ever happened.
Dad eyes me as I walk to the door. I must’ve rattled him because he doesn’t say anything to me as I leave. In all my life, I’ve never seen him intimidated, so I gain a sense of satisfaction, knowing that I got the best of him.
I reach my car, open the door, and slide in. Then, I start my car and just drive.
TWENTY-TWO
Hannah | Present
I turn my phone over and over in my hand, debating on whether I should try calling Jax again. Cassidy didn’t give me much detail when she called this morning, but she sounded panicked. All she said was that Jax had left her house on a mission to find their father and she couldn’t get him to pick up the phone. She hoped that maybe I’d heard from him.
That was several hours ago, and my brief phone call with him did little to put me at ease.
Cassidy hadn’t told me what had set Jax off, and I hadn’t asked. I already know there are a lot of unresolved issues there. If my studies have taught me anything, it’s that repressed trauma always has a way of surfacing eventually. I just hope, for Jax’s sake, he’s able to deal with it in a nondestructive way—one that doesn’t land him behind bars.
There’s a knock at my door, and I wonder if it’s one of Casey’s friends stopping by. She’s not home, but she has a bad habit of double-booking her friends. On more than one occasion, a friend has shown up, thinking they’re going to hang out, only to find out she was already off on another adventure with someone else.
Me, on the other hand? I never have that problem. I’m content to have only a handful of friends that, for the most part, all know and are friends with each other.
She raises her eyebrows and takes in a slow breath. Clearly, she didn’t expect me to say that, but she almost seems relieved that I did. “I figured you’d be ready to talk about it eventually. Want to sit down?”
For the life of me, I don’t know if I prefer to stand or sit to have this discussion, but I choose to sit on the living room couch anyway.
Cassidy sits down next to me. “What’s on your mind?”
“Dad wasn’t always abusive, was he?” Asking feels like a disservice to both her and Mom, but there are so many gaps that I need to fill in. “I mean, I don’t think he was violent our entire lives, right?”
“He wasn’t violent at first, but he was verbally abusive toward Mom,” she agrees, setting her mug on the coffee table. “I don’t recall anything physical though until I was about eight. I guess that would’ve made you roughly five years old.”
“He hit Mom with our car.” I didn’t remember that until just now. I recall how she stood up, completely disoriented, before falling to the ground. “She got a concussion.”
She nods. “That wasn’t the first time he got violent with her, but, yes, that happened. They’d gotten into an argument, and he threatened to leave her. She was trying to stop him from driving off when she got hit.”
I wish she’d just let him leave. Maybe he wouldn’t have ever come back.
“I can’t believe I forgot about that.”
“My therapist says, sometimes, people block out unpleasant memories to cope with them,” she replies. “Dad’s drinking and outbursts got worse after he lost his job, and then it became this vicious cycle. He didn’t even want Mom working in the first place. So, when he couldn’t land another job and became dependent on Mom financially, he became even more insecure, and that led him to drinking heavily. The excessive drinking prevented him from functioning and finding another job.”
I nod, realizing what she’s saying makes sense. Not that it was an excuse for his behavior.
“Why did Mom allow Hannah to stay at our house?” I ask. “I mean, she knew Dad was prone to violence.” I’m hoping Cassidy can shed some light on it because I’ve pondered it for years and it’s never made sense to me.
“I didn’t understand it either,” she agrees. “So, I asked her about it once, long after the divorce. Mom explained to me that Hannah was only ever supposed to stay over that one time. She’d offered to watch her as a favor to Hannah’s dad because she wanted to help him out—you know, make a good impression on her new boss.”
“If it was only supposed to be a onetime thing, why did it continue? Why did she invite her to come to our house when she knew Dad was a loose cannon?”
“Well, for two reasons. The first is, once you became friends with Hannah, she wanted to stay at our house. Hannah specifically asked her dad to leave her with us when he traveled. The second is, Dad was good at hiding the abuse from other people—most of the time. He always put on a good show for Hannah’s dad, and when Hannah was there, he seemed to hold back on his anger.” Cassidy pauses, then sighs. “I’m not saying it was right, but I think Mom saw Hannah as a means of self-preservation. Over time, she equated Hannah with a peaceful night at home—with safety.”
Her words instantly make me feel guilty. I saw Hannah in the same way—as my personal life preserver. Everything was better when she was around, and as selfish and horrible as it was, I didn’t want to let her go. I held on to our friendship far longer than I should have, putting her in danger.
“There were close calls. More so after you left.” I could name several off the top of my head, not counting the time I caught him coming into Hannah’s room.
I squirm on the couch, the entire conversation making me uncomfortable. Continuing to avoid it all would be so much easier, but if I’m going to help Hannah, I need to think with a clear head. Right now, I’m consumed with the past because she was so entangled in it all.
“Dad didn’t try to stop you when you moved in with Jeremy’s family. Why?” I hate putting her on the spot like this, but it’s a question that I’ve never posed to her. I’ve only made assumptions, but now, it’s time to face the truth.
She looks away, deep in thought. I know the answer is complex, and I brace myself for her to get emotional, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she collects herself and turns back to me. “I threatened to go to the police if he interfered.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I had my reasons. For example, I didn’t know what would happen to you if I did. I was afraid they’d put you in foster care or something.”
“Mom wasn’t violent toward us though.” I can’t recall ever even getting a spanking from Mom.
“It’s complicated. I also didn’t want the whole town to know our business.”
“I ended my friendship with Hannah because I was worried Dad was going to hurt her,” I say, cringing as the words leave my mouth. I’ve never said them aloud before.
“You never told me that.” She creases her forehead. “I mean, I assumed you didn’t want her messed up with our crazy family, but I didn’t realize you thought she was in actual danger. Did she witness Dad get into one of his fits?”
I want to ask her why Dad would allow Hannah to stay at our house. He always threatened us with what would happen if we ever told anyone about the violence. Why wasn’t he afraid that Hannah would pick up on it and tell? Why did he allow her to continue to stay over?
Then, it hits me like a ton of bricks. He wanted access to her.
Fuck.
My father was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He knew Hannah was obedient to authority and nonconfrontational. She never wanted to ruffle feathers or make anyone upset or disappoint them. She was easy prey for someone like him.
My blood boils at the thought.
“Did Dad hit her?” Cassidy presses.
“No,” I reply, running my hand through my hair before dropping it into my lap, trying my best to keep my cool. “But I caught him going into her bedroom in the middle of the night.”
She pales and immediately looks down at her hands in shock. Her reaction is all the confirmation I need.
My eyes burn, and I blink a few times, trying to keep it together. “I’m sorry, Cass.”
She looks at me, confusion written all over her face. “What are you sorry for?”
Isn’t it obvious?
“I’m your brother. I should’ve protected you.”
Her expression softens. “Oh, Jax. No.” She reaches out and puts her hand on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “You were just a kid. How could you have stopped it? Or even known what was going on? That wasn’t your fault.”
I can tell she believes what she’s saying, but her words do little to soothe me.
When Cassidy was about ten years old, Dad chased her through the house. She tried to lock herself in the bathroom, but he kicked the door down. As he beat her, she slipped and took out the glass shower door. She needed seven stitches, but thankfully, she wasn’t severely injured. From that point on, I started getting in the middle of their fights. After that incident, I can only remember a handful of times when he hit Cassidy more than once before I antagonized him, taking the heat off her and bringing it on myself.
At the time, I thought I was saving her. Meanwhile, that sick bastard was still hurting her but in a different way.
“Does Mom know?” I ask, afraid to know the answer.
“She found out after I moved in with Jeremy, just before she filed for divorce. I’d asked her to come meet me for lunch, and I’d told her everything.” She lowers her hand and returns it to her lap. “That was the day you found her unconscious. She’d gone home and confronted him. She’d threatened to go to the police, and he’d beaten her up, then pushed her down the stairs.”
That memory remains fresh despite my attempts to forget it. I came home from school to find her at the foot of the staircase, knocked out cold. At first, I thought she was dead until I finally found a pulse. Dad was nowhere to be found when I called 911.
I stand up with my fists clenched at my sides.
Cassidy must notice the change in me because she jumps up. She attempts to grab my arm, but I’m already charging for the front door.
“Don’t do what I think you’re going to do,” I hear her call after me. “He’s not worth it.”
All I see is red when I pull up to Benny’s Bar & Tavern. There’s no rationalizing with me. Despite being able to walk away from the fight with Chase, I know there’s nothing anyone can say to calm me down now. Thankfully, there is no one here to try.
Although my uncle’s bar is open, it’s still technically morning, so there’re only two cars parked out front. I have no clue what my dad drives nowadays, but I’m hoping one of them is his.
I get out of the car, and without hesitation, I enter the bar. I’ve never been here before, mainly because I wanted to avoid my dad, but my eyes immediately land on the main bar. I search the backs of the heads of the two guys sitting there to see if either looks familiar. To my disappointment, they don’t.
“Jax?” Uncle Benny calls out from behind the bar when he sees me.
“Where’s my father?” I ask, not in the mood for pleasantries.
As I approach the bar, I notice both the men sitting there avoid looking at me. They must sense that I’m on the verge of completely losing my shit.
“He’s not here yet, but I reckon he’ll show up soon.” Uncle Benny tosses a white bar towel over his shoulder. “Why don’t you pull up a seat and wait for him? I’ll get you a drink, on the house.”
Uncle Benny eyes me as he pours a draft beer. “What brings you by? I didn’t know you were in contact with your dad.”
“I’m not,” I reply as he places the beer in front of me. I don’t plan to touch it though. It’s not why I came here.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. I have ten missed calls from Cassidy and two from Hannah. I was so focused on getting here that I didn’t even hear it ring. As I’m holding the phone, another call comes in from Hannah. Reluctantly, I answer it.
“I can’t talk right now,” I say instead of hello.
“Jax, Cassidy called me in a panic. Is everything okay?” she asks, ignoring the point of my greeting.
“It will be.”
I can tell she’s flustered. Cassidy must’ve gotten her all riled up.
“Where are you?”
“I won’t be here long,” I reply, not answering her question. “I’ve gotta go.”
With that, I hang up. I doubt Cassidy filled her in on our discussion, but I know if I stayed on the phone long enough with Hannah, I’d eventually tell her what I was doing here, and that’s not a conversation I want to have with her over the phone in my uncle’s dingy bar.
“Girlfriend?” Uncle Benny asks I slide the phone back into my pocket.
I take a sip of the beer that I don’t even want. “No. Just a—I don’t know.”
I was about to say friend, but that doesn’t seem right. To me, she’s so much more than that, and to her, I’m probably a great deal less.
Uncle Benny opens his mouth to ask me another question but pauses when the door to the bar opens. The way he’s looking over my shoulder tells me that my father just arrived.
I swing around, and sure enough, Dad is standing in the doorway. He just couldn’t resist coming to the bar to get completely shit-faced before lunchtime.
He stares at me, and even though we haven’t seen each other since I was a teenager, I can tell he recognizes who I am.
He seems smaller now. As a kid, I thought he was a powerful giant, capable of destroying me with a single blow. But now, he’s aged. The drinking and his miserable life have taken a toll on him, and he’s weathered. He’s still tall, of course, but he’s much thinner with very little muscle mass.
Me, on the other hand? I’ve grown and bulked up. If there was ever a doubt in my mind about him overpowering me in a confrontation, it’s all gone now.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks me, his leathery face twisted into a scowl.
I press my back against the ledge of the bar as I fold my arms across my chest. As much as I want to pummel his face into the ground, I want the satisfaction of leaving him in anticipation of it first. I want him to get a taste of the type of fear he inflicted on me for almost half my life.
“I wanted to see what my old man was up to,” I reply, aware of the smug expression plastered across my face. “Apparently, you’re as much of a loser as I remember.”
“Jax,” Uncle Benny says, trying to get my attention, but I ignore him. He knows my dad’s temper as well as I do, and he senses that I’m on dangerous ground.
I don’t care though. I welcome it. It’s what I came here for after all.
“Look at you,” Dad replies with a smirk. “Finally trying to grow a pair. Took you long enough.”
He walks up to the bar, and Uncle Benny already has a shot of vodka and a draft beer waiting on him. He quickly downs the shot, then climbs on top of a barstool, leaving one empty seat between us.
“I visited Cassidy this morning,” I tell him, not that he cares.
He gives me a side-glance as he sips his beer, but says nothing. The man hasn’t seen Cassidy since she moved out at seventeen, and he doesn’t even bother to ask how she is.
“She told me why she left home, why you shoved Mom down the stairs—the real reason Mom was in the hospital for almost two weeks.” I say it calmly despite how angrily my heart is beating in my chest. Right now, I want nothing more than to rip him from the barstool and cram that beer—glass included—right down his throat.
He pauses, the mug lifted halfway to his lips. “She’s always been a liar,” he replies before taking yet another drink.
I clench my fists so tightly that my nails cut into the palms of my hands.
“I think you and I both know how truthful her story is.” I say it to remind him I already know his dirty secret.
An antagonistic smile tugs at his lips. “How is that pretty girlfriend of yours these days?”
The next thing I know, I’m on top of him. He’s on the ground, trying to wrestle me off. He gets one shot in before I completely overpower him.
“You enjoy hurting little girls?” I ask before slamming my fist into his face. Blood gushes from his nose. “You sick fuck.” I hit him again. And again. And then again.
My fist already aches as Uncle Benny and the other guys at the bar pull me off him. It takes all three of them to do it. They let me go, and I’m fully prepared to resume rearranging my father’s disgusting face when Uncle Benny jumps in front of me.
“Move,” I say between gritted teeth.
“I can’t let you do something you’ll regret, Jax.”
“You think you’re so much better than me?” My father sits up, wiping blood from his mouth with his sleeve. “You’re just like me.”
I force myself to walk away, heading down the hallway leading to the restrooms. In the background, I can hear my father spewing profanity as Uncle Benny helps him to his feet.
I face the wall and lean against it, my head resting on my arm. Closing my eyes, I attempt to breathe and calm down.
“You should probably go,” Uncle Benny says to my father.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Dad protests, and I tune out the rest of what he says.
I should be the one to leave, but I don’t know if I can. The fire inside me is still raging, wanting to destroy what’s left of my pitiful excuse for a father.
None of this is real anyway.
Even if the world resets once again for me tomorrow, I’m uncertain I’ll be able to live with myself if I beat my father to death with my own bare hands. When I came here, I thought that was what would happen. I believed that was what I wanted. Now, the words you’re just like me keep repeating in my head.
I can’t allow myself to be like him, not even in this twisted alternate universe I’m trapped in.
I pull my fist back and punch the wall twice instead, trying to expel the hateful energy that’s built up inside me, the anger that I want to continue releasing on him. As much as I want to finish what I started, I decide to leave. I push off the wall and walk back into the main bar area.
Dad is holding a rag to his face while Uncle Benny sweeps up broken glass from the floor. When I tackled Dad to the ground, I must’ve knocked his beer mug off the bar. The other two patrons sit at the bar again, as if nothing ever happened.
Dad eyes me as I walk to the door. I must’ve rattled him because he doesn’t say anything to me as I leave. In all my life, I’ve never seen him intimidated, so I gain a sense of satisfaction, knowing that I got the best of him.
I reach my car, open the door, and slide in. Then, I start my car and just drive.
TWENTY-TWO
Hannah | Present
I turn my phone over and over in my hand, debating on whether I should try calling Jax again. Cassidy didn’t give me much detail when she called this morning, but she sounded panicked. All she said was that Jax had left her house on a mission to find their father and she couldn’t get him to pick up the phone. She hoped that maybe I’d heard from him.
That was several hours ago, and my brief phone call with him did little to put me at ease.
Cassidy hadn’t told me what had set Jax off, and I hadn’t asked. I already know there are a lot of unresolved issues there. If my studies have taught me anything, it’s that repressed trauma always has a way of surfacing eventually. I just hope, for Jax’s sake, he’s able to deal with it in a nondestructive way—one that doesn’t land him behind bars.
There’s a knock at my door, and I wonder if it’s one of Casey’s friends stopping by. She’s not home, but she has a bad habit of double-booking her friends. On more than one occasion, a friend has shown up, thinking they’re going to hang out, only to find out she was already off on another adventure with someone else.
Me, on the other hand? I never have that problem. I’m content to have only a handful of friends that, for the most part, all know and are friends with each other.
