Page 64 of The Confidant

“You hate your father.”

The sudden switch-up in the conversation makes me tense. His eyes open and meet mine.

“I hated mine, too. We’re alike in so many ways, but we had different paths to walk.”

I settle on my heels but reach for his hand like he did for me. I’m afraid I’m going to hear that his life was like Asher's. I’m already sad andpissed. It’s hard for me to hide it. Even harder for me not to ask for his father’s address and take a baseball bat to him.

“He beat my mother. Constantly. Drunk or sober. He had enough money and power that it was easy to hide. He never touched me. He wanted me to learn tobe a manfrom him. There can’t be any weakness in a man. But a woman is another story.”

His eyes go hazy as memory takes hold of him. He’s still talking, but it’s as if he’s telling someone else’s story. He checked out to get through this. This is a kind of suffering I could never picture. A hateful man trying to raise his son to follow in his footsteps. Even the sperm donor didn’t try that.

“I loved my mother. I didn’t want her suffering because of him. Even in school, I could see that fathers don’t do that in a family. I wanted what those other kids had. A father who smiled and a mother who was happy.”

I nod, following along with dread building in my gut. It did the same thing when Asher started talking about his abuse. I’m going to hear something my mind can’t come back from, and it’s going to change me. Another secret locked up in my brain and heart, never to be told.

“I wasn’t big enough to take him head-on. I tried to defend her. But I couldn’t. Until Icould.” He swallows hard, a shattered look entering his eyes that I want to stop. “One night, he beat my mother until she was unconscious over not handing him the salt fast enough. I thought she was dead. I thought he killed her and just sat back down to finish dinner while she was lying in a pool of her own blood. I snapped. I grabbed the knife from the ham and stabbed him. Over and over. Until my arm got weak. He never saw it coming.Inever saw it coming. I killed him.”

A part of me breaks hearing that. Not for the evil man who tried to twist him up. For little Poe, taking justice into his own hands when he couldn’t take it anymore.

Ash always wanted that for himself. To get rid of the problem personally, without cops involved. After hearing that vengeful yearning from him and seeing it realized through Poe, I don’t know where to land.

I’ve seen suffering with Ash. I saw how hard he had to work to be a regular kid. Maman broke him out of that with her hovering. Then, he became a belligerent degenerate in the name of making money for us to live off of. Joseph was the one to get through to him with that. A beat cop who saw too much suffering and wanted to stop it as best he could. Now, Asher is the cold man he is today. Tera, Frosting, and Sprinkles have cracked him open, letting happiness peek out from his shell.

There’s more to life than pain. Sometimes, it’s hard to see and even harder to reach for. Poe is reaching out, and he’s afraid that I won’t be reaching back because he thinks what he did was unforgivable.

But Iget it.

“Mom woke up and saw me standing over him. She snapped, too. When I felt her take the knife from me, all I could think was how glad I was that she was alive. And then she stabbed me. The same way I did to him. She gave me the scars. She said I was evil.Iwas evil. Not him. That I didn’t deserve to live. The neighbors had heard all the screaming and, for once, decided to call the cops. It’s the only reason I survived. I couldn’t even defend myself.”

His chin drops until he’s staring at my hand, clenched over his.

“I spent a long time in different facilities. I saw my mother when she testified against me. We both got sentenced. Her to a separate facility for a lot less time than I got. When I got out, I was nineteen. I didn’t want to leave there. I was safe. Happy almost. When I got back to that damn house, my mother was already there with a new man who was just the same. An abusive, controlling piece of shit. I could see what my future would be the first second I saw him.”

I swallow hard as tears fill my eyes. His detachment has turned into a familiar, determined anger that brings that focus back into his eyes.

“All the therapy. The guilt. The fucking agony. I wasn’t doing that again. Especially for a woman who wished I had died that night. I wanted out of the spiral, and only I could make it happen. Father left everything to me in his will. I’d reached the age for the handover to happen before I got released. The doctors helped me work through the paperwork and insisted I go straight to the lawyers when I got out for my own safety. But the lawyers had been sending letters to the house, so she knew. I could see that rage in her eyes. They were living off that money, and they wanted to keep it. I turned around and went to a hotel before they could even say a word. As soon as everything was finalized, I went back there with cops behind me. Mom had no idea that I’d gotten smarter, more focused. It wasn’t about getting everything. I didn’t want his fucking money. I didn’t want revenge on her. I just wanted to besafe.”

“And you made sure it happened,” I grit out, trying to hold back my rage. “You did good,cher.”

His eyes flick to me in confusion, but his words don’t stop. He can’t help it. Now that he’s opened those floodgates, he has to get it all out before he loses his nerve.

“The new guy wasn’t having that. Got himself arrested trying to go for me at the front door. I told my mother she could leave him and I’d make sure she had a safe place to stay or follow him out the door. She tried to convince me that I was nothing more than a demon sent to make her suffer. When that didn’t work, she left.”

His fingers clench, his breathing going choppy.

“Tell me whythathurt more than her trying to kill me? It makes no sense. I didn’t have any illusions about her at that point. She didn’t care about me. Abusers can convince their victims to believe everything is their fault. Brainwashing. Mother fit those shoes to a tee. Instead of blaming the man who deserved it, all her suffering wasmyfault.Itook away everything she wanted, not him. It was all mental manipulation bullshit and she believed every word of it. I didn’t back down. I wasn’t a little kid terrified that he’d never see her again anymore. Thirty minutes of not talking, letting her rant, and she gave up, just like that. So she could keep being a victim with a clear conscience. She didn’t look back when she walked away. Not once.”

His eyes move up to meet mine. The sorrow and anger there have me reaching out to brush his cheek with my fingers. A feeble comfort for his pain that feels too small. A tiny bandage when his wounds are too big to cover.

“I want you to listen to me now,” he tells me in a grim tone of determination. “Even if you want me gone, just listen. Your Mother is conditioning you, and your siblings are helping. I can see it. I think you can, too.”

I want to deny it so badly. It seems too far out there to me. A conspiracy theory I should laugh about. But I can still hear Maman telling me I’d never have a One because I’m notBroussardenough. As clear as day, like she’s saying it right now.

There’s no reason to harbor that kind of hate for me. Not that I can see. Not now and not when I was a kid.

“You need to know that it’s ok to let that go. You aren’t whoever they say you are. You never were. There’s too much good in you for that.Everyonecan see it.”

My startled gaze goes to his intense expression.

---