Page 84 of The Bad Boy Rule

I nod. My arms tighten around her, my thumb sweeping along the sliver of bare skin below the hem of her cropped shirt, more for me than for her.

“I didn’t fight back,” I finally say.

The chaos of tonight comes flooding back, and it feels hard to breathe.

The officers. The flashing lights. Ma’s sobs as they cuffed him and put him in the back of the cop car.

It doesn’t even feel real, yet beneath all of the other fucked-up things I’m feeling, there’s a sense of… relief.

Relief that I shouldn’t feel guilty for, but I do.

Looking up at her again, I shove down a swallow. “I should’ve known that the other day was just the start of it. That day at the rink… he was the reason I was so angry, so out of control. I was so fucking angry that, yet again, he was drunk and high in the middle of the day, and if I hadn’t walked in, he probably would’ve hit my mom.”

“Saint,” she whispers brokenly, her words laced with compassion.

It’s the first time I’ve ever toldanyone.

My whole fucking life, I’ve endured the pain and abuse from him because I didn’t want to be the reason my mother’s heart broke, and tonight only proved that it was the wrong choice. I should’ve spoken up sooner.

Maybe I would’ve saved us both years of heartache and pain.

As I speak, she holds me tighter, and it grounds me. Makes it more bearable to spill the darkest, most fucked-up part of me. “Him being fucked-up is nothing new. It’s a daily occurrence. I don’t know what set him off today… why he lost it. He broke the kitchen table, destroyed anything he could get his hands on, and then slapped my mom across the face. In front of me.” The thought makes me so fucking mad that I’m shaking, rage piercing through my chest. “I should’ve stepped in sooner. I shouldn’t have even let it get that far, but I know how much it hurts my mom to see us fight, and most of the time, when I intervene when he’s pissed like this… it just makes shit worse. I didn’t know he would turn around and slap her like that, or I would’ve…” I trail off when the image of him hitting Ma flits into my mind again, sending cold, deadly rage surging inside of me. “I could’ve fucking killed him, Lennon. If it wasn’t for my mom, I probably would’ve been in the cop car. Not him. When I pulled him off her, she put herself between us. She defended him when I was just trying toprotecther. I saw the utter defeat and resignation in her eyes, and it nearly fucking broke me, Lennon.”

Now that I’ve started, letting all of it pour out of me so I don’t suffocate, I feel like I can’t stop. A dam breaking after suffering a decade of abuse at the hands of the man who was supposed to teach me, guide me,loveme.

I’ve spent years, fuckingyears, harboring anger and hate inside of me, placing the blame on anyone but the person who deserved it the most.

Him.

This vendetta… this revenge that I have against her father, one that implicated her in something she never had fuck all to do with, it’s fucked-up.

I realized that tonight as I came here. When she was the one I craved when at my lowest.

Lennon’s become the only safe space I’ve ever had in my life. She’s trusted me, listened to me,seenme for who I am.

She’s the only person who’s witnessed all the ugly, broken, fucked-up parts of me and stayed anyway. And she didn’t just stay; she pulled me closer.

As my entire fucking life was imploding around me, all I wanted washer.If I were going to break, I wanted it to be with her, wanted her to pick up the jagged pieces.

It terrifies me. I’m scared out of my mind to let her in.

But I’m even more scared to let her slip through my fingers by pushing her away. By ignoring my instincts that scream I need her.

“And then he just started on me. He pushed me against the corner of the cabinet, and that’s where I fucked my ribs up. Ma begged me not to hit him back, so I kept trying to fend him off without fighting him, which is the only reason he ended up getting any hits in on me. I couldn’t stand to let him hurt her any more, so I just let him lash out at me. I just fucking let him, Lennon.” My voice wavers, and I hate it. I hate feeling so raw and exposed, but I don’t stop. I can’t. “I could’ve stopped him, truly hurt him without even trying, but I didn’t. Forher.It’s always for her.”

“Saint…” she whispers, curling her small body around me. I feel her lips press against my hair, and I exhale the breath I was holding, so lost in thought that I didn’t even notice my lungs burning and my ribs screaming. “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I’m sorry too.

But not for my father finally getting what he’s deserved all along. I’m sorry that in my fucked-upness, I dragged her into this. That I was planning on using her to try and fix the shit broken in my head, and I thought the way I could do that was by seeing her father pay for what he did.

He still deserves to, but she doesn’t.

Fuck.

So many things are flitting through my head that it feels like it’s going to explode.

“Is your mom okay?”

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