Page 76 of Nerdelicious
“Beast. I’m sorry.” My arms tighten reflexively around him, as if I can reach inside to the boy he was.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head and keeps typing.A few years later, Mom started dating Grace’s dad and they had Grace. Grace’s dad took off when Mom was pregnant. I don’t even know if he knows she exists. Our mom had some problems with drugs.
I almost ask him to stop, wanting to shield him from his own past, but he keeps going.
Mom wasn’t always,he stops for a second, head turning to the wall, thinking,present. Even if she was physically there, she always seemed unaware, of me or anything else. I learned how to find my own food because she would often forget to eat herself. I had issues with stuttering. Mom got better when she was pregnant with Grace. Less volatile, more aware. But then after Grace was born, things got bad again. Eventually, we were taken from her and sent to live with our uncle, Mom’s brother.
He lifts his hand to rub his chin.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me everything. I know it must be hard.” Even this, the least of details, is hard to envision. I can’t imagine what an upbringing like that would do to a child, let alone this sweet giant of a man who even now rubs a hand over my back, soothing me, when he’s the one sharing his difficult past.
He shakes his head and returns to thumbing over the phone.
It was fine at first. Our uncle wasn’t a bad guy. He was a mechanic. But then he hurt his back and was laid off. And then everything changed. He changed.
I don’t think he minded raising us at first. But after he lost his job, money got tight. I needed new shoes every month. Grace liked to take things apart to see how they worked, the toaster, clocks, computers, the microwave. He couldn’t afford to replace things and we were too young to understand. We were a lot to deal with. And he hadn’t wanted kids. We weren’t his. I think he resented us. I know at some point he started dealing drugs to get money. Things sort of got better for a time. Then they got worse when he started using.
He puts the phone down, his hand running down my back and pulling me tighter against him, like he needs to remember where he is and it’s not back there. He’s not a child dependent on adults he can never trust, with a sister he’s trying to defend.
“How old were you during all this?”
Nine when Mom died. Grace was four. When we left our uncle, I was thirteen and Grace was eight.
That makes sense since Grace is fourteen and Beast is nineteen. They’ve only been in Blue Falls for a little over a year, which means it’s been them against the world for five years.
When he started using and things got real bad, I was maybe ten or eleven. He used to yell at us a lot to shut up while he was doing his deals or having parties in the garage. It was important we keep quiet, stay away, not catch the attention of his friends. In some ways, I think it was to protect us. If we misbehaved, he would withhold food, even water sometimes. Stopped letting us go to school. I used to sneak into neighbors’ houses to get food for us.
My chest constricts at the thought of Grace and Beast as children, forced into taking care of their most basic needs at a time when they should have had no worries beyond school and making friends.
It was hard for Grace. She was curious about everything, a chatterbox. I was never a big talker because of the stuttering. But I had to take care of Grace. I tried to turn it into a game, who could go the longest without talking. Once during one of his parties we were watching a movie in our room and when I went to use the bathroom, she snuck out. I had to go after her, get her back before anyone saw. But I got caught. He locked me in a closet for three days as punishment.
My body tenses and flashes with cold. “Beast.” My voice is thick with emotion. “You don’t have to keep going.”
But he just shakes his head and continues.
After that he told me, if I messed up again, he would do the same to Grace, or worse. That’s when the anxiety was nearly uncontrollable. I had even more trouble speaking. Even when he wasn’t around, I would remember what he said and my throat would fill to the point I couldn’t talk around it. And then I went so long without talking, at some point it was too late to go back.
A tear slips out of my eye and lands on his chest. “I’m so sorry. Is your uncle dead? Tell me he’s dead. If he’s not, can we kill him?”
He shakes his head, his hand rubbing my arm. Consoling me.
He went to prison a few years after we left. I knew I had to be stronger, so I started doing whatever I could, running, push-ups. I was growing like crazy at the time. By the time I turned thirteen I was over six feet tall. We made a plan and left. You know Grace is smart. We took care of each other. She got us money using computers. And then we found Jude. Or he found us.
“You found each other.” I sit up and face him, climbing on top of him to cup his giant face in my palms, his stubble scratching my palms. “Thank you for sharing your past with me.”
His hands move between us.
Not scared yet?he signs.
I shake my head. “You saved Grace, and you saved yourself. You are not defined by your trauma. You are defined by your resilience. You are the best person I know.”
His arms go around me, crushing me to his chest, and I hang on tight. After a while, he grabs his phone again, holding it in front of me to read.
You are not the sum of your experiences either.
“I hardly think my shitty breakup can compare to what you’ve been through in your life.”
He’s motionless for a spell, and I know him well enough to know he’s considering his words.You care about people, too. You aren’t the sidekick, you’re the main character.
