Somebody Else's Sky (Something in the Way #2)(44)

"I was on the crew that built the house next her parents'."



       
         
       
        

"And she just came over and introduced herself?"

My chest tightened the way it always did when I thought of those first days with Lake. Everyone on site had noticed the girls. The other men had only seen Tiffany, but not me. Lake had stood quietly by her sister's side, absentmindedly playing with her bracelet, looking uncomfortable enough to make me notice, to make me wonder what was running through her head. I'd been ready to step in if there was trouble. I hated to be part of something that scared a young girl, but looking back, maybe she wasn't so scared. I'd found the bracelet in the dirt and returned it to her, but she was the one who came back to talk to me.

"You know how Tiff is," I said with a drag.

"Yeah, I do. She always been your type?"

"My type?"

Gary paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. "She's got a big personality."

Even after we'd moved in together, I'd sometimes wondered why she stayed. It was taking me time to trust that she meant it when she said she loved me. That I wasn't still a way to get her dad's attention. I had been, but somewhere along the way, her feelings had changed. Maybe she secretly craved the structure she'd always rebelled against.

"But I gotta say," Gary continued, "I've seen a change in her. That first week at camp, I thought I had her pegged. Boy-crazy troublemaker. But Lydia tells me she's not like that."

Tiffany had gotten to know Gary's girlfriend pretty well, mostly because Gary was the only friend I really hung around with. "She's still got a little of that going on," I said with a laugh.

"You've been a positive influence on her, though. Lydia thinks it's because of you, too."

"Yeah?" I raised my chin, nodding a little. Any positive changes Tiffany'd made, she got the credit for that, but if I'd helped motivate her like she'd told me I had, I felt good about that. Real good. I'd struggled so much in prison with all the ways I'd brought Lake down, and I hadn't even realized how my visits with Tiffany had had the opposite effect.

"You know I work with kids a lot," Gary said, "and not that she's a kid, but I can kind of see how one person can really make a difference in someone's life. Let me ask you something." He shifted in his seat to face me better. Gary always got worked up when he talked about his job. In a way, what he did was similar to what I'd wanted to accomplish as an officer. He helped kids, gave them a safe place to go after school, talked to them like adults, provided them with tools to succeed they might not find at home. It was a shame my record meant I couldn't really get involved in any way. "Does Tiffany have issues with her parents?" he asked. 

I shrugged. "I mean . . . yeah. Her dad. He sort of favors her sister. A lot, actually."

"I thought so, the way she seeks out attention." He took a pull from his beer. "It's good she has you. Dads can really do a lot of damage when you're young, you know?"

Fuck, did I know it. My dad's actions had changed my life irreparably. I could go on to get everything I wanted in life, but losing Madison, knowing what my dad had done to her-I'd never get over it.

"And the shitty part is, that stuff gets passed down, so you have to break the cycle."

I looked into my beer. "What do you mean?"

"The parents treat the kids a certain way, and those kids grow up to recreate those behaviors with their children. It's really fascinating, that stuff. How much is ingrained and how much is learned, you know?"

Ingrained. What Gary was saying, I already knew. I had my dad's darkness in me. It could flip on like a switch, but how bad could it get? It wasn't the first time I'd wondered what kind of dad I'd be. My control had already slipped with Lake, even though I'd known the potential consequences. Not just for me, but for a young girl getting involved with someone older.

"You think that's always true?" I asked.

"Not always, but often enough from what I've seen at the Y. You find out a kid's being abused, and, man," he shook his head at me, "making that discovery's not something I'd wish on anyone, but I guarantee, the abuser . . . he came from the same kind of household. You think it'd be the opposite. It's pretty fucked."

Abuser. That was my father. That was my grandfather.

What about me?

I'd snuck off with one of Gary's sixteen-year-old campers. I'd come from a history of abuse.

Terrified he'd start prying into my childhood, I changed the subject. "Anyway, not sure what's down the line for me and Tiff, but we're in a good place for now." We'd gotten into a routine. She worked most days, and in the evenings, she was-slowly-learning to cook. Or we got takeout. She was catching me up on movies I'd missed while inside. "This cohabitating thing isn't so bad."