Before the Dawn(75)

But she broke off then, going silent. His gaze slid to her shoulder. To the three roses right there. Without another word, he got up and took the cloth back to the bathroom. When he returned to the bedroom, Tucker turned off the lights and slid into the bed with Dawn. She came toward him, curling her body against his, and he locked his arm around her, wanting to keep her right there.

He knew what she'd done tonight. She'd given him her trust-completely. He would do the same for her, even though he was the one who was afraid. 

"The last time he hurt us...I was fifteen. Jason was seventeen, just about to turn eighteen." His voice sounded wooden, even to his own ears. "It was out at that godforsaken cabin. He thought he could keep pushing us around, keep controlling us, but we weren't kids any longer. We... I...fought back."

Her hand was pressed right over his heart. Seemed fitting. Did she get that she'd always held the fucking thing in her palm? That he'd gone a bit mad without her?

"I hit him. Punched him. Yanked that belt right out of his hand, and Jason was with me. Kicking and pounding at him. Soon our old man was on the floor." The rage he'd felt then had staggered him. He'd been shaking and a red haze had seemed to cover his vision. "He ran away from us, screaming that we'd pay. He jumped into his old truck and he shot off, careening down that old dirt road. I figured he'd go back to town. That he'd tell the cops what we'd done. He was always good at spinning stories. He'd tell them we attacked him and we'd go to jail."

He could feel her light breath against his skin.

"I wasn't afraid of jail. I was actually kind of relieved. At least I wouldn't be with him any longer. No one else ever understood the shit we put up with in his house. We always said our bruises came from football. Not his fists."

"I'm sorry. I was there. I saw you then, and I-"

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. "Nothing is on you. Remember that. Nothing is ever on you." Then he put her hand back where it belonged. Right over his heart. "You probably heard the story about my dad dying...but what you heard, it wasn't the way things really went down." Dammit, this was hard. "What really happened... Hours passed while Jason and I were at that damn cabin, and the cops didn't show. Jason and I started to think he was teaching us a lesson, just leaving us out there in the fucking heat of summer. No food. No drinks. So we started walking. It was night so at least it wasn't so hot..." Such a lie. It was always hot in the summer, especially in the swamp. "We'd gone about two miles when we found him." And he had to stop because the memories were so strong. He could hear the crickets, all of the insects chirping around him. He could see the sky filled with a thousand stars. And he'd seen the truck, curled around that big old tree. "Fate."

"Tucker?"

"My first thought was that he'd gotten what he deserved. Twisted fucking fate. My mom drove away and died when he chased her. And now he...he was the one dead in the wreck. His truck had curled all the way around that tree. Never seen metal crunched that much. Jason ran to him, but I just stood for the longest time." Staring at the crash. Fate. And he'd thought, This is what you get. This is what you deserve. Pain brings pain. Death brings death.

Tucker looked up at the dark ceiling but he still saw that star-filled night. "Then Jason yelled that he wasn't dead." His brother's voice had cracked when he called out to Tucker. "My mom was trapped in her car, but our father was thrown from his truck. When I got to him, he was about fifteen feet away from the wreckage, like he'd been trying to crawl back toward us. He was covered in blood, choking on it, and he'd grabbed Jason's leg, holding tight to him."

"What...what did you do?"


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"I watched him die." The words came out quietly. His darkest secret. "We didn't have a phone on us. Help wasn't nearby. There wasn't anything we could do..." His words trailed away. "That's what I told myself. But that was bullshit. We both watched him die. We didn't try to stop the blood. We didn't try to give him comfort in those last minutes. Bruises were still all over us from the last beating that bastard had tried to give us, and we just watched him." At the time, he hadn't felt any emotion. It had just seemed...fitting...the end that his father had. "We were still standing next to him when a sheriff came by the next day, a guy who'd come out patrolling. He thought we'd been in the wreck, too. That we were lucky to survive." Her touch was so warm on his skin. "Never told anyone differently." Until her.