Count On Me(34)

He’s still holding my hand and the way he squeezes isn’t at all like it was a couple of minutes ago. He’s tense and his eyes, they’re scary now. He’s getting angry. I really shouldn’t be here, if all I’m going to do is cause them to fight.

“Well, I care alright. Just stop. You don’t have to always be such a dick, Dean.”

It’s obvious looking at Dean now, that he’s not sober. His eyes are glazed over and even as he lunges across the room toward Kayden, I see he’s unsteady on his feet. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with people that drink because mom shelters me from them, but there’s no doubt he was drinking a whole lot before we got here.

Kayden ducks out of the way at the last minute, allowing Dean to slam into the bar and before I know it, I’m being dragged across the room toward the door we just came in.

“I’m sorry Isabelle, but you need to get out of here. He’s only going to keep doing this and I know it scares you.” He sighs as he rubs his hand over his head and I feel bad for him. He’s still trying to do the right thing by me even though he knows it’s gonna make his brother worse. I don’t exactly want to be alone, but if my being here is going to cause something worse for him, I know it’s what I have to do.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you stupid, son of a bitch!” Dean yells from his place hunched over the bar and I’m not the only one that flinches. Kayden does too.

“Do you have a phone?” he whispers pointing to my bag still wrapped around my back.

I nod and he unzips the back and starts searching around for it. When he finds it, he slides his finger across the screen and immediately begins typing quickly. He hands it back to me and smiles weakly before motioning toward the door.

“It’s going to be okay, Isabelle. If you get scared, text me okay?”

I’m scared alright, but right now it isn’t about me. I’m afraid for Kayden. As much as I want to run from this house and never come back, I don’t want to leave him alone. He was there for me when no one else wanted to get within two feet of me and I want to do the same for him.

He can obviously see something in my eyes because he leans in and kisses the top of my head lightly before he whispers again.

“Go, Belle. I’ll be okay.”



Kayden



I knew it was a risk bringing her here. Dean hasn’t been sober one second since he lost his job and I knew he wouldn’t be out at the bar this early. No, he would be home and he would be the same as always. I just hoped that because she was with me, he would hold back on it.

I need to stop with this giving him the benefit of the doubt bullshit. It never gets me anywhere. You can’t change someone who doesn’t want to change. I know that better than anyone. It took having it slammed into me by Isabelle, for me to learn it. I still didn’t want her to have to see him like this though.

She knows all about it, there’s no way she couldn’t. It doesn’t mean I have to sit here and let her experience it for herself. It took everything in me to let her walk out the door. I know how she feels about being alone and I want nothing more than to keep her here with me, but if she stays here with him like this, she’s going to be something a whole lot worse than scared.

I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking giving her my number, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t want her feeling like she did in the bathroom ever again, even if she’s at home and it’s not exactly the same. I want her to know she’s got someone. She’s got me.

Again, Ms. Taylor’s words are ringing in my head when I type my number in her contacts. If the teacher that knows what I’m all about can believe I’m a good guy, then maybe, I can be what she believes me to be. At least I want to be, if only for the girl that seconds before had been afraid to even leave me alone here.

I could see it in her eyes. She was scared by the way Dean was carrying on, something that I’m beyond used to. She had a hard time turning her back on me and walking out the door. I don’t have much of a heart, but her acting that way, it touched some part of me and I think I might have fallen a little more.

Admitting it isn’t so hard anymore. I like Isabelle Reagan, even if I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about it. All I know is, I want to do right by her. She deserves that and it’s been too damn long since anyone’s tried.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Kayden? Bringing the retard over here? Don’t you know how stupid that is?”

I swear if I hear one more person call her a retard, I’m going to snap. I’m beginning to see why people hate that word so much. It makes me physically sick to hear it. Considering that up until I turned six, I couldn’t even read and write and was called retarded myself, I should know how wrong it is. I know it now and I refuse to let it happen again, at least from the one person I can control. Dean won’t ever say the damn word again. I don’t care what it costs me.