Devil You Know(32)

“Shit,” he hisses. “Does the thought of dying not scare you?”

“Of course it bloody scares me,” I snap. “But having nothing to live for scares me more.”

He tips his head to the side, challenging me.

“It’s true,” I urge. “My family doesn’t want me. Without Rocco in my life, there’s nobody who needs me. I can’t face that. I wouldn’t survive.”

“Do you honestly believe Rocco is the only one who needs you?” His heel taps to an imaginary beat.

I shake my head. “As much of an asshole as Dylan was . . . is, he needed me. Maybe it was to do the laundry, cook his meals and that kind of thing, but to somebody, I mattered. Yeah, his recognition, his thanks was kind of warped, and mostly oppressive—but it was still thanks. Somebody cared about what I was to them. Somebody needed me.”

Malice’s fingers flex around the edge of the table, and his foot continues to tap overtime.

“Before I had Rocco” –I continue— “he’d go out at night, and I’d be left alone. It happened a lot. And the more he was gone, the more it occurred to me that I couldn’t keep myself company. So I got my fur-buddy over there. I needed someone, or something to constantly need me—to give me a reason to be. My mother used to call. She’d ring every week, and every week the asshole would tell her some lie about why I couldn’t talk. He cut me off from visiting my parents. After a while, they stopped trying—they gave up on me. Rocco never gave up on me.”

He leans back on the heels of his hands, and sighs heavily through his nose. “Your parents probably didn’t know how to handle the situation.”

“And abandoning me was one of the top choices? I don’t think so.” My parents stopped loving me. That was the only explanation I could afford as to why they wouldn’t press the issue, look into what had changed to make their daughter ‘lose touch’ with them. What parents would walk away from their child like that? Surely they had a gut feeling that something was off? Aren’t parents supposed to do anything and everything to keep their children safe?

“How do you know they’ve abandoned you?” He fishes in his pocket, and produces his phone. “Ring them.”

I look at the offered item, and frown. What would I say? ‘Oh, hey. It’s your estranged daughter, fresh out of a pretty fucked up relationship, and now living with some guy she barely knows.’

I don’t think so.

“I don’t know what I’d say.”

He slaps his hand to his face. “How about ‘hello, I’ve missed you guys’?”

My eyes find the reflection on the screen of his phone: a handsome man stressed over a frumpy, worn-out woman. Everything about this moment is so wrong. Nothing fits. We don’t fit.

“Thanks for the offer,” I say as I stand. “I’ll have to decline for now. I need to think this over.”

“What’s there to think about?”

“What I’d say. It’s not as simple as you make it out to be, you know.” I spin, and pin him with a glare, my hands stamped on my hips. “I can’t just drop that kind of heavy shit on them when they ask why I haven’t been in touch, why I’ve left Dylan. It’s not that easy to reconnect when you’ve been quiet for so long.”

The flash in his eyes is brief, but enough that I can catch it. He knows . . .

“Tell me about your family,” I challenge. “You seem concerned with how mine are faring. What about yours? Are they there for you every step of the way? Have they supported everything you’ve chosen to do in your life? You catch up with them every Sunday?”

My short-lived bravado shrinks back with the storm in his expression. The face I’ve known as carefree or concerned now shows a side of a man I never want to come across again—raw anger.

“That’d be right,” he snaps, standing abruptly. The table scoots across the floor. “One guy treats you like shit, and your parents go quiet for a while—so now you’re the one who’s got it the worst. You think you know suffering? You think you know misery? Pull your head out of your ass and take a look around. There are people ten times worse off than you out there.” He jabs his hand angrily toward the front of the house. “Have enough guts to stick your head out the fucking door for a change, and sooner rather than later you’ll see there’s things worse than being thrown around by some testosterone-fuelled moron from time to time. You think a few bruises and broken bones are the end of the world? You think the fact your parents have pulled away from you is hitting rock bottom? Babe, you’ve got another thing coming. Grow a pair, and change your fucking circumstance. At least you still can.”