Stupid Girl(70)

I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. I didn’t fear him; instead I felt a deep, guttural pain. I moved my hand to cup his scruffy jaw and held it there, my thumb moving over the day-old stubble, and waited for more confessions. They came.

“The courts demanded that I be locked in juvie until I showed some sort of remorse because at the time I didn’t have not one fuckin’ ounce of it. That sorry sack of useless shit had beaten his wife to within a hair of her life; and me countless other times. That night I followed him to that bar, and was gonna jump on him when he finally stumbled his drunken ass out.” He gave a low, sarcastic laugh. “But one of his buddies dragged me in off the sidewalk, threw me at my foster father. My foster father was a big guy and a mean ass drunk, and he shoved me, started beatin’ the holy shit out of me, and his friends just let him. No one bothered to stop him. Then he cracked that lager bottle across the bar, just like on a fuckin’ movie, and took two swipes at me.” He laughed again. “Fuckin’ took me off guard, seein’ how wasted he was. After two swipes, with my face and throat bleeding all to hell and back, I kicked him in his goddamn nuts, he dropped the bottle, and I picked it up.” A long, pent up exhale blew across my forehead. “He took a swing at me with his bare fist. I ducked, and took one just like it, only with the bottle. I’ll never forget his face that night as he realized what’d just happened. Got his jugular and the bastard bled out right there in the bar. Right in front of me as I watched.” He turned his head and looked at me. “Does that repulse you?”

I stared at his face, my fingers still on his jaw, and was not that surprised by my answer. “Not at all.”

A sigh of relief, maybe, escaped Brax’s lungs, and he pulled me closer. “I wasn’t sentenced for that, but I had a lot of goddamn rage that I couldn’t control. Started fights—with everybody. Other kids. Cops. I stayed locked up in juvie until the Jenkins adopted me when I was almost seventeen. They’re decent people. Let me play baseball, encouraged my studies. To this day I can’t believe they risked it.” His laugh resonated with self loathing. “Risked a crazy fuck like me.”

Once more I found words to be hollow and senseless. I let my fingers lower to his chest, then raked them over his arms, knuckles. “Your tattoos,” I began. “What do they mean?” I’d noticed the script was in a foreign language and as intricately detailed as the art work.

“Here, sit up,” Brax said, and pushed us both to sitting. Reaching over his head, he pulled off his tee shirt. My eyes had adjusted to the dark well enough that I could see arms, chest, abs chiseled straight out of a block of stone. First, he held out his fists, indicating the letters inked into the knuckles. “I did these myself, and as you can see they’re a little sketchy. I was twelve and had just started fighting.” He laughed. “Man, I thought I was one bad ass little fuck.”

“What about this one?” I touched my fingertip to his ribs, where an inscription lay scrawled in black.

He looked at me. “Aut viam inveniam aut faciam. It’s Latin. It means I shall either find a way or make one.”

I was stunned by Brax’s fluid shift in language. I moved to another one where a mystical black creature with a bird’s head and skeleton wings twisted around his shoulder and down his arm, and melded into more script. I grazed it lightly. “This one?”

“A phoenix. Luctor et emergo. I struggle and I emerge.”

I moved to his other arm, where another mystical creature with an eagle’s head, wings, and a lion’s body entwined his forearm. “Here?”

Brax held his arm up. “That’s the gryphon, merging into a cross. And here,” he lifted his arm higher and pointed to the underside of his bicep. “Temet nosce.” He looked at me. “Know thyself.” He cocked his head to the side and touched the inked words trailing away from the jagged scar at his throat. “Vincit qui se vincit. He conquers who conquers himself.”

I nodded, understanding each one of his marks. Then, Brax twisted, turning his bare back to face me. Another Celtic cross was inked between his shoulder blades, and within the lines, more script.

“Non ducor duco. I am not led, I lead.”

My fingers traced the cross, and in the dark encountered multiple raised slashes embedded in Brax’s skin. “What are these?” I asked quietly. I knew the answer before he said it, and my stomach turned. Brax had just yanked open old wounds. I’d kept hidden my most horrible one.

“Memories of foster parents past,” he said with a harsh laugh. He turned back to face me, and ducked his head, looking me in the eye. “I drag a lot of shit around with me, Sunshine. Lucky you, you’re the only one who really knows I’m a derelict delinquent with a juvie record and no fucking clue who my parents are. And if you can’t stomach being with me, knowing all that? Then I need to know. Now. Because I don’t know if I can take any more fucking heartache—”