That police report. It said suicide. That much was true. What was curiously missing from the report was how Leon Aquila had been beaten to a pulp and found at the bottom of the lake wrapped in chains and with broken legs.
It didn’t mention the water in his lungs that showed how he was still alive when he went under. It couldn’t show how he begged for his life.
Either the police were glad that the asshole who used to spit in their faces every weekend when they were called about the noise got what he deserved, or they were just that corrupt and it looked like a mob hit. I had no idea, but suicide it was.
Skylar
Austin’s story had me in tatters. I noticed that he had no family at our wedding, just like me, but I never brought it up, because that would have lead the conversation to the topic of my own parents. Best to let sleeping dogs lie, I’d thought.
Now it was different. From the way Austin spoke, with a waver in his voice I’d never heard from him before, I could tell this wasn’t something he shared often. If ever.
I’d wondered what kind of life it took to make a man like Austin, and now I knew. All the years spent in becoming a nigh-on invincible fighter, all the power and confidence relentlessly built up, and the take-shit-from-nobody attitude, these were the tools he needed to survive.
He said that he was forged in hell, but it was really just his armor that was made there. When he opened up, he let me see that fear, the source of his anger. I saw the real man in charge of this tank of a body, and he was hurting.
“Did you ever try to find your real parents?” I asked.
“No. Fuck that. In order for somebody to buy something, somebody else has to be selling it. They were probably junkies that needed some quick cash. If I ever found their asses, it might not be pretty.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands and tried to compose myself.
Over the past couple of months, Austin had done things for me I’d never would have thought possible. It was like looking at myself with a completely new set of non-judgmental eyes. It was a huge relief to have so much guilt and self-consciousness off my shoulders. To have a man look at me the way Austin did and for it to be OK, more than OK, might have seemed like such a simple little thing to somebody else, but they weren’t me. For me, it was priceless. It was irreplaceable.
Austin did that for me, and now I could see… he needed me too. As much as I needed him.
Since he started talking, he had been lying on the bed with his fingers laced over his forehead and his eyes closed, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. I reached out and stroked his cheek.
“Hey.”
He opened his eyes.
“I’m so sorry you went through that, Austin.”
“It’s OK.”
“No it is not. It wasn’t fair that you had to grow up in that house. Scared. Hurt. You didn’t even have anybody to…”
I licked my lips and swallowed, turning my eyes up for a second as if seeking some extra strength. It was hard to believe I was about to talk to my fake husband about this… but things had changed somewhere along the line between when the ink dried on our marriage certificate and now.
There was more than a contract holding us together, as confusing and scary as that thought was. I was sure Austin felt something too, or he wouldn’t have just told me as much as he did.
I lifted the bottom of my shirt and twisted to the side. “You see that scar there?”
Austin raised his head and reached out to trace it with his finger. “This one?”
“Yeah. My… my dad disciplined with a belt sometimes. He used to fold it over and give me five good ones if he thought I was dressing too… uh… suggestively, or if he thought I might have a boyfriend. He made me feel like my own body was the most evil thing in the world. One night when he was swinging that belt, the half with the buckle on it came loose and it whipped around and sliced into my back there.”
“Son of a bitch. Maybe I should show up at his fucking house with the heavyweight belt.”
“It’s not worth it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, it’s the first time in my life I’ve had enough distance and courage to do it. My uncle helped give me the distance, and you helped give me the courage, Austin. Nobody ever defended me before. It’s weird, feeling like I’m not alone.”
“I didn’t-”
“There’s a guy in Vegas sitting in a wheelchair, drinking apple sauce through a straw and mourning a popped testicle, who will never lay a hand on me again, who says otherwise. Anyway, I think the difference with my dad is that he was actually afraid of my growing up, becoming an adult, getting attention from boys and everything. He tried to make me afraid of it too, and I was.”