Tough Enough(52)

Rogan is asleep behind me, his front pressed to my back in the best kind of spoon. His warm breath is tickling the scarred side of my neck. It’s not as sensitive as the skin around it, but because I normally have the area covered with my long hair, it’s not stimulated very often either. For that reason, the sensation of having someone’s breath touch it is distinct. And liberating. And enough to keep me awake to enjoy it.

“What are you smiling about?” comes a rough yet soft voice from behind me. My smile grows.

“How do you know I’m smiling? You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I am? You should’ve told me,” he teases, nuzzling me with his scratchy chin. I shrug my shoulder automatically because it tickles. “Please don’t hide from me like that.” His voice is audibly pained, like my action was a grave insult to him.

I turn to look back at him, reaching up to stroke his cheek, noting the worry in his eyes. The curve on my lips turns tender. “I’m ticklish. That’s all.”

“Oh. My bad.” His face relaxes into the lopsided grin that I love so much and he pulls me in closer, hugging me tighter with his strong arm. “I just don’t want you to think that they bother me or that they’re all I see when I look at you or touch you. I’ve felt that way before and it sucks balls.”

I settle back in against him, cradling my head on my folded hands as Rogan’s fingers rub soothing circles on my stomach.

“Felt what way?” I ask.

“Like my scars are worse than what they are.”

“Your scars aren’t that bad, though.”

“To me they are. I just learned a long time ago that I couldn’t let them, or that part of my life, ruin everything for me. I had to fight to survive, yes. But I also had to fight to live. To have some kind of happiness in life.”

His tattoo. Fight to survive. Fight to live. Not just a tattoo. A credo. His credo.

I pause, debating the wisdom of asking the questions that are burning to be voiced. I mean, I did just share a huge piece of myself with him. And not only the physical; I shared the hardest part. But that doesn’t mean that he’s at a place where he will feel comfortable sharing with me. In a way, my hand was forced. His is not.

Before I can talk myself into or out of asking, Rogan starts to talk again. So I let him.

“I wasn’t always comfortable with violence. I wasn’t always a fighter. The first few years, when Kurt was just a baby, things were pretty good, pretty normal. It was after Mom died that it all went to shit.”

“What happened to her?”

“Cancer. We didn’t have much money and she always put her needs last. Eventually it cost her her life.” I’m quiet while Rogan is quiet. I don’t know if he needs time to collect himself, but I’m giving it to him anyway. I feel the storm of his story brewing, like an uncomfortable static in the air. “He didn’t start drinking or anything. That’s what the social workers always thought—that he was a mean drunk. But he wasn’t. He was just a mean son of a bitch, period. He didn’t need anything to bring it out. Life did. Just life. When Mom died, she took the only good in him with her.

“I was ten the first time he hit me. He was mad because I’d left my basketball outside. He found it when he came home from work. I was watching cartoons with Kurt and he walked in the door and threw the ball at me. Hit me right in middle of the face. Smashed the shit out of my nose. I started crying and he walked over, jerked me up by the arm and punched me in the stomach. Told me to stop acting like a little pussy bitch. Told me I wasn’t tough enough, but that he’d make me tough. Tough like a man.”

My hand is pressed to my mouth and my eyes are squeezed shut. Too easily I can picture a young Rogan, abused and grieving, struggling to make it from one day to the next.

“It only got worse after that. The older and bigger I got, the more creative he was. He’d burn me with lit cigarettes if I didn’t wake up on time, he’d whip me with my football cleats if I missed a catch, he’d slice at me with a box cutter if I ran from him when he was mad. And there was nothing I could do. He told me if I told anyone about what happened, he’d kill Kurt. I believed him. And I think he would’ve done it. But I knew as long as I was around, he’d never lay a hand on him.”

My stomach sloshes with nausea at the pain, at the heartache. At the betrayal and the loneliness he must’ve felt. I have to wait a few seconds, swallow a few times so that my voice doesn’t reflect my inner turmoil.

“You mentioned social workers . . .”

“Yeah, I had a couple of concerned teachers over the years. I always made excuses, though. I knew if Dad ever found out, he’d hurt us. Hurt Kurt. And I couldn’t risk that. And if they were able to help get us away from him, Kurt and I might’ve been separated in foster care. I guess to a kid like me, there were too many unknowns, too many risks. Besides, Dad was careful. He never broke bones and he was a star employee at work. But still, I heard them whisper. All my teachers thought he was a mean drunk that no one could catch.” His laugh is bitter. “Anyway, he started working nightshift for the extra money when I was sixteen. I thought that might put an end to it, but it didn’t. That’s when I knew I had to find another way to protect us, so when I got my license, I started taking his car while he slept. I’d drive down to this dojo on the other end of town and I’d watch the boys in there as they trained. I practiced in my room after school, just waiting for the day when I could fight back.