Page 70 of Damaged Protector

“So she was fourteen then?”

“Yes. My fever was sky high, and my sister didn’t know what to do. She tried to call our mom, but she’d left her cell phone at home. This was over twenty years ago, so people weren’t as attached to their phones as they are now.”

Mallori’s tone was soft, one of comfort. “What happened?”

“Jen gave me some Tylenol, but an hour later, the pain and fever had gotten worse, so she started calling our mom’s friends. One of them lived close by, so she came over, took one look at me, and called an ambulance.”

Picking at the label on the bottle with my thumbnail, I said, “My appendix burst on the way to the hospital. I almost died, and they took me immediately into the operating room when I got there.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Hawk. That must have been so scary.”

“Mostly for Jennifer. I was kind of delirious at that point.” Draining my bottle, I pushed off the bed. “I’m getting another. You want one?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m good.”

In the kitchen, I threw away my empty bottle and pressed my hands against the counter, my head hung low. This next part was the hardest, but I found myself wanting to tell Mallori the rest. I had no idea why, but I did. I only hoped it wouldn’t make her hate me.

Pushing back, I snagged another beer and walked back to my room. As soon as I sat, Mal closed the distance between us, resting her head on my shoulder.

“You all right?” she asked, and I bobbed my head up and down before resuming my story.

“My dad arrived three days later, the same day I got home from the hospital. He sat in my bedroom for hours, holding my hand. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry.”

“That had to have been hard on him, being away like that during an emergency.”

“It was. He and Mom had a lot to hash out as well. They tried to keep their voices down, but my nosy sister was listening at the bedroom door. Mother blamed my dad for being gone and leaving her lonely, and he blamed her for my appendix bursting. He said if she’d been at home with her kids where she belonged, it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“He’s got a point,” Mal said, wrapping one arm around my waist and leaning into my chest.

“They separated for a few months, but then he took her back.” The bitterness was evident in my voice. “I have no fucking idea why he would do that.”

“Maybe he really loved her.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said,” I scoffed. “I was so pissed at him and told him I would never be that stupid. I swore I was never going to fall in love because it made you blind.”

“I agree,” Mal said, shocking the hell out of me. “My dad is crazy about my mother. They’ve been married twenty-four years, and he has no idea how she really is. How can you ever truly know another person when they only show you what they want you to see?”

We stared at each other for a long moment, our faces only inches apart, and I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who was as cynical as I was about all the love bullshit.

“Anyway,” she said, looking away and resting her cheek on my chest once again, “sorry I interrupted. Are your parents still together?”

“No, something else happened after that. It’s… well, it’s not pretty, Bee.”

“Life isn’t always pretty,” she said so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

Draining my beer, I set the bottle aside and shored up my resolve to get through this. “I don’t know when my mother started fucking around on my dad again, but she did.” Mallori’s hand rubbed absently against my chest, and the movement soothed me a bit. Which I needed because sharing this shit was hard.

“I was seventeen, and Jen was nineteen. She was home from college for the weekend.” My eyes closed as I remembered the events of that fateful night. “I guess my mom had learned her lesson about leaving the house to meet whoever she was fucking. Instead, she apparently thought it was a good idea to bring them to our house after me and Jen were in bed.”

“Oh my god,” Mal whispered. “In your dad’s home?”

“Yes,” I bit out, so much bitterness coating that single word. “I woke up in the middle of the night and heard a noise. It was coming from Jen’s room.” Mallori’s breathing picked up, harsh and ragged, and I curled my arm around her, stroking her shoulder as I rested my lips against the top of her head. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Go ahead.”

I gritted my teeth, as I did every time I thought of that sonofabitch. “His name was Howard Bailey. After he was done screwing my mother, he decided to go into my sister’s room and—”

I couldn’t push the words out. They were too hard.