Page 44 of Existential
“They both blamed me,” he states flatly. “Ask Mel, she’ll back it up. She was old enough to remember by then.” He gives my hand a squeeze, his thumb tracing a path over the back of mine. “The point I’m tryin’ to make, I guess, is that nobody’s home life is perfect. I hated him for what he did, but it wasn’t until we’d already lost several years of history to the incident that I found out he hated himself more.”
“I don’t think my father sees any of it as a mistake.”
“You’ve spoken to him?”
“Too late.” I try to pull my hand free, withdraw, yet Hooch holds firm. “He died. Mom refuses to talk to me. Said my lies were what made him sick.”
“Lies?”
You can do it. I need to trust him with this. I need to offload what kills me inside, bounce it off somebody neutral to what happened and see if they validate my feelings or point out what I’m too close to see.
“He abused me verbally. We were poor. Dad lost his job when I was eight; the plant shut down. Like half the town, he never found more work. He’d blame me for everything costing so much, tell me that if they’d never had me they wouldn’t be struggling so badly to make ends meet.” I look up into his eyes, taken aback my how soft and understanding they are, even in the dim light. “I’m an only child.”
“That’s harsh, Dagne.”
“Yeah, it is. Thing was, he’d do it when Mom wasn’t around. He wore two faces: one for her, and one just for me. Towards the end, I really couldn’t tell if he still loved me anymore or not.”
The hand in mine slips up my side to loop behind my back, and with a strong arm slipped beneath my legs, Hooch swings me up to sit in his lap. He says nothing more, simply sighs and pulls me close like a child, tucking my head beneath his chin as he holds me firm with a palm splayed over the back of my thigh. His beard tickles my temple, but I focus instead on the soothing hand that spans the back of my neck. His thumb rubs an even rhythm over my heated flesh, our interaction warming me more than any laps around the barn could do.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“For what?”
“For understanding. For not asking me more.”
He dots a kiss to my head, and then resumes his gentle stroking. “You’ll tell someone when you’re ready.”
“You’re the only person I’ve opened up to,” I admit. “I always lie, make something up about how I like to explore, but it’s all bullshit.”
“You just don’t know where you belong yet, is all. You’re still lookin’.”
Goddamn him. I try my best, I really do, but the tears spill over silently, wetting my shirt and no doubt soaking his. He gets me. He nailed the thing that troubles me most in one perfect sentence.
I don’t fit in—anywhere.
But it’s more than that.
I’m scared that even when I find the place I want to be, that I’ll still never belong.
That I won’t know how to.