Luke. That guy that was with Lex when I saw him for the first time again. His name reminds me of that night, the incident.
“Why were you guys beating up that man?” I shouldn’t ask, and I don’t really care, and yet, part of me kind of does. It’s like I’m trying to make him out as the bad guy in my mind so that I don’t feel so drawn to him, but it has the opposite effect.
“It was a misunderstanding really,” Lex says, pulling away. He returns to the stove to stir the noodles. An awkward silence falls over us, and I could kick myself.
Thankfully, the food is done, and Lex hands me a plate, which I devour like an animal that hasn’t eaten in days. It’s honestly quite embarrassing how fast I scarf the food down, but Lex doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.
When we’ve finished eating, I help him clean up, and then grab my books off the island, but before I can sit down and start reading, Lex takes my hand and pulls me to the sofa in the living room.
“I want to talk to you about your family.”
I flinch visibly and stop in my tracks, trying to pull my hand out of his. He tightens his hold, and my throat clenches shut. I can’t breathe. I can’t swallow. I can’t see anything except that I need for him to let me go. I am too exposed to him when his hand is holding mine–when his skin touches my skin. Not on this topic. Not with all the recent things that have happened, and all the things piled up behind those.
It is too much, it is too much, it is too much!
My eyes dart around the room, looking for anything to save me. Any way that I can expel this energy or divert the attention of it or buy me some time. He notices, and I’m uncomfortable with him seeing me like this.
I do not want to talk about my family. I don’t have a family anymore.
Lex’s eyes turn on me and then press deeper. I know he wants to understand and is probably making assumptions or interpreting my reactions in some way. I can see compassion and gentleness reflected back at me in his eyes, but I don’t want it. It feels like pity. I do not want him to look at this part of me. It’s too ugly. It is too dark. I am too branded by my father’s hand and belt. No one deserves the things he dished out.
I am too broken to bring anyone into the mess of who I really am.
Hot tears start to spill out of my eyes, and my hand comes up to press them back in as I shake my head sharply. I want to be anywhere but here. Lex’s energy goes soft. Patient, in a way that feels like a sticky quagmire, pulling me down into a vulnerability that threatens to undo me.
No, that is the absolute wrong thing. That is just going to make me cry more.
“I’m right here, Jude, I am not going anywhere. I told you I would protect you.”
“You don’t understand.” I want to lash out at him, to kill the kindness that sees too deeply and makes me want to run.
Sweetness is never real. It is a way to get closer, a way to get my guard down before something worse happens. It feels like he wants to rip my scabs off and stick his hand in them. All I want to do is scream and run.
“Then help me understand. Come sit down on the couch with me. Just that much. Just that little bit. That’s all I want.”
I nod and feel grateful when he releases my hand. I bring it up to my face and try to wipe away the stupid tears from the memory of my crappy childhood.
“I honestly don’t have a family–” My voice breaks, and I hate how pitiful I sound.
“Hey, it is okay, Jude. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
A grimace flashes across my face, and I roll my eyes. I hate this. I do not want to feel needy. I do not want his pity. I don’t want to feel like a child around him. Someone who needs to be taken care of and is not strong enough to be on her own.
I move to the couch, and he waits for me to settle onto the seat before sitting beside me. Thankfully, not too close. I couldn’t handle that right now. Not yet. Not now. Not like this.
“Jude, it’s time to tell me something. Even the smallest piece. You must have grown up somewhere? Even if it wasn’t with a family. I’m not asking you to give me everything but a sliver of the pie.”
I know he’s trying, but even from a logical place, I cannot go there or handle my feelings. I can’t do that part. You cannot stand next to a pit of poison that close and not get it on you. No. No way, No how.
I shake my head vehemently.
“I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t have a family, and I don’t know if I ever had one.”
Families are something other people have. Stuff I saw on TV. They were warm and connected and trusted each other. I never had those things. All I had was strict rules and lost dreams. No hope, no connection, no warmth. Ever. I had pain and anger but never love, not like I should have.
Lex either gives up or senses my need for a change in the conversation because he says, “Okay, if you don’t have a family, let me tell you about mine. Is that a deal?”
I nod, hesitant to trust him but grateful the tension eases and the focus shifts anywhere but on me. I reach for a tissue and blow my nose loudly. I don’t care though. The sound bounces off the walls, and it soothes me. I am blowing out crap. Just more damaged pieces. But it feels good and helps me stop the waterworks. Daddy always said tears were for the weak. The last thing I needed to feel was that.
“Well, as I mentioned, I have two brothers. I am the oldest. And, Pops.”
I smile at him. I like that name. “Pops.”
“Pops is a by the book kind of guy, super old school. We didn’t get away with anything.”
I flinch, wondering if he went through any of what I had gone through with mine.
“Is he religious?” Suddenly, I am less enamored with Pops, and I wonder if all fathers are crap human beings.
“Well,” Lex nods, “his rules are his religion. His sense of what is right and wrong are his religion. His interest in us being stand up guys could be called his religion, if that’s what you mean.”
I shake my head and pull my arms close around me in a hug as my eyes shift downward and away. His dad sounds way better than the one I had, but I don’t tell him.
“You have to understand, my dad comes from a long line of military men. I’m the only one of his sons who went into the military, but we go back generations. We were in every war. And, there’s something that happens when you are in the military. You see stuff that you are changed by, but, more than that, it gives you some kind of inner code.”
His words have a soothing effect on me, and I want to know more about this code. But, I can’t stop the tears that have started up again because every good thing he talks about feels like pulling more scabs off me and makes me feel more raw and exposed.
The contrast between him and his life is too big when held up to mine, which only serves to heap on more pain. I will never be lovable.
“Take, for example, when we made our first fort. I had to learn how to be a big brother. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know that there were rules about that. Rules on how to do big brothering the right way. There’s a good way to do it, and there’s a bad way to do it.
“Just like there are also right and wrong ways to build a fort. Me, I was just gonna go out and get some boards and put up some walls and stick a roof on it. If my brother didn’t do what I liked, then I was going to get mad at him. That was kind of the way I rolled back then.”