2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Darren

I'd spent the rest of the summer isolated from everyone, working out, running, training alone, and staying fit. I kept up with my chores just so I wouldn't have to punch my father again, and whenever I had free time, I spent it in my truck, reading and learning all that I could.

Who knows where I got my brains? Definitely not from my parents. Maybe Grandad. I was grateful for it. I could fall back on my grades if football didn't pan out.

Once high school started, David and Angus tried to work their way into my friendship again, but it wasn't in me anymore. After a couple of weeks, I ditched them for good.

I was officially friendless, trying to get to know my new teammates while trying to learn about my new self. Some of the players I knew from back in middle school, while others were new to me. Did it matter when I had one singular goal? Friends had never been a priority .

After school, Dillon was in the locker room, changing into his gear like the rest of us. I didn't look at him, shoving him out of my thoughts and giving up on the idea of dating a guy. I liked girls well enough, too, but I wasn't attracted to any of them right now.

Dillon had never seemed to be the athletic type, always drawing in his sketchbook, but he seemed big and fit enough. I was curious to see how well he did.

The new team had better be good because I had high aspirations of winning so I could eventually get recruited to a college team. Losing teams and bad grades didn't win scholarships.

We'd spend the first week of school determining who made the junior varsity team and what positions they would play. I'd always been an offensive lineman, preferably the right guard, being larger than most kids. I was fast and able to protect the weaker side of the field. My job was mainly to protect the quarterback, but I also protected the running back.

Once we headed out onto the field, Dillon ran off with the head coach, along with several other boys, trying out for the quarterback position. Interesting. And I ran off with the offensive coordinator to work on drills with the rest of the offensive linemen.

We spent a good hour showing our stances, sets, and punches, pushing the defense off balance, mirroring to work on our lateral movements, and barrel diving to push forward low into blocks. Last, we worked on shuttling because we needed to shift directions constantly as the defense blocked. Shifting weight properly while engaged in contact was essential.

Whenever I caught a break, waiting for my turn, I couldn't take my eyes off Dillon, and not only because of some attraction to him. I was truly curious to see how he would play or if he was any good.

I watched him catch all his throws, no matter what direction the coach sent him. He quickly pivoted and threw the ball back in a perfect spiral, making its mark into the hands of the catcher every single time .

At that moment, I knew I had to fix shit with him. No doubt they would make him the starting quarterback. He outshone all the other boys by a landslide. Who knew he had it in him? He must have practiced all summer, but he definitely had a gift. Some people had natural talent, and Dillon and I were two of them.

If I had to protect him during games, we needed to trust each other in order to win.

It was time to suck up my pride and use this opportunity to do better with my life. God, it was going to be fucking painful, though. Admitting I was a shit to myself was one thing. Admitting it out loud to others was another.

When we wrapped up practice, I jogged over to Dillon, who stood on the sidelines drinking water, and I patted him on the back. It must have been too hard because he started coughing.

He turned and pinned those pretty blue eyes on me with a scowl on his face. I swallowed and shrugged off my guilt.

"What do you want, Darren?"

"Hey, just being friendly. You look surprisingly good out there. I didn't think you had it in you. I pegged you as more of a nerdy gamer than an athlete."

He glared at me, not saying anything, when I raised my hands in surrender. "Hey, I mean it."

He scoffed. "Sure you do."

"Look, I'm a dick. I'll admit it. But we're gonna be teammates, as you said. Besides, I have a reputation to live up to."

Way to sell it, Darren .

It was hard to break away and change after years of being angry and afraid every fucking day of my life. Hell, I was still angry, but now I tried to learn to redirect it. It helped to have an end goal, something to drive me and push me forward .

"A reputation for being a bully? Give me a fucking break. You hit Cade," he hissed quietly, which I appreciated. The last thing I needed was for the coaches to overhear what I'd done.

Before I could defend myself or apologize and tell him I broke away from those two assholes, he walked off to where the players gathered around the coaches.

A sigh escaped me at my failed attempt to right things, and I followed him. I wasn't exactly a people person, never having true, close friends. I hated to admit that I was a bit socially awkward. It had never mattered before.

After a speech about working as a team, getting along, and making good grades, the coaches let us shower and head home.

Cade, Dillon's stepbrother, met him in the football locker room. He was trying out for the cross-country running team, so he was in the athletics program as well.

The doe eyes he made as he looked at Dillon had the fucking jealousy flaring up again, but I shut it down. Dillon and I were impossible, even if we eventually got along. Hell, Cade and Dillon were impossible if Dillon wanted to be on the football team. They would never tolerate him being gay or whatever he was, especially for his stepbrother.

The threatening jealousy vanished as the anger swept through me when Dillon and Cade brushed fingertips. Godfuckingdammit . I needed to get my moods under control. It wasn't easy when I had everything stacked against me, and I was completely alone in this world, having useless parents and now no friends. Regardless, those two needed to control their infatuation because if I could see it, others would, too.

No one would ever get in the way of my dreams. Fucking no one.

"Yo, Wilson," said another offensive lineman, Dean Cassidy. He was nearly as big as me but meatier, whereas I had more muscle. We'd just met today, so I had no idea what kind of dude he was, but I needed to get to know him and get along with him if we played on the same line. His wet, wavy mop of brown hair fell into his face, covering thick brows. His eyes were brownish hazel, which was kind of pretty. I had a flash of attraction, but I shut that down like everything else.

Shit, it seemed maybe I was more into dudes than I was girls. That was going to be a fucking problem.

"‘Sup?"

He clapped my back. "Nice work out there. Man, I think we've got a good team."

I glanced over at Dillon again, knowing the coach would put him in the top spot, and nodded. "Yep. I have every intention of helping us get there." I slammed my locker door a little too hard. "See ya, Cassidy."

Once I reached the front of the school, I grabbed my bike. I didn't live that close, but it was good exercise and cleared my mind, so I didn't mind it.

When I crested over the small hill, our house came into view. The old, one-story rambler needed a good coat of paint on the wooden clapboard. Actually, it probably needed more, but my parents didn't have the money to fix up the place. Mom worked full time as a cashier at the grocery store, while Dad worked as a farmhand for one of the wealthiest farmers in the area. Whatever. It kept food on the table and the lights on.

The one thing my parents did right was to allow me to attend football camp in the summers. Perhaps my motivation was enough to give them hope I'd be successful one day and drag them out of near poverty. Yeah, I wasn't working my ass off for them.

I walked into the house to the smell of a tuna casserole. Hopefully, Mom remembered to make vegetables or a salad for me.

I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the jug of milk to make my protein and muscle-building drink.

"Have a good day, Si… Darren?"

"Yep. We have a good lineup in football this year."

"Oh, that's good."

And that was the extent of our conversation .

Sitting at the scarred kitchen table and eating dinner was quiet except for the scraping of forks and knives on the plates.

I shoveled in the food as fast as I could so I could be alone to do my homework and then read before bed.

I could feel Dad's eyes on me, so I looked up as he took a sip of beer from the can. "How's football looking this year?"

"Fine."

"You on the varsity team?"

I inwardly rolled my eyes. "No, I'm only a freshman. I tried out for junior varsity today. I won't know until a couple of weeks from now."

"You gotta winnin' team?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe? Well, we've spent a lot of money on your football camps. I expect you to do well."

"It's a team sport. We all have to do well."

I stood and slid my chair loudly across the linoleum floor, grabbed my plate, and washed it before putting it into the cabinet.

"Silas, we're talking," Dad snapped.

I stopped in my tracks as I was headed to my bedroom. Mom whimpered, sensing the storm coming.

Jesusfuckingchrist .

I turned to face him, desperately trying to rein in the simmering anger. "Stop calling me that," I gritted.

"Calling you what?"

"H-he wants to be called D-Daren now," Mom spoke up.

"Was I fuckin' talkin' to you?"

When Dad raised his hand, Mom flinched, and I tensed. Maybe he stopped hitting me, but now he was going to stop fucking hitting her. If she wouldn't defend herself, I'd have to do it.

"Touch her and die. Do not think for a second I'm bluffing. You're a weak, pathetic man to hurt people you see as powerless."

I winced since I'd done that exact thing .

No more. I was done with that.

Control my life. Get to where I needed to be. That was it.

Dad dropped his hand and rested it on the table. Mom dabbed her eyes with her napkin with trembling hands, no doubt knowing she'd narrowly averted disaster.

I walked away and straight to my room, slamming my door shut. Instead of allowing the anger to fester, I sat on my lumpy bed and took some deep breaths, staring at my bare walls. There was so little of me in here. My room looked so… temporary. If anyone walked in here, they wouldn't know who Darren was or what he liked. The only things that identified me were my love of football and that I'd been a bully.

Once I felt calm enough, I opened one of the few books I'd checked out of the library about being a victim of abuse.

There was no way for me to go to therapy, so I'd just have to fucking research it. It was another way I was grabbing for what I wanted and taking back my life.

But as I read, I'd expected to understand my behavior and how to change it, not suddenly empathizing with my mother. I read about how abusers used gaslighting as a form of control and made the victim believe there was no way out. Dad was good at keeping her small, meek, and isolated. Had she always been that way, or did he make her that way? I had no idea.

Did Grandad know? When I was little, Dad would slap me around. I thought it was normal, that I was being bad and deserved it, so I never said anything. It wasn't until years later that I realized how wrong it was.

Then I'd question why Mom even married him, but as I kept reading, I learned abusers don't always start out that way. He probably swept her off her feet, and once he got his claws into her, he didn't have to pretend anymore.

But how did he become an abuser? Did he learn it from his own father? Did he feel powerless and needed to exert control? Was he also abused? I had no idea since he never talked about his family, and I'd never met them.

Fuck. I was on the path to being just like him because I also had so little control over my emotions, and it was a learned behavior. But knowledge was power. I could overcome this with work because I wanted to.

I shut the book and pinched my nose, feeling more like a grown-ass adult rather than a teen.

When I climbed out of bed, I walked to the front of the house and looked out the window to see Dad's car gone. That meant he went out drinking, which also meant he didn't have to work in the morning.

I walked to my parents' room and knocked on the closed door.

When she didn't answer, my stomach twisted, worried that somehow Dad ignored my threats and hurt her or worse… I slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open.

"Mom?"

She was sitting in her cushioned chair by the window, knitting something. When she looked up, her face clear of bruises and blood, and gave me a small smile, my muscles unclenched.

"What do you need, sweetheart?"

I sat on the edge of her bed, resting my elbows on my thighs, and looked at her. "I'm going to do better."

Her blond brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"By you. I… didn't understand why you never fought back or fought for me. But… it's starting to be clearer."

Mom frowned and went back to knitting. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked again, but she knew. It was all in the eyes. She had to understand what I meant.

Old Darren would've gotten pissed at her deflection. New Darren understood she was afraid.

I stood and sat on my knees in front of her, placing my hand on her knitting. "Dad won't touch you again. I promise. "

"Oh, he doesn't mean it. He just… gets upset sometimes. I don't help by talking back to him or forgetting things. If I were just a better wife…."

I swallowed back my annoyance, but I didn't bother to contradict her. Hopefully, in time, she'd heal and realize she didn't need to be afraid of him anymore… or afraid of me. In the meantime, I'd watch over her.

"Okay, well, goodnight."

She relaxed and smiled brightly at me. "Goodnight, Darren."