16 Ford

Ford

Boredom had gotten to me.

There wasn’t much to do in the house. I could only offer to do something so many times.

Austin wouldn’t let me cook. He wouldn’t let me chop wood or stack it. He wouldn’t let me clean the floors, even though they could have used a quick sweep, or given the house a good dusting, which it most certainly needed.

He did let me clean up the dishes after we ate, and he barely trusted me with the laundry, but he still gave me the freedom to do it without him looking over my shoulder. But that was all, and it never kept me busy for long.

That kind of attitude didn’t leave me feeling comfortable. I was basically roaming the house afraid to touch anything.

Well, I had been almost afraid to touch things.

I was done with sitting around.

NowI was taking a closer look at things. Or snooping, as some might call it. Everything I looked at was sitting out in the open, so I didn’t feel like I was intruding… much. Besides, Austin was in the next room making another stew for dinner, so it wasn’t like I was trying to hide what I was doing.

The photos littering the top two rows of the bookshelves in the far back corner of the room grabbed my attention. I’d been curious about them before but was almost afraid to get a closer look. Or maybe I’d been worried about doing so under Austin’s ever-watchful gaze. I was pretty much like fuck it now. Since they were stuffed awkwardly behind the wall of the stairs, it wasn’t like I could get a clear view unless I went up to them.

The first picture I glanced at was of an older man and woman with a young, bright-eyed little boy. The younger version of Austin looked back at me without the jaded scar life had left on him.

A smile curled up my lips. It was clear to see the older couple loved the kid very much. I could only assume they were Austin’s grandparents.

More pictures, a couple of them showing a different kid. One with Austin and a younger boy who shared similar features. A younger brother, I would have guessed, and the picture gave away how much the younger kid looked up to his older brother.

I picked up the image of Austin posed with a baseball mitt and ball, wearing a baseball uniform, his shaggy hair sticking out wildly around his hat.

Another smile pulled at my lips. How long had he played? Was it something he did now? Maybe he hit the batting cages when work got too much for him? Or did he just keep it all in? It wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

I set the photo back, letting my eyes take the rest of the tour until there were no more pictures to look at.

I continued to take in the bookshelves that almost seemed thoughtlessly stuffed in this corner. They held more knickknacks than anything else. Noticing something on the bottom shelf, I crouched and reached for the first photo album on top of a stack of several.

I opened it with a wild curiosity spurring me on. I shouldn’t have gone looking for snippets of Austin’s life, but like a moth drawn to a flame, I couldn’t stop. I went as far as to sit on the cold hardwood floor as I pulled the album into my lap.

More photos. Old ones. It looked like Austin’s grandparents when they were younger, long before Austin was brought into the world. A young couple in love. There were pages and pages. Then a wedding, where the couple’s smiles were almost sickeningly happy and genuine. The kind of smiles and happiness that jumped right out of the picture and infected your soul. A posed picture with both sets of their parents, who also looked happy about the ceremony.

Then a picture of a house.

This house.

The couple stood in the front doorway with beaming smiles directed at the camera.

I turned the page, and the smile I hadn’t realized had taken over my face slipped off.

The next set of pages came up blank. But not blank as if that was where this album ended.

Blank, as in the pictures that were there had been removed.

I flipped through, seeing that the next page was also blank. And the next. All the way until the end.

So this house had belonged to Austin’s paternal grandparents. This was likely the house his father had grown up in.

Something twisted in my gut, and I swallowed hard trying to keep it at bay.

Deep down I had an idea why these pages were blank. Why the photos there had been removed. Why the couple likely wanted to forget what came after they bought the house.

Truth was, I didn’t know what to do with that. This was the part that not many people thought about. The fallout and how the families and friends and victims’ loved ones deal with it.

Austin’s socked feet appeared beside me. I tilted my head back so I could look into his eyes.

His focus was on the photo album in my lap, eyes hazy and cold.

“You know,” he said, but it wasn’t a question. When his gaze jerked to mine, I could see the walls going up. The hardened gaze nearly made my blood run cold. “You know who my father is.”

It hadn’t been a question, but the way he was looking at me, there was almost a dare in his eyes.

I stayed where I was, giving him the advantage over me, as I calmly admitted what he already knew, “Yeah.”

“Off limits,” he snapped, squatting down and snatching the photo album out of my hands. He shoved it back on the shelf, uncaring as it sat crooked on top of the pile. Then he turned and stormed out of the room. A minute later, the side door slammed shut so hard the walls rattled.

Scrambling to my feet, I rushed to one of the windows that looked out to the front of the property.

Austin stomped his way through the melting slush piles to the huge barn that looked as if it had seen better days.

Fuck this. I wasn’t going to let him storm off like that.

With steady steps, I walked through the house and into the mud room. I grabbed a random coat off the wall and shoved my feet into a pair of mud boots. I stormed my way across the yard to the barn. The door was cracked open, and I pushed it wide, letting the afternoon light spill into the darkened space as I stepped inside.

“Get the fuck outta here,” he told me, eyes cold as he narrowed his gaze at me.

It hit me then, despite all the shit he’d been through and all the stuff he held inside, Austin’s eyes never went completely cold. There was always this sad glint in those almost golden brown eyes. A desperate plea hidden there in the background, begging someone to call him on his shit. To open the door and beckon him forward.

His emotions were bubbling to the surface. The rage and anger and hurt and guilt. It was rising and mixing, and creating an explosive cocktail.

“No,” I snapped, standing tall.

We stood there for a moment, staring each other down as if our eyes were two armies on the brink of war.

“Nearly every subject is off limits when it comes to you. How am I supposed to have a conversation with you if we can’t talk about anything?” My feet stomped over the packed dirt ground as I spoke, only stopping when three feet separated us. He stood there, back straight, doing his best to let me know he wasn’t afraid of me.

Good. I didn’t want him afraid. I wanted him to trust me. I wanted him to give me all of his secrets and emotions freely. I wanted him to know he was safe with me.

It was probably the worst moment to realize that there was more here with Austin. More to how I felt about him.

When the hell did that happen?

“We don’t need to have a conversation,” he said, voice shaking with rage. “There is only one thing we should be talking about. Only one thing that matters. Everything else is just a distraction.” He cut his eyes to the side. “I don’t need to get to know you, and you don’t need to get to know me.”

The cut line of his jaw bulged, giving away the hidden truth in his statement. Maybe we didn’t need to, but that wasn’t to say that neither of us wanted to.

The longer I was around him and the more I figured out about him, the more I felt drawn to him.

I suspected he felt the same about me. That there was at least a little part of him that had stirring feelings for me, whether he would admit it or not.

I was done with letting it go on like this. Letting him pretend I wasn’t someone he could trust and count on. I was tired of only getting little truthful moments of him here and there. Of searching through the murky water to find the gold. I wasn’t saying I would stop, or that he wasn’t worth the hard work. I simply meant that I wanted more, and I thought it was about time something changed between us.

All I wanted was for him to break. To finally set all of these things free that he’d been holding in for years. Things that didn’t even have to do with me, but I wanted him to trust me enough to know that I’d take care of him while he purged every single thought that held him tied down in the darkness, and I’d be there for him after it was over. I wouldn’t let him get trapped under his crumbling walls.

His chest rose and fell heavily. His eyes were wild. I took a step closer to him, and he receded one away from me. Again and again, until I had him backed up against the side wall of the barn.

I didn’t say a damn thing, but I didn’t need to. Sometimes the uncomfortable silence brought out the things people didn’t want to be released.

“Tell me who I am,” he said. My gaze went hard. His tone wasn’t something I liked hearing from him. It wasn’t angry, not exactly. It was more a mix of disgust and fear. “Tell me you see him in me.”

It took all the strength inside of me to hold it together. I could see the way he held himself captive in his father’s shadow. The way he tortured himself for all the things his father had done.

More than anything, I wished I could take that away for him.

“Tell me you don’t see a monster when you look at me!” His taunts weren’t going to work on me. I wouldn’t give him the fuel to feed the internal hate he harbored for himself.

“You are not him,” I said, voice even while I kept my eyes locked onto his so he would know every word I spoke was the truth from my soul.

“The sins of the father—”

“Are bullshit,” I said, cutting him off with a stern tone. I pressed my chest into his body until I had him pinned in place with no chance of running from me. “You can throw that religious shit at me all day, but it’s never going to stick. You are your own person. You make your own choices. You have your own feelings. And the fact that thinking about him makes you sick, says more than any words ever could.” When he tried to turn his face away from me, I pinched his chin between my thumb and finger and held his gaze to mine. “You are not him. You don’t need to pay for what he’s done.”

“Don’t I?” His voice quaked. The Austin before me was a scared teenage boy who had been holding this in for too long. “I was there. I’m his fucking son! I should have seen that something wasn’t right. Should have connected the dots to him? Right?!”

“No,” I said calmly. “He was good at keeping the two sides of himself separate, his two lives separate. For fuck’s sake,” I felt the temperature of my blood rising and I took in a quick breath as I pushed my anger down, “you were a damn kid, Austin. No one would have expected you to know.”

“It doesn’t feel like a good enough excuse,” he said almost so softly I didn’t hear.

His whole body was shaking. I wanted nothing more than to hold him. To shield and protect him from the things that hurt him.

“You need to let that burden go. It’s not on you. It’s not your burden to carry.”

“I’m so tired,” he said. “I keep pushing my past away and hiding who I am. I just keep running and running, but I’ll never be able to outrun the shadow of my father.”

His words broke me. Something inside of me flared to life. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight. He was stiff for a long minute, every muscle coiled so tightly they were nearly twitching.

“It’s okay,” I whispered into his ear, not entirely sure where the words were coming from. “I’ve got you.”

His body expanded with a deep breath. Then slowly— inch-by-inch slowly— he began to relax into me. His head dipped, falling onto my shoulder. His shoulders rounded toward me. His arm didn’t hug me back, but I felt the brush of his fingers on my hip.

It only lasted for a few breaths. Then I felt his body tense again. I knew it was coming before he even moved.

With all of his strength, he pressed his hands against my chest and pushed me away. I released him and let my body fall back a couple of steps, though every instinct screamed at me to hold on to him.

“Fuck you!” he yelled, back pressed against the side of the barn again as he glared at me like a cornered animal.

“Me?” My voice held a hint of shock. I didn’t understand what was happening now. I took a stumbling step back, almost hurt at his coldness.

“Fuck you,” he said, but he’d lost some of his fire. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you being nice to me. I don’t want to talk about this shit. Why…”

He stared at me with a gaze that threatened to cut. He lunged at me, arms out, hands slapping against my chest. The sting of his hit pierced through to my heart. I knew he was hurting, but I couldn’t let him run this time. I couldn’t let him use this emotion as armor.

I locked my legs, keeping myself in place, unblinking as I stared into his eyes.

“Why?!” he said again after a few heaving breaths. “Why are you doing this?!”

After the third shove, which seemed to have lost its steam by the time his hands met my chest, I’d had enough.

I stepped into his space again.

“What are you scared of?” I nearly growled, my chest pressing against his, our noses brushing.

“You!” he yelled at me. His eyes locked onto mine, matching the fury I held in my own. “This!”

To say that I was surprised at the turn this had taken would have been a massive understatement.

What?

It took me a long minute of replaying his words in my head for them to sink in.

I swallowed hard, holding his gaze as I tried to figure out what he needed from me now.

“Why?” I asked, my voice nearly a whisper.

Pressed together, our chests seemed to heave in rhythm with the same breaths.

I brought my hand to his chest, pressing firm against him as his heart galloped under my touch.

“Because you make me question… everything.” He swallowed thickly. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”