I watched her shutters close and her walls go up. The brightness in her eyes dimmed as her lush mouth pulled into a frown. Right in front of my eyes the woman that had devoured her cheeseburger and enjoyed a simple night in front of the TV, like any other twentysomething typically did on a weeknight, turned into the woman that had escaped near death at the hands of her deranged lover. She shrank in on herself, almost as if she was trying to disappear inside her skin. It was the first time I’d ever directly addressed what she had been through and I regretted bringing it up, but the elephant in the room couldn’t be ignored forever, not if we were going to be spending as much time together as I wanted.
“I’m sorry, Poppy. Not my story, not my business.”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself in a gesture that I was starting to recognize as one she used when she was extra anxious. She wouldn’t let anyone else touch her, so she had resorted to wrapping her own arms around herself when she needed a hug.
“No, it’s okay. I mean, I know you know. Everyone knows. I was on CNN for goodness’ sake.” She shifted on her feet and bit down on her lower lip. “No place felt safe after I got out of the hospital. My head was so caught up in everything Oliver had done. My body was broken just as badly as my mind, but Rowdy and Salem refused to let me disappear. They brought me here because they knew I wasn’t up to fighting my parents if they showed up to take me back to Texas. I was ready to give up on everything. Everything felt so pointless and hopeless. I always seemed to end up back where I started.” She tugged on the end of her ponytail and lifted her eyes to mine. The pain and the force of her bad memories sucked the air out of my lungs. I’d been let down and disappointed a lot in my life, but I’d never been destroyed like she had. It was gut-wrenching to see. Watching Poppy struggle to pull herself back from the edge of horror made me question if I would be strong enough to rebuild myself the way this young woman had. She’d been devastated but here she was, still fighting and forging on. “They chose me and as I got better I chose them back. So yes, I’m here because of Salem and Rowdy. I was lucky I got Sayer as well. They are my right people.”
I exhaled and ran a hand through my hair. She was right. She had made national news with headlines that screamed Kidnapping, Rape, Suicide. I remembered vague images of a frail body covered in blood and other too-horrible-to-imagine things being wheeled into an ambulance. I never stopped to process that the image on my television was this beautiful woman standing in front of me now. The knowledge turned my stomach and left a bitter taste in my mouth. “I’m going to ask you a question but you don’t have to answer, okay?”
She considered me for a long moment and then nodded as she whispered, “Okay.”
I tapped my fingers on the wood between us, my expression knitting into one of genuine curiosity. “Why didn’t you want to go with your parents? Believe me, I know all about being seriously disappointed by the people that are supposed to love you unconditionally, but you went through so much, why wouldn’t you want as much support around you as possible?”
If it was possible she shrank into herself even more. She went pale, her normally rich and exotic skin tone dulling out. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the butcher block and then cradled her forehead in her hands. For a minute, I thought she was going to pass out. I moved over to where she was propped up and stood close to her. I almost put my hand on the center of her back until I realized that was probably the worst thing I could do at the moment. I desperately needed her to give me permission to touch her. Keeping my hands off her, especially when everything inside of me was dying to comfort her, was taking a near Herculean effort.
“Forget I asked. Clearly, it’s a good thing your sister swooped in and brought you here before your parents showed up.” Her reaction had me thinking they were in the running for the shittiest-parents-in-the-universe award right next to my mom.
She shook her head where she held it and peeked at me through a narrow slit between her spread fingers. “The stuff that wasn’t on the news is almost worse than the stuff that was.”
I barked out a startled laugh. “How is that possible?” Her husband had stalked and tortured her. If that wasn’t enough she’d had no choice but to watch the man eat a bullet because he was too much of a coward to take responsibility for his actions when the cops caught up to them. I couldn’t imagine anything being more horrific than that.
I heard her mutter something that wasn’t clear and after a drawn-out moment where I thought she was going to shut down on me, she pushed off the counter and reached up to pull her hair out of the elastic holding it so she could rake her fingers through the long honey-tinted locks over and over again.
“My father is a difficult man. When he came across the border as a child, it was a terrible experience for him. His mother died when they were making their way through the desert in Texas and my grandfather convinced my dad that it was his fault. He told him she died so he could live. He insisted the only reason they were making their way into America was because my grandmother wanted a better life for my father than he would have in Juárez.” She huffed out a breath and lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “The truth was my grandfather had gotten in business with one of the cartels and there was a price on his head. The whole family was in danger, but instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he blamed my dad and used his guilt to ensure his obedience and compliance. They were lessons my father learned well and had no problem passing on to his own children. Behave or bad things happen. I honestly believe he still holds himself responsible for his mother’s death.”
I blinked at her and opened my mouth to say something but shut it just as quickly when I realized I had no words. My upbringing was no picnic but it was a breeze compared to what she was revealing about hers.
“Salem used to push and push him. I think she was trying to force him to break. She wanted him to do something, to leave some kind of mark so she could prove that what was going on inside our house wasn’t right.” She let out a strangled-sounding laugh and put a hand to her throat like she was trying to capture the tragic sound. “But he never hit us, not once. He simply let us know every single minute, of every single day, that he deserved better, that God had let him down by saddling him with a worthless, ungrateful family, daughters that were sinful and unworthy. I did my best to please him. I followed in my mother’s footsteps. I walked on eggshells and didn’t speak unless spoken to. I brought home straight A’s and only allowed people he approved of in my life. I tried to be perfect.”