Southern Heart, Madison, Natasha [the little red hen ebook TXT] 📗

would walk into the room and see me, so I called the only person I knew who would be here in no time. I was not wrong. He was here in under a minute. I was lucky he was already in the barn working out. I guess it was my lucky day in a way.

I grab a pair of baggy black pants that are tight around my ankles with a white short-sleeved shirt. I tuck it in the front and tie my hair on top of my head. I don’t bother washing my face before going back to him, and I can only imagine how I look.

I find him sitting on the bed, his head down as he puts pressure on the wound. "Hey," I say softly, and he looks up and just the look of him is like you cut off both my legs. Maybe I should have washed my face. I’m sure my nose is red from the crying, and my eyes are puffy.

"Are you in pain?" I ask, and he just shakes his head.

"I’m actually numb," he says. "But I think two stitches came out."

I walk over and put on gloves, going back over to him. "I’m going to need you to lie down."

"I’m so sorry," he says, not moving, his head moving up, and I see the tears in his eyes. I want to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry for. "You asked Ethan about my story."

"I," I start to say. "I know your father tortured you, but I was asking him why."

"I thought you heard me tell the story," he says, and I shake my head.

"I only heard the end of it. When you told them the day Braxton died," I say his real name, and it feels wrong on my lips.

He shakes his head. "You missed the best part of the story," he says sarcastically. "When I was five years old,” he starts talking, "my mother was reading a book to me, and my father came in. He was usually never around except for dinnertime. But this time, it was the middle of the afternoon. Or at least I think it was, then I had just come home from school." His eyes look up at me. "I knew something was off because he wobbled a bit when he came in, and I remember my mother telling me to go to my room."

"You don’t have to do this," I tell him, not sure I can handle this.

"You deserve to know," he says. "If anyone deserves to know my story, it’s you. You saved me. And in return, I’ve put a bull’s-eye on your back." He looks up at the ceiling now. "I whined when she stopped reading to me. My father turned around and slapped me so hard I flew across the room." I can’t stop the gasp that comes out of me. "My mother ran to me instead of going to my father. He beat her right next to me. That is my first memory. I tried to take care of her. She would get up and make sure to make him breakfast and dinner. But when he left, she would sleep the whole day. I would lie next to her, and the bruises faded from a deep purple to a green to a yellow. When you described the sunrise before, all I could do was see her bruises in my head."

I put my hand to my stomach, hoping I don’t get sick in front of him. "Mayson," I say his name in a whisper.

"I never whined again. Never made another noise, and when he would come in from work, I would hide in a corner, hoping it wouldn’t happen again," he says as a tear runs down his face. "But it was not the last time that he beat my mother. I would listen to see if maybe she said something that would set him off, but I understood things more as I got older. I knew that when he was having a bad day, he would make sure she did also. Her beatings would tell you how bad of a day he was having. If he hit her less than five times, he was just irritated. If it went on for over an hour, it was a rough day. If he spent the whole night taking shots at her, you knew that it was a bad fucking day." I can’t stop the tears from falling down my face. "He was six foot one and weighed two hundred and forty-five pounds. She was five foot two and weighed under a hundred pounds. She would fly like a rag doll. Imagine being ten years old and telling your mother what position to get into when your father was kicking her. I would try to clean up when she was in bed, but there wasn’t anything that I could do to stop the roaches from coming in. No matter how much I tried."

"You were trying to protect her," I tell him, not even trying to hide the tears.

"Protect her." He shakes his head. "When I was fourteen, he hit her so hard she dislocated her shoulder." I close my eyes, knowing what he’s going to say next. "I had to snap it back into place. My mother howled out in so much pain she passed out." His own tears are running down his face. "When she died, I sold her wedding ring so I could buy her flowers." He turns his hand now, showing me the orange on his arm. This is for her." He rubs it, and I walk over to him, my fingers roaming with his. "Birds of paradise."

"It’s beautiful," I tell him, and he looks up at me.

"After she was gone, there was no one to take the beatings but me," he says, and I stand here in the middle of his legs. "It started slow, a smack here and there. I would duck, but it would just make