Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(58)

“There we go.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Eat up . . . blueberry pie is for dessert.”

“Bluuueberry pie is my favvvorite,” Benjamin said, shifting in his seat so he could grin up at his grandmother.

Emotion pulsed, and I was struggling to breathe, to make sense of all of this, trying to process how it was possible that I was there.

Right in the middle of something so amazing.

And again, I was feeling like an outsider, someone who didn’t quite fit in.

Desperate to be a part of a family but remaining an outlier.

Too fucked up to really belong.

Mrs. Lane eyed me, nothing but knowing. “Huh, what do you know, Benjamin. It’s Maxon’s, too.”





Seventeen





Mack





Nine Years Old





Mack heard something shatter inside the house. His spine stiffened, and anger came at him like one of those storms that hit from out of nowhere.

Full force.

“Where do you think you’re goin’, bitch?”

Prickles of hate crawled across his skin as he tuned his ear that direction, and he dropped the stick he was carving out over by the shed and tucked the switchblade in his pocket.

This building with the big padlock on it was where his mama grumbled that his daddy did all of his dirty work.

Mack didn’t agree.

He thought there were plenty dirtier things happening inside those shabby walls.

Sucking in a breath, he forced down the tremors of fear that made him want to run and hide in the forest.

He was no coward.

His daddy called him that all the time.

This time, he was going to prove him wrong.

He inched beneath the shimmery rays of light that streaked through the breaks in the dense trees toward the rickety cabin he called home.

Planks on the porch rotted, trash littering the yard that was almost completely closed in by overgrown shrubs and trees.

Ugly.

Inside and out.

His insides rolled with sickness.

That ugliness didn’t have a thing to do with what it looked like.

His old shoes scuffed on the dirt, and he heard a scuffle, his mama’s gasps of surprise and fear.

But that was the way it always was. They never knew what they were gonna get. A good guy or a bad guy.

His mama told him everyone was made up of a little bit of both, but Mack knew for certain he didn’t want to be made up of any of that.

“To work. Where I go every Wednesday,” he heard his mama say, though it was close to a cry, and Mack slipped up the wobbly step onto the tiny porch, hoping the wood didn’t creak beneath his feet.

Beside the front door, Mack pressed his back to the wall. He held his breath when he leaned around so he could peek through the mesh of the screen door.

His mama was in the kitchen, and his daddy was looming over her, wearing no shirt and his jeans ripped, hair matted from staying up all night. Beer cans littered the living room floor, and Mack could smell the stench of it coming at him like a warnin’.

Dread knotted through him, tightening his chest and closing off his throat.

He tried to swallow it down. To blink it away. He didn’t want to be afraid the way he used to be.

“Let me go,” she said, trying to yank her wrist from his hold. The only thing it did was make him squeeze her harder and tug her fast up against him.

For a beat, Mack squeezed his eyes closed, making a wish that he really was a dragon.

That he could fly.

That he could swoop up his mama and they could fly away to a better place.

“Told you before, I don’t want you anywhere around them. Fillin’ your head with that bullshit. Think they’re better than everyone.”

“And I told you, it’s my job. They pay me good to clean their house. Besides, they were kind to us while you were away. I’m not gonna just go and forget about that now.”

His mama’s face looked all pinched up. Eyes wide with terror.

A cruel sound came from his daddy’s mouth, one that Mack knew too well. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me, Dee? Whose fault was it that I got sent away in the first place?”

“Yours.”

Mack wanted to shout for his Mama to stop. Not to say a word. God, she knew better than that.

But sometimes his mama wanted to fight, too.

When his daddy reached back his hand and smacked it across her face, the crack of it like thunder in the air, Mack felt it like a need.

The fight.

The ugliness burning bright.

This bottle of fury that lit.

Maybe he couldn’t fly, but he was sure he was breathing fire.

His mama shrieked, trying to guard her face, but it was too late.

She fell to her knees, and his daddy knelt down in front of her. “Don’t fuck with me, Dee. You know what good that’s gonna do you.” He grabbed her by the hair, and she yelped as he dragged her across the dingy floor. “Told you to stay away from those rats. Know it was them. They’re gonna get what’s comin’ to them soon. Soon as I take care of you.”

That was the last straw that Mack could take.

He bolted through the door, praying for courage. For strength.

If he could fly, he would be doing it then. He rushed his daddy, clawing at him, throwing kicks and fists. “You asshole!”