Every Single Secret(29)

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “I know, Daphne. But they were my parents. The people who raised me most of my life. I want to tell you about them.”

I laid down my spoon, my appetite gone. I shook my head, once, then twice, like some crazy windup toy.

“Daphne,” he said. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“It’s just, I don’t want you to feel any pressure.”

He laughed in disbelief. “I lied to you, Daphne. I made up an entire story about growing up with my mother. About her having two jobs, us being poor, and all these guys she brought around that roughed me up. Doesn’t that bother you? Don’t you care?”

“I do. It’s just—” I stopped.

This is the one place I’m afraid to go.

The one place I can’t go.

“You’re afraid I’ll push back,” he said. “Expect you to tell me about your past. Isn’t that right?”

“I just think you should focus on your sessions with Dr. Cerny right now, that’s all. That’s why we’re here. That’s the whole reason we came up here.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. “You’ve told me you lived in a house at a girls’ ranch. You said you had surrogate parents there and other girls you lived with and that they got you a scholarship to art school. That’s it. That’s all I know. You’ve never told me anything more.”

My face felt hot. My whole body felt engulfed in flames. “Because you didn’t want me to!” I practically yelped. “Because we agreed the past wasn’t worth rehashing!”

He inhaled and let it out slowly. “You’re right. We did agree, but I was wrong, Daphne. It was a bad idea for us to pretend certain things didn’t happen. That certain events didn’t change us. The things that happened to me did change me. They . . . poisoned me, in a way. And I’m afraid if I don’t talk about what happened—if I don’t get the poison out—it will kill me.”

My eyes burned and I felt tears welling. Shit. Shit. I couldn’t refuse to listen, couldn’t watch him suffer like this. I had to fucking pull myself together and be here for the man I loved.

I sniffed. “So tell me. Get it all out.”

“Really?”

I nodded.

He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know how to describe it exactly. It was lonely and isolated, so lonely that sometimes I thought I was going crazy. No one ever came to the farm to check on me, no police, nobody from child welfare. I wasn’t adopted legally, of course, but who cared? Nobody knew, and honestly, how difficult could it be to buy an unwanted toddler off a half-starved crack whore?

“After I ran away, I was so traumatized, I couldn’t bring myself to report them. I believed they could somehow find me, take me back to that place.” His voice trailed and he shook his head. “I’m glad they’re dead now. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to tell you the truth.”

“They’re dead?” It was the only question I could think to ask.

He faltered. “I mean, I assume they are. They were old when I was a child. I haven’t heard from them since I left.”

We were quiet for a moment, then I spoke. “What about the mirror?”

“What mirror?” he asked.

I hesitated. “You always talk about a mirror, when you’re dreaming. Break the mirror, smash the mirror, stuff like that. I thought it might be something from your time with those people. I thought it might be some clue to unlock . . .” I laughed self-consciously. “I don’t know. Now that I’m saying it, it sounds stupid.”

He stared at me for a moment, then got up, walking over to one of the gnarled trees on the opposite side of the lawn. I looked up at a birdhouse hanging just to my right, almost within reach. If you looked close enough, you could see it had been carefully painted with a design of leaves and vines, all shades of green and yellow. Someone had labored over this tiny shelter, taken hours probably to make it unique and beautiful. And for what—a couple of birds, who wouldn’t know the difference? It was ridiculous. I wanted to pull it down and bash it against the tree trunk. Stomp it until it broke into a million pieces.

I averted my gaze from the birdhouse. Heath was standing in front of me, a resolute look on his face.

“I don’t remember any mirror in the house where I lived that scared me,” he said. “Or if there was, I guess there’s a possibility that I’ve blocked it out. Jesus. What kind of fucked up would that mean I am?” He laughed harshly.

I kept very still. “I’m sorry, Heath.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He let out a long, trembling breath, scrubbed his face with his hands. “I was scared if you knew how I was raised, that you would see me as damaged. A freak. I thought you might leave me.”

I nodded.

He let his eyes shutter. “Dr. Cerny thinks if I can talk about all this, and how it affected me, the nightmares will stop.”

“That’s good. Really good. I admire your courage.”

He looked down at me again, his face broken and sagging. For the first time since I’d known him, I thought I could imagine what he would look like when he was an old man.

“I want you to know me, Daph,” he said. “Even if you don’t like what you see. Even if you don’t want the same in return.”