Fall Back Skyward (Fall Back #1)(72)

“I heard you and my dad talking.”

She wipes a trembling hand over her brow. “No. Your father and I are not having an affair.”

“Then why were you arguing?” I insist, feeling my panic start to rise.

She leans back and stares at me. “It’s none of your business, Eleanor.”

I start to pace. “Mrs. Holloway. It’s my business. My mother is in that house right now lost in her own world. My sisters have no idea what is happening and I. . .oh God, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t handle it.

“It might not be any of my business, but, it’s eating me inside out. I’m going to be honest with you. My mom used to think that my dad was her entire world. She still does. She hasn’t accepted the fact that he doesn’t love her anymore. It has destroyed her. It’s destroying my family. Me.” I stretch out my hands toward her. “This. I don’t want to go down this road again. Two days ago, I almost relapsed after I had gone for so long without self-harming. Cole keeps asking me what is wrong. I care about him very much. But I can see his heart breaking whenever he looks at me, because I can’t bear to look at him when I know I’m keeping a secret from him. So please, Maggie, tell me the truth. Please. I need to be able to sort this out in my head.”

She stares at me the entire time, her gaze moving from my wrists to my face, a soft look on her face. Then she straightens on the couch and takes a deep breath, releasing it in a long shuddering breath.

“Your father and I practically grew up together. We did everything together. His parents and mine were friends. We lived next door to each other. We went to school together. We were inseparable. So naturally, we fell in love. He was the sweetest, most caring person I had ever met. But he had such a hard life at home. His father was a general in the army. He was strict to the point of cruel, and always demanded more than one hundred percent from his son. But his cruelty exceeded even his norm when he found out that Stephen’s brother, Thomas, was gay.”

I remember my grandmother mentioning him but I let her talk.

“Thomas was the most handsome boy I’d ever met. And the most cheerful person. But he was also born deaf.” She licks her lips. “In an attempt to make sure Stephen didn’t turn out like his older brother, Thomas, their father became even more demanding to the extent that he beat him up. At this time, he’d already thrown Thomas, who was fifteen at that time, out of the home. Even their mother’s words and protection didn’t help.

“Anyway, Stephen hated your grandfather so much. He asked me to run away with him, but I refused. I loved him very much, but I couldn’t leave my family. And I told him exactly that. He was extremely enraged. I’d never seen him like that, which made me realize that I probably didn’t know him like I thought I did. Things fell apart and we broke up. I got accepted to a college out of state and I left him here in Florida. Years later he tracked me down, but by that time, I was already engaged to Benjamin.”

I rub my clammy hands down my dress. “And now, we are living next door to you.”

She nods. “A few years into my marriage with Ben, things weren’t going so well. Ben was preoccupied most of the time with starting his own business and I was raising Josh, mostly alone. Ben was out of town for long periods of times. He was distracted. Our love seemed to have diminished and my marriage was rocky, with no chance of saving it especially after Ben confessed to me later on that he’d been having an affair. We were heading for divorce. Just around that time, your father came to town for a seminar hosted by the state’s police department. He was a police detective at that time. Old feelings for him resurfaced and I ran to him for comfort.”

“But my dad. . .he was still married to my mom.”

“He told me that he’d divorced her. Because things didn’t work and that he’d never been able to forget me.” She drops her face in her hands and inhales deeply. “I was so stupid to believe him.”

I stare at her, completely confused on what I’m supposed to do now. Hug her or stay put and wait it out? “What happened next?”

“I realized your father hadn’t changed. He was the same man. Hot tempered and sometimes cruel. Also Benjamin approached me and pleaded with me, told me that he didn’t want to lose me. My life had always been the kind I’d dreamed about with Benjamin, an exceptionally amazing father and husband, apart from that affair. I wasn’t proud of what I did. But at the same time, I wanted Josh to grow up with his own father. I wasn’t perfect either. So I went back to my husband. One month later, I realized I was pregnant with Cole. Around that time, I received a call from a woman who told me that she was Stephen’s wife and I should stop destroying her marriage. I was shocked. The next time your father called to convince me to come back to him, that he’d change, I told him I couldn’t because I was pregnant. That Benjamin and I had decided to work on our marriage. He was angry. He cursed me on the phone. I told him to never contact me again and to go home and work on his marriage.”

Flash backs of the time my father came home from one of his long trips flash in my mind. The words he’d used to belittle my mother, makes me realize he was doing this long before I was born. The look on his face when he’d looked at me. Now his words are his weapon and he has a talent for unleashing them. Sometimes I wonder if physical abuse would have been better than words that left scars on my soul.