One Tiny Lie (Ten Tiny Breaths #2)(86)

“Why, Ashton? Why lie about her death?” Why . . . everything?

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t correct you when you assumed she was dead.”

The word “Why” is on my lips again, but he speaks before I can say it. “It was easier than admitting my mother doesn’t remember who I am. That every day I woke up hoping that it was the day she died so I could be free of my screwed-up life. So I could be at peace.”

I close my eyes to stave off the tears. Peace. Now I understand what that strange look was, the night that Ashton found out about my parents’ death. He was wishing the same for himself. Heaving a deep breath, I whisper, “You need to tell me. Everything.”

“I’m going to, Irish. Everything.” Ashton’s head tips back as he pauses to collect his thoughts. His chest pushes out against mine as he takes a deep breath. I can almost see the weight lifting off of his shoulders as he lets himself speak freely for the first time. “My mother has late-stage Alzheimer’s. She developed it very early—earlier than most.”

An instant lump forms in my throat.

“She had me when she was in her early forties. Unplanned and highly unexpected. And unwanted by my father. He . . . isn’t one to share. That apparently included my mother’s affections.” He pauses to give me a sad smile. “My mother modeled for years in Europe before meeting my dad and moving to America. I have some of her magazine covers. I’ll show you them one day. She was stunning. I mean drop-dead gorgeous.”

I lift a hand to touch his jawline. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He closes his eyes and leans into my fingers momentarily before continuing. “When she met my dad, she had no interest in having kids either, so it worked out well. They were married for fifteen years before I was born. Fifteen years of bliss before I ruined everything, according to my father.” He says that last part with an indifferent shrug, but I know he’s far from indifferent. I can see the pain thinly veiled in those brown irises.

Even though I know that I shouldn’t, I press my hand against his chest.

Ashton’s hand closes over it and he squeezes his eyes shut. “I thought I’d never feel you do that again,” he whispers.

I give him a moment before I gently push. “Keep talking.” But I leave my hand where it is, resting against his now racing heart.

Ashton’s lips curve into a small grimace. When his eyes open, he blinks against a glassy sheen. Just the idea of Ashton crying wrenches at my insides. I struggle to keep myself composed. “I still remember the day my mom and I sat at the kitchen table with a batch of cookies that I helped her bake. I was seven. She pinched my cheeks and told me that I was a blessing in disguise, that she didn’t realize what she was missing until the day she found out she was going to have me. She said that something finally clicked inside her. Some maternal switch that made her want me more than anything else in the world. She told me that I made her and my dad so very happy.” That’s when the single tear finally slips down his cheek. “She had no idea, Irish. No idea what he was doing to me,” he whispers, his eyes closing once again as he takes a deep, calming breath.

I brush the tear off his cheek but not before it spurs a dozen of my own, tears that I quickly wipe away because I don’t want to derail the conversation. “When did it start?”

Clearing his throat, Ashton goes on, pushing the door wide open to show me his skeletons without reservation. Finally. “I was almost six the first time he locked me in a closet. Before that, I never saw him much. He worked long hours and avoided me the rest of the time. It didn’t really matter. My mom doted on me constantly. She was an expressive woman. Endless hugs and kisses. I remember her friends joking that she would smother me to death with love.” His brow furrows. “Looking back on it now, that must have bothered my dad. A lot. He had had her undivided attention before that, and . . .” Ashton’s voice turns bitter. “One day, something changed. He started staying home when my mom had plans—a baby shower, or a party with her friends. He used those days to stick me in a closet with a strip of duct tape over my mouth. He’d leave me in there for hours, hungry and crying. Said he didn’t want to hear or see me. That I shouldn’t be alive. That I’d ruined their lives.”

I can’t understand how Ashton is so calm, how his heart keeps its steady rhythm, because I, despite all of my resolve to keep my composure, have melted into a blubbering mess as the visual of that little dark-eyed boy—not much bigger than Eric or Derek—curled in the closet burns bright in my mind again. I struggle to speak with the sharp lump in my throat. “And you didn’t say anything?”

Ashton’s palm wipes away some of my tears. “A few months earlier, I had accidentally let our Pomeranian out the front door. He ran right into traffic . . . My mom cried for weeks over that dog. Dad said he’d tell her that I intentionally let it run out the door, that I was a wicked little boy that did bad things to animals. I was terrified that she’d believe him. . . .” He shrugs. “What the hell did I know? I was only six.” There’s a pause. “It was about a month before my eighth birthday when my mom started forgetting dates, and names, and appointments. She did it occasionally before that but it started getting really bad.” His Adam’s apple bobs with a big swallow. “Within a year they diagnosed her. That’s the day . . .” Inhaling deeply through his nose, he rubs the belt on his wrist. The one that’s still there, still confining him. His constant reminder. “He never used a belt on me before that. I don’t think he knew how hard he could hit before breaking skin. And he was mad. So mad at me. He blamed me for everything. He said the pregnancy did this to her, that the hormones had started wrecking her brain the day I was born.” Ashton absently scratches over his forearm, where one of his scars hides. “He told me not to tell her what happened or the stress of it would make her get worse, faster. So I lied. I told her I got the cuts screwing around on my bike. After that, I lied to her about everything. The bruises on my ribs when he punched me, the welts when he hit me with the belt again, the bump on my forehead the night he shoved me into the door frame. I got so used to lying, and my mother’s health was deteriorating so quickly that what he was doing to me became . . . insignificant. I got used to it.