Three Wishes(126)

He wasn’t surprised. He’d been behaving erratically, pushing her away and pulling her close, holding her at arm’s length and then demanding her attention, yelling at her when she bought him presents, keeping himself from her and then, finally, brutally showing her who he was.

Or who he thought he was.

And he hadn’t just been doing this for the last two months; he’d been doing it since they met.

“I never asked,” Nate replied, quelling his thoughts to focus on the very important matter at hand. “She probably didn’t remember considering most of the time she was drunk and when she wasn’t drunk, she was high or, more often than not, both.”

He watched as she closed and opened her eyes slowly as if this was beyond her comprehension.

“High?” Lily whispered.

“She was a drug-addict, Lily,” Nate responded softly then before she could react or put her shields back in place, he continued. “Her name was Deirdre.”

At more news of his life, his history, coming forth, Lily’s eyes grew soft and before she could control it, she said with a horrified reverence, as if he’d just shown her the fountain of youth and it was flowing with blood, “Deirdre.”

Nate saw his opening and without delay he relentlessly pressed through. “Until I went to school, I didn’t know you washed your clothes.” He heard Lily’s swift intake of breath and was heartened by the fact she wasn’t hiding her reactions. He talked over her gasp. “The teachers reported me to Social Services and they came to visit my mother. She put on a show for them and from then on she made me take our clothes to the Laundromat so they wouldn’t come back. Until I moved in with Victor and Laura though, I never knew you were supposed to clean your sheets.”

He felt as her still body grew rock solid in horror.

Then she whispered, her voice shaky, “Your mother made you wash your clothes?”

He kept pressing through, sensing he was gaining an edge, knowing Lily had a kind heart and, after all, she’d wished for him, he took advantage but ignored her question. “I stole food. I had to or I wouldn’t eat. I had milk and cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I didn’t know any better,” he told her then smiled, “and lots of candy. Candy was easy to steal, it fit in your pockets.”

Lily did not smile and clearly found nothing Nate was saying amusing. She swallowed, not pushing away, not holding herself from him, he felt her melting into his body but she did not speak. She simply stared at him, her eyes unguarded, lips slightly parted, face soft.

That’s when Nate decided it was time to let her know all of it.

“When I was eleven, I went to work for one of Deirdre’s lovers. She had a lot of them and I learned early, because she didn’t hide it, what having a lover meant in the physical sense.” Nate watched Lily again bite her lip at this news but didn’t hesitate and carried on. “I stole from her lovers too. Sometimes they’d catch me, which wasn’t good, so I learned to avoid them, to be invisible or fast enough to escape them. If I didn’t, they’d beat me. Sometimes, they’d beat Deirdre and I’d try to stop them so they’d turn their attention to me. Deirdre never tried to stop them.”

“Didn’t try to stop –” Lily repeated but Nate talked over her.

“Scott, one of Deirdre’s lovers, put me to work making deliveries and doing pickups. I don’t know what I moved but I didn’t care. He gave me money and we never had any money. In the end Scott went away and I took a job direct with his boss. His boss wasn’t a good man, he was a dangerous man but he paid me more money than I’d ever seen before. I was good at it –”

“Stop,” Lily whispered and her voice and eyes were tortured.

“You have to know,” Nate returned quietly. He hated to see the look in her eyes but he believed with everything he was that he was correct, she had to know.

“I don’t have to know,” she repeated, contradicting his belief, her voice growing stronger.

“I was a criminal,” Nate told her bluntly. “Since I could remember, I stole, I –”

Suddenly and forcefully she pulled free of him but not to escape. She sat up and glared at him.

“You were not a criminal!” she snapped.

Nate followed her up. “I was, Lily. I worked for a gangster. Whatever was in those packages –”

“You were eleven years old, for crying out loud!” she yelled and he knew she was agitated. He knew this because she was being loud even though Laura was in the house and Maxine was also spending the night. She was also shifting in the bed with intent and before she could jump up and start pacing, he captured her in his arm. He pushed her to her back and rolled over her with his body.

Then he went on. He needed to say it all, get it out so she could make her decision.

“It doesn’t change what I did, who I was and that person is the father of your child and tomorrow, if you don’t back out, he’ll be your husband.”

Lily glared at him. “Are you a gangster now?”

Nate shook his head but responded, “Lily, there’s more you need to know.”

“Have you had a birthday party?” she asked, suddenly switching the subject what Nate thought was nonsensically and he stared at her, thrown for a moment, before replying.

“Lily, we’re talking about me being –”