Home is Where You Are (15 page)

I’ve never
wanted to talk about it with anyone else, but sitting here looking into Dean’s eyes, I want him to really know me. To understand me. I put my green tea on the table and cross my legs. The softness in his face makes the words fall out.

“My dad died when I was in the
fifth grade. He was a cop. Killed in the line of duty. It was a routine traffic stop, or it was supposed to be. The guy he pulled over for a broken taillight turned out to be a convict on the run. My mom buried herself in work. It started with her taking off for a day or two, but then it was weeks at a time. My brother resented her for it, spent most of his time with his friends, and as soon as he turned eighteen he took off too. The day my dad died I felt like I lost my entire family.”

I swipe at the tears streaming down my cheeks. “I never felt so lonely. So I’d pretend my dad was still alive and he was just working a lot of overnight shifts.
I pretended for so long, I actually started to believe it. It took almost a year for mom to notice me still setting a plate aside for Dad for dinner. She made me go to a shrink. Not that I could blame her, though, she really should’ve gone to see one herself.

“Slowly, I start
ed to accept he was gone.  I held onto the memories though. He always talked about me going to an Ivy League school. He would say there was nobody smarter than me and I would make him proud one day. So, I decided to focus my attention on that. Once I get the acceptance letters, I’ll know I made him proud.”

The tears stream faster, harder
, and I choke on the rest of my words. This is why I don’t talk about it. It hurts too much.

Dean lays his hand on my knee and the warmth in his touch gives me the strength to
dissolve the tears.

“I just want to make him proud.”

Dean rubs soft soothing circles with his thumb above my knee. “Don’t you think he’d want you to do what makes you happy? What is it you want?”

Nobody
’s ever asked me that before. I’ve never even asked myself that before. “I don’t know. I’ve never wanted anything other than that.”

“I don’t think you ever gave yourself the chance to want anything else.”

All the time I’ve spent trying to get a perfect score. All the time wasted overanalyzing every situation. All the times I turned Katie down. I always wondered what it was like to be carefree, and maybe deep down, that is what I really want.

“D
id you want to take a shower?” I ask Dean, hoping he’ll accept, and I’ll have some time to myself. “Then after, you can tell me where you learned to drive.” I want him to know I want him to stay. I just need a minute.

“
You want to join me, Preppy?” His eyebrows rise, causing his forehead to wrinkle. I know it’s a joke but a small part of me wishes he was serious. Now I don’t want a minute alone. I want to be with him.

“What if I said yes?” I say
, closing the gap between us. I brush my hands through his hair then trail my finger down his jaw line. I drag my finger across his mouth wanting so badly to put my lips in its place.

“Are you calling my bluff?” he
asks then kisses my finger.

“What makes you say
that?”

“Because I know for a fact you would never.”

“And why is that?”

“Because a girl with
ballerina slippers on her walls…” He runs his hand down my arm. “Is not the type of girl that would be getting into a shower with a guy. A homeless guy for that matter.”

“I don’t see you as the homeless guy.”

“And I don’t see you as just some girl, which is why I’m going to go upstairs and shower. Alone.” He kisses me softly and then pulls away. “However, that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about you.” I know I’m blushing, not just by the rush of blood to my cheeks, but by the smirk on Dean’s face.

Not having a snarky comment to come back with I blurt out, “The towels are in the linen closet in the hallway. I’ll shower when you’re done
.” His smirk stays put the entire walk up the stairs.

I
lean my head back on the couch. A piercing pain shoots out in all directions, and I remember my not so graceful tumble back at Paul’s. I smacked my head pretty hard. I’m not really good with bumps and cuts and blood, so I reach around gently to the back of my head. Just as I suspected, an egg size lump. At my touch, it pulsates.

Mom has a stash of pain med
s in the kitchen cabinet. Not that I want anything too strong, but she also stores the Advil there. Two should do the trick.

I wrap
an ice pack in a towel before pressing it to the back of my head. When I hear the water turn on, I head for the stairs to check on Katie. Make sure she’s not choking on her own vomit.

She’s mumbling. It’s like she’s half asleep, half awake, existing within the two worlds and having her own party.

My house becomes a rehab center for her on the days when Mom is away. She parties, gets trashed, and then I help her recover. It’s a vicious cycle. One where I see no end.

Katie’s
feet stick out from underneath the blanket. Dean must have put it on her. Too bad when she’s like this, she tosses and turns. I slide her ridiculously high shoes off, pull her hair out of her face, securing it with a ponytail holder and take her layers of necklaces off. The last thing I need is for her to choke herself with one of them in her sleep.

Once Katie is free of all potential harm
, I try to decide on pajamas. I don’t own anything sexy so I’m going to have to go for cute. I pull out a pair of my favorite purple pajama pants adorned with colorful, playful owls that I got for Christmas from Barney and Stan last year. It has a matching button-up top, but it has the potential to make me look like a five-year-old. I grab a fitted tank top to wear. I’ll wear the matching top but leave it unbuttoned.

Katie mumbl
es louder and I try to decipher what she’s actually saying, but it seems to be her own language.

There
’s a slight knock on the door. “I heard you come up the stairs. I’m done in the shower.” Dean eases the door open just enough so I can see his face.

“Okay, I’m going to go in then. Go downstairs and rummage through the cabinets and freezer. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh
, Dean?” I open the door and ease it slowly closed so not to wake Katie, even though I don’t think a stampede of elephants could wake her. “Can you put this in the freezer for me?” I turn from the door to hand him the ice pack, not expecting to see him shirtless. Again.

Words start to come up
, and then I go blank. I can’t take my eyes off of his perfectly sculpted chest. Far from scrawny, but not too overly worked out. Perfection.

“I forgot about your head. Are you okay?”
he asks, but I’m too busy staring at his chest to answer him. “Come here.” He waves his fingers and moves closer to me. Gently he moves my hair away as he examines the back of my head.

“It’s not
that bad,” I say when he runs his finger across it, causing me to wince in pain.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know. I’ll be fine. I’ll put the ice back on it after I get out of the shower.”

“I’ll put
it in the freezer so it’s ready for you.” His hand lingers on my neck. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Really
, I’m fine.” It’s a bump on the head. It seems so miniscule compared to everything he deals with every day.

When I get out of the shower
, I change into my pajamas. The tank top is short and reveals a little stomach, which I guess can be sexy. Maybe.

Something delicious
wafts up the stairs and my mouth waters. That is definitely not frozen food. I think about putting my hair up, but nix the idea when my stomach growls.

I try to sneak up behind Dean but the creaking floor give
s me away.

“
Cute pajamas,” he says, and heat rushes to my cheeks. He walks to the freezer and retrieves the ice pack. “Here.”

“Thanks. What are you making
? It smells amazing.”

“Nothing really.
You had a bag of chicken tenders in the freezer.  I also found macaroni and cheese and frozen peas. I seasoned everything up a little bit and it should be done—” The timer beeps and he laughs. “Right now.”

He
reaches over, turns it off and takes the pan out of the oven. I stand back and watch how effortless he moves in a kitchen.

“After you tell me about how you learned how to drive you are going to tell me where you learned to cook.”

Dean makes up two plates, lights the candle Mom has on the table and dims the lights. “Romantic,” I say.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Is that a warning?”

“No. It’s a promise.” 

I blink away from his gaze and fork a piece of chicken into my mouth. My lids slide shut as I enjoy the food. “So where’d you learn to drive?” I ask.

“I taught myself.”

“I hit one mailbox and my mom refused to teach me. I had to take lessons. Seriously, you taught yourself?”

“Seriously.”

“
Are you going to elaborate?”

He runs his hands through his hair, takes a deep breath
, his hands resting behind his head. Once he puts his arms down he begins.

“I was in and out of foster homes since I was ten. Some weren’t bad
. Others were, well, they were really bad. A majority of my foster parents looked at me as a paycheck. The last house I was in my foster dad was a drunk. He knew social workers wouldn’t come by the house after seven so he would start drinking at seven, be drunk by eight, and become an abusive asshole by nine. My foster mom worked nights and did drugs during the day. It was his job to feed us, but most of the time he forgot. I was the oldest, so I had to take care of the younger kids. I also took their beatings. I wouldn’t let him touch them.”

“But you
were so young.” I was still scared of my basement up until recently.

“Yeah, but since the youngest kid was five
, I had no choice. When my foster dad would pass out on the couch, I’d take his car out and go to the store. I had some money from chores. My foster mom gave me fifteen dollars a week if she wasn’t too high to remember. I used that money to buy us food.”

“What kind of chores did you have to do?”

“
Clean the bathroom, vacuum, dust, do the laundry, cook dinner for the other kids. That is how I learned to drive and that is how I learned to cook. Two birds, one stone.”

“
That’s terrible.” We go silent for a short time while we finish eating.

His life s
eems so unfair.

“
How’d you wind up on the streets?” I think I already know, but I want to hear it from him.

“I couldn’t sta
nd being beaten anymore. There’s only so much one person can take. So in the middle of the night, when my foster mom was at work and my foster dad was passed out on the couch, I threw what little belongings I had in my backpack and took off. I never looked back.”

He squeezes the bridge of his nose. It’s hard to decipher whether he
’s suppressing anger or pain. 

“It was the most selfish thing I
’ve ever done.”

Why?” He had no
choice. Anybody in his situation would have run. I would have. Or I would have wanted to. I don’t think I would be brave enough to actually do it.

“I bailed. I never even said goodbye.”

“You were only a kid too. You did what you had to do. You can’t feel guilty for that. ”

“Maybe so, but
I should’ve done something for them. Called someone. I can only imagine how many times he hit them, demanding to know where I was. How many bruises he gave them and how many burns…” he chokes on his words and covers his eyes. 

I turn his arm over and run my finger across the circular scars on his forearm. “Did he do this to you?”

“I shouldn’t have walked in front of the television when he was watching football. He missed the interception. Punishment was me becoming an ashtray.”