The Choice (a Painful Past)

54

"Yeah, it was okay. Did you? That chair couldn't have been that comfortable." I said.

He cracked a grin and shrugged.

"I was so high, I think I could've slept on a bed of nails and not noticed."

"Wait, did you say 1 pm?" I asked, feeling my anxiety rising.

I had to pay bills today and I only had a few hours before everything closed.

"Yeah, why?" He asked.

I threw the covers back and set my bare feet on the floor.

"Because I have to go into town and pay the bills today, or we won't have any lights." I responded.

I crossed the room to my dresser, then quickly grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

"That reminds me though," I said. "Do you know what happened to the bill money? There's about 50 bucks missing from it."

"Really?" He asked, raising his eyebrows. "No, I don't know anything about it. I don't even know where you keep it."

I raised my head and met his gaze. "Yes, you do. It's literally in this manila envelope, that usually sits in between the books on my dresser. You've seen me putting money into it."

"Oh, I didn't know that was the bill money though. I didn't know what it was for. Has anyone been over lately?" He asked.

I shook my head.

"No. Just you and Dusty.. I don't know what happened to it, but it's weird how it's just gone."

"Well, I didn't take it!" He replied defensively, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I didn't say that you did." I said, astonished that he would think that. "I'm just saying it's gone. You asked if anyone was over. That's all who's been over here."

"So, you think either I did it, or my friend did it? That's fucked up, Callie!" He exclaimed.

"Oh my God, Will, please stop. I only asked if you knew anything about it. I'm not accusing you or Dustin about anything. Whatever. We'll just have to be short on cigarettes and weed for a while." I replied, rubbing my temple.

"I'm not going to be short on either. I'll get Dad to give me some money. No problem." He replied, with his voice still hard.

"Okay." I sighed.

I still wanted to know where the money went, but it looked like I would never know.

"Oh, hey, we're gonna have a little party friday night. Can you get off work?" He asked. "I'll need a ride to the liquor store."

"A party? Here?" I asked, in surprise.

He nodded.

"Yeah. Nothing big. Just a few people. Dusty, Charlotte, Dana, and a few others. And anyone you want to invite, of course. Preferably not that little shit that you hang out with though."

I ignored the quib about Colby. I knew it would lead to a fight right then, and I knew that I would just shut down.

I still couldn't stand anyone yelling, or being angry at me. Especially Will. He had trauma from his childhood, so when he got upset, he would literally explode and everyone around him would get hit by it.

I was usually the only person around. If his parents pissed him off, he would get angry at me about something that I said or did. If Dusty pissed him off, he would cuss him out, then accuse me of losing his weed pipe.

Just things like that.

I knew that he needed help, but he refused to go see anyone, because he "wasn't crazy."

I tried to explain that it didn't mean you were crazy. It just meant that you needed someone to talk to that could actually help you.

I even used the 'good drugs' card, but he refused.

So, I never knew when his angry outbursts would occur. Usually, I would just avoid him until he calmed down. I tried to remember that he didn't mean any of it.

His dad literally beat him and his siblings when they were kids, with the buckle end of a belt. For little to no reason. His mom let it happen.

She didn't do anything to stop it. They would be told to get outside, handed a thermos of Kool-Aid and a pack of cheese crackers, and then locked out of the house, until their mother got home from work. I heard that their dad cheated on their mom with someone new every week.

He would get her check and go out to the bars, where he would pick up other women and blow the money on them, so that they would sleep with him. There were other things that I had been told, like really bad things. The worst thing that you could think of had happened to his sister.

I couldn't figure out why they still had anything to do with their dad, if all of this were true though.

Like, why did his sister still come visit? I don't know, maybe she was checking in on her mom. It was so hard for me to even comprehend that all of this had happened, because I had an amazing childhood.

Yes, I had lost my father to a heart attack, but my mother was the best mother in the world. I never felt like she didn't love me, and I was never truly scared of her. Parents were supposed to be our safe havens, not our worst fear.

Not the root of our trauma. It was so unreal to me. So, I tried to be understanding.

I didn't know what it was like for him, but I knew that it had messed him up inside. I knew that he didn't truly mean to be the way that he was. It was like a switch would flip and he would turn into this entirely different other person.

I was a little scared of that person, to be honest. I didn't think that he would hit me. No, that wasn't it.

I was scared of what he might do to himself, or what he might destroy in the process. There were still a couple of holes in our walls from where he had punched them. If I were being honest, he did hit me once, but not with his hands.

We were playing around with a belt, just teasing each other, and he slapped me on the ass. It had stung, so I slapped his arm pretty hard. Before I knew it, the belt lashed across my naked thigh, leaving a burning, angry red mark.

Tears stung my eyes, and I held my face down, waiting for them to pass.

"Why did you do that?" I whispered. "That hurt."

"Well, you hit me first." He replied, stonily.

"I didn't mean to hit you that hard, Will." I replied, then looked up to meet his gaze. "If you EVER hit me again, we're done. That is something that I will not go through."