“Nothing good can come from rehashing the past,” he said grimly. “It’s just that. The past. It happened a long time ago and doesn’t affect us.”
She shook her head in denial. “You’re wrong,” she said softly. She leaned down and hugged him fiercely to her. “It does affect you still, and anything that affects you affects me. And us.”
He sighed and she felt the tension whipping and coiling in his body. He was tense beneath her touch, but then he relaxed and wrapped his arms around her as he sat up in bed, pulling her to his chest.
“What do you want to know?” he asked with obvious discomfort.
“Only what you’re willing to share,” she replied honestly. “I will never demand more than what you’re willing to give.”
He sighed again and was silent for a long second. “My parents weren’t exactly poster people for parent-of-the-year awards. Nothing like yours,” he said, and she wondered if he even heard the wistful note in his voice. It made her want to hug him all over again.
“They were scammers. Into drugs. Easy money. Whatever they had to do so that they didn’t have to work. A child was the very last thing either of them wanted, and in fact my mother wanted to abort me, but my father realized that I would be a meal ticket of sorts for them. Food stamps. A check from the state every month. And all they had to do was keep me and ensure I remained alive. My happiness and comfort weren’t on their list of priorities.”
Bleakness entered his faraway expression, but he quickly schooled his features as if determined to give them no more power over him than they’d already once had.
“Oh, Drake,” she said, her lips turning down into a sad smile.
He smiled at her then and pulled her down so he could kiss her temple. “You’re far too softhearted, my angel. I survived.”
“But what did you survive?” she asked pointedly. “No one should have to survive their childhood.”
“No, but many do,” he said gently.
“How bad was it, Drake?” she asked in an anxious voice.
He swallowed. “It was bad,” he admitted. “I was just a child who didn’t understand why my parents hated me or why they tolerated me, for that matter. I used to pray that the state would come on an unscheduled visit and remove me from their home. I tried running away more than once. Each time, my father found me, beat me into a bloody pulp, dragged me back home and locked me in a closet for days at a time.”
She emitted a shocked gasp, her eyes round with horror. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle her agonized cry.
Drake shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. I preferred being in the closet over being in their way. If they were running low on drugs or food, it got really bad. Withdrawal would hit and they’d lash out at the source of their unhappiness. Me. So I learned to blend in, to be very quiet and to stay in the shadows. Ironically it was probably my father who kept me alive. My mother, as I said, would have preferred to abort me, and she developed quite a nasty narcotic pain pill habit as a result of her emergency C-section when she had me. My father reminded her at every turn that if they got rid of the ‘little beast,’ as she liked to call me, she’d have to find a job to support her addiction.”
Evangeline was too overwhelmed to give voice to any of the million thoughts screaming in her head. She was too horrified and appalled by how pathetic humanity was. He’d been just a child. Someone who hadn’t asked to be born. Her hands were shaking and she lowered them to hide them at Drake’s side, clenching her fingers together so her trembling didn’t give her away.
“There’s little point in rehashing my entire childhood,” he said in a gentle voice. As though he were protecting her from the awfulness of his past. For that alone, she wanted to weep. Because when had he ever had anyone to protect him?
“What happened to them? How did you finally escape?”
He grimaced. “My old man was shot by a drug dealer he owed a shit-ton of money to. Again, he wasn’t parent or husband of the year, but he did at least try to look out for me. When he wasn’t beating the hell out of me,” he added dryly. “And he tried to look out for my mother the only way he knew how. By keeping her supplied with her candy of choice. The result was him running up a tab he had no hope of repaying, and they came to collect one night when I was locked in the closet. Again, the closet likely saved my life because if they’d known I was there, they would have either killed me to make their point or taken me, not knowing my parents didn’t give a shit about me and wouldn’t have done a damn thing to get me back.”