CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Owen blew out the smoke through his nostrils, waiting on Tara to start talking. He had been waiting on this moment for six long years.
“I never told you where I grew up. I remember you asking me where I came from when you sat down next to me that first day on the school bus.”
He also remembered. Every single conversation he had with Tara in the year she was his girlfriend had passed his thoughts several times as he racked his brain, trying to figure out why she’d left him out of the blue.
She glanced over her shoulder and when he nodded for her to continue she did.
“I grew up in Detroit with my mom. Gloria had been an only child and both my grandparents had passed when she was still a baby. She hadn’t had it easy growing up in foster homes. I know this, even though my mom never told me much about her life before she met my father.”
He saw her hand tremble as she pushed a chocolate brown strand of hair behind her ear. Owen placed his hand on her knee, giving her a little squeeze in support.
She gave him a watery smile in return.
“My father, Eric, had been going in and out my life from the moment I was born. My mother used to tell me we were better off without him whenever I cried about not having a dad like the other kids in my class.”
“Your mother was a real piece of work…” The comment slipped his lips before he could help it.
“Sorry, please continue…” he quickly added.
She sighed and said, “You’re right. She was distant with me and maybe even unkind. I guess she had been through so much early on in life, that she had nothing left to give…”
He let go of her knee and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“I know you loved her even though she was a hard woman to love.”
She nodded.
“How did she die?”
He felt her froze underneath his arm before she started shaking and uncontrollably crying. His eyes widened, as he hadn’t expected such severe reaction.
“Did something happen to her?”
She flung herself against him and he held her tight in his arms. He scooted on the bench swing so she lay half on top of him, the side of her face resting on his chest and one of her legs resting on top of his legs. He rested a hand on her ass, needing to tug her as close as possible to him.
“My father happened. Eric Houston is a criminal who will always find a way to get what he wants. It doesn’t matter if he has to steal, fight or murder someone. He’s been in prison most of my life, but the day he got out and showed up at our apartment in Detroit, his latest level of evilness was freighting.”
He caressed her back, trying to show his support.
She took a deep breath and said, “He had been celebrating his return out of prison in some shady bar before surprising us with his unwanted visit. Eric had always been a mean drunk and my mother had tried to take as much of the beatings she could handle, but my father had ‘disciplined’ me with his fists a few times when I was younger.”
He had been oblivious to any of this when she had been his girlfriend years ago. He had thought all this time that they had been foolish teens in love and that she must have had enough of him one day and packed up.
He realized that he had been a young, careless teen. Tara hadn’t been anything remotely close to being free and careless.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She sniffed and used his shirt as a handkerchief by rubbing her wet nose against it. “Sorry. I’ll wash it for you.”
He chuckled. “That’s okay, Gorgeous. I’ll let you rub your snot all over me if that’s what it takes to make you smile again.”
She let out a giggle snort. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The silence stretched on while the late afternoon sun peeked from under the leaves of the tree, .
“If you need a break from telling me—”