It was kind of ironic, really. My parents went on at least two trips a year and they’d been to every continent at least once. They loved to travel and they’d passed on that love to my older sister. They just hadn’t been willing to pay for Melanie to do it. As far as they were concerned, they’d earned the right and she hadn’t. They’d pretty much always been that way. As often as they’d gone abroad, one would think Mel and I would’ve been stamping our passports from the cradle, but we hadn’t. We’d gone on five family trips throughout my entire childhood and none of them had been outside of the United States. Instead, our parents left us with my aunt and uncle and their demon son while they saw the world.
I shuddered as I thought of my cousin Devin. The kid had terrorized me relentlessly until Mel was old enough for us to stay at home alone while our parents were gone. It hadn’t mattered how often I told the adults what he was doing, they’d always brushed it off with a “boys will be boys” comment until eventually I stopped saying anything. I knew they’d begun to see me as a tattletale. It was almost as if the more I told them what was happening, the less importance they gave the offense, until it finally didn’t matter to them at all.
My parents hadn’t wanted to know. My aunt and uncle were the only ones that would keep us so they could go on their trips, and they hadn’t been willing to rock the boat. Only Mel had understood how bad it was. She’d been the only one trying to stop it until Micky had come along.
When Mick had found out how Devin used to beat on me, I thought he was going to kill him. He hadn’t. But a few days after I’d told Mick about the torture, my parents had gone to visit Devin in the hospital. He’d been admitted with a broken jaw, a broken arm, and a whole bunch of smaller injuries. Apparently, he told the police he’d been jumped, but he couldn’t remember any faces or how many boys had done it. He’d also claimed he had no idea why it had happened. The little liar.
When I’d seen Will with his arm around Tommy’s throat earlier that day, I could almost feel it. I knew the sensation of someone cutting off your oxygen. The way the muscles in their arm tightened until the pressure was so bad you thought you’d die before they let you go. Pushing and pulling at them, but nothing made them loosen their grip. The way your vision went sort of grey at the sides, and sometimes you’d see little black dots right before everything went dark.
I hadn’t even been fully aware of what I was doing as I’d pulled away from the guy who tried to hold me back. I’d had complete tunnel vision. I’d needed to get Will off Tommy, so I’d done the only thing I’d known how to do. The very thing that terrified me.
I’d wrapped my arm around Will’s throat and pressed as hard as I could against the vein on the side of his neck.
Thankfully, it had done what I’d intended—which was make Will let go of his brother—and I hadn’t actually hurt him. Because whatever I’d been doing hadn’t worked. Will had just knelt there while I squeezed. He hadn’t been fazed at all.
I dug my fingers into my tired eyes as I remembered how pissed Tommy had been that I’d stepped in. His reaction hadn’t been normal. I could understand him not wanting me to get hurt, but he’d been shaking when he was yelling at me. It hadn’t been just anger that made him go off; there had been fear and guilt there, too. By the time his dad came over and ordered him away from me, I’d been so confused. Oh, Grease had acted like he needed Tommy to help with very important things, but we’d all known what the guy was doing. He was trying to separate me and Tommy… but I couldn’t understand why.
Tommy was yelling, sure. But if Grease thought for one second he’d ever do anything to hurt me, he didn’t know his son very well. Tommy and Mick were two of the most protective guys I’d ever met. I hadn’t seen that side of Tommy much when we’d been younger, but I had seen it. Mick was usually around to make sure no one messed with me, but Tommy had been around to make sure none of the other girls were messed with either. He’d been a complete dog, there was no doubt about that. He’d screwed every girl in his class. But I saw him at almost every party we’d been to that year, and I wasn’t sure, but I was pretty confident that most of the girls he “took home” he’d actually taken home. To their houses. So that some douchebag couldn’t take advantage of them when they were drunk.