Page 88 of Badd Love
"Why?"
A shrug. "I wish I knew. Fear? The intensity of the pain is scary. Not just pain—shame. Guilt. Anger. Even if you intellectually know that it wasn't your fault, your heart doesn't know that, and neither does your body. And when I say pain, I mean emotional pain. I almost wish itwasphysical, because physical pain you can deal with easily. Sure, it sucks, it hurts, but you can focus on it. You can take a pill for it, and it gets better. Break a leg? Take morphine or Vicodin or Percocet or what-the-fuck-ever. Butthisshit? What do you do? Talk to a therapist?Did that for fucking years and got almost nowhere. Sure, I've developed some coping mechanisms for panic attacks, but until I got up the fucking courage to figure my shit out myself, nothing ever changed. And yeah, maybe some or most of that is on me for being unwilling to face it head-on, head up. It's just…there's no pill you can take for a broken heart or a screwed-up childhood."
"Hey, here you two are," I heard Rune say behind us.
Lindsey twisted, reaching for her best friend. "Oh, hey you. Perfect timing. I just finished giving Dane the awful truth of Lindsey's…Tragic…Past." She framed the last three words with her hands, miming a newspaper headline.
Rune waddled and shuffled to where we were sitting and stood over us. "Yeah, I'm not getting down there, ya'll. You just don't sit on the ground when you're nine months pregnant."
Lindsey and I stood up in unison and we strolled slowly toward the gazebo in the corner of the yard a few dozen feet away from the back deck—it was Mom's favorite place to be, with benches lining the perimeter, lots of hooks from the underside of the roof where she could hang all sorts of potted flowers and such, and one of those gas firepits with the glass rocks in the middle.
Rune settled onto the bench with a relieved sigh, puffing as she rubbed her giant belly. "Much better." She peered at the firepit—it wasn't actually a pit, per se, though, being raised up a few feet on a pedestal that served as a ledge for resting drinks, plates, and feet. "Fire?" She gave me a wide-eyed look, saying the word in the same silly falsetto someone would jokingly say "Cheep-cheep!" like a baby bird.
I snorted, opening the false-front compartment where the controls were and turning on the fire. It caught with a softwhump,and blue-yellow flames danced in the gentle breeze. "Need anything else, oh pregnant one?" I asked, grinning at her.
"Um. I'm craving Skittles and potato chips." She bit her lip. "Oh. You were teasing me. No, I'm good."
I shook my head. "Skittles and potato chips?"
She shrugged. "Pregnancy does some seriously weird shit to you, my friend. The other day I justhad to havea peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and ithadto be on sourdough bread, and Ihadto havespecificallyCool Ranch Doritos with it."
Lindsey stared at her incredulously. "Grape jelly? What the actual fuck? You hate fake grape flavor."
"I KNOW!" Rune shouted. "I tried to ignore the craving for like an hour, but I couldn't get it out of my fucking head. Ihadto have a grape jelly PB and J. I don't think I've had a PB and J since I was like seven, let alone grape fucking jelly."
Rune cackled. "And when you ate it? Did it satisfy the craving?"
Rune huffed, nodding. "Yes, yes it did. Which honestly pissed me off a little. Now, if I had a grape jelly PB and J right now, I might barf. But a bag of Skittles and some ridged Ruffles? Fuck yes."
I sent a text to Duncan with his wife's request, and a few minutes later, he appeared with a bag of Skittles, a bag of ridged Ruffles potato chips, and a can of Diet Sunkist.
When she saw the can of orange soda, Rune squealed and clapped her hands. "Orange drink! How'd you know, baby?"
Duncan sputtered a laugh. "I mean, you've gone through almost a case just today, so it was a solid bet you'd want one with this weird-ass fucking combo." He handed her the two bags and then looked at me and then Lindsey. "Is this a you-three conversation?"
Lindsey shook her head. "I'd never ask Rune to keep anything secret from you, Dunc." When Duncan sat down beside his wife and helped himself to the chips, Lindsey spent a moment fiddling with a fold of the fabric of her leggings beforespeaking. "Dunc, I'll let Rune fill you in later on the details of this because I don't have it in me to go into it again. Suffice it to say, I was sexually abused by my brother's friend for a period of four years from the time I was twelve until I was sixteen."
Duncan's face took on a furious cast. "Fucking hell, Lindsey. I'm so, so sorry you had to experience that. I hope you know that our whole family is here for you, no matter what you may need. If the fucking asshole piece of shit scumbag is still out there—"
Rune clapped a hand over his mouth. "Baby, hush. Let the woman speak."
"Sorry," he said, still muffled by Rune's palm.
I rolled my eyes at him. "You think I haven't said that?"
Lindsey smirked at me. "Well, actually, you haven't." When I opened my mouth to protest, she just laughed and spoke over me. "But I know. I don't need you to say it, because I already know—I can tell. I think if the rest of your family, your eight hundred gigantic, muscle-y, intimidating uncles, especially, found out?" She winced. "They'd form a torches-and-pitchforks committee."
"But he's in prison, isn't he?" Rune asked. “Danny?"
"That's why I wanted to talk to you both at the same time. I have…an update." She inhaled a shaky, shuddering breath. "He showed up at my bar."
Rune sucked in a shocked hiss. "No! He did?"
Lindsey nodded. "Hasn't changed a fucking bit. I didn't know it was him at first. I was rolling silverware five minutes before close and heard someone come in and ask for a drink. I knew it was him the second I heard his fucking voice and I…I was…" she trailed off, voice cracking, breaking. "I was there. Back in Boston, in that house. For a second, I was…he was holding me down and…" she shook her head. "He didn't know it was me. He was just…so vile. He made these awful remarks. And I…I sort of…um, lost my shit."
Rune covered her mouth. "What happened?"
"I hope you did a secret murder," Duncan said. "Or gave him a really bad papercut on his dick-tip or something."
