Page 109 of Security and Submission
“Oh, Zeus… that wasn’t your fault.” Yas leaned into him. Her chocolate cake was sitting half-eaten on her lap, just like his peach melba was in his. Grabbing both plates, she moved them to the cushion on the other side of her, taking his hand so she could lift it over her shoulders and snuggle in. Her arms snaked around his middle, hugging him tightly. Zeus curved his fingers around her shoulder, leaning into her and resting his head atop hers.
“I might have realized sooner if I’d been paying more attention.” But he’d had football and girls and school, and he’d thought he was helping. His mom kept hiding it from him. It wasn’t until summer, when she was still wearing long sleeves and refused to go to the pool, which was usually her favorite summertime activity, he’d figured it out. He’d been fucking blind before that.
“I stopped talking back to him and started trying to convince her to leave him.” He’d quit the football team after his sophomore year and gotten a job, hoping to help with the money to get them both away from his dad. His dad had been fucking furious about both things. Not because he realized what the money was for, but because Zeus was making the family ‘look bad’ by letting the team down and making people think his dad couldn’t provide because he’d gotten a job instead.
That fight was the first time his dad punched him, and he’d made the mistake of giving Zeus a black eye.
At least, it would have been a mistake if things had played out the way they should have.
“He gave me a black eye not long after that, and I thought that would be it. He’d be arrested, my mom would leave him, and we’d live happily-ever-after without him.”
“She didn’t leave,” Yas said softly, as if she already knew.
Unfortunately, Zeus now knew that was fairly normal, but at the time, it had felt like a massive betrayal. Because it had been. He understood his mother better now, but it didn’t soften the memory.
“I told my teacher that my dad had done it, and that he’d been beating my mom. Always places that she could cover up.” Zeus could hear the tiredness in his voice. The resignation. This was always the hardest part to talk about. Yas’ arms tightened, as if she sensed how difficult it was for them. “My teacher reported it to the authorities, like she was supposed to. My mom told the cops I was lying. That I was embarrassed about tripping and falling into a cabinet, and that I’d made up everything about my dad to cover for myself.”
“They believed her. My dad was well-liked in the community. Respected. Always had a kind word for everyone. Didn’t drink. Didn’t gamble. Went to church every Sunday. Would give you the shirt off his back. Not the kind of guy who would be going home and beating his wife. Calling her stupid and slow and useless. Not the kind of guy who would give his son a black eye. Abusers are monsters. My dad was a good guy. An ordinary guy. And people tend to forget that ordinary people can still do terrible things.”
The heavy sarcasm in his voice was laced with anger at all the people who had assumed that because his dad did some good deeds, he couldn’t possibly also be doing bad ones. The people who made excuses when Zeus pointed out that he’d never been a liar, that they’d always called him a good kid. Who said that his mom’s fashion choices were her business when he pointed out she was always wearing long sleeves in the summer.
They didn’t want to believe that a man they called friend, who they had a beer with on occasion, who had helped them move a couch into their house, could also do something as heinous as abuse his family.
“I think we do so much damage calling people monsters,” Yas said quietly. “The people who do monstrous things are just normal, everyday people. That’s what makes them so dangerous. But I think it’s hard because we all want to believe that we’ll be able to see the bad people among us. That we can protect ourselves from them because we’ll know. Saying ‘monster’ dehumanizes them when they’re all too human.”
“I think you’re right.” Zeus scrubbed his hand over his face. “At the time, I felt like my dad was a monster, though, and I was the only one who could see it. He was good at hiding it. Like you said, he was all too human. My mom and I were the only ones who knew the truth, and she wanted to hide it as much as he did.”
“What happened after that?” Yas asked after a long moment. Her head was still burrowed against his shoulder.
“My dad told me that if I betrayed him like that again, he’d kill me and tell everyone that I’d run away. Because I was a liar and a bad seed.” Zeus snorted, shaking his head. “The worst part was, I think most people would have believed him. So, I kept my head down and went along with it, rather than provoke him and risk him doing something worse to me or my mom. Spent my whole junior year working. My parents told everyone that they’d forbidden me from being on the football team as punishment for my big lie. Everyone conveniently forgot that I’d started my job before my black eye.”
Yasmine
Squeezing Zeus tightly, Yasmine’s chest burned with righteous anger. She wanted to march down to his hometown and rub everyone’s nose in how they’d failed a woman and child. Expose the truth to them. Make them apologize on bended knee to Zeus and his mom. And then make his mom apologize to him, too.
Even though she knew things were never as easy as they appeared from the outside of a situation, she just could not imagine betraying her own child. Lying about it and setting him up to look like a liar to everyone. She had never met the woman, but she wanted to find her and smack some sense into her.
As for his dad…
Well, there was a song by The Chicks about men like him and how to handle them. Not that Zeus was Wanda, but his mom might be, and Claudia would make a hell of a Mary Ann. An apology would not be nearly good enough.
She knew there had to be more, though. Zeus had said his parents were calling. Even though his mom had betrayed him once, Yasmine knew that wouldn’t have been enough.
Zeus sighed.
“I came home from work early one day, the summer between my junior and senior year. When I walked in, I didn’t know what had set my dad off, but he’d fucking lost it. My mom was on the floor, and he was kicking her. She was bleeding from her mouth.” Zeus’ voice was flat, with absolutely no affect.
Yasmine’s stomach tightened in sympathy. She couldn’t squeeze him any tighter, but she wished she could.
“I lost it then. I attacked him. And I was a lot bigger and stronger by then. I beat the ever-loving shit out of him until my mom grabbed my arm. Pulled me off him.”
His voice got quieter. Reflective.
“He’d found a stash of money. Cash. Hers. Almost four thousand dollars, scrimped and saved from the money he gave her for food and things. I still don’t know how long she was putting it away. She gave it to me. Told me to go. Go and never look back. I asked her to come with me. Begged her. We had her money. I had about two thousand dollars saved up at that point.”
His voice trailed off.
“She didn’t go with you,” Yasmine guessed. It was possible his mom had tried to leave with him, and his dad caught up to them…
