Page 324 of Face Off
He shakes his head. “Different times.”
“How many?”
He sighs and leans his head back. “I don’t know.”
The fact that he cannot count them sends something murderous through me.
Briggs keeps talking before I can ask another question. “Sometimes she kicked me under tables when I said something she didn’t like. Hard enough that I’d bruise. She’d dig her nails into my arm when she wanted me to shut up and couldn’t say it in front of everyone.”
His shoulders begin shaking again.
“She hit me in the face once because I laughed when she was serious. I told her I was sorry. I apologized to her because she started crying afterward and said I made her feel like some horrible person.”
My hand curls against the floor. “You apologized because she hit you?”
“I shouldn’t have laughed.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
His chin trembles. “She was already upset.”
“Briggs.”
“I knew better.”
“No, she did.”
He flinches from my voice, and I immediately pull the anger back. It doesn’t belong on him.
Briggs turns toward me with tears running down his face. “Men aren’t supposed to let women do that shit to them.”
The shame inside the words is so deep it sounds older than Lyric. “You didn’t let her.”
“I stayed.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“I could’ve stopped her.”
“You loved her.”
“I’m twice her size.”
“That has nothing to do with what she did.”
“I should’ve fucking stopped it.”
“How?” I demand. “By hitting her back? Throwing her across a room? Giving her exactly what she needed to tell everyone you were dangerous?”
Briggs recoils. “I would never hurt her.”
“I know you wouldn’t. She knew it too.”
The truth lands between us.
His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“She knew you wouldn’t put your hands on her,” I continue, forcing my voice to remain steady. “She knew you would blame yourself before you blamed her. She knew calling you stupid hurt enough to make you work harder for her approval, so she kept doing it.”
