Xavier had a criminal record as colourful as the bruises on his face. He had built a less-than impressive reputation for himself from fights and drug misuse to rape allegations. The townsfolk knew to stay clear of him and his family. Including kind...
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I was falling in love with this girl.
Hard, fast, unrequited falling and I didn't have a parachute. My stomach always got an unexpected warmth whenever I was around her, like how it feels to ride a roller-coaster as it takes a sudden dip. The pit of your belly sort of somersaults and for a few moments it makes you feel lightheaded.
But this was different. It was bigger, scarier and more powerful.
Watching her interact with my mom, making her smile and showing her the caring nature I always knew Lilia had was making me forget how to breathe. It had swollen my heart to double its size and now I was filled to the brim with raw emotion and passion for this magnificent girl. My feelings had surged and I wasn't sure how or when it happened but she was there, making my heart pump.
My mom laughed, actually laughed. It was minimal and chesty but it was genuine. Lilia had washed moms hair and blow dried it and I had never seen my mom looking more like herself in such a long time. They told jokes together, mostly at my expense but I didn't care, not one bit.
Lilia gave me acrobats in the belly, she had my pulse racing and my words escaping. I loved her. I loved everything about her, how did I not see it before? The way her nose crinkled up whenever she laughed, the warmth in her eyes like the heat from a hearth on a cold winters morning, the goodness in her heart. I wanted to protect her from every bad thing forever, I wanted to show her my love and support in everything that she dreams.
"Lilia?" Mom and Lilia looked up to meet my eye contact. I licked over the dent in my bottom lip and took a deep breath. "I gotta go to work soon, I think we should let my mom get some rest before I go."
"O-okay." She got off the bed and moved the copious amounts of chocolate on to the side table. "Call us if you need anything." She said to my mom before following me out of the room.
I took her to my bedroom again, it was safer in there. Less of Bryan's mess and drugs. I hit record on the audio tape recorder and she sat down on my bed and waited for me to address the elephant in the room. The big, brown, paper elephant.
"I don't have much time." I admitted. "But if you wanna go through my file now, we could?" Those acrobatics turned into nauseating waves of nerves. How poetic, the point I realise I'm head over heels in love with this girl is also the point I lose her. But there's also no point in hiding who I am, especially if I love her.
She rummaged through the brown purse hanging from a strap across her chest and then slowly lifted her to face mine, empty handed.
"It's not here."
Panic seeped through my pores and attacked every nerve ending in my body. A cold chill ran down my spine and a ball of anxiety blocked off my windpipe.
"What you mean it's not here?" I shouted, probably a little too aggressively. I pounced towards her and grabbed her bag, pulling it towards me although it was still attached to her body. I opened it wide and set my eyes on the brown folder. Lilia burst out laughing and I shot her a scornful look. "You're messed up." I tapped her with the folder and sat down next to her, opening up the first page.
It was Bryan's mug shots and finger prints, not the aged version he is today but a version fourteen years younger. Lilia cast her eyes over the pictures on the page but didn't linger on anything in particular long enough to be reading anything.
"So I was three here, found abandoned at the gas station in the middle of the night. Bryan took me on one of his late night drug runs and forgot me I guess." I flipped over the page to see baby pictures of my self, all bruised and shit. Her eyes softened and her lips parted, letting out little sad exhales.
"Do you remember this happening?"
"What? Getting beaten or getting left behind?"
"Both."
"Not this particular occasion. I mean, I guess I remember getting taken in by the cops. I was always taught cops were bad people and I always witnessed them arresting my mom and dad so I believed it. But I remember this particular night, it was so cold. The sheriff let me wear his hat and jacket. I remember playing pretend with his hand cuffs."
"So you don't remember getting beaten?"
"No Lilia, I got beaten on a daily basis. One doesn't stand out from the other." I flipped over a few more pages, it was just more childhood dealings with the police department and CPS. Lilia's dad had pulled up every record with my name that involved the police.
Medical reports, statements, domestic violence calls from when he beat my mom to a pulp. The times the school had called for a wellness check based on neglect. Everything. My whole life.
"I'm really sorry I forced you into doing this Xavier, I didn't think it was going to be like this. I feel terrible."
"You didn't force me, you might've initiated it but I'm showing you it because I want you to know not because I don't have a choice."
"Still, it must be hard seeing all of these younger pictures of yourself. It must hurt reliving all of these memories. It's heartbreaking."
"I don't remember a lot of this stuff, I think my brains blocked it out. I look at the kid in these pictures and I remember how frightened I felt all the time. I'm not frightened of the same things anymore, my fears now are so much bigger than just Bryan's fist. This kid doesn't know how easy he had it."
I flipped over a few more pages. There was a big leap from childhood Xavier to preteen. "The missing gaps in my file are from when Simon was around. Those are the three years Bryan had fucked off and we lived as close to normal as possible. When he died, I started acting out."
She paused to look at my pre-puberty mug shot. It was ridiculous to give a child that young a mug shot but I was out of control, lashing out on everyone. Stealing anything from shops, even when I didn't need it. I was violent, verbally abusive and a vandal.
"Most of these were just scare tactics. Try and scare the eleven year old into behaving. Give him a stern word, threaten him with juvi. Until I got older and the crimes just got more and more undeniable."
"Arrested for possession of cocaine. Assisted arrest. Arrested for assaulting an officer. Arrested for intent to sell. Arrested for robbery. Arrested for antisocial behaviour. Arrested for breach of a restraining order. Arrested for criminal damage."
"There not as bad as they sound, okay? I was just really bad at not getting caught because I didn't care. My life was shit, my mom was newly diagnosed and Bryan was back so from age eleven till fourteen I acted out."
"What happened at fourteen?" I sucked in my lips.
"At fourteen my mom got pneumonia and it worsened her lungs a considerable amount. She couldn't work at the cafe anymore. We struggled, Bryan wouldn't help. The crimes after this one are all for theft. Because of this piece of shit record, I got reprimanded by the law as a fourteen year old kid trying to steal bread and milk from the supermarket. That's the kind of world we live in. Look, see-" I turned page after page "theft, theft, theft."
"Before I turned fifteen, Dimitri's uncle told us about escorting and it was the answer to all of my prayers, but also the start of all my nightmares."
"Fourteen." She whispered.
"Yep, pigeon chested with underwear still bought and washed by my mom." I turned the page to see my most recent mug shot and my stomach turned cold. I closed my eyes, willing the page away.
"Are you okay?" She asked with concern, I shook my head and reopened my eyes. Talking about Genevieve, with her is going to be excruciatingly hard.
