Then again, everyone looks nervous around Twitch.
As I approach, I hear the boy explain, “Well there’s a lot of types of milk. You’ve got your one and two percent, full cream, high calcium, omega three enriched, soy and almond milk…”
Walking closer, I hear Twitch tell the boy in frustration, “I just want milk.”
The boy points to the display. “There’s a lot to choose from. Which one do you need?”
Twitch hisses, “Any fucking thing!” Losing his temper, he shouts at the boy, “I just want regular fucking milk. Milk that you put in cereal, you little fuck!”
My stomach drops. A freak out was not on tonight’s agenda.
Placing my hand on his arm, he flinches. He turns his red face towards me and sighs in relief. He sounds so defeated when he says, “Baby, I tried…”
Shushing him, I pick out the closest milk to me, take his hand and walk over to the checkout. We finalize our purchases and head back to the car. Halfway home, I ask gently, “You want to talk about what happened back there?”
He mutters, “Not particularly.”
Patting his hand on the center console, I say, “Okay. But if you want to, you can.”
We arrive home, and as soon as I move to open the door, he holds onto my hand, stopping my exit. “I always get a little stupid in grocery stores. It takes me back to when I was a kid.” Sitting back down in my seat, I gesture for him to continue. “You have no idea what it’s like being a kid on the street…”
I find this the perfect opportunity to let him in on a secret of my own. “Actually, for a year, when I was sixteen, I was a street kid too.”
He seems taken aback by this. “Really?” I nod, and with confusion written over his face, he asks, “Why?”
Playing with his fingers, I lower my gaze and explain, “I told you. My dad was an asshole.”
“What did your dad do to you?”
Anger threads this question, so I decide to tread lightly. “Um, nothing too bad. He liked to make me uncomfortable a lot and pull power trips over me. He played mind-games all the time. Like one day when I came home from school and he met me at the door with his hands on his hips. He said, ‘If you can’t play by my rules, I have to take something away from you.’” I shrugged. “I mean, I was just a kid. I told him I didn’t have anything to give. So he said, ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ve already taken something.’ And when I walked into the backyard, my dog was gone.”
Tony’s hand squeezes mine. I haven’t spoken about my dad in a long time. It feels good to get this off of my chest.
Losing myself in thought, I say bleakly, “I remember crying all night. All damn night. I was a mess. My dog was my best friend, apart from my brother. I was a child. Every child’s pet is their best friend.” Shaking my head as if to clear it, I continue, “The next night, I came home from school and Misty was wagging her tail at me like she’d always been there. And my heart broke all over again just from thinking she was gone forever. I cried and cried all over again. And there was Dad, smiling a cruel smile, knowing he’d broken a small piece of my spirit. When my brother started taking drugs to escape life at home, I knew I had to leave. Then my brother took off one night, and I had nothing to stay for anymore. So I left.”
As I finish, I find my hand being squeezed way too tightly. I look up to find Tony’s jaw set, and I attempt to laugh it off. “Mom wasn’t a bad person, she just wasn’t very maternal and worked long hours to get away from Dad.” When his face doesn’t change, I add, “Oh, look, it’s not like he touched me or anything.”
“Abuse is abuse, babe. Doing it to your kid, though…that makes it ten times worse. He might not have put a hand on you. Doesn’t make it any less painful for the kid.”
And he is one-hundred percent right.
Abuse hurts regardless of the form.
I pluck at his fingers. “Tell me about what happened back there at the grocery store.”
“Only if you tell me about your time on the street.”
I immediately concede. “Deal.”
He clears his throat. “Yeah. Okay. So I was a street kid for a long time. Until I ended up in juvie. I did my fair share of shoplifting because, hey, I had to eat, right? All grocery stores remind me of being caught and feeling trapped. I hadn’t been to one in a long time and I forgot why. Until tonight.”
The thought of him feeling like a trapped animal makes my stomach clench. I wish I could take those memories away from him. I wish I could make it better somehow. It doesn’t justify his reaction to the young store clerk’s attendance, but I do understand it better.
Linking our fingers, I tell him, “Next time, I won’t leave you. Next time, we’ll shop together, and every time you feel like something’s sneaking up on you, you just tell me we need to leave and we’re gone. Okay?”