TWENTY

Dagne

Given the heat of the day, the night drops to an unbearable low. I shiver beneath the thin fabric of my sweatshirt, cursing the situation for the thousandth time. Crickets chirp somewhere close outside, the swish of a tree branch scratches and scrapes against the roof of the barn.

I roll to my right, stretching out my limbs, and note the pale amber glow of a cigarette coming from Hooch’s side of the barn. I can barely make out the silhouette in the dark, but instinct tells me it’s too large for one person so Mel must be close by.

Hooch’s shadow rises, the amber glow moving with it. He crosses the barn softly; his chains and buckles clinking quietly as he does. I draw my knees up—somehow intimidated by his large form despite the fact I know whom this looming shadow belongs to.

“You keepin’ warm enough?” His husky tone vibrates through the still night air.

“Not really.”

“Sleep in the truck if you like.”

“It’s okay. I might just do laps and get my body moving. Should warm me up.”

He sucks back on the cigarette; the glow flares and lights his face some before fading to almost nothing once more.

“I didn’t realize you smoked.”

“Only when I run out of blow,” he mutters.

Great. Stuck in a barn with a criminal, and now he’s going to get twitchy on withdrawals.

“I won’t hurt you,” he offers softly, as though reading my thoughts. “Always been blessed not to have the rage when I go without. I just get moody. Been told I’m no fun to be around.”

“Because you’re such a clown normally,” I say dryly. He’s been nothing but moody and overbearing since I met him.

He laughs bitterly, stubbing the cigarette butt out with his foot. “Believe it or not, I’ve always been the joker among my friends.”

“Really?” I can’t hide my surprise. “I don’t mean to sound nasty, it’s just …”

“I’ve been an asshole?”

“At first, yeah.” I think back to our interaction at the clubhouse. “But as of late I’d just say you’ve been withdrawn.”

“Kind of goes with the territory when you’re battling your demons.” The bale rocks as he gets comfy beside me. “Tell me your story, Dagne. What makes you a drifter?”

“Like you said earlier, how many of us really have a choice?”

“Bad home life?”

“You could say that.”

Silence hangs between us, and I know he’s waiting on me to say more. But I don’t know if I can do it. Every time I’ve formulated the explanation in my head, it’s seemed so … trivial. I don’t see how someone who wasn’t there could understand it.

“When I was seven,” Hooch starts out of nowhere, taking me by surprise, “my old man caught me sitting on his bike.” He snorts a short laugh. “Fuck knows why I thought I could get away with it; I knew it was a bad idea at the time. I only remember wantin’ to know what it felt like to be him. I loved my old man, still do, but that day changed why.”

I turn toward him, my eyes having adjusted to his outline. I can barely make out his profile, the way his head is hung and his hands fidget as he speaks.

“He caught me stretched out over the tank to reach the handlebars, my feet stickin’ out at wild angles because I was way too small to reach the pegs. He reached for the nearest thing to him and smacked me across the arm with a tire iron. His love for the machine outweighed his understanding for me.”

“What happened next?” Instinctively I reach out for him, resting my hand on his forearm.

He links his other hand through mine. “He fractured the bone. Regretted it instantly, but the damage was done. I refused to let him visit me in the hospital, wouldn’t speak to him when I came home. It drove a wedge between him and my mother. They divorced a year later.”

“And you blame yourself?”

“They both blamed me,” he states flatly. “Ask Mel, she’ll back it up. She was old enough to remember by then.” He gives my hand a squeeze, his thumb tracing a path over the back of mine. “The point I’m tryin’ to make, I guess, is that nobody’s home life is perfect. I hated him for what he did, but it wasn’t until we’d already lost several years of history to the incident that I found out he hated himself more.”

“I don’t think my father sees any of it as a mistake.”

“You’ve spoken to him?”

“Too late.” I try to pull my hand free, withdraw, yet Hooch holds firm. “He died. Mom refuses to talk to me. Said my lies were what made him sick.”

“Lies?”

You can do it. I need to trust him with this. I need to offload what kills me inside, bounce it off somebody neutral to what happened and see if they validate my feelings or point out what I’m too close to see.

“He abused me verbally. We were poor. Dad lost his job when I was eight; the plant shut down. Like half the town, he never found more work. He’d blame me for everything costing so much, tell me that if they’d never had me they wouldn’t be struggling so badly to make ends meet.” I look up into his eyes, taken aback my how soft and understanding they are, even in the dim light. “I’m an only child.”

“That’s harsh, Dagne.”

“Yeah, it is. Thing was, he’d do it when Mom wasn’t around. He wore two faces: one for her, and one just for me. Towards the end, I really couldn’t tell if he still loved me anymore or not.”

The hand in mine slips up my side to loop behind my back, and with a strong arm slipped beneath my legs, Hooch swings me up to sit in his lap. He says nothing more, simply sighs and pulls me close like a child, tucking my head beneath his chin as he holds me firm with a palm splayed over the back of my thigh. His beard tickles my temple, but I focus instead on the soothing hand that spans the back of my neck. His thumb rubs an even rhythm over my heated flesh, our interaction warming me more than any laps around the barn could do.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“For what?”

“For understanding. For not asking me more.”

He dots a kiss to my head, and then resumes his gentle stroking. “You’ll tell someone when you’re ready.”

“You’re the only person I’ve opened up to,” I admit. “I always lie, make something up about how I like to explore, but it’s all bullshit.”

“You just don’t know where you belong yet, is all. You’re still lookin’.”

Goddamn him. I try my best, I really do, but the tears spill over silently, wetting my shirt and no doubt soaking his. He gets me. He nailed the thing that troubles me most in one perfect sentence.

I don’t fit in—anywhere.

But it’s more than that.

I’m scared that even when I find the place I want to be, that I’ll still never belong.

That I won’t know how to.