Broken Hart (The Hart Family) (18 page)

The drive to my house is made in silence.  No music, no conversation.  Thirty minutes later we are pulling in to my driveway.  Ever the gentleman, he’s out of the car and opening my door before I even have the seatbelt off.  It makes me sad.  I’ll never really know why these Hart men don’t want to commit, but it’s a real loss for them, and to women everywhere.

Once in the house, we both make our way to the living room.  Taking my shoes off, I sit on the couch and wait for the inquisition.  Taking one of the arm chairs he wastes no time in asking questions.  “How long did this go on?”

“The first time was the night of my dance competition. It ended the morning you saw me leaving his house.”  I’m surprised to feel relief that I’m finally telling another person about this.

“Shit.  Yeah, that makes sense. He’s always been attracted to you, and I knew he was hanging by a very thin thread the day of the competition.  I just assumed he reeled it in, like he always did.  Guess I was wrong.”

We stare at each other in silence for a moment before I nod my head. “I only found out later that he was attracted to me.  I never even suspected until that night.”

Making a pfft sound, he shakes his head at me.  “He was a lot more than attracted.  But he damn well knew to steer clear of you.  I’m furious with him right now.  He knew doing this could only hurt you.  I’m going to knock his ass out for that.”

“No! Damien.  No.  This is my fault.  He gave me the out, more than once.  He was never less than honest with me.  He told me from the get go that he would never, could never, commit.  I was a fool for thinking I could handle what that really meant.  I went in to this with my eyes open.  I’m just paying the price now for not realizing what that would actually feel like.”

“Oh hell Sabrina…  Shit.  It’s worse than I thought.  You aren’t just suffering because it’s over.  You’re in love with him.”

His words break me, and before I can stop it, I start to cry.  He’s off his seat and hugging me in seconds.  “I’m…fine… I never cr-cry in front of people.  I’m ok.”

“Shh.  Let it out.  You need to let it out.  Let yourself go for a minute.  I’m here.”

I give myself over to it, letting my tears fall.  I figure even the strongest people are allowed to falter every once in a blue moon.  After a few minutes, the tears stop falling. 

When I pull back, I’m a little embarrassed to see that his shirt is wet from my tears.  Grabbing a tissue from the side table, he dabs my tears away. 

“You really are lovely.  You manage to be beautiful even when you cry.  Got to say, if Dante hadn’t figuratively put up ‘no trespassing’ tape around you the second you stepped in to his office, I’d have come after you myself.  Of course, then I wouldn’t have you as an honorary sister, and that would be a loss.  He’s a damn fool for not locking you down.”

It’s a lovely sentiment, but it makes me sad because I know his problem is the same as Dante’s.  “Oh please, Damien.  You’re even less likely to commit than he is.”

The look he gives me is sad.  “You’re right.  Dante and I both learned early that commitment in our family is a death sentence.  It just isn’t possible. You’re the real thing, and I’d have run from you at lightning speed long before it ever got to where you and Dante wound up.”

I see my opening, and I take it.  “Damien.  I need you to be honest with me.  It’s time for me to know what made Dante the way he is.  Can you please tell me why the two of you don’t believe in relationships?  What happened that you both feel this way?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tilting his head back, he blows out a breath.  He’s silent for a few minutes, his head on the back of the sofa, his eyes closed. He seems to be weighing his words, deciding what to say.  Opening his eyes, he nods at me.

“Your parents passed before we met, but there are pictures all over this room of you all as a family, smiling and laughing.  I've also heard you and Brooke talk about them enough that I know that you all loved each other.  They valued you both, treated you well, too care of you, parented you.  What Dante and I grew up with was… the exact opposite of that.”

“I was four years old the first time I can remember our parents leaving us home alone.  It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wasn’t the last.  They packed up and rolled their luggage out of the house.  Our mother was kind enough to tell us they were going to Mexico for two weeks because she couldn’t stand to look at us.”

“The reason this incident stands out in my mind is because our father broke two of my fingers when I begged them not to leave us.   Broke them, told me to get the fuck out of the way, and then they left.   Dante set my fingers using tape and our mother’s nail files.  Can you imagine?  He was six years old, and he had to take care of us both because our parents wouldn’t. ”

He looks so sad, shaking his head in frustration before continuing.  “We were told on an almost daily basis that we were ugly, unwanted, disgusting brats.  They were both cruel and viscous and angry, and they made us suffer.”

I feel helpless and angry as he shares this story.  It’s far worse than I ever imagined.  What kind of animals would do that to children?

“They were drugged out freaks and they had sex parties in the house.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many nights we were forced to sleep in the shed because all of the bedrooms needed to be available.”

I’m horrified by this.  “Damien, where in the hell was your family?  I know your mom cut Sandra off when she married your father, but where the hell was your grandfather?  Did no one see this?  Why didn’t someone help?”

Shaking his head at me, he frowns.  “If only it was that simple.  Our grandfather knew all about it, he just didn’t care.  The old man didn’t give a shit about family.  He cared about the business and he cared about sex.  We were just… heirs.”

“His one contribution was sending us to school.  We were terrorized by him and both of our parents before we went.  They told us that if we talked about anything that happened at home, we would be taken away and separated from each other.  We were just kids, and the only thing we had was each other, so their threats worked. It helped a little that Spencer was in my grade.  His mother was one of our mother’s friends.  He was just as fucked as we were, and we all helped each other.”

“When our mother got pregnant with the twins, it was a nightmare.  She gained fifteen pounds and got almost no prenatal care.  You could hardly tell she was pregnant.  She smoked, drank and fucked her way through the pregnancy.”

“Nothing ever stopped those selfish assholes.  The girls were underweight and kept in the hospital for a month before they came home.  She used that time to rest up.  Once the girls came home, they were dumped on Dante and I and life went on for our parents.  I don’t remember them changing even one diaper.  Not one.  There was an illegal woman who didn’t speak English who would come and care for them during the day, but she was dismissed every afternoon when we came home from school.  We were damn lucky to have her, because if she hadn’t been around, we wouldn’t have even been able to go to school at all.”

“I guess the saving grace in all of this was that they didn’t starve us. Ramen noodles, Chef Boyardee, cans of soup, crackers, potato chips and Velveeta cheese.  Those were the only foods they would buy, and that’s what we lived on.  They bought cases of diapers, wipes and formula and left the rest of it to Dante and me.  Every fourth Friday, our grandfather’s maid would bring us clothing for the month.  Other than the food and the clothes, we were given nothing.  No love, no parenting, no birthday presents, no holidays. Nothing normal families do."

“Their behavior got more and more out of control as the years went on, as you would expect with addicts.  He fucked everything that wasn’t nailed down, and she did the same. The girls were three when our mother was diagnosed with AIDS.  She killed herself within a week.”

He’s gray as he pauses, and I see him struggling to maintain calm.  “She… the crazy bitch left notes for Dante and I.  She told us she got AIDS because our father took her happiness and destroyed her life, and she hoped we killed ourselves before we could ever destroy a woman with the toxic sludge that is in our blood.  She wrote that she regretted not only marrying our father, she wished she’d never laid eyes on him, and she was certain that we would probably turn out to be disgusting sex addicts, bending women to our will, just like him.”

I’m heartbroken as he lays this all out.  I can picture Dante and Damien as children, so serious, forced to do adult things long before they should have had to. I put my arms around him and hug him, hard. 

“Oh, Damien… she was unbalanced.  She was selfish and pathetic, and she took the easy way out.”

I hear his shuddery breath, and I know he’s crying.  Softly, but he’s letting it out.  I hold him for a few minutes until the emotion is back under control.

Wiping his tears away, he shakes his head in frustration.  “That’s the thing Rina.  I wanted to believe she was crazy.  I know Dante did too.  God knows, living with just our father was even worse than having her around.  Our grandfather died just a few months before she did.  Once they were both gone, things got worse.  His drug use escalated to epic proportions.”

“The truth of what she said didn’t come home to roost until we met Sandra.  You know Sandra as well as anyone.  Look at her.  She shares blood with our mother, and she’s one of the nicest and most nurturing people I’ve ever met.  They were raised by the same people, so our mom must have started out a lot like Sandra.  Our fucked up father, who was raised by his fucked up father, destroyed her.”

Blowing out a sad breath, he continues.  “Dante the girls and I got lucky because we had each other.  But I will never, ever put myself in a situation where I can destroy all the joy in a woman’s life.  You see me.  I don’t even try not to constantly be moving from one bed to another.  Dante is no better.  We come from a line of sex addicts.  Sure, I’m a fun guy.  But how fun would I be if I wasn’t having sex whenever I wanted, or what if I couldn’t be faithful?  I can’t take that chance.”

Oh fuck, this is so much worse than I could have ever imagined.  His family history is shit, but it can’t define him forever.  I need him to know he’s wrong about himself.

“Damien.  You’re wrong, so wrong.  You don’t see yourself for what you really are.  You and Dante… you’re amazing men.  You are nothing at all like your mother, your father, or your grandfather.  You are both so committed to your sisters, to your family unit.  You’ve never resented them, and you’ve been unbelievably strong. You think you’re some shallow asshole, but I know differently.  You had enough room in your hearts to bring Brooke and me in to your lives, and you did it without even blinking an eye.  Does that sound like men who can’t care?”

Stroking his cheek, I beg him with my eyes to listen to me.  “Your only problem is that you’ve bought this horseshit that your mother said.  She couldn’t be trusted to take care of you in life, and she showed herself to be completely unrepentant for her behavior by leaving you those notes.  Only a monster would do that.  Whatever her problems were, they were hers.  Your father didn’t force her to treat you like shit.  She chose to do that, and she is responsible for her actions.  She compounded her sins in the end by trying to lay all of the blame for her behavior at your fathers feet. They were both evil. You need to choose to leave both of those assholes in the dust, where they belong.”

Hugging him , I whisper, “You are one thousand times more caring and more amazing than your parents ever were, and so is Dante.  Stop letting them live in your head.  This is your life, and you deserve to be happy.  You need to decide to stop letting their crazy box you in. If you don’t choose to make your own life and your own decisions, they’re still abusing you, even from the grave.”