“My God, Matt.” I gasped, my eyes filled with tears. I could barely speak, I felt so sick at the thought of the kind man before me, being hurt so savagely. “I am so sorry you had to go through that.” Six years old! He was a baby, an innocent child. How could anyone do those things to him? Unable to hold back, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, needing to hold him. He instantly scooped me up and sat on the end of my bed, positioning me so I was straddling his thighs. I sat back and looked up at his face. His chocolate eyes were dark and sad, and I hated seeing it. The pain, brought back by the memories, was hurting him, and I had this overwhelming need to do something to stop it.
“My Mom, she came over to the states from Puebla, Mexico, when she was pregnant with me. She was only seventeen, don’t even think she knew who my father was.” He sighed. “She was messed up, had been abused by her father all her life. She had me, which was a miracle considering she survived pretty much on drugs alone. Thing is, she never wanted me. My earliest memory is her hitting me around. I can’t have been older than three years old.”
I wanted to say something, but I had no idea what. Nothing could ease what he was telling me. For his own mother to hurt him, it was unspeakable. Eventually he took a deep breath and went on. “I could have handled my Mom’s beatings. It was bad, but I’d have been ok if it had stayed just her…..I’d have been able to deal with that.”
“It didn’t?” I asked, forcing back nausea at the dread of what I knew was coming next.
“No. My Mom started seeing a local dealer, Juarez. He was an evil sonofabitch, but he kept dear old Mom supplied, so she let him do whatever he wanted, and that included beating the crap out of five year old me whenever he felt like it, which was often. He put the scars on my back, with his belt. That was one of his favourite punishments, though there were plenty of others. He was around for years, tearing into me most days, sometimes with my Mom’s help. I was trapped with them. My birth was never even registered because my Mom was an illegal immigrant, so no one knew I existed, and I never started school. I couldn’t leave either because Juarez threatened, numerous times, to kill my Mom if I ever ran away. I hated my Mom, but I wasn’t going to let him kill her, so I stayed. It went on for years, until one day some new neighbours moved in next door. They heard me screaming late one night, about a week after my tenth birthday, and called the cops. When two uniforms busted in, I was barely conscious and half starved to death. Juarez and Mom were arrested and I was taken to the ER. By the time Jenny got to me and brought me here, I was so…...broken. I was terrified of everything and everyone. It took me a long time to trust the guys, and even longer to trust Keira and Grant.”
“I’m not surprised Matt. You went through hell. What happened to your Mom and her evil boyfriend?”
“They did a year in jail. Juarez was shot just a few weeks after he got out, over some drug deal gone wrong. I don’t know about my Mom. I haven’t heard anything, and to be honest, I really don’t care. She’s dead to me. I have my family and I have you. It’s all I’ll ever need now.” Unable to hold back, I sank forward, wrapping my arms tight around his shoulders and squeezing as hard as I could. Tears were still threatening, but I fought them back, needing to be strong for Matt.
It now made so much sense, the way he looked right into my soul every time he looked at me, and the way he always knew what I needed, because what he had been through was so similar to what had happened to me. He had spent years with two evil monsters, who had hurt him again and again. They had tried to destroy him, a tiny innocent little boy, but they had failed. Matt was not broken, he was an amazingly smart, handsome and strong man, who loved those around him fiercely. He had overcome what they had done to him, and become the amazing guy before me, the man I was lucky enough to call mine.
“You weren’t broken.” I whispered from where my face was nuzzled against his neck as I still held him tight. “When you came here, you weren’t broken. Don’t give them that power, they didn’t break you Matt. You are too strong a person to ever have been broken. A little dented here and there, a few cracks, but never broken.”
“Whatever damage there is, having you in my life, Cariña, is starting to help heal it, little by little. Before you I just took each day as it came, getting through them as much as I could, but now, the way I feel for you, I’m starting to see a future and it’s a good, happy future, with all of us together, and strong.” My tears spilled over at his words, because I felt it too, I felt this brightness appearing in my soul, where I thought there could only ever be darkness, I felt hope for good things to come.
“Me too.” I squeaked. I knew it was crazy, we had been together for , and most of that time I had been in the hospital, but I just felt whole when the four of them were with me. I just knew my future laid with
