The entire left side of his chest was covered in scars. They extended to the bottom of his ribcage and went up over his shoulder. I took his arm and gently turned him around and saw that the scars continued on his back, though they didn’t go as far down as they did on his back. I trailed my fingers over them lightly and he shivered before turning back around to face me. “It’s a long story,” he said.

“I have all night,” I replied. “Can you tell me how this happened?”

He took my hand and sat back down on the couch, tugging me down beside him. “I guess I should start at the beginning. My mom was about eight years younger than my father. She came from a pretty messed up home; her dad was abusive. My dad was a cop and he responded to a domestic violence report at her house. She was eighteen at the time and my dad helped her get out of there and set up on her own. They ended up falling in love and getting married. She cut off all contact with her family, and never saw them again after that day.

“My dad was an only child and his parents had passed away already, so the two of them were on their own until I came along. They wanted more kids, but my mom had some complications and wasn’t able to have anymore. So they loved me with everything they had and we were a fairly happy family. I know my mom worried about my dad a lot because of his job, but she was a pretty good cop’s wife.

“The day they died was supposed to be the first day of their first vacation together. I already told you that I was staying with a friend of theirs while they were gone. When they died, the courts searched for any living family members that were able to take me. Apparently my mom’s father was still alive, but they wouldn’t place me with him because of his criminal record.

“Instead, they located my uncle; my mother’s older brother. He had a steady job and seemed like a decent guy who was willing to take responsibility for me, so they placed me with him. For the first few months, everything was okay. I had a hard time adjusting to not having my parents any longer, but I was slowly coming around.

“Then one night he came home drunk. I’d never seen him have a drink before, but on this night he was completely plastered. He shoved me around a little and said some things that didn’t make much sense to me at the time. The next morning he was back to normal and didn’t mention anything about the previous night, so I decided it was a one-time thing.”

He paused here and ran his fingers through his hair. “I quickly learned that I was wrong. He started coming home drunk at least once a week and he would push me around and hit me. He’d also tell me that there was nothing I could do about it because I was just a kid and no one would believe me if I said anything. He said that kids who lied got thrown into jail. I was young and still recovering from my parent’s deaths, so I believed him. I stopped talking, because everything I said just pissed him off. It continued this way for almost three years before he finally went too far one night.  

“He came home drunker than he’d ever been and started his usual routine. Only this time I fought back. That shocked him and he stopped for a few minutes. He started making some coffee, saying he needed to sober up so we could talk like men now that I’d shown some backbone. I don’t know why I believed him, but I did. I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I sat at the kitchen table and waited for him to start talking.

“The next thing I knew, he had grabbed the pot of coffee and poured it over my shoulder, screaming at me that I was an ungrateful brat who had ruined his life, just like my father had ruined my mother’s by tearing her away from her family. He then grabbed a knife and came at me, so I ran. It was the middle of winter and I was only wearing pajama bottoms and my shoulder felt like it was on fire, but I knew if I didn’t run then he would kill me.

“I don’t know how long I ran for, but eventually I collapsed on the side of a road and a cop found me. He brought me to the hospital and had me treated. They tried to get me to tell them what had happened, but I wouldn’t speak to anyone. They eventually found my uncle the next morning, but he had killed himself, leaving behind a note that stated simply that he was sorry.”

He stopped talking and stared at the TV, though I knew he wasn’t watching it. I was quiet for a few minutes as I absorbed everything that had happened to him. He’d just been a kid when his parents died and his life had turned to hell. Yet here he was, able to show me compassion and kindness, even if he couldn’t show it to anyone else. I laid my head on his scarred shoulder and kissed the side of his neck. “I love you,” I murmured.

He jerked slightly and pulled away to look at me. “I tell you all of that and you say that you love me?” he asked incredulously.

I nodded. “You’re an amazing person, Chase. The fact that you survived all of that just gives me further proof of that. I knew I loved you before you told me about your past; now just seemed like a good time to let you know.”

“Dana, I’m not a good person. I’ve gotten into a lot of fights in the past, and I probably will in the future.”

I rolled my eyes. “I think you should let me judge whether or not you’re a good person. The fact that I love you shouldn’t be a bad thing; it’s supposed to be a good thing.”

He took my hand and pressed his lips to the palm of it. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmured.

“Yes you do,” I replied. “Now tell me what happened after you were in the hospital.”

He sighed. “I was placed into the system. They shuffled me around from foster home to foster home. I started running to let off steam, since it had saved me in the past. I still refused to talk to anyone unless I absolutely had to and I despised having anyone touch me after what my uncle did.

“Eventually the cop who had rescued me looked me up, and I learned that he had been on the force with my father. He’d been promoted to captain, so he had a little pull in the system. It was only then that I learned the friends of my parents that I’d stayed with had tried to gain custody of me. They weren’t registered foster parents at the time though, so they were turned down. The cop pulled some strings and had me placed with them.”

My eyes widened. “Bev and Carson were friends with your parents?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

I thought back to the first time I’d hear him speak about them. “But you seemed so bitter about them the first time you said anything about them.”

He looked surprised. “I did?”

“Yeah, you were talking about them having money.”

He frowned as he thought back and then his expression cleared. “Oh, that had nothing to do with them in particular. It was more the fact that a lot of the foster parents I’d been placed with in the past refused to spend money on a kid like me, since I never stayed with them for long.”

“Why don’t Bev and Carson adopt you?”

Chase shrugged. “I’ll be eighteen next month. There’s not much point in them adopting me since I’ll be a legal adult on December thirty-first.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t told me about his birthday before, but I let it go for now. “So you get along with Bev and Carson okay?”

“I guess so. Like I said, they leave me to myself for the most part. They know what happened to me and they don’t push me into doing or saying anything. And they don’t mind that I like to go running a lot.”

“Will you stay with them after you turn eighteen?”

“Yeah, at least until I graduate high school. They said I can stay for as long as I want to.”

I settled my head on his shoulder again. “Have you thought about what you want to do after high school?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I was thinking of becoming a cop like my dad.”

“He’d probably be happy to hear you say that,” I said.

“What about you? What do you want to do?” he asked, obviously not wanting to talk about his dad anymore.

“I don’t know anymore. Luke and I always planned to go to college for a couple of years before slowly taking over the farm from my parents. But now I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

“You don’t want to run the farm anymore?”

I shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the same without Luke with me.”

“But would he want you to give up what you’d always planned to do?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “I might just go to college for a year or two to give myself a chance to think about it.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” He kissed the top of my head. “What do you want to do now?”

I knew that he needed some semblance of normalcy after he’d just revealed so much of his past to me, so I got to my feet. “I know it’s cold out, but it’s a clear night. Why don’t we go sit out on the deck for a little bit?”

He agreed so we went upstairs and grabbed our coats. Once we were bundled into them, we went out to the deck and sat together on the glider. He put his arm around my shoulders and we rocked back and forth slowly. The night was so clear that thousands of stars were visible and I gazed up at them. A feeling of peace settled over me as I sat snuggled against the person I loved.

Suddenly I heard a sound, and I lifted my head to try and hear it better. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah. What was that?”

I heard the sound again so I got to my feet and hobbled to the stairs of the deck. “It sounds like it’s coming from underneath us.”

Chase came to stand beside me and he tilted his head when the sound came once more. “I think you’re right. Hang on a sec; I’ll be right back.” He disappeared back into the house and returned a moment later with a flashlight in his hand. “I’ll go check it out.”

“This is usually the part in movies where a scary monster jumps out and eats you,” I muttered as he started down the stairs.

He flashed a grin over his shoulder. “I’m scarier than any monsters out here,” he assured me.

I made a face at his back and then leaned against the railing while I waited for him to come back. I heard him moving around under the deck, and a few minutes later he appeared on the stairs again. “I found your monster,” he said.

He held out his hands and I saw a small amount of gray and white fluff. When the fluff moved, I realized it was a tiny kitten. “Aw, it’s so cute!” I took the little creature from him and cradled it against my chest. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

“You do realize that it can’t answer you, right?” Chase asked teasingly.

“Just ignore him,” I told the kitten. “Come on, let’s go inside where it’s nice and warm.” I cradled it in one arm and went back inside with Chase grumbling behind me.

Once we were back in the warmth, I set the kitten down on the kitchen counter so I could look at it better. It seemed a little skinny, but otherwise it looked okay. It didn’t look like it had been away from its mom for too long, and I felt bad for the poor little thing. “Do you have something we can feed it?”

Chase went to one of the cupboards and rummaged through it. “There’s a can of salmon,” he replied.

“That’ll do for now. Can you open the can?”

He sighed in mock exasperation but did as I asked and then set the can on the counter in front of the kitten. The kitten pounced on the food and started scarfing it down as quickly as it could. Chase watched it with amusement. “He’s got quite the appetite on him,” he stated.

“What makes you so sure it’s a boy?” I asked.

“Is it a girl?”

“I haven’t checked yet,” I replied. “What are we going to do with it?”

“Well, we can’t just leave it out in the cold. I’ll keep it overnight until Bev and Carson get home and see what they think.”

When the kitten finished it’s meal, I checked and saw that it was indeed a male. “Okay Starlight, let’s get you warmed up now that you’re full.”

Chase raised a brow. “Starlight?”

I smiled sheepishly. “It seemed like a good name because of all the stars out tonight.”

He just chuckled and led the way back downstairs after we’d shed our coats. He had me lay down with my back against the back of the couch. Then he lay down in front of me and settled the kitten on his chest, switching the TV back on with the remote. My eyes grew heavy as I lay curled against his chest and eventually just before i fell asleep, I heard him whisper, "So you know, I love you too."  

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So now you know a lot more of Chase's story. Other little bits and pieces will be revealed along the way, but that was most of it right there. I added the part with the kitten to lighten the mood a little :-).

Question: Who's your favourite author? (Published, not Wattpad. Obviously I'm your favourite Wattpad author :-P. Just kidding... Kind of.)

Vote and comment to let me know what you thought!