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Adam needed his social security card.
When Gansey took him to his old home for what few clothes and belongings he possessed, Adam completely forgot his documents such as his birth certificate, immunization record, and that so very important social security card. He cursed himself for his own stupidity even though he had hardly been thinking straight on that day. Ronan had just saved him, and he had finally consented to pressing charges against his own father. There had been other things on his mind.
Not that he considered that a good excuse.
Once he cursed himself over and over again in the shower of his St. Agnes apartment, he began to think through his options. A depressingly short list. He practically saw the documents in their plastic baggie shoved under some dishtowels in a kitchen drawer, but imagining it did not bring the papers to his hands.
He could wait until the court date and bring up his belongings then, but he might lose that case. Not only that, but he could not wait weeks for those nine numbers. He needed to apply to colleges soon, and the applications required his social security number. All the best colleges required months of time before the actual semester, and Adam could not afford to give up any advantage.
Which left one option.
He needed to return to the trailer park.
Adam had nightmares about what took place in those thin walls, and a deep pain paralyzed him at the thought. Gansey even made him swear to never return to that place. Ronan would beat him black and blue himself if he knew.
They said that they cared, but Adam had a hard time wrapping his mind around that. Sometimes he wondered what they could possibly want from him, a stoic kid with no money and no connections, but then he scolded himself. They were friends. Friends cared about each other, and they did everything they could to make sure their friends stayed safe.
Times like that made Adam wonder just what else his father had messed up inside of him.
Not that it mattered in this case. He needed his documents now, and that meant going back. If he told Gansey and Ronan, they could probably bring in armed forces to escort Adam into his own home, but the idea of so many people watching and knowing that he did not even feel safe in his own home made Adam’s skin crawl.
No, he would do this alone. Just as he did everything else. He would be alone but smart.
His father should be at work in the middle of the day. While he ricocheted between jobs with frequent bouts of day-end drinking, he had been making tires in a factory for the past four months, and as far as Adam knew, he still was.
His mother would be at home, but she would not stop Adam. She never stopped her husband, and she would not stop her son. She found passivity a fine coat, so she never took it off.
Adam chose a Tuesday. He might miss school, but he doubled up the weekend before in preparation for this absence. And while Gansey and Ronan might wonder, by the time they confronted him, Adam would already have what he sought.
Besides, surely his father would not give up on the work week on the second day. Not even him.
He drove his Frankenstein-like car down the familiar dirt road at ten in the morning, and the dust already shimmered in the Henrietta heat. At least the kids already left for school, but Adam caught the signs of the unemployed mothers, fathers, and out-of-school teenagers still mulling around the park. They might report to his father later, but Adam planned to be long gone by then.
He parked in front of the trailer house that used to be his. Past tense. Nostalgia assaulted him with the force of a blow as ghost wounds flitted across his skin. The scent of oil and dirt brought him back to every single night in which he hid in the garage or stumbled out of the trailer with just enough sense of awareness to find a place to cower.
Pathetic.
Adam opened his door with too much force, and he slammed it closed with even more. He marched up the steps and pushed open the door to his childhood home. Unlocked. Always unlocked. What did they have worth stealing?
He expected to find his mother in the living room the size of Gansey and Ronan’s bathroom. She sipped some sugary fruit drink as she curled onto the couch. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted with the shock of seeing her son.
He did not expect to lock gazes with his father who leaned over the back of a kitchen chair, practically right next to his mother in the limited space. A mostly empty beer bottle dangled from his heavy hands, and a wide smile spread his lips when he registered Adam’s presence.
The door swung shut behind him, and Adam felt cold. Fear. He thought he had grown numb long ago, but that was one more thing he miscalculated.
“You should be at work,” Adam said. His voice shook. He did not have the strength to control that on top of his trembling knees.
“Took a day off. Or a month off. Didn’t like the manager, so who knows?” He kept his voice so light, almost conversational. That scared Adam down to his bones.
He should run. Forget that job with the better pay and fewer hours. He could manage as he always did without his social security card and whatever else he came to take.
If only his legs could move.
“So what’s the big man doing back in a shithole like this? I thought you would be driving fast cars, eating fancy food, wearing that expensive uniform from that expensive school.” The smile dropped from his face, and Adam saw the change coming. His father’s features twisted as he deliberately placed his beer bottle on the table. “Or sucking the dick of that rich friend of yours.”
Adam’s breath caught in his throat, and he only had time to bring his arms up to shield his face before his father slammed his back against the wall. The trailer shook with the force.
The pain came as an aftereffect. His spine bent improperly against the side rail, and his father’s greater weight trapped him in place. A claw-like hand grabbed both his wrists, and the other landed the first blow to his stomach. Adam wheezed.
“What are you doing back here?” his father growled into his face, his breath hot and reeking of alcohol. “Come to beg for food? Your friend get tired of his whore? Well, beg. Beg for mercy, and I might let you crawl back here.”
Adam whimpered.
…
Gansey pressed his lips in a thin line when Ronan approached him in the parking lot after school. When he climbed into the passenger seat of the Camaro, Gansey slid in as well and started his car.
“I assume you did not find him?” Gansey inquired.
Ronan shook his head, and his knuckles turned white with the force he clenched his fists. “Not in the library. Or the counselor’s office. Which we knew even before you told me to check. Go to St. Agnes.”
Gansey shifted into gear and drove out of the parking lot. Perhaps they worried over nothing, but past experiences conditioned them to fear Adam’s absences. Too often, he came to school the next day with his sleeves pulled down and baby powder coating his collarbone. Even once they became friends, Adam tried so hard to keep his home life a secret.
Ronan was the one to figure it out. While Gansey accepted Adam’s excuses of dangerous work conditions and clumsy limbs for far too long, Ronan recognized the bruises made from human fists. They assumed school bullies who thought themselves cool to pick on the scholarship kid, but when they confronted Adam, he yelled and shouted and refused to speak to them for days.
Gansey wanted to give him space until he found the trust to confide in him. Ronan wanted to pin him down and force him to admit the names of his tormentors.
As usual, Gansey won, and they waited until Adam slowly began to speak to them again. However, also as usual, Ronan took his own actions as well. He followed Adam home for a week to keep an eye out for some punks pulling him to a dark place, but instead, on the sixth day of his vigil, he watched a dark shadow in the window of Adam’s trailer house strike down a much smaller silhouette.
Ronan confronted him the next day, and Adam finally admitted to the details of his home life. Gansey immediately pushed for Adam to move in with them, and Ronan offered to teach him how to fight. Adam hissed for them to stay out of his business.
They reached an unstable equilibrium up until the point that Ronan finally smashed his fist into Adam’s father’s face. He had relished in that moment.
Gansey and Ronan had both thought this tension would alleviate after that, yet they still sped down the roads to the Catholic Church. As soon as Gansey parked, Ronan bounded up to Adam’s apartment and pounded on the door.
“Adam, get your ass up and open this door,” he shouted.
Gansey thought the method a bit crude, but he quickly found his place at Ronan’s side and stood on the balls of his feet in anticipation.
No one answered.
“Damn it, where would he be?” Ronan swore.
One thought immediately came to Gansey’s mind. Its speed presented how much he feared the idea, but Gansey could not deny the plausibility now. “Do you think he might have…?”
“He’s an idiot,” Ronan growled, but the paleness of his complexion gave away his worry.
Before Gansey could reply, the sound of an engine averted their attention to where the Hondayoto pulled in next to Gansey’s Camaro. Ronan shot from the porch and yanked open Adam’s car door. Gansey was slower to join the group, but he knew to fear the sight by the way Ronan’s swears strung out in a long and colorful curse.
Gansey picked up his pace, but he only reached them when Ronan already helped Adam out of the car. Ronan swung Adam’s arm around his shoulder and helped him limp the short distance to his apartment. Gansey required all his self-control not to gasp out loud when Adam lifted his head to meet Gansey’s gaze.
Adam had looked bad in the past. Deeply purple bruises marked his skin as often as mosquito bites, and he became an expert at hiding limps.
Gansey knew immediately that this was something of another level. He sported no obvious marks, nothing they could easily show a courtroom. But Ronan clearly supported most of his weight, and something had left Adam’s eyes. A piece of his soul. Gansey feared removing his shirt once they took him inside the apartment.
“Jesus, Adam,” Gansey muttered.
Ronan found his eyes and shook his head. Now that he released his first reaction through every dirty word he knew, he settled into a version of himself that spoke of only business. He easily made up for Adam’s weakness and practically carried him up the steps. Gansey opened the door for them, and Ronan helped him to his mattress.
“All right, off with the shirt,” Ronan ordered.
Adam shook his head weakly.
“Parrish, either you take it off, or I do,” Ronan warned.
Gansey lingered at the door he just closed, and as he watched Ronan kneel before Adam with both steel and softness in his eyes, he felt like an outsider. He loved these two boys that he called his friends, but this vulnerability in both of them seemed like too much. He should look away and give them privacy, but Gansey could not let himself do that. He would help.
He fell to his knees next to Ronan, but he concentrated on keeping his body language open and harmless, so Adam did not feel like they ganged up on him.
Adam shook his head, and he clutched the ends of his shirt. He kept his eyes trained to his lap.
“Parrish, this isn’t a game,” Ronan gritted out.
“Wait,” Gansey interrupted softly. “Adam, can you lift your arms?”
A heavy pause. Finally, Adam shook his head for the third time, and Ronan tensed. Gansey practically felt the anger radiating from him, but Ronan forced himself to swallow his ire and remain calm.
“Okay. Okay, I’m going to help you,” Ronan grunted.
Adam released the ends of his shirt, and Ronan counted that as consent. He took Adam’s shirt with a gentleness he usually only showed Chainsaw, and he lifted the fabric over Adam’s chest. When he reached his arms, Gansey helped manipulate his useless limbs through the holes of fabric. Ronan tossed the shirt away.
To their credit they did not gasp. Gansey tried to control his expression, but if Ronan’s stony façade began to crack, then Gansey doubted he achieved much better.
“The bastard made sure not to break skin,” Ronan growled.
Gansey, too, noticed the lack of blood, but that seemed such a small victory in the face of the puckered and shining skin of blue, purple, and red. He barely recognized a human chest in the gore.
“There is likely internal damage. We need to take you to a hospital,” Gansey said.
Adam shook his head. “My own stupidity,” he choked out, barely a whisper. Did he lose his voice in his screams? “I deserve this.”
“You’re an idiot if you think that,” Ronan exploded. He shot to his feet in the adrenaline that flooded his veins, and his arm muscles trembled with the need to hit, to avenge, to protect.
Adam watched him with such weary eyes. His back slumped forward, and his knees slid up to hide his chest. He practically curled into the fetal position before Gansey’s eyes on that thin, cheap mattress. He almost wished he was Ronan so that he, too, could express these feelings through violent displays.
“Why would you go back there?” Gansey whispered while Ronan aggressively paced.
“M’social security card,” Adam slurred. “Left my birth certificate, too. Thought he would be at work.”
“Oh, Adam. Why didn’t you tell us? Ronan would have taken you there without a second thought,” Gansey said.
“I know,” Adam muttered. “I know.”
Gansey took pity on Adam, and he relented that they could at least wait until the next day to decide on a course of action. Gansey had received enough medical training to discern that Adam did not need immediate aid though he did insist on cold packs. While Ronan stayed to keep Adam company, or to keep guard as Ronan likely viewed it, Gansey briefly left the apartment to purchase ice packs, painkillers, and pizza.
When he returned, Adam had laid on his back across his mattress, and Ronan pressed cold rags on his sensitive skin. Gansey quietly entered and offered a towel-wrapped ice pack without a word. Ronan made the switch and used the ice pack to reduce the inflammation.
“You should probably eat something, Adam,” Gansey advised, his voice quiet as if he addressed a caged animal.
“Not hungry. Nauseous,” Adam muttered without opening his eyes. “You two should go home. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re an idiot,” Ronan sighed.
Ronan and Gansey both stayed the night. Gansey made another trip, this time to Monmouth for his laptop and a couple of futons, but they ended up crowding onto Adam’s mattress for the better part of the evening. They kept Adam in the middle with enough room to make him feel safe without smothering him, and they watched movies on Gansey’s laptop. One after another until the sun ducked beneath the horizon.
They managed to persuade Adam to eat half a slice of pizza, but even Ronan and Gansey did not truly feel like eating. Most of the pizza went into Adam’s cupboard. He could eat it later.
Adam fell asleep with his head resting on Ronan’s shoulder. If Adam realized, he would no doubt flip and not speak to either of them for a week, but Ronan watched the rest of the movie as if he did not notice. Gansey did not plan to ruin the moment.
When the last movie ended, Gansey shut his laptop. He positioned the two futons next to Adam’s mattress while Ronan gently situated Adam on his bed without waking him. Ronan took the futon in the middle, and Gansey took the last. Safety in numbers.
…
Ronan wanted to rip that man apart. Gansey constantly told him that the court would take care of the situation more effectively than he ever could, but Ronan had his doubts. The piece of shit that called himself Adam’s father deserved nothing less than to be buried alive.
The only thing that kept him from marching down to that trailer park was Adam himself. Geez, the kid. Ronan could only imagine what happened inside the trailer house, but he could not even lift himself out of his car. He had choked back a sob, and he did not even protest when Ronan practically carried him into his own house.
And his eyes. Blank. As if he was already dead.
If that bastard did something irreparable, Ronan would kill him. Not even Gansey could keep him from that.
But for now he played the part. Iced his chest. Let him fall asleep on his shoulder. Even laid beside him to offer comfort that only proximity to those he trusted could.
And when Adam seized up in his sleep, Ronan gently placed a hand on his shoulder until Adam relaxed. His eyes blinked open in the dark.
“Ronan?”
“Yeah, just me. You’re okay,” Ronan assured him.
Silence. For a moment.
“I’m an idiot,” Adam muttered.
“You are,” Ronan agreed. “But not for the reason you think. When are you going to realize that you just have to ask us for help with this kind of thing? Don’t you think we would rather know than find you missing at school because your dad beat the shit out of you again?”
Adam winced, and Ronan almost felt bad. But this needed to be said.
“Talk to us,” Ronan urged. Almost pleaded. He rubbed his thumb gently against Adam’s arm before he pulled back entirely.
“You’re the idiot,” Adam said. “For doing this. For caring.”
Ronan huffed a dry laugh. “They say idiots run in packs, you know.”