Where They Lie (Nora McTavish, #1)

by Joe Hart

Home. Quiet. Safety. Comfort. Those are the words to describe where I live. It’s what a home should be. A respite. A sanctuary. A place where the world outside can’t touch you. I made it this way, as different as could be from the place I grew up in.

Child welfare—underfunded, understaffed, underappreciated, just like any other state service that actually was set up to do some good—and all the while the public wondering why things were so bad in the juvenile community.

Those 2:00 a.m. thoughts and the sharp edges of guilt weren’t admissible in court, but they were a prison all their own.

I’d always marveled at how soundly others slumbered. Their minds could shut down and leave them be for hours at a time, while mine always seemed to be in third gear, just waiting to drop the clutch and burn rubber the moment I surfaced.

you’re the best I have, and it’s because of your heart. But your heart gets in the way too.

The law is one size fits all, while reality is a series of chaotic events we raft through like white water. The difference is some people get handed life jackets while others are told they should’ve learned how to swim better.

I’d wanted to put myself at ease by knowing and had stepped on a land mine instead.

Someone once said we don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system. I think about that.

That idea we’re all empty pages waiting to be written with the events of our lives and the reactions to those events. That we’re in control.

had. In the way I enjoyed open spaces and avoided small enclosures, Stephen liked people.

People aren’t always ruled by their pasts, but they never really escape them either.

If someone knew our history they would’ve been aghast at Stephen’s blasé dark humor. But it was a coping mechanism, like a child’s blanket or a drunk’s bottle.

“You want to help, simple as that. It’s who you are. You’ve always wanted to help.”

Being waterboarded with affection. The stifling sense of nearness made me want to claw my skin off.

Foster children share a lot in common with convicts. They’ve both been taken in and processed by the state. Both placed in environments and situations not of their choosing. And both have “rap sheets” in that their crimes, or someone else’s, have been listed, recorded. A life whittled down to misdeeds and subjections.

Letting this go was the right thing to do. But the right thing didn’t always help you sleep at night.

We forget how young some people are when they start carrying weight beyond their years, then wonder why they struggle.

Because humans are learning machines. We learn by what’s done to us, not just what we’re taught. We learn to injure and touch and wound what we shouldn’t. We learn to abuse and abandon if we’re hurt and lost. The past imprints on the future like a typewriter slowly running out of ink.

What was the point of work if it only funded a week’s vacation in some paradise where you could only ever be a visitor, never a resident? What good was it to hate waking up on Monday morning only to yearn for Friday night? If purpose became a perk not a prerequisite, what the hell were we even doing?

Grief shows up in waves. It’s strange how it’s gone for a little while, then comes raging back when you don’t expect it.

Bitter truth is that pill we can’t get ourselves to swallow.

We’re told a life without pain is ideal. To avoid suffering as much as possible. But pain is where you grow. We cry with our first breaths because it hurts to expel amniotic fluid and take in air. No transition occurs without pain.

“I’ve gone through denial, grieving, self-loathing, you name it. I’ve lived inside guilt for years. I still do, but I’m not special. Other people have gone through much worse, and I know that. But don’t stand there and tell me you understand some intrinsic part of myself I’m unaware of, because you don’t. You can’t even figure out when I want to be left alone.”

It was the weak and frightened part of me wanting someone else near even if it were for the wrong reasons. But I respected him too much to use him.

“It comes down to help,” I said. “A lot of people like to pretend they never needed help, never got it, but that’s bullshit. Almost no one gets anywhere without help. And it’s the first thing people forget once they get where they’re going.”

Being a child of abuse was a little like trying to outrun a storm. For a time you’re caught directly in the tempest, then—if you’re lucky—you escape it. But you’re never really free. You can see the shadow on the ground behind you on sunny days. You know if you hesitate or make the wrong move, you’ll be fully back under its cover, feeling cold rain and pounding wind. All you ever want to do is stay ahead of the storm.

Sometimes trauma is a knife, sometimes it’s stitches.

“Traumatic incidents are . . . unique in how the mind identifies and encodes a memory. In high-stress situations things can get warped or seem different than what they were.”

Everyone has something to fight for. But not everyone has someone to fight for them.

Dogs know so much more than we give them credit for.

The truth is only as good as the proof backing it up.

There are no words for what we do to each other. No words for what we are. Human beings are the strongest and weakest part of the world. And when they break, they shatter everything around them.

I’d keep focusing on what I could change, who I could help. Because we’re all to blame. Especially if we give up.