Geneviève Emmanuelle "Gen" Hart-Campbell (
asskickingblahniks) wrote in
dreamlikenewyork2015-04-25 11:30 pm
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"Come on, baby, let me in, and show me what this really is about..."
Who? Gen Hart and Mark Campbell
What? Soaked in booze and tears
Where? The Campbell-Hart abode
When? Saturday, late morning, after this
Gen wanted to believe that she could hold it all together for her husband and son -- that when Justin was hurting, and Mark was hurting for him, she would somehow be able to be the strong one. But the truth was, her heart broke for her husband and son, too. She had come home from work and crashed out early, exhausted from a long day, and Mark had texted from work telling her that he was at work, but he was going to get Justin and he'd be home later. By the time she'd woken up, it was to a text from Ali telling her that Mark was passed out drunk on her couch. Thank fuck Justin was with Sam. Which probably said all anyone ever needed to know about the father Mark was. Even in the midst of heartbrokenly writing himself off, he was still first concerned about being sure Justin was safe. But what this meant to Gen right now was that, as Ali had told her, she had to get Mark home and really talk to him about what was going on, because if he was writing himself off? He wasn't coping with things, and that was when they needed most of all to be a team. Which was why she'd spent well over an hour after Ali's texts sobbing into her pillow in her room -- sobbing for her amazing husband whom she so loved whose heart was shattered for his precious son, and sobbing for that son himself... the wonderful boy that love had given her as a son, just as truly as if he'd been conceived and carried in her body... the boy whose innocence had been taken from him when he was still too young to even understand why this was happening.
Ali let her know when she was on the way with Mark, and Gen made her way to the bathroom, washing her face and trying to at least calm some of the puffiness down. By the time Ali got Mark home, Gen had brewed a pot of coffee, stout and strong, and was waiting for Mark on the sofa, both of their cups of coffee made just as they liked them. She'd invited Ali to stay and have a cup with them, but knowing that they needed to chat, Ali declined and left Mark on the couch with Gen, who was slowly sipping her coffee and trying to decide what to say.
It was an awkwardly long few moments that Gen and Mark sat there in silence, Gen prolonging a sip of her coffee to get her thoughts together despite the fact that hours of prep time hadn't allowed her to do that yet. And when she finally spoke, it was shaky and she felt like she might start crying all over again. "Mark," she said softly, setting her coffee down on the coffee table in front of them so that she could turn and look at her husband. "Sweetheart, I don't know where we should start talking, but we need to talk about this. Not just about you drinking, but about everything that's happened with Justin."
What? Soaked in booze and tears
Where? The Campbell-Hart abode
When? Saturday, late morning, after this
Gen wanted to believe that she could hold it all together for her husband and son -- that when Justin was hurting, and Mark was hurting for him, she would somehow be able to be the strong one. But the truth was, her heart broke for her husband and son, too. She had come home from work and crashed out early, exhausted from a long day, and Mark had texted from work telling her that he was at work, but he was going to get Justin and he'd be home later. By the time she'd woken up, it was to a text from Ali telling her that Mark was passed out drunk on her couch. Thank fuck Justin was with Sam. Which probably said all anyone ever needed to know about the father Mark was. Even in the midst of heartbrokenly writing himself off, he was still first concerned about being sure Justin was safe. But what this meant to Gen right now was that, as Ali had told her, she had to get Mark home and really talk to him about what was going on, because if he was writing himself off? He wasn't coping with things, and that was when they needed most of all to be a team. Which was why she'd spent well over an hour after Ali's texts sobbing into her pillow in her room -- sobbing for her amazing husband whom she so loved whose heart was shattered for his precious son, and sobbing for that son himself... the wonderful boy that love had given her as a son, just as truly as if he'd been conceived and carried in her body... the boy whose innocence had been taken from him when he was still too young to even understand why this was happening.
Ali let her know when she was on the way with Mark, and Gen made her way to the bathroom, washing her face and trying to at least calm some of the puffiness down. By the time Ali got Mark home, Gen had brewed a pot of coffee, stout and strong, and was waiting for Mark on the sofa, both of their cups of coffee made just as they liked them. She'd invited Ali to stay and have a cup with them, but knowing that they needed to chat, Ali declined and left Mark on the couch with Gen, who was slowly sipping her coffee and trying to decide what to say.
It was an awkwardly long few moments that Gen and Mark sat there in silence, Gen prolonging a sip of her coffee to get her thoughts together despite the fact that hours of prep time hadn't allowed her to do that yet. And when she finally spoke, it was shaky and she felt like she might start crying all over again. "Mark," she said softly, setting her coffee down on the coffee table in front of them so that she could turn and look at her husband. "Sweetheart, I don't know where we should start talking, but we need to talk about this. Not just about you drinking, but about everything that's happened with Justin."
no subject
He would eventually shower, probably sitting on the floor of the cubicle for the duration when his legs wouldn't hold him, and cut himself trying to shave a few times. Then crash in bed for an indeterminable amount of hours. Upon which, if he didn't work to break the cycle, he would hit the bottle again the following night. At the mention of what happened with Justin, he just closed his eyes, feeling them sting. "I don't want you knowing everything that happened to him. I don't want you having all the details stuck inside your head that you can't stop thinking about it."
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"No," Gen said firmly, shaking her head and letting him know there was absolutely no room for argument on this particular bit. "No, Mark, because he is our son. I'm his mother. You don't get to decide what I do and don't know about Justin. I know this hurts like hell for you, and probably a million times more for our son, but we have to talk about it. No matter how fucking terrible, because we're a team. We're raising him as a team, and that's just that." She focused on Mark's face, exhaustion showing in every line and curve. "And not only are we a team raising him. We're a team as a couple, and I want to take care of you, too. So you don't get to keep things from me about our son, no matter why you're doing it. We have to talk about it, Mark."
no subject
That was the first thing that came up in the statement. Justin had punched a window and tried to cut his wrists with a shard of glass. When his 'friends', kids from the bad crowd, realised how badly he was bleeding, they took him to the ER and the story was that he tried to punch someone and missed. Then there had been an incident with a car. He was walking home high one night and just walked out in front of a car. The car swerved, and Justin got scared and ran away. That had been expected. And even though he had suspected Justin had possibly been abused when he was younger, Mark could never have prepared himself for what he actually hear was logged in that statement. "You can read it, but I'm talking about it."
no subject
She reached out, picking up the coffee mug and taking another long sip to try and keep herself thinking before she spoke. "I'm your wife, Mark," she said softly. "And I know that I'm not perfect. Not even close to it, but I do love you and our son. And when you're hurting... either of you... I want to be here for you. I want you to come and talk to me and let me listen. I can't fix it, babe. I know that. Neither of us can, no matter how much we might wish we could. But you aren't going to go through this alone. Don't shut down on me, Mark."
no subject
So all he did was get up and go to his briefcase to get the copies of the court papers out that were in a blue envelope marked strictly private and confidential. They had been sealed documents before the case. No one but the independent attorney acting for Justin had known what was in those statements, and the court witness to them. Now the case was said and done, Mark had requested copies for his own records that could be used for Justin's assault case. At this point, he was poised to have those charges dropped but it would take time. He handed her the envelope. "Please, just respect the fact I'm not in this place as any sort of punishment to you, or diminishing your position as my wife or Justin's mum. Because none of this is about that, and I honestly don't have the fucking energy to fight you on this. I need you to just understand."
no subject
She leaned her head against Mark's shoulder as her eyes slowly began to scan the words written there, and though she may have thought she couldn't cry anymore, it proved not to be true as, in Justin's own words, she read the retelling of what had been done to him when he was young and afraid and didn't know what to do to protect himself. Before Mark had known he existed to be able to swoop in and save him. Her eyes quickly flooded with tears, and she had to brush them away repeatedly just to be able to continue reading. What had been done to their son was the most awful thing Gen could ever imagine for a child of any age, and it was tearing her apart inside to read the details, right there in black and white.
no subject
What had happened was Justin ended up staying at Sam's place. Lisa had been there, and when Sam got called into work on an emergency, Lisa had been perfectly fine to stay with Justin. That day, Justin was going to spend some time with Sam playing basketball and getting a burger. Which was a relief for Mark to have heard via text message a little while ago, with Sam adding a pointed 'We'll talk later' at the end of it. He put his hand on Gen's back, rubbing it softly. Inside, he was trying to urge the nausea to die down because he felt so sick. Justin's recount had a lot of terminology and simplistic ways of explaining what had happened, because he had only been a kid. He had a better understanding of how wrong it was now, but back then, he thought the only way his mother wouldn't give him up for adoption to a family who would hate him would be to submit to the cunt boyfriend's actions. "I wanted to climb over that bench and strangle her." At the time, Ash had to physically hold Mark back from doing just that once the statement had been read out.
no subject
Gen tucked her head into Mark's shoulder, wiping the tears from her face with the heels of her palms. "If not for the fact you would've gone to jail, I would wish that you had," she muttered, shaking her head. How dare that bitch make Justin so afraid of being given to an awful family to the point he was afraid to tell her that this was happening to him? How dare she scare him so much that his innocence was stolen from him and he couldn't even cry out for help? Gen wanted her dead, and if she could think of a way to do it without going to jail, she probably would go with it. She turned a little in her seat and wrapped her arms around his waist, cheek pressed to his shoulder as the tears continued to flow. "I don't understand how anyone hurts a child like that." Her head ached from crying so much earlier, and crying again now wasn't helping, but maybe right now, she and Mark needed to break together so they could figure out how to put the pieces back together again.
no subject
He shook his head in a vain yet fruitless attempt to stop himself from crying. But he just couldn't. He was wrecked and this was something he was seriously struggling to process. "I could handle all that. I expected it. It's why I made sure Dani and Curtis went in armed with everything to counter it all. But this?" he said, gesturing to the folder. "Anyone can tell me until they're blue in the face that it's not my fault, but the bottom line is, she kept him from me to punish me for fucking her and never speaking to her again. It's my fault my child was sexually abused, neglected, let to suffer the torture of a mental illness alone, scared, without help. It's my fault. It's not his, like she made him believe since he was old enough to understand what was being said to him."
no subject
Then Mark was crying again -- they both were -- and Gen just held onto him, kissing his cheek as she rested her head on his shoulder. "I know you blame yourself, babe," she told him, not trying to argue with him, because as much as she knew it wasn't Mark's fault that Justin was abused, she also knew that she would never be able to convince him of that at this point. Mark needed to face the fact that he was blaming himself for all of this, regardless of how much it truly wasn't his fault. "It's definitely not Justin's fault," she said softly, holding onto Mark's hand. "I mostly blame the horrible cunt who let this happen to him and refused to tell his father that he existed. I understand you blame yourself, Mark. I get it, because if I were in your shoes, I'd probably do the exact same thing. But don't let the bitch off that easily. She made the choice not to include you in raising your son, when she didn't want to raise him either. I know you feel guilty and at fault for what happened, and I don't deny you the right to feel exactly how you feel. But if she didn't want him, she could've given him to you. Instead, she tortured him constantly just for being born."
no subject
The anger for him was dissipating for that very reason, but he couldn't shed the grief or the nauseating sickness inside from what had been in that statement Justin had made. There had been an attempt from the cunt's legal defence to try to say Justin was lying and making up stories, like he always did for attention. That he had a lengthy history of attention-seeking. That had been the nail in the coffin for the presiding judge. She chose to throw the book at them and now Justin's mother had a very lengthy jail sentence to serve and she couldn't get to him at all. "I know that. I do. But I have a hell of a lot to work through and I'm not dealing with any of it. At all. But I've made an urgent appointment with my therapist, and I've set up a session for all three of us to see Justin's therapist together so he can have a chance to open up about what he said in the statement if he wants to. I fucked up. I know I did. But I needed to shut down. I couldn't handle the pain. It's the worse pain I've ever felt in my life. Even above and beyond when I was told Jim was dead."