Leo: A More Than Series Spin-Off

by McLean, Jay

  “How long, baba?” Papa says, his voice breaking. “How long have you been forcing yourself to throw up?” I look at him, see the tears in his eyes—this man of strength and pride. This man who made me his everything before a boy came along and did the same. I die inside at the sight of him now, and I wish he didn’t have to know. I wish he could’ve lived his life never realizing how tarnished and broken and ugly I am.

  “Papa,” I cry, and I start to go to him, but Leo’s voice cuts through the air, through my heart.

  “Since that night?” he asks. My gaze snaps to his, and I regret it the second our eyes meet. Eyes clouded with tears, his jaw is set, lips forced into a shape that hides his true heartache. “Was it, Mia?”

  “What night?” Dad asks.

  “Answer me,” Leo says, but he doesn’t need the answer, and mine would only come with a lie. He already knows the truth.

  It was that night.

  On the steps of the church.

  I told myself that it was an accident. That my cries were just too strong, and I couldn’t control it.

  And then I went to a boarding school with a bunch of perfect girls with perfect skin and perfect teeth and perfect bodies, and I was the absolute opposite of everything they encompassed. I told my dad I wanted out, and he didn’t offer me any other options. So I stayed. And soon, I realized that the perfect girls were just good girls doing bad things to become perfect. And they taught me all the bad things they did to get there. So I became a bad girl, doing bad things, just to feel good. And soon, the bad thing became a good thing.

  The best thing.

  The greatest thing I could’ve ever done for myself.

  And I never want to stop.

  Ever.

  And I won’t.

  “Jesus Christ, Mia,” Leo says through an exhale, his arms at his sides, bleary eyes on the ceiling because he won’t look at me now.

  He’s the only one I want to look at me, and he won’t.

  Because he sees it—all the things I’d spent years purging.

  “So, what are you going to do about it?” Papa says, and he’s talking to my dad because he’s the only one Papa thinks can do anything.

  Leo drops his gaze an inch, catches me watching him. We stare at each other. A heartbeat passes. Two. Tears slip from his eyes, and he quickly disregards them with a swipe of his forearm. He doesn’t speak. Won’t say a word.

  Every summer I spent with you, and every single day in between, I’ve been in love with you, Mia!

  He won’t say it now because he realizes it’s a lie.

  Dad says, “There’s a treatment center in upstate New York that caters to—”

  “No!” Papa yells. “All you do is put her places! Here! There! She has no home since she left! She needs a parent, József! She needs…” I don’t hear anything else because Leo breaks our stare to look out the window at the truck coming up the driveway. Before the truck’s come to a stop, Leo’s picking up his bag on the kitchen counter and walking to the door, pushing past my dad to get to it.

  I follow after him, my feet thudding against the floor.

  We’d all hear that fat heifer coming up the stairs.

  Mr. Preston’s halfway out of his truck and Leo’s halfway to him when I call out from the porch, “So you’re just going to leave?”

  Leo turns to me, his words an eruption from deep in his chest. “What the fuck do you want me to do, Mia? Stay here knowing that I’m the one who fucking caused all of this?”

  “Whoa,” Tom says, coming up to his son. “What’s going on?”

  “I did this to you!” Leo shouts, pressing a finger to his chest. He wipes at his jaw, at the tears of anger floating across his flesh.

  “So what?!” I yell, running down the steps. I stand in front of him, my fists balled. “So now that you know, you don’t want me anymore?”

  “How—” He laughs, head thrown back in frustration. The single sound lessens me, makes me feel tiny. “How the fuck can you want me?”

  “Because I love you!”

  “It’s not enough!”

  “I fought for you, Leo.” I shove his chest. “I fought for myself so that I could have you!”

  “You might be able to ignore what happened and move on, Mia, but I can’t,” he booms. “I can’t do that!”

  I shove him again because it’s too damn loud in my head, and it’s too hard to speak through the noise. “Just go then!” I push him. Again and again. Because this shit keeps happening. Again and again. I roar, “You told me you loved me, but you’re just like everyone else who leaves me!”

  Leo stares down at me, those tears of ours never-ending. “I do love you,” he chokes out. “And that’s why I have to leave.”

  “You’re so full of shit,” I spit. And then I say something just to hurt him because I know how much he’s about to hurt me. “You want to protect me now, but where the fuck were you then when I actually needed protection!”

  I can see the exact moment my words hit him, and they hit hard, so hard they break him. There are no more tears in his eyes, no more anguish or despair. “Let’s go,” he says to his dad, and his dad—being an actual parent—does what he knows is best for his son.

  They get in the car, and Mr. Preston starts the engine, looking at his son before asking, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Go, Dad!”

  “Son, I don’t feel good about leaving—”

  “Dad!”

  “Maybe there’s something—”

  “Dad! Dad! Dad!” It takes me a beat to realize it isn’t Leo shouting the words. It’s coming from the house.

  Holden rushes out the front door, yelling, “Mia, come quick!”

  “Dad! Dad! Dad!”

  Tires spin on the gravel behind me as I run up the porch and step inside.

  “Dad!”

  Dad’s kneeling on the floor of the living room.

  Lying on the floor, eyes wide, shirt open to reveal the fresh, ugly scar down the middle of his chest—“PAPA!”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Mia

  Of all the things that were removed and shifted around in the barn, the treadmill stayed. The stereo in the corner has the volume set as high as it can go, and Bill Withers “Lean on Me” plays, on repeat, the bass ricocheting off the walls, the ceilings.

  It’s Papa’s song.

  The monitor on the treadmill shows I’m already seven miles in, even though I feel like I could run seven more. Sweat pours from every inch of my body, my bare feet barely gripping the belt as it slides beneath me, again and again. My chest burns, along with my muscles. Soon, it will stop. The burning, the aching—all of it will stop.

  And when it does, I will too.

  A groan pumps out of me with every step, and I wait for nausea to kick in. But my mind is a blur, and my body is worn. Tired. Just like me.

  Suddenly, the music is too loud.

  And so the voices in my head speak louder, harsher.

  It’s never-ending—this cycle.

  “It’s sure a step up from that fat-ass, Mia.”

  “We’d all hear that fat heifer coming up the stairs.”

  “He’s gonna have a shitty time with the girls with fat-ass, brace face around.”

  “It’s not my fucking fault that she has no home. Or that her parents don’t want her.”

  “Shut up,” I whisper. “Just shut up.”

  The world tilts when I get off the treadmill, and then the darkness around me closes in. In my head, I’m living my nightmare. I’m five years old, and standing in the middle of an antique store. There are corners, so many corners and I turn and I turn and I turn and then there are windows. Big, huge windows. And I stand in front of them and look out to the parking lot, but my grandpa’s truck is gone.

  I forgo my usual routine of using the bathroom to empty my stomach. Instead, I leave the barn, let the cool night air sting my flesh, my throat. I make it to the porch and hold on to the rail of the steps to keep upright.


  Then I force air into my lungs.

  And then two fingers down my throat.

  I purge all the ugly and the filthy and the vile out of my system until there’s nothing left. And then I do it again.

  I do it until there’s nothing left of me but my body.

  A shell.

  A hint of my existence.

  Legs weak, I climb the steps and collapse into the porch swing, where I lie across it, let my exhaustion creep through every cell. My eyes drift close, and I stay that way even when I hear the screen door open.

  “Mia?”

  I struggle to open my eyes, to see Dad squatting down in front of me, dressed in all black with a glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes are so red, so raw, and when he reaches out, the backs of his fingers stroking my forehead, I close my eyes again.

  His voice breaks when he asks, “What are you doing out here, Mia?”

  I sniff back a sob. “Waiting for Papa to come home.”

  Part Four

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Mia

  I don’t want to be here.

  It’s the only thing that ran through my head, causing my bloodline to fill with nervous energy.

  And dread.

  It’s the same feeling I had almost ten years ago. Only then, the person sitting next to me with her hands on the steering wheel—utterly clueless to my current state of mind—was assuring me that everything would be okay, that I’d be happy here. An assumption, I’m sure, because she barely knew the twelve-year-old girl beside her, and now? Now we’re virtually strangers. An odd thing to say considering she’s my mother.

  She sits ramrod straight as she makes the final turn toward the Preston house, inconspicuously checking herself in the mirror as she does. I used to catch her doing the same the summers she had me spend with her, wishing for the day Mr. Preston would see her in a different light.

  Yeah, that was never going to happen.

  I try not to roll my eyes at her, and instead, take a moment to breathe. Just breathe. Wiping the anxiety-caused sweat off my palms onto the worn upholstery of the car seat, I settle my head against the headrest and try to calm my pulse by looking out the window. Trees line the road, the bright sunlight breaking through the thick leaves as we pass. A short wooden fence behind those trees lets you know it’s private property, even though you can’t see any houses from the road. Loose gravel kicks up from the spinning tires below us, and when I roll down the window, just slightly, I can feel the crisp, fresh air fill my nostrils.

  The first time I was here, it reminded me of home.

  It didn’t take long for that feeling to fade.

  The car slows as Mom pulls into the Preston driveway, and my breath halts in my chest, my bottom lip stinging in pain with the force of my teeth clamping down around it.

  I try to keep the memories distant.

  Try to keep the tears at bay.

  Nothing is different.

  And yet… everything has changed.

  I don’t want to be here.

  Not again.

  * * *

  I can pinpoint precisely two moments in my life when I’ve wanted out of a situation so bad, I’d have given anything to be able to crawl out of my skin and disappear. One of those occasions happened to be within the Prestons’ property line.

  Standing in the house’s entryway, I keep my head down, grateful that my hands are too busy holding the numerous containers filled with food. “We’re going for Lucy’s daughter’s first birthday,” Mom had explained in the car as soon as she scooped me up from the airport. She didn’t tell me her plans prior to my landing, and as I sat there, letting that information sink in, I stared at her, my eyes wide in disbelief.

  She knew I wouldn’t want to be here.

  She just didn’t care.

  Mr. Preston shares some pleasantries with his sister, who rode with us here, and then my mother, and I shrink further into my shell when I feel his eyes on me. The last time we’d seen each other, it wasn’t exactly pleasant. Shame washes through every cell of my being as he says my name, a softness in his tone that lets me know he, too, remembers. It’d be hard to forget. “Wow, Mia,” he breathes out, “look at you. It’s been a long time.”

  Next to me, Mom nudges my side and clears her throat, and I gather my courage, look up at him. It seems he hasn’t aged a day. I force a smile, a nod. “Hi, Mr. Preston, it’s uh… it’s good to see you again.”

  He returns my smile with one of his own, and it’s as genuine as he’s always been. “You look...” He stops there, unsure of what to say.

  I would be, too.

  I look what? Older? Wiser? Sane?

  “You look great,” he says, snapping his head forward, acknowledging the end of that conversation. He takes a step back, his large frame somehow making me feel smaller than I did the first time I met him.

  “Kids!” he calls out over his shoulder. “You have visitors!” He doesn’t take his eyes off me, his gaze scrutinizing, no doubt wondering why I’m here. I wish I could click my fingers and a giant neon sign would light up above my mother’s head with the word “HER” flashing in bright red.

  She is the reason.

  She is my demise.

  Mr. Preston sighs, finally tearing his penetrating stare away from me and toward the staircase behind him. “I’ll go get them.”

  I almost reach out to stop him.

  Almost.

  “You’re being rude,” Mom hisses as soon as Mr. Preston is out of earshot.

  My eyes drift shut. I can feel the frustration building inside of me. “I’ve barely said two words.”

  “It’s not what you’re saying, Mia. It’s how you’re behaving.”

  “How do you want me to—”

  “Act like you want to be here!” she cuts in.

  My jaw snaps shut, my nostrils flaring with my heavy exhale. A house this big, you’d think it would be impossible for the walls to close in and suffocate you, yet here I stand, breathless.

  Laughter fills the air, trailing from somewhere upstairs—a complete contrast to everything I’m feeling—and I’m suddenly reminded of how many of them there are. And then thudding, like what I imagine a herd of elephants stomping on dry desert land sounds like. But the Prestons aren’t animals, I remind myself—they’re just kids…

  Or at least, they were.

  It’s been almost eight years since I’d seen them, and as they file down the stairs one by one, all dressed in suits, I recognize each of them by name. While it’s obvious they’re all siblings, they all have distinct features. Even the twins. They’re taller now, the boys more masculine and grown-up. Lucy and Cameron are the first to appear with the birthday girl. And then Lucas, the oldest boy, clutching hands with Laney. It’s good to know they’re still together. I guess some loves are made to withstand the harshness of reality. Next is Logan, a couple of years younger than Leo. He’s carrying a red-haired girl on his back, and then the twins. The only one I don’t recognize offhand is Lachlan. He was a toddler when I last saw him, and now… now he’d be a teenager. Jesus.

  The last to appear is Leo.

  I lower my gaze quickly, not wanting to look long enough for the pain to arise. Or hard enough for that same pain to annihilate me.

  “You guys remember Mia,” Mr. Preston says.

  The thudding has stopped now, and a chorus of “Hey, what’s up,” fills my ears. Mom elbows my side, and so, grinding my teeth, I look up. There are too many sets of eyes all focused on me. But I’m only drawn to one.

  And those eyes—they make me want to shed my flesh, leave my beating heart where we once stood under a sheath of empty promises. Because while eight years have passed since I’ve seen the others, it’s only been five since I’ve seen Leo.

  Five years can change a person.

  It’s sure changed me.

  But, going by the way Leo’s looking at me, confusion mixed with disdain, five years isn’t enough.

  Chapter Fifty-Four


  Mia

  My mother ignores me, which is nothing new. Her friend, Leo’s aunt Leslee, let slip that Mom is currently on vacation, and she’s spending the entire week with Leslee, which means that if I don’t get what I came here for today, I might possibly be stuck here for days. And knowing my mom, that’s precisely what she’ll make happen.

  It should be impossible to feel this pissed off and anxious and agitated at a one-year-old’s birthday party with a rainbow of balloons, Kidz Bop playing through the speakers, and a pet pig roaming around, but here I am. The event itself is extravagant beyond words, and Katie, the birthday girl, is clearly spoiled, but not in a way that has you believing she’s going to grow up obnoxious. She’s spoiled with love, and maybe I should add jealousy to the list of emotions I’m currently drowning in.

  Mom shoots me a glare and slowly runs an open hand in front of her face, as if silently telling me to fix my face.

  I should fix her face. Rearrange it.

  I run my fingers through my hair and squeeze. And then I release it quickly. No. I don’t do that anymore. I never did. It was the triggers that made me do it.

  With a deep breath, I try to resettle my thoughts. I just need to remind myself of the triggers, make sure I overcome them, and I’ll be fine. I give my mother my most disingenuous smile before turning on my heels and walking away. I may be twenty-two, but I’m not above petty. Leaving the party behind me, I make my way toward the apartment. If I sit on the steps, I’ll be out of view, and then she won’t be able to keep telling me that I’m not behaving in accordance to the standards of the great Virginia Kovács. I wish I could strip her of that name. She doesn’t deserve it, which is why I’m here.

  I make it safely to the garage and notice the door open. It’s a mistake to peek inside because the first things I notice are the bikes. Leo’s and mine. And even though my mind is yelling trigger, trigger, trigger, I can’t help but gravitate toward them. “Why are you still here?” I mentally ask the bike, running a finger over the pink handlebars. It still looks new. Besides the dust covering it and the slight fraying of the white basket’s wood, it’s exactly as I remember it.