Impetuous (Victory Lap Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  Dark eyes had let her go without another word. She should have thanked him instead of acting tough and then ruining it with gardening jokes. Normally, she wasn’t so ill-mannered. If only he knew what she was going through—but no, it wasn’t anybody else’s business.

  “He’s a handsome one, Kade Saxton,” the nurse manning the desk said, pushing a visitor log and pen at Tess. She had black, curly hair in a tight bun at the back of her head and the warmest, deep brown eyes Tess had ever seen.

  “Who?” Tess bluffed, focusing on the log while she stored away his name. It suited him. Figures, she heard the name to go with the attitude from a lady that was supposed to have been trained in confidentiality.

  “He’s trouble with a T, that’s who,” the nurse said, playing on a knock-knock joke, and ignoring the bluff. Lame was going around. “You just have to know how to sweeten him up. I suggest candy. That boy has always got something sugary in his pocket. A man’s heart is through his stomach.”

  Tess felt her lips twitch. Yeah, she had no doubt Kade was as bad as he advertised. Real mean for him to pull her out of danger and worry about a little cut on her lip. Next thing, he’d be outside rescuing kittens from trees. Whatever brought Kade to the hospital, she doubted it was half as nefarious he probably wanted to project.

  Hot boys were still not on her list today, especially hot bad boys with a sweet tooth. “I’m here for Madeline Sinclair,” Tess said, cutting to her purpose.

  Mad as Sin. Mad Maddy. Mom.

  “Where are your parents?” came a nosy voice from the left, drawing Tess’s attention away from the sweet, funny nurse. “It’s not safe for you to be here without them.”

  Tess put the pen down on the log book and turned to face the privacy pirate. Way to broadside her when she was distracted. Besides, Tess could protect herself just fine. Kade had helped, sure, but she doubted a crazy guy that had been jacketed could have done much other than knocking her over, and at her height, there wasn’t a far distance to fall.

  Her mother, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be much help if someone tried to take a bite out of Tess. She was too sick to take care of the two kids she had at home, forget the newly returned teenager her mother thought was months away from a one-way trip to university and a brighter future.

  Fate likes to kick you in the teeth if you smile too wide.

  Time to give nosy a reality check. Tess looked the old lady up and down her flower-patterned dress. This girl was grown up and taking care of her mother. Grandma might even find herself at her kid’s mercy or tucked away in a nursing home in a few years, so she better get with the program.

  “Which room?” Tess asked the nurse behind her while delivering her best angsty teen glare.

  There was a gentleman beside nosy with a lot of grey up top and a buttoned-to-the-chin white shirt, tucked into plain black pants. Tess got the ‘tell ‘em through the door that we pray to the devil or they’ll keep hounding us’ vibe from the couple.

  Better to scare the missionaries away now from trying to help or convert her.

  “You must be new to town. Are you visiting a relative?” the old man asked, not unkindly. He looked at her like she was a lost child or stray puppy in the rain.

  “What room is Maddy in?” Tess asked, turning a moment to shoot the nurse a desperate glance. She had enough unasked for help today. Nobody was going to pity her.

  “Room 2041-b,” the nurse answered. “Maddy likes the reading room at the end of the hallway after lunch.”

  Tess looked back at the older couple. “Mom is in the library. Should be safe, unless the books come to life. Excuse me,” she said, moving with haste to get out of the line of fire before more questions could be shot her way.

  The lady grabbed her arm. Tess fought back the urge to rip away, knowing that grandma was old enough to get away with the grab but Tess would be unfairly judged as a violent, emotional teenager if she did anything but stop and listen to her elders.

  “Stay away from Kade Saxton.”

  Really? Tess was being warned off from the first guy around her age to talk to her since she got into town.

  Not that she planned on going back through the doors and seeing if he was still hanging around. They weren’t going to have coffee afterwards or exchange numbers. She probably wouldn’t see Kade again unless he planned to make regular visits to the psych hospital, and who would, except for those with an illness that needed to be treated here and their families?

  “Mrs. Watson, you’ll frighten the girl,” her husband said.

  At least, Tess presumed they were married. Who really knew, if they couldn’t refer to each other using their first names? It seemed pretentious to Tess, like the husband was claiming his wife by his surname that took over her own identity.

  “I’m not easily frightened,” Tess protested.

  She purposely looked out the doors to see if Kade was still out there. Looking for him again hadn’t been in her plans, but now, she was curious.

  His black stare was on her. He must have been buzzed inside the doors when she wasn’t paying attention and now Kade was looking over at the three of them, likely overhearing everything being said. The amusement in his eyes from earlier, when he called her Pumpkin, was gone. He nailed glare down with dark perfection, giving her a chill.

  “Kade wasn’t always so rough around the edges,” the older man said, unaware of who was behind him. “He used to be a choir boy at the church, along with his brother. They were twin angels. It’s truly a pity what happened to his family.”

  Skeletons should never leave the closet undressed. You could see right through them.

  “Mr. Watson, I really don’t think you should be telling me-” Tess started, but was interrupted.

  “Drink and drugs. It’s the devil’s tools to temptation. That boy will ruin a sweet girl like her. See how she’s looking after her poor, sick mother with such filial dedication? You don't see that often, anymore,” Mrs. Watson said, talking over Tess to her husband.

  Obviously, they were going to advise her despite Tess not wanting to hear it, and they couldn’t even agree on what advice to give.

  Devil or Angel? Kade Saxton seemed to be the perfect mix of both. She had known his ethnicity would be an interesting mixture. Too bad, she didn’t have time in her life for the complications that interesting would bring.

  “He’s a juvie, Mrs. Watson. When he’s done his time and counselling here, the records will have been wiped clean, just like a confession and penance. We must forgive,” Mr. Watson said. “Those less fortunate than us deserve our mercy,” he added, with a look at Tess.

  May God have mercy on your soul because the rest of us will curse you to hell.

  Did they know her mother? More important, had her mother done something wrong to the Watsons? Her mother was full of promises when things were good, high on life and ambitious enough to issue an IOU to deliver the moon. But when things crashed—and they always fell apart—then her mother would lash out at anyone that put pressure on her, set expectations. It was the price to pay, rises of the high as deep as the lows, and the unwary that befriended her mother paid dearly.

  Kade’s stare broke into Tess’s fractured focus as he took a step towards them, hands clenched at his side. His eyes burned like coals, rage banked and waiting for the right spark to light up again.

  Tess felt she should be a little afraid of him but all that anger seemed like a substitute for something else. She had seen people before they snapped out, mindless or on purpose, a tightening of their muscles in preparation to strike out, eyes fixed on their target.

  Look at me when you apologize, girl.

  No, Kade wasn’t even staring at the Watsons. His eyes were on her and they were hiding something stronger than mad violence, masking a hurt that he didn’t want her to see. She had felt that pain intimately, blinked it from her eyes before anyone found out they had gotten to her.

  Tess pulled her arm firmly from Mrs. Watson’s grip. “Kade saved me from g
etting injured earlier. He was nice and he didn’t care that I was a stranger. Some people don’t need to know about someone’s dirty laundry before they agree to help.”

  Kade’s eyebrows shot up, just a tiny bit, but Tess knew she had surprised him. The look on his face was much more satisfying than the smirk earlier. She’d take that as thanks. Turning abruptly around and dismissing all of them and their small town drama, Tess marched towards the end of the hallway.

  She held her head up high, hearing only the rumble of the patients and not whether the gossipy nurse or the Watsons were speculating on Tess’s own shameful history. It would only be fair if Kade got to overhear it, although Tess didn’t have to like it. She had the corner on screwed-up monopolized and Kade was free to scoot away and back to a normal life, whatever mistake he had made worked off as Mr. Watson had proposed.

  Forgiven but never forgotten.

  Chapter 2

  TESS KNEW THERE WAS no cure for the illness that plagued her mother. No upper or leveller that would smooth the bumpy road or drag their family from the pits for long. It had all been tried and thrown down the toilet before, and confession didn’t do a goddamn thing except make it easier for the devil to claim her mother’s soul, locked up here, away from the family that cared more about if her mother slept without a nightmare than if she ate her breakfast of pills.

  “Mommy!” called an older woman’s voice pitched youthfully.

  Tess sucked in a deep breath to brace herself before hastily entering the sunny room that the hospital had set up as a quieter recreational area for inpatients and their families. She didn’t want Kade or any of the other nosy people she’d left behind catching sight as a curly blonde with a couple of decades and half a foot over Tess squealed like a child hearing the ice cream truck.

  “Maddy,” Tess whispered, accepting the hug that ripped her off her feet. Her mother’s strong arms easily carried her further into the room.

  There was a PSW seated beside the old guy with the Red Sox cap, helping him sort all the edges to a kitten puzzle. She glanced up at Tess and smiled. “Maddy has been waiting for you all morning,” she greeted. “Are you her oldest daughter?”

  Tess grimaced as the hug tightened. Her mother wouldn’t want anyone to force the truth down her throat when she was repressing. There had only been a few times when her mother acted the child and all of them had been triggered by something terrible, leaving her mother vulnerable and liable to strike out, if only to protect herself until she could lick her wounds.

  Oh, why hadn’t Tess asked her younger sister, Ashley, more about what landed their mother a form 1 admission? Tess should have known better than to accept her mother had missed a few days of pills.

  Meds wouldn’t have taken long to rebalance and their mother would have been out. The kids could have gone into temporary custody and been back with their mother in barely a week, at most, and child services certainly wouldn’t have called Tess over such a mundane event.

  Bipolar episodes were expected, especially with a rapid cycler like her mother. This delusional belief, the psychosis, however, was something much deeper and it wouldn’t be easy to dig her mother out of it.

  For one moment, quickly suppressed, Tess wished she could contact her dad and ask him what had worked last time.

  No. He didn’t care about them anymore.

  She’s faking it, using us. What do you have to be depressed about when I give you everything?

  First thing, after Tess finished visiting her mother and ensured she was being properly cared for at this hospital, Tess was going to sit down with the kids and hold a family meeting. Things were going to have to change if this was as bad as it sounded. There was a year of grace for Tess to figure it all out if she wanted her own future to move forward.

  A victory lap. That was what the school had called it, trying to put a positive spin on Tess halting her university application and taking a few more classes, enough to graduate after she had to drop from her non-semestered school, losing the needed credits. Lots of students did it, pushing their marks higher or taking a course that was too full the year before or that they had changed their mind about for their future career direction.

  Was she really one of them? The unorganized and the unprepared, and a few of the too rich to care—although they usually took a gap year to play with their family’s money before being forced to do the minimum to get a token degree—and none of those categories seemed to fit Tess. She was going to be older than everyone else, held behind as much as the kids that couldn’t cut it.

  This was her last chance; their family’s last chance.

  Her mother sat down with Tess on her lap, lowering them both onto some colourful cushions strewn in the darkest corner of the room. There was a strategically placed bookcase in front that blocked the view of the door and the drapes were drawn across the window behind them, almost hiding the view of the black bars across the glass. This was only the second floor, but one couldn’t be too careful with the patients that resided here.

  Bridge to Terabithia was open on the floor, the spine cracked open a long time ago. At least, they had let her mother bring some of her favourite possessions. It was a privilege, which meant she couldn’t be doing too bad if she had earned something, no matter how small it might seem to others.

  Another reality is only a book away.

  “Are you okay?” the PSW asked, reminding Tess of her presence.

  Tess sighed. She was so scatterbrained without coffee to help her focus. Lifting her head up in a reassuring smile for their company, she politely answered.

  “I’m good. Just haven’t seen Maddy for a while,” she said, carefully not referring to her mother by anything other than her nickname. “My name is Tess,” she added.

  “I’m Amanda,” the PSW replied, hesitantly smiling again. It wasn’t as bright. The image that Tess and Maddy presented must be strange, even for the general ward. People were disgusted by anything that crept close to pedophilia. This wasn’t, but Maddy’s little girl mommy still hit an unnatural boundary that made people uncomfortable.

  Tess wiggled off her mother’s lap. Time to try to look normal, bizarre as that was in this place. She picked up the book and closed it. There was still half of a cover, torn from a destructive fit her mother had a few years ago. She had cut her hair with kitchen scissors and left her manic-fueled mark on everything she possessed at the time, crashing like a wrecking ball, but her mother hadn’t touched a single thing that belonged to anyone else.

  “I signed the paperwork for the twins to come back home,” Tess said to her mother, turning to face towards only her and away from the PSW. “Sneaks can’t get sprung until I pay the fee to the pound, but I already told them we’ll be claiming him back so the adorable bugger doesn’t get adopted.”

  “He has a hanging tongue,” her mother replied, tracing the torn edge of her book with a bitten fingernail.

  That was one habit they shared, chewing on their worries. Luckily, Tess understood it, as well as her mother’s strange statement. Their minds were sometimes scarily similar. They both thought about everything, but her mother had difficulty organizing and presenting her thoughts when she was sick. Tess just got lost in thoughts, unless she had something to focus her.

  “There is nothing wrong with his tongue. He’s a Shi-Tzu cross and they have small muzzles. He grew into the tongue,” Tess reminded her. The breeder had thought him defective and gifted him to their family after her mother promised to have him neutered. He did look funny with his tongue hanging out in all the pictures for the first year, but now, it only happened when he got excited and slobbery.

  “Nobody wants him. They’ll give him the shot, Tessa,” her mother predicted with a dramatic gasp. “I’ve got my pennies saved up. Break the bank!”

  Tess tried to shift herself so her body blocked her mother from everyone else. “Don’t worry. I get the monthly check tomorrow and I’ll spring the toe nipper before anybody finds out his bite is worse than his bark,
” Tess said, grabbing her mother’s hands and giving them a squeeze.

  She had to keep Maddy calm. There were important things to discuss and her mother didn’t need to make a scene, getting herself drugged up and back in solitary when she just made general.

  Her mother cried.

  Crap. Tess squeezed her mother’s hands. “It’s okay, I promise I’ll take care of everything,” Tess whispered, trying to keep it soothing instead of letting her panic slip.

  “Are you okay?” asked the PSW.

  Please stop asking when it was clear everything was hanging by a thread. Tess looked behind her and smiled at the PSW again. This time there was no mistaking the strain in her faked grin.

  “She misses our pet dog, Sneaks. He’s a bit of a trouble maker, but we’ve had him since he was a pup,” Tess excused.

  “I love animals,” Red Sox said, looking adoringly down at his kitten, now puzzled together. “They won’t let me keep a pet,” he added as he looked up at Tess.

  That could mean something bad but Tess had learned not to take words at face value. Judgement had a way of skewing opinions too early.

  Another squeeze of her mother’s hands and the sound of crying muffled. There was a sniff. Her mother’s fingers felt so frail in Tess’s grip, as if all her age had been given to her thin digits. Hands showed life’s troubles better than the face.

  “Do you have a tissue?” Tess asked the PSW.

  “I do, I do,” Red Sox said and he pulled out a blue fabric-wrapped packet from his jogging pants.

  Someone had embroidered his name on the handmade tissue pouch. They wouldn’t allow any plastic bags, no matter how small, in the psych ward. The handmade pouch was thoughtful and told Tess this old man had family that cared, or at least, he had a caring family at one time.