by A. R. Breck
I jumped on it, fast.
Aeron, on the other hand, was working diligently at the refinery during the day and getting his apprenticeship as a tattoo artist in the evening.
Yes, surprise.
I had no idea he had any goals or aspirations or was even artistically gifted enough to draw.
Once I secured my job as a kindergarten teacher, Aeron finished his apprenticeship and used some money he saved up from his job and bought a little hole in the wall in a strip mall nearby.
Named it Mercon Tattoo.
Mercy-Aeron
Mercon
Yeah, he’s clever.
Since then, life has taken off. Aeron gets business, and by business, I mean people from all over the world come and get tattoos from him. He has a few other artists in the shop, but he’s the main guy, and everybody wants to go to him.
When the car pulls to a stop a short time later, I start to get even more anxious. “Can I take off the blindfold now?”
“Not yet. Just wait.” The car turns off, and I hear his door shut. A few seconds later, mine opens and I feel his hand curl around mine. “Follow me.”
“I don’t think I have any other choice.” I grumble.
Aeron chuckles, but says nothing as he pulls me along. I follow, and the fresh air feels good on my skin. I smell the air, trying to figure out if the smell can determine where I am. I can’t smell anything distinct, though, only fresh air. Clean.
Okay, we’re not in the city.
It feels like we walk forever, Aeron silently pulling me along with his hand wrapped in mine. Finally, we stop.
“Now?” I plead.
“Now.” He rasps in my ear.
I reach up and yank the blindfold off, and gasp.
And then fall to my own knees.
“You’re not supposed to do that.” Aeron chuckles, also on his knee. A tiny black box sits in his hand, opened up with the most beautiful oval shaped engagement ring I’ve ever seen. The center is a crystal blue opal with a vintage band. It’s beautiful. Stunning.
I cry as I look at him.
“Why are you crying?” He asks with a frown.
“Because it’s beautiful.”
He laughs and then gets a serious look on his face. “Baby, this past seven years has been a roller coaster. One that I never want to get off. Our ups and our downs only make us stronger in the end. I wouldn’t want to take this ride with anyone else. You make my world steady. You make things that seemed unattainable seem possible. When the tides rise, you keep me afloat. It’s time we get married, Mercy.”
My cheeks bloom red. “Really?”
“Shit, what do you think, I’m joking? Of course, I want to marry you. It’s why I didn’t ask. I just told you—we’re getting married.”
I laugh. “You’re such a dick. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for a kiss. “Thank fucking God.” He mumbles against my lips. I chuckle as I kiss him, and people around me start clapping and cheering.
“I asked my dad, too. For permission to marry you, that is.” He laughs in my ear.
“Oh, no. What did he say?” I can’t imagine what Dave thought. He’s become seriously overprotective of me these last few years.
“Said that if I fuck up he’s going to take away my inheritance and give it all to you.”
I gasp. “He did not.”
“Yeah, he did.” He shakes his head. “So, do you know where we are?”
I look around. “No. Where are we?”
“Turn around.”
I do as he says, and gasp again. In front of me lays Mount Rushmore. The beautiful rocks sprawl around me in the most magnificent structure. Tears spring to my eyes as memories come back to me of being here when I was younger with my parents.
Aeron comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “Remember that time you stole that stupid rock from the store?”
I scowl at him. “It wasn’t stupid.”
He waves his hand. “Whatever. I never forgot about that day. That Mount Rushmore rock meant so fucking much to you. I know you’ve told me your parents took you there. I know you guys would road trip and do fun things together. This is just my little piece of that. This is me telling you, that I’m going to take you to every mountain top, to every single corner of the world and adventure with you. I’m going to show you the world, Mercy.”
I cry, curling under his good arm. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”
He turns me around so I’m facing him. “When we met, I feel like we were both so broken. Your parents died; my mom died. Then we both lost Aric. We were both so lost in this world. We found solace in drugs, and I feel like it drowned us and numbed us of the world. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing, but we eventually found our way back to each other. I feel like we thought life was so great all blitzed out on drugs, but we were blinded by them. You know that. But we didn’t need them, Mercy. You are my bliss. You will forever be my bliss.”
I look up at him and curl myself around him, giving him a desperate kiss. He doesn’t need words from me for an answer. He knows what he means to me.
He’ll forever be my bliss, too.
The End.
Continue on for a sneak peak to my next book from Grove High – Jackson’s book!
Prologue
Age Thirteen
"What the fuck you doin' boy? Quit lookin' at me like some kind of freak!" I flinch and curl into myself with each lash of his words. I look down at the floor, but I know that's just going to end up making him even more mad.
Everything makes him mad.
"Look at me when I'm speaking to you!" He bellows.
My watery gaze shoots up to my father. I hate the look in his eyes. That disgusted sneer that he sends my way whenever I'm in breathing distance of him. My gaze flits quickly to my mom sitting on the chair in the other room, but all I can see is her shaky palm hold the pencil as she tries to finish that damn Sudoku.
She wouldn't dare say a word, anyway.
They keep me near because they have no other choice, but I know they wish they could toss me in the trash bin like the moldy bologna in the refrigerator.
It hasn't always been this way.
They've never been a loving family, but I used to be shown respect and treated like a human, not this beaten and battered dog they think I am.
It all happened when I was five. My mom and dad asked me to watch by baby sister so they could go down to the bar for a little while and celebrate their friend Jolene's birthday party.
She was one, and she usually napped a good portion of the afternoon. With the bar just across the street, they usually had me watch my sister Wren frequently enough where it was nothing new to me.
When they came home two hours later, my mom went right into Wren's bedroom, and only a second later I heard her scream. My dad ran after her, pushing me out of the way with such force that I fell over and knocked the back of my head into the corner of the lamp.
I tried to clear the fogginess as the police officers and ambulance showed up and tried to do CPR on Wren for what felt like hours.
SIDS, they say.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
It's rare after a child turns one, but I guess we ended up being that small percentage that gets the shit end of the stick.
The ambulance left with its lights off and my baby sister in the back. My parents were rushing around to follow them, faces void of all emotion. I sat in the corner and stayed near that damn lamp that gave me a cut on the back of my head.
Right before my parents walked out the door, it's like my dad finally remembered I existed. His face went from white to red as he stalked over to me, lifted me by the back of the shirt and threw me into our tiny coat closet.
"Don't even think about leaving this spot. Not to eat. Not to piss. You fucking stay here until I say otherwise." Then he slammed me into the darkness and didn't come back.
Not for five days
.
I peed my pants instantly, out of terror and grief. The hunger didn't hit until day two, and at that point it felt like my insides were trying to claw their way out of my skin. The gnawing hunger made me feel sick, but with my stomach so empty I just ended up curling into myself and crying in misery.
My mouth was so dry that my tongue felt swollen. I could barely swallow as my lips started cracking and my tongue kept sticking to the roof of my mouth.
My parents came back on day four. I perked up from my barely conscious nap and was about to open the door when I remember what my dad said. How he looked.
Instead, I started tapping on the door, "Mommy? Dad?"
"Randy, he's been stuck in there all this time?" My mom gasps, walking closer.
I get up on my knees, ready to get out of these crunchy, urine ridden clothes. I stopped peeing yesterday, but the smell took over the entire room to the point I can only breathe out of my mouth, unless I wanted to get dizzy from the powerful scent.
"Mary, don't you dare open up that door. He needs to learn his lesson. It's his fault! Let him sit a while longer."
I could feel my mom on the other side of the door, teetering on what she should do. I heard some whispers, and then listened as the footsteps retreated to the living room.
I tapped on the door, "Daddy, please. I'm sorry!"
"You say one more word, Jackson, and I'll fucking kill you myself!"
I instantly start crying and crawl to the back corner of the closet. I've never heard him yell at me like that before. I've never heard him so angry, so hateful.
So instead, I curled in the back corner of the pitch-black closet. The only light I had was the crack underneath the door. For the next day, I get excited when I see a shadow pass underneath the door, hopeful that the nightmare is about to end.
I'm asleep when it finally does end. Light filters in for the first time in five days, and I have to shield my hand over my fast as my eyes adjust to the bright light.
"Get up, boy." I wasn't boy before the nightmare began. But now it seems like all I am is boy. I lost my sister, and I lost my name.
I stand up, weak in the knees and more dizzy than I've ever been in my life. I watch as my dad's nose wrinkles up at the sight and smell of me.
"You smell like shit, boy. You better not have ruined the carpet in there!" He shouts, walking up to me and standing toe to toe.
In the next moment, I get a fist to the cheek and many to the stomach. My lights go out quickly. I'm too weak to defend myself, and at this point, I don't think I deserve to.
"You're a murderer!" was the last thing I heard out of him that day.
It was the first time my dad hit me, but it wasn't going to be the last.
I snap out of my thoughts when my ear gets yanked and I get a fist in my side. "I didn't say look at your mother, boy. I said look at me."
My eyes go back to my dad, fear and exhaustion mingling, but I could never let him see that.
Because I'm now thirteen, I'm considered a man and can't cry, even when it's my father who's beating the shit out of me.
"I told you to take the rest of this fucking garbage out. We have to get going. Now are you going to sit there like a retard and stare into space, or get the hell moving?" He looms over me like a hulking shadow, and I back up and grab the red strings attached to the garbage bag next to the front door.
Even though my side hurts, I still raise up my chin and respond how he wants, "I'm sorry, dad. Won't happen again."
"You're damn right, it won't." He mumbles about useless kids, and I take that as my cue to get the hell out of dodge.
Out front is our conversion van, packed to the brim with the belongings we're able to take with us. I'm excited, because today we're moving. Not even my piece of shit father is going to dampen my day. I don't know much of what's going on, but apparently my dad got a job with some guy named Rich in Minnesota, so we're leaving our rust bucket trailer down in Iowa and driving the five hours up to the Grove.
The Grove.
I hope things change for us there. I hope it's a nice place, filled with nice people and nice friends where I can finally be a kid for once. None of the kids want to be around me here, we're the family with the abusive father, drugged up mother, and murderer son. No one wants to be around any of us.
I'm also excited to leave this trailer behind. I hope it rots and falls to pieces, because no one should have to be around a trailer such as this one. It's cursed. It's got to be. The amount of times I've spent in that damn closet. It's been the brunt of my nightmares for so long that I can't even look at it as I walk past. I've long past taken everything out of there that I would ever use.
Dad stopped putting me in there around the age of ten. Not because he finally stopped beating on me. No, it's because I got too big to fit in there. Instead, he just hits me harder. He's learned to keep it out of visible spots, though. Now I just have to worry about my internal organs getting bruised or having internal bleeding. Like the last time.
Fuck. I can't even think about it.
Anyway, I think that moving out of Iowa will be a good move for us. Maybe mom will stop snorting the coke she buys from some dude called Rusty from behind the bar. She started it about a year after Wren died, and Dad started drinking more, and since then they've both been intoxicated most of the day. Every day.
My parents' relationship went from one filled with happiness to one filled of nightmares and demons. My mom is skittish not only because she loves drugs more than herself, but also because my dad hits her too. He usually starts with me, and when I'm all used and bruised, he moves onto my mom.
I tried to stop it once, but that ended up with me having a night filled with cigarettes being snubbed out on my back.
I shiver, hating when my thoughts relive my past.
"Jackson, would you quit stalling and get in the fucking car? Unless you want to stay here and fend for yourself. Shit, no skin off my back." Dad mumbles. I look behind me and see the trailer closed and locked up. Mom sits in the passenger seat, still playing on that damn Sudoku. Dad stands with his arm leaning over the hood of the car, his wife beater loose and tinged gray.
Glancing around, I see the bar across the street, which looks abandoned, but I very well know it's not. It's my parents first home, and the trailer being their second. The few other trailers that are in this small park (if you could even call it that) are ridden with the same look of despair and drug-ladden families. Yet, we're still the most tainted.
Always have been, always will be.
"Coming." I run over toss the garbage bag into the dumpster in front of the bar, and then haul ass with my bare feet across the pebbled ground all the way into the van. They didn't make much room for me, but that's okay.
I'll make do with what I've got. Because where I'm going, I'm never looking back.
On November 11, 1999, it was my parents wedding anniversary. My father had chest pains, and decided to go to the hospital. On his way, they got unbearable. He pulled over and had a heart attack on the side of the road. My family was never the same. I am not Mercy, but I know how Mercy felt. Count your blessings and hold your family tight. Life is too short.
-A.R. Breck
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First off, I want to thank my family for believing in me and not hating me when I had my face stuck in a computer for hours on end. It's difficult, and tiring, but you guys stuck with me, and for that I love you so much. I want to thank my readers for doing what we all love—reading. I wouldn't feel so motivated to get these books out as fast as I have without your love, and support, and encouragement, and for that, I love you guys. Thank you! Finally, I want to give a special thanks to Rachel, Janessa, Brittany, Victoria, Laura, and Paige. You guys are so awesome and thank you for everything that you do. I love you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A.R. Breck lives in Minnesota with her husband, two children and two dogs. She enjoys reading, writing and sharing her stories with the world. When she isn’t w
orking, A.R. Breck loves to watch horror movies, road trip around the country and read dark romance novels.
FOLLOW ME
Instagram: @ar.breck
Facebook: @ar.breck
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Email: [email protected]
OTHER BOOKS BY A.R. BRECK
Reapers and Roses (Grove High School Book One)
Thorn in the Dark (Grove High School Book Two)