by Eden Rose
Like my mother or my sister.
“KiKi, why does mom hate us so much?” Callie asks me as we cuddle in her bed.
It’s a dark night or day. I’m not sure what time it is and I have lost all sense of time or date. Maybe it’s the same day or maybe it’s a month after our mother had left us.
I rub the top of her snarly haired head and she winces as I catch a knot. “Come on, we need to take a bath. We never know when she’s going to be home.”
She winces and shifts on the bed. “No, maybe if I stink… she will leave me alone.”
I shake my head and hold her closer to me. “You don’t mean that.” My own jealousy has me wanting to strangle her. It’s not Callie’s fault that our mother likes her more than me. It’s not a secret either.
“You don’t know what she does to me. You have no idea how bad it is.”
“Tell me about it.”
My sister’s face is tight and her eyes flood with tears. “She’s a mean person. Sometimes she makes me watch her and other men in her bed. They are doing gross things. I don’t know how to explain it. One time she wanted me to join in and I threw up in the corner. The man that was there told her that I was a dud and he didn’t want to be in the same room with a dud. He even told her that he didn’t sign up for a pukey fucking kid.”
“Callie, there is no reason for swearing!” I chastise her. It’s no use. We both have heard worse words and we continue to hear them every time our mother is home from doing whatever it is that she does while she’s gone.
“I don’t know what to do. KiKi, she really scares me. I think she needs help.”
These thoughts have crossed my mind plenty of times before, but I would never be the one to say anything. I don’t want my mother to turn the anger on me.
“Stupid bitch! Wake up!”
My eyes open painfully and I look up to see the barrel of the gun again. I want to ask what it is that they are looking for, but my tongue feels like it’s made of lead. There’s no way that I can use it right now.
Finding the strength that I didn’t realize that I had, I ask: “What are you looking for?” I don’t know if it’s a clear sentence but I don’t even care. I want to know what they are looking for.
Wyatt
I’ve been home all of fifteen minutes before I realize that I miss Keeley too much to leave her alone. I grab my keys and wallet and walk out the door.
Ruth and Luke aren’t home and I’m not going to bother with calling them. I want to see my girl again.
Having her to binge on for the past few days, has been amazing. I will always remember her eyes as I slipped the necklace around her neck. Truth be told, I almost didn’t think it was going to be enough. But she’s not like other girls. She’s not the type of girl that will want the big shiny things. She’s happy with the little stuff and I love her so much more for it.
I hop into my car and start it. Should I call her before I show up? I don’t want to interrupt her if she’s telling Jerry to get fucking lost. I really hope she’s doing that. Keeley needs to free herself from him before she can fully give herself to me. Which is what I want. I want her to be all mine and no one else’s.
Am I really desperate by driving all the way to her house? I just left her. I don’t think it’s a good idea that I show up so soon.
Well, what else can I do between now and the appropriate time to surprise her with kisses?
I’m going to go to the jewelry store.
The five minute drive feels like forever and I can’t help but feel like there is somewhere else I should be at right now. I don’t know why, but there is a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that is telling me to turn around.
Realizing that I’m just going crazy, I park my car along the downtown parking and exit it. The store that I like is about two downtown blocks away.
I swing by the coffee house and get myself a coffee. I normally don’t drink it, but I’m beginning to develop a taste for it. The sweet and bitter taste of the coffee wakes me up with a jolt and I stroll out of the coffee house with purpose.
There’s something about today… I’m not sure what it is but I’m feeling like there is about to be a big change.
By the time I walk into the jewelers, I have downed my coffee and discarded the cup in the outside trash can. The store is small but very shiny with bright lights and carpets that look like they are made out of diamonds.
You know that shiny ass carpet that women are obsessed with? It’s that kind of carpeting.
“May I help you?” A voice from behind me asks.
I spin on my heels and see a younger woman standing there with her mouth open. Smugly, I smile my rogue grin and she swoons a little more. This is too easy.
“I’m looking for a present.”
The girl smiles more and fluffs out her blonde hair. It’s that fake blonde color that no man falls for. It’s a nasty orange-ish color and it makes me wonder what else is fake on her body. There had to have been more work done on her.
She’s probably early twenties and this is more than likely her first real job. At least that’s my opinion. The woman is wearing some tighter than sin clothing that leaves little to nothing to the imagination and my dick doesn’t even stand at attention.
Not even half of a salute.
The look on her face as she registers what I say is alarming. I can tell she’s trying to decide if I’m worth money or not. I don’t wear clothes that are too flashy nor do I have any jewelry on besides my championship ring that I got this morning upon arriving home.
“Are you sure you’re in the right place?” She asks me and looks me up and down. Inwardly I smirk when she sees my ring. “Oh, I’m sorry. How may I help you?”
“Yes, like I said. I’m looking for a present for my girlfriend.”
The woman places her hand on the glass case behind her and staggers back a little. “Your girlfriend?”
Is this woman fucking with me? Seriously. She’s about as smart as a rock. “Yeah. Is there someone else here that could help me?” I’m growing impatient and I can’t help but sense that the time is moving faster than I had allowed myself to take in here.
My intentions are to surprise Keeley with something beautiful so every time she looked at it, she would see me. Yeah, the necklace is pretty, but it’s not exactly what I want her to have.
Growing up, like I have said before, I didn’t have money, so now that I do, I like to keep it. However, with Keeley, I like her to know that I can support her.
Oh my fucking god. I have turned into one of those love struck teenagers where I’m thinking crazy shit.
The woman staggers back more but then gains her composure while pasting a fake smile on her face. “I’m sorry about that. What kind of gift are you looking for?”
*
Thirty minutes later, I’m walking out of the jeweler’s with an invoice for a few different things; I couldn’t decide what to get her so I got a couple of things. Hell, you never know when you are going to be feeling generous or something.
A strange pang hit my stomach and I felt as if the air came rushing out of my stomach. I don’t know where the hell that came from, but I have had the wind knocked out of me before, and it feels similar to what I’m feeling now.
Keeley.
Without hesitation, I’m running to my car and dialing her number on my phone. It goes straight to voicemail. I try it again. Same thing. What the hell? I make it to my car in just a few seconds and then I’m starting it.
I activate the bluetooth on my phone so I’m able to concentrate on driving and trying to get her on the phone. “Call Cupcake!” I demand to my steering wheel.
“Hey, it’s Keeley!”
Didn’t even ring. I stab at the screen to shut it off and drive over to her house. I can feel the panic start to rise in my stomach and I can’t help but feel as if I’m about to throw up.
The drive there is over before I know it but the fact that the road is blocked by cop cars and ambulances ar
e enough to make me panic ever more.
What the hell is going on?
Flashbacks of what happened before flash through my mind. Oh shit. What if something happened to her? They said she passed out the last time, I’m wondering if she did that again. I don’t think she would because she seemed all right when I had seen her earlier.
I jump out of my car and run towards the officer that is directing everyone around the house. “Officer, what is going on?”
“Sir, I’m going to need to ask you to step aside please.”
“No, you don’t understand!”
“Wyatt!” A voice yells and then I turn my head to see Olivia and Shana standing in front of the house. It was Shana that said my name so I look at her and wait for her to explain.
When she doesn’t say anything, I stalk past the office and straight to Keeley’s friends. “What happened? Please tell me.”
“She was shot. Someone ransacked her house and she got caught in the line of fire or something.”
My heart begins to slow down to the point where I think it’s almost about to stop. Shot. She was shot. Someone shot Keeley and I wasn’t here to protect her. Someone shot my beautiful girl.
“Step aside please!” An angry voice to the left of me calls out. I look around me and see two men wheeling out a covered body.
My knees give out from beneath me and I feel like my vision is getting cloudy. “No! No! Are you serious? No!” I call over and over again. “Please, baby. Please, no! God damn it!”
Olivia is on my left side and she slaps me clean across the face. However, the words that she’s saying don’t register until she says: “That wasn’t Keeley. Keeley’s at the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“We don’t know. We are still waiting for information. I do know that she got served divorce papers today,” Shana says with finality.
“Good. Then she can be done with this fucker,” I murmur more to myself than to any of them.
Quickly, before I lose my shit, I jump back in my car and drive to the local hospital that is down the street from where we are. It’s only a five minute drive but it feels as if I have been in the car forever.
I park my car in the front of the lot and run to the automatic front doors. A strange sense of deja vu floods over me as thoughts of my previous trip to the hospital goes through my brain. Only this time, I’m hoping that I won’t have to deal with Jerry.
“I need to see Keeley Johnson,” I demand to the administrator at the front of the hospital.
The pretty, but older woman, with the blonde hair looks me up and down and I hope that she doesn’t recognize me. The last thing that I need is a bunch of cameras in here and taking pictures of us.
With a slightly wrinkled smile, she points through the doors and then upwards. “Miss Johnson is on the emergency floor which is through that door and up the stairs. She isn’t in a room yet, but she should be shortly.”
“Will I be able to see her?”
The woman looks up at me with her small green eyes and smiles at me. “Yeah, you should be able to see her as soon as she’s done in surgery.”
After hearing that she’s in surgery, I follow the directions to the emergency floor and then walk over to the nurse’s station. Granted, I know that they probably don’t have any other information for me than what I had just received, I’m desperate for some.
“Hi, I’m looking for Keeley Johnson.” Saying her last name is like a stab to the heart. It should be mine. Hell, everything that she is should be connected to me in every way humanly possible.
Again, the woman’s fingers run over the keys of the computer and then looks up at me. If I wasn’t so dead set on checking on Keeley, I would have noticed that the woman was attractive. Her skin is the color of mocha and her hair is a mix of all different colors in intricate braids. She’s about my age with a pretty smile and straight teeth.
“Sir, your wife is in surgery and we will let you know as soon as she’s out.”
I take that as my cue to sit down. I take my desperate ass to the waiting room and take a seat. Even though the seats are uncomfortable, I manage to get semi-situated.
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes trying to calm my breath. My breathing is erratic and it’s making me stress and have too much anxiety.
In the back of my mind, I fully register that I need to calm down but I can’t help it. We are finally at a place where we could be together and I’m not letting anyone ruin it for us.
The bulge from Keeley’s present in my jeans, is digging into my leg and I dig through my pocket to grab it out. Even though I am trying to be as unobservant as possible, I crack open the box and take a look at the three carat diamond ring that I have for her.
Tears well in my eyes as I think about how beautiful the ring would have looked on her finger and how happy she would have been to see it. I bet you she would have had said yes when I proposed to her.
In my years of getting out of the ghetto, I never expected that I would have bought a thirty thousand dollar ring for a woman. Much less a woman that is technically already married. But I did.
“Family for Keeley Johnson?” An older male doctor asks with a clipboard in his hand.
I stand up and walk over to him while sticking my hand out to shake his hand. It’s the polite thing to do. “I’m Wyatt. What’s going on with her?” I ask as calmly as possible. The tears are rolling down my cheeks unchecked and I don’t give a shit if you tell me I’m not a man for crying.
Fuck off. That’s my girl in the room.
“I’m Doctor Phillips and I have completed the operation on Keeley. She is very lucky.”
My heart starts to beat less as my breathing cools down. “You mean… She’s okay?” I need verbal confirmation that she’s okay. I won’t take medical jargon or whatever it’s called until I know for sure.
His balding head tips up to look at me through her wrinkled eyes. “Yes, sir. She is alive but the next couple of weeks are extremely critical. We will need to keep her here in order to make sure she’s healing physically and emotionally. She’s in her room right now if you want to go take a look.”
“Wait,” I call to the doctor as he turns his back from me. “What happened to her?”
Keeley
Is it possible for my head to bang like this? The left side of my body is killing me. I feel as if I were thrown into the wood chipper and I can’t move it. My arm feels as if it weighs a thousand pounds and even the hair on my arm hurts me.
Gingerly, I crack my eye lid open and then slam them shut as the fluorescent and stale lighting of where I am seeps through my sooty eyelashes.
My fingers twitch gently at the side and I try hard to take a deep breath in order to calm myself down. I feel trapped in this uncomfortable bed and it’s scaring me. Fear and unfamiliarity of the room that I am in has me gagging from the pressure.
What the hell happened?
“Cupcake?” Is whispered off to the side of my hearing.
I spin my head carefully to take a look at Wyatt who looks about how I feel. Like shit. But he’s still the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life.
“Hi,” I whisper to him and he smiles a soft smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. My fingers itch to touch him to let him know that I’m happy that he’s here but I can’t make them move. It’s extremely frustrating.
Wyatt drags those long fingers across the arm that is bandaged to my torso and then kisses me through the wrappings. “I’m so happy you are awake. You have been asleep for over a week and I have missed you so much.” His voice sounds tired, defeated and happy all at the same time about me being awake. His eyes look darker than ever and I wonder when the last time he slept was.
I wince over hearing the pain that is in his voice and I wish I could comfort him in some way. “I’m here now…” I murmur and then shudder a little from trying to remember what happened and why I am here.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry that I w
asn’t there for you.”
“Don’t,” I reply sternly. The predicament that I am in will be made worse if he is feeling guilty over it. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Against my own efforts, I feel my eyes close as sleep wedges through my mind. I once read that the mind needs sleep in order to prepare itself for healing. I don’t know if that’s the truth or not, but I’m willing to try anything right now.
He brushes his fingers through my snarly hair and I groan from him catching my hair in between his fingers. “Shit, I’m sorry. I will get a nurse to take you to get a shower.”
“No!” I yell out more than I wanted to. The truth is, I don’t want him to leave me. If he leaves me then I will be alone and that is the last thing that I want to do.
“Are you okay?”
I lightly shake my head and then wince at the movement. There’s a slight feeling in my gut that if I answer that question, I’m going to start crying. And once I start, there’s no stopping. I don’t want to cry in front of him. It’s bad enough that he probably thinks I’m trouble for the amount of shit that is going on in my life. Jesus. “Please don’t ask me that.”
He kisses my cheek and then says: “Whoever did this to you, is going to die. They will not live through this. I promise you that I will make them pay.”
Tears begin to leak out of my eyes and I look him over. He looks tired as if he hasn’t slept in a few days; but he’s still beautiful. He’s so beautiful. I feel like I look like a mess. A straight up nasty ass mess. “Stop,” I murmur.
“I will get a nurse.”
I watch as his tall body leaves the room and then I hear the footsteps of a few people. A nurse comes in dressed in multi-colored scrubs with a tired expression on her face.
“Hello, Keeley. How are you?”
“Hurt.”
She makes a clucking noise in her wrinkled mouth and then looks over to Wyatt. “Should we ask him to leave so I could talk to you?”
Wyatt shakes his head to make it known that he’s not wanting to leave. “No, it’s okay,” I say and he comes over to the side of the bed where my hand isn’t wrapped. The light pressure of his hand on my arm is actually calming.