by Vivian Gray
Quietly, I slipped out from between the sheets, padded across her bedroom floor, and tiptoed into the living room. I paused outside of her mom’s door and could hear the woman’s raspy, regular breathing, so clearly, she was still asleep. I dropped down into the sofa and tried my best to relax.
It felt strange to be alone in Kenna’s house. During the weeks I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, I’d driven by the house a few times. She’d told me how hard it was to keep the lights on and the water running, so every time I drove past and was able to see a lamp turned on inside, I was able to relax. She was okay. She didn’t need my help.
When had she become my responsibility? I kept telling her that she should get out from underneath her mom’s bullshit. That she should stop trying to take care of her and live her life. But what about Mom? At least Kenna and her mom were blood. Kenna was nothing to me. A perfect stranger. Yet, the idea that she could be in trouble made my stomach twist.
“You woke up early.”
I jumped when Kenna walked into the room, her arms stretched over her head. She was wearing a large T-shirt with a hole in the neck and nothing else. My eyes trailed down her long, thin legs before making the journey back to her face. Her eyes were puffy and sleepy, and a small smile played on her lips.
“Early riser,” I said brusquely.
She nodded. “Coffee?”
“No, I’m fine.” I wasn’t sure why I’d said it. I drank coffee every morning.
“I make a full pot every morning and then leave half of it to waste so there will be plenty if you change your mind.”
She disappeared into the kitchen, and I sat on the couch, struggling with what to say or do. I heard her moving around, and a few minutes later, heard bacon sizzling. A few minutes after that, I smelt it.
Helpless against the pull of breakfast – we’d both partaken in a fair amount of rigorous exercise the night before – I walked into the kitchen. Kenna had two mismatched ceramic plates on the table with mugs of coffee, cups of orange juice, a large pan of scrambled eggs, and a row of bacon sitting on a greasy paper towel.
It looked like a picture from a family magazine, the kind of images I scoffed at, claiming no one’s life really looked like that. Mine never had, at least. My mom was a good cook when she had the time – usually around holidays – but she barely had time to make me a bowl of cereal before taking off for work every morning.
And again, I didn’t spend the night with women I’d slept with. Kenna’s breakfast spread was making me second guess that decision though.
I ate quietly, deciding it would be better to say nothing at all than to stumble through the slew of messy feelings I had. Staying quiet was much easier than I anticipated because the breakfast was delicious. Working at a diner had clearly given Kenna unprecedented skills in the areas of making crispy bacon and perfectly fluffy eggs. I was about to break down and tell her how good everything was when a knock sounded at the door.
Kenna’s eyes shot to me, wide and nervous. It was barely eight. I was surprised Buzz was awake so early. In fact, after how badly he’d been beaten the night before, I was surprised he was even able to walk.
“Stay here,” I said, sliding my chair out and reaching into the pocket of my leather jacket, which was still on the floor from the night before, and pulling out my gun.
She stood up. I could tell she was going to argue, but I simply pointed at her bare legs.
“You don’t have any clothes on. Buzz already wants to sleep with you. Best not to tease him,” I said.
She blushed but nodded in agreement.
I walked to the door, turning around once to make sure Kenna wasn’t visible from the porch and then opened the door. Buzz had a shit-eating grin on his face that fell flat when he saw me. He took a step backward. His skin was a mess of purple and blue bruises. His eyes were a bit swollen, though his face was so puffy normally it was a little hard to tell, and his nose was sitting at a sharper angle than I remember.
“How can I help you, sir?” I asked, placing one hand on my hip, one still gripping the doorframe.
“Do you live here now?” He bristled, clearly annoyed to see me rather than Kenna.
“Did I ruin your plans?” I asked, dropping the nice act. “Were you planning to come here and use your lardy frame to intimidate two women into paying up or having sex with you? Were you expecting to get your rocks off this morning?”
His lip trembled between a sarcastic smile and a frown. “I’m just here to collect, same as you last night.”
“It’s not the same. We both know it.”
Buzz was there for Kenna, not her mom. He was there to do what I’d interrupted before. He was there to fuck Kenna to cover her mom’s debts, but he wouldn’t do it once. Just like the men who had abused my mom, who had used her for their own sick pleasures, he would show up again and again simply because he could. I wouldn’t stand for it.
“Do you want to get paid or not?” he asked a little desperately. “I can’t pay off my debts until I’m paid.”
“Consider their debts taken care of. It can come out of what you owe me.”
Buzz opened his mouth to say something, I wasn’t sure whether it was to agree or argue, but I held up a hand to silence him.
“If you come around here again, you’ll be shot without question. Leave these women alone, Buzz. Go darken someone else’s doorstep and fuck off.”
I could see the anger in his eyes, the humiliation burning its way up his red neck, but Buzz thudded down the stairs and across the lawn. I waited until his car was at the end of the block before I went back inside and locked the door behind me.
Kenna was there as soon as I turned around, her arms thrown around my neck. She smelled more like herself than ever, cinnamon and vanilla with a touch of bacon.
“Thank you, Trigger,” she said, nuzzling her head into my neck.
I felt like I was being torn in two. Part of me wanted to wrap my arms around her, carry her back to bed, and stay there all day. But another part of me wanted to cut and run. This was too much, too fast.
“Come finish your breakfast,” she said, her hand running down my arm and clutching my fingers, trying to pull me along after her.
Something pricked the back of my mind. It felt like a small tap on the shoulder, but when I turned around, no one was there. I followed Kenna back into the kitchen, and when she sat down at the table, her legs tucked up underneath her in her chair, I realized what it was.
Kenna reminded me of my mom.
I hadn’t thought of my mom in so long. Not as a real, living person anyway. I thought of her in terms of what happened to her, in the details of her life. Not in her mannerisms. Not in the way she always walked around the house barefoot, even in the middle of winter. Not in how she tucked her feet underneath her when we watched movies together. Or in the nervous way she tucked the strands of her dark hair behind her ears to eat.
Kenna moved like my mom, breathed like my mom. They looked entirely different. My mom was all dark hair and sharp angles. Her collarbones jutted out, her jaw came to a sharp point, her eyebrows were forever arched. Kenna was light and sunshine and softness. She was rounded edges and warmth.
But still, the similarities were there, and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to sit and watch her forever or run away.
“Are you going to eat?” Kenna asked, brows pulled together. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her small ear, her head tilted to the side, and it felt like looking at an old photograph.
I shook my head. “I really need to go.”
Her mouth opened into a tiny ‘o’, and she stood up, following me to the door.
“Okay. Right. I have to get to work in a couple of hours, anyway,” she said. Her feet shifted nervously on the thin living room carpet while I slipped into my black shoes and shrugged my jacket on. “Thanks for everything you have done for me.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just give me a call if Buzz comes around again.”
&nb
sp; She nodded, looking down at the floor.
I stepped out onto the porch, and Kenna peeked her head around the frame, her naked bottom half hidden around the back of the door. “What about if Buzz doesn’t come around again?”
“Thanks for breakfast,” I said, pretending I didn’t hear her, though we both know I did. I saw the hurt on her face, but I couldn’t dwell on it. I had to put some distance between us, clear my head.
She was still watching through the door as I climbed onto my bike, started it up, and roared down the block. As soon as the wind was rushing through my hair, I felt like I could breathe again.
Finally, I could breathe.
Chapter Nine
Kenna
The withdrawals were worse this time. Much worse. I could tell my mom didn’t have the secret stash she’d had last time because if she did, she would have broken into it before the shakes rocked her body so hard she couldn’t take a drink of water. Before she soaked through her sheets. Before her eyes turned bloodshot and looked like they were trying to force their way out of her head.
It was days of eating followed by vomiting, laughter and then tears, nonstop napping and practically scratching at the walls to get out. She was all over the place. She looked like a woman possessed. And in a way, she was. The drug inside of her was dying away. It was losing its hold on her body, and it was fighting back. Hard.
This wasn’t a new experience. I’d seen my mom go through withdrawals before. The first time, she’d convinced me she was dying. She swore to me she’d die if she didn’t get a hit soon, and I cracked. I didn’t know better. Now, I was wiser and a whole lot less sympathetic.
“Kenna, please,” she begged through the bedroom door. “Help me.”
“I am helping you, Mom. Do you need water or anything?”
“I’ll die.” She groaned, banging her head against the door.
“You’ll leave a bruise,” I said as I walked back to the kitchen.
After a week, things eased up. She improved enough that we could leave the house. I tried to get her into several rehab programs, but every place we tried required insurance, which we didn’t have and couldn’t afford. My mom insisted she would be better off without one, but I could see the truth in her eyes. She was waiting for her opportunity to run.
As soon as I looked away, she’d be back at Buzz’s, regardless of the threat he posed to me or anyone else. And I didn’t want to give him a reason to pay attention to us again. Trigger had scared him away, and he’d been leaving us alone.
I called Trigger to give him a progress report on my mom, to thank him for helping her and to tell him Buzz hadn’t shown his ugly face around our house again, but Trigger didn’t answer, and I didn’t leave a message. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid I’d regret anything I recorded, and I didn’t want to sound too desperate.
I could tell Trigger wasn’t accustomed to relationships, and I didn’t want to scare him away. Because honestly, I didn’t want Trigger to be my boyfriend. For the time being, I just wanted him to be in my life.
The morning after we’d slept together, I woke up feeling practically buoyant. My body felt satisfied and rested, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, the first thing I thought about wasn’t bills or my mom or work. It was Trigger.
When I rolled over and saw he wasn’t lying next to me, I wasn’t surprised. I’d expected him to slip out of the house while I was sleeping. But then I’d seen him sitting on the sofa in the living room and hope sparked in my chest. The fact that he stayed meant that he cared, and if he cared, there was a chance we could be more.
But then one week without any contact turned into two and then three, and I began to wonder whether I’d misread everything. When I worked at the diner, I kept an eye out for him, hoping maybe he’d stop by to check on me like he had before. I perked up every time I heard a motorcycle. I practically threw myself at my phone every time it rang. But still nothing.
Three weeks after we slept together, I was working a morning shift at the diner, bussing tables between the early morning and brunch crowds, when I suddenly felt dizzy. I grabbed the edge of the metal-wrapped table for support as my vision faded in and out and my knees went weak.
“Are you feeling okay, Ken?” Violet asked.
She was my favorite of my co-workers, though I still suspected she took more than her fair share of the tips, and either Rob liked her better than everyone else, or they were sleeping together because she got every day she asked for off. Either way, she had shockingly purple hair to match her name and talked like a Southern housewife. It was an odd, yet charming combination.
“Sit down, sugar.”
She grabbed my arm and helped me sit down in the booth. I dropped my head into my folded arms and took long, deep breaths.
“No breaks in the front of house,” Rob said from behind the counter, his thumb hitched over his shoulder.
“She isn’t feeling well,” Violet said, casting him a dirty look.
“If you’re going to be sick, use the alleyway.” Rob threw a damp rag over his shoulder and walked away. “The bathrooms were just cleaned.”
Violet sat down next to me and whispered in my ear, “Don’t listen to him. We both know those bathrooms are never truly clean. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” I said, shaking my head. I really did feel better already. “It was just a quick dizzy spell. I’m fine.”
“You went white as a sheet. You scared me half to death.”
I laughed awkwardly and gestured for her to slide out of the booth so I could stand up. My legs were still wobbly, but I felt steadier. I took a few breaths before daring to take a step.
“Really, I’m fine.”
After another minute, I was finally able to convince Violet she could get back to work and stop worrying about me. I had just collected a table’s worth of used dishes and caught a strong whiff of leftover scrambled eggs and ham when the nausea started. My stomach roiled and bubbled. It felt like the beginning of the stomach flu.
The clock above the counter said it wasn’t even eleven yet. I had three more hours left in my shift, and the brunch crowd didn’t really get going until eleven-thirty. I breathed through my mouth, so I wouldn’t smell anything offensive and kept moving. I just had to breathe and never stop moving. Like a shark. If I stopped moving, I’d die.
“Honey, you’re breathing like a puffer fish,” Violet said, patting me on the back. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shook my head and dropped the plates on the bar top, clutching my stomach. “I might be sick.”
Violet wrapped an arm around my shoulder and led me to the bathroom, despite what Rob had said about throwing up in the alley, and no sooner had I closed the stall door, than I felt something inching its way up my throat. I heaved and gasped so violently that I couldn’t even care that I was clutching the rim of a public toilet.
“Bless your heart,” Violet said between heaves. She was standing just on the other side of the door.
I stayed on the floor for twenty minutes until I was convinced everything was out of my stomach, and then I stood up, walked to the sink, and realized I felt fine. My skin was blotchy, and I felt hollow, but the nausea and dizziness were gone.
“You feel fine?” Violet asked, one dark eyebrow raised nearly to her purple hairline. “You didn’t sound fine a few minutes ago.”
I shrugged. “I guess I must have eaten something that didn’t sit well with me because I feel completely fine now. In fact, I’m starving. I could go for one of Rob’s grilled pork chops.”
Suddenly, Violet narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you been having a lot of random cravings lately?”
I thought for a second. That morning I’d eaten peanut butter toast for breakfast, but the night before I’d been dying for brownies. I walked to a gas station two blocks away and bought a Cosmic Brownie only to throw it away after one bite.
“I guess so,” I said, shrugging.
Violet placed a han
d between my shoulders blades and leaned in to whisper in my ear, “Have you had a visit from Aunt Flo?”
“Who?”
“Aunt Flo,” she repeated. “The Red Wave. Your period.”
Time seemed to freeze. My stomach clenched, this time with nerves instead of nausea. I began frantically counting back the days in my head. I was one week late. One entire week late. I hadn’t been more than one day late since I’d first gotten my period in seventh grade. Since I was thirteen, “Aunt Flo”, as Violet liked to call it, had visited every thirty days like clockwork.
Yet, a few weeks after my first sexual encounter in months, I was one entire week late. I’d been so busy counting the days since I’d last seen Trigger and dealing with my mom, that I hadn’t noticed my period never came.