by Jo Raven
“Coffee?” a girly voice says and I nod automatically even as the sound lights up a spark inside my chest.
Wait a minute...
I look up into her pretty face, caught off guard, and damn if my gaze doesn’t dip and snag on that pouty mouth, sliding down to her cleavage and the swell of her round tits.
“Hey, bright eyes,” I murmur, grinning up at her, all cocksure attitude and a strange joy I can’t decipher.
Then jerk away when she pours the scalding coffee, splashing it over my fingers. “Ow shit!” I shake out my hand, more shocked than in pain. “What did you do that for?”
“Sorry,” she whispers, face going red. “I’ll get a rag to clean the mess.”
“Don’t bother.” I grab a paper napkin and blot the small puddle of coffee, curiosity making me examine her expression again, and my smartass mouth takes over. “I guess I distract you too fucking much. Look at you all flustered. Sweet cheeks, I know I’m hot but I didn’t realize I get you so worked up.”
“What?” Her eyes snap at me, wide. “What are you talking about?”
“You. You’re hot for me, aren’t you?”
Her shock finally turns to anger. “Oh, get over yourself, Ross Jones. Newsflash: nobody’s flustered and nobody wants you.”
“That so?” I arch a brow at her and lean back in my chair. Flirting and pushing, that’s me, always pushing, and I don’t care if it’s to cover up for my instant reaction to her, my own weakness. “You’re out of breath, and those pretty cheeks of yours are red. You’re flustered, alright.” I leer at her, leaning back and spreading my legs a little. “From wanting me.”
She’s still angry, but a note of panic enters her gaze. “Stop this.”
“Why? Afraid everyone in here will hear that you’re hot for me? Aching, wet for me?” I lean toward her. “Afraid of what they’ll think of you?”
She takes a step back. “Stop.”
I chuckle. “You used to get so flushed back then, too, when I said things to you. So flustered. Fucking hot for me.”
“Jesus, Ross, is this a joke to you?” Her voice is hushed, faint.
“Life’s a joke, sweet cheeks,” I mutter, my mouth still on smartass autopilot. You believe that or go crazy, right? “Better remember that.”
“You really are an asshole.” Her mouth is trembling, her eyes defiantly dry. “Getting off on others’ humiliation.”
“Yeah. Whatever.” And suddenly a wave of sickness hits my stomach. It doesn’t feel so good, upsetting her. Reminding her of the past between us. Why doesn’t it feel good? “Pour some more hot coffee on me if it will make you feel better.”
“It won’t.”
“All right.” I chuck the bunched-up napkin on the table, my scarred knuckles stained with coffee and blood. Fuck, looks like I reopened some scabs. “I’ll have my usual, then. Pancakes.”
“What would make me feel better is for you to understand what you did, how you hurt people—”
“Just pancakes, woman.” I work my jaw, but remain slouched back, still pretending to be relaxed and in control. “That’s what I want.”
“Oh my God. You...” Her mouth opens and closes, like she wants to tell me something more but can’t decide if it’s a wise move. Finally, she says, “I’ll tell Mike.”
That catches me off guard. Again. She keeps doing that to me. “Tell him what?”
“That you’re not paying for any of this. Taking advantage.”
She can’t be serious. “What? Come on. I pay, end of every month.”
“Stop lying. Stop playing me for a fool. And here I was starting to think you were different. Starting to worry over you.”
Wait, she’s worried about me? There’s a sting in my chest at her words, the thought she was concerned about me. “Luna—”
“No. Just... go buy your food and coffee elsewhere. We’ve all had enough of your bullshit.”
Fuck. I sit back, aware of several pairs of hostile eyes on my back from the customers and the staff of the diner. “You can’t do that.”
But she’s already gone, powerwalking between tables, her cute ass swaying just a little, and fuck my brain for still noticing such things when she’s more or less kicked me out, after chewing me over.
Kicking back my chair, kicking the table for good measure, I stalk out of the diner.
Damn, I knew she was mad at me, and with good reason, but I thought we’d turned a corner, that she wouldn’t look at me with such loathing in her eyes anymore, and I thought...
Yeah, what did you think, Ross? Come on, come out and say it. That she’d forgiven you? That she liked you? That she’d ever let you touch her, talk to her, spend time with her? She forgot who you really are for a second, but now you’ve gone and reminded her. Shown her your true face.
Jesus Fucking Christ, I’m a moron. Then again what else is new? Dad always told me so, punctuated it with his fists to drive the point home. In between his drunken bouts of yelling about his bastard kids with that other woman in town—my half-siblings—he told me all about how I was a worthless piece of shit he had the misfortune of being burdened with.
Can’t blame him for that. I was a little shit growing up, always getting into trouble. A mean, stupid kid. I deserved the belt. Deserved his scorn.
Just like I deserve the scalding coffee splashed on my hand, a mistake though it was, and then Luna’s cold gaze. I’ve always been a mistake, and I’ve been blaming others when there was no-one to blame but myself for the pain.
***
Should I give a shit about what the pretty brunette threatened? Should I consider the diner off limits?
I could ignore her and pretend nothing happened, but if Mike is pissed off with me for whatever reason and calls the sheriff, well then, I’m royally screwed.
Fuck.
The sheriff’s been waiting for an excuse to lock me up again, and I’m not going back there, no fucking way. The beatings I’m taking here are a cakewalk compared to the viciousness of my jailmates, the boredom, the tension, the fucking hopelessness.
I’d rather step off the roof of my dad’s garage than go back there.
Shaking off the maudlin thoughts, I light up a cigarette and let my steps lead me down the main street and out of the small city center, toward the river. The smell of water and grass hits me, working its way past the tobacco smoke, stirring up something in my chest I thought long dead, something jagged that lances through me, making me falter and stumble.
Memories. Stacked up on this one place, old and recent, of dad’s rantings and the pain of his fists, the sound of the river in winter when, swollen by the rains, it rushed by, the imagined smell of Mom on old photos I found and stashed away, the hope she’d come back some day. The loneliness, the fear, the fucking sadness.
Stop it, I order myself, make myself drag bitter smoke into my lungs and hold it there, choking the memories before they got their hooks deeper into me. Stop right there.
My feet stop, too, and I let out the smoke, forcing the emotions out of me, trying to clear my mind. I’m on the road leading out of town. On my right, that’s Luna’s house. A bit further down the road comes the Kavanaugh’s home and then... then mine. What used to be mine. What used to be a home.
Been there once or twice since dad went to prison to grab a few things. Place creeps me out. I can’t sleep there, can’t stay inside those walls. But I can’t avoid it forever.
I need to grab some more clothes, mine are all torn up and filthy. I also desperately need to do laundry, but unless I do my washing in the river like the good old days, I’ve run out of ideas. Stacy, the grocer’s wife, used to help me with that but she’s been avoiding me lately, no clue why.
Need to get over the fist squeezing my chest, the bile rising in my throat and convince myself to stay here. Sleep in a bed, within four walls, lock the door so nobody can ambush me while I’m dreaming my bad dreams.
I should pay the bills, get back the water and electricity. Make up my mind that thi
s is where I’ll live. How else am I gonna make it through the Summer?
Again I think of Winter and clench my jaw. Can’t be bothered with long term plans, remember? Let it go.
But the house still pulls at me from the distance. It’s quite the walk to work, and no buses run this way, but I could make it work.
If only I had dad’s truck, things would be so much easier, but I had to sell it quickly and secretly when dad was sentenced for attacking me to pay off the house bills and get me through a few months until I landed a job. Truck wasn’t mine, of course. My dad tried to kill me, but none of his possessions came to me—not the truck, or the house.
Slowly, I make my way toward the river, taking the dirt road through the fields, cursing when I stumble over loose stones and clumps of grass. It’s been a while since I came this way. Months. The key is hidden under the cracked plant pot by the right-most window. I fumble for it, then throw my half-smoked cigarette to the ground, grind my heel on it, and unlock the door.
I step inside.
The house is a mess, drawers lying on the floor, the sofa cushions thrown all over the place, papers and clothes everywhere inside the bedrooms, boxes of things spilled over. I wander like a ghost through the rooms, my breath coming short.
The police ransacked the place, looking for clues, for proof that my dad murdered my mom and the other, unknown woman whose skeleton was found not far from here. I found the ax that was probably used to kill them in dad’s shed, found a leather jacket that may or may not have been what my half-brother Merc saw that fateful night when Mom died.
No proof. That’s killing me, not knowing. Doesn’t matter if dad spends his remaining life in prison for trying to kill me, that’s not... not the issue here.
I rub at the long scar marking my chest and left shoulder, where dad stabbed me. Going for the heart.
I could have told him he never stood a chance. My heart’s black and rotten, dead for a fucking long time. Too late to restart it. Too late to kill it, too.
One thought keeps going through my head as I stand at the door to my old bedroom. Gotta get out of here, can’t stay a damn second longer.
But I make myself stay. Grinding my teeth, I walk into the room, kneel and pull the carton box from under my bed. Slamming it onto the bed, I sit beside it and lift the lid.
A silver chain with a swan pendant sits on top of bunch of old photos and letters.
Mom’s pendant, found with her bones, a match for the swan I had inked over my heart. And the letters I found after dad was arrested and thrown into prison.
The photos I’d found before, in a tin box in the shed, and had kept them a secret from dad. You never knew how he’d react to anything, so I’d learned early on to keep quiet around him, not ask questions, not show emotions.
Not ask about mom.
Looping the chain between my fingers, I spread the photos and papers on top of my unmade, smelly bed, and draw an unsteady breath. There she is, smiling. When I first found the pics, I spent a good hour crying. I hid from dad, of course, so he wouldn’t use me as a punchbag because I was being a pussy. He didn’t need any more excuses.
I was ten, then, and could barely remember her face, but one look at the photos and I recognized her, along with an avalanche of little memories that cut like knives.
Mom holding me in her arms.
Mom singing me to sleep.
Mom cooking in the kitchen, humming a melody.
Mom looking at me, calling me her beautiful boy, telling me she loved me, the swan pendant glinting at her throat.
Those same memories are assaulting me now, bound to these images, these fragile pieces of photographic paper. I push a pic of her and dad aside to lift one of her and myself.
I must have been two or so, with a smile full of small teeth and a shock of white-blond hair, legs and arms chubby. She has an arm around me, the other waving a red toy truck. Dunno what happened to it.
Her smile is so bright, it hurts my eyes. She looks happy.
I look happy. I trace my grin on the photo, wondering at it. It’s my favorite photo of us and I’m not even sure why. On a whim, I shove it into my pocket, even as I sort through the rest.
The letters. They’re a diary of sorts, not addressed to anyone. I dunno if she planned on sending them to someone, some family member maybe? Who knows. Thing is, she never did. They’re loose sheaves of paper, with dates, mom’s cursive writing filling them.
In some she talks about dad. How she loves him but he also scares her sometimes. How her life here in Destiny is, how she loves the river, how she longs for theaters and fancy restaurants. How she is content, but also uneasy.
How she loves her little boy.
These are the ones I prefer and hate the most. They make me feel things. They make my eyes sting and my lungs feel too small.
Fucking letters.
My hand shakes as I stuff the pendant in my jeans pocket, then gather the papers together, pile them up. I need another cigarette. I need a stiff drink.
Dunno what the hell I’m doing. I wish she were here to tell me, to guide me. But maybe I’m asking too much of the dead. Expecting answers. A helping hand. Who was there for her? Nobody, that’s who.
Some things are set. They don’t change.
There’s nobody for me here, either. I guess that’s how it should be. I’m twenty-one fucking years old. I don’t need anyone. Never have.
We all live and die alone, isn’t that the way of the world?
***
I’m walking in the woods behind the house, smoking my last cigarette, when I hear her yelling.
That same voice who informed me she wouldn’t have me eat at the diner anymore, that she’d do all she could to keep me away.
Maybe I’m mistaken. Sound travels differently here, bouncing on the trees, hitting the water, fragmenting on the reed clumps and open spaces sloping toward the river.
But then I hear it again. My thoughts are a jumble as I throw away my cigarette and set off in the direction I heard the yell from, before I’ve even decided I was going to do it. What am I doing anyway? I told her I’m not a hero, not a savior. Quite the opposite, as she well knows. I’m not the good guy in this story. I’m a goddamn villain with no happy ending in sight.
But Luna doesn’t have my experience with fights, my training in the art of inflicting and receiving pain. I can take the punches and kicks in my ribs, but I’m not sure she can. Not sure she should. She shouldn’t have to wade through any more pain, ever again. She should... she shouldn’t have to.
That’s on me.
Jogging through familiar trails, among the thinning trees, I make it to the road quickly, and then I’m running toward her house, toward the town. It doesn’t take long for me to see them—Luna, and three guys.
Hell, what’s up with that girl? When did she become such a magnet for trouble? Yeah, I know I picked on her years back, I know I was an asshole and it hadn’t been her fault except that I...
That I had wanted her so badly.
Fuck. Fuck!
Cursing, I slow down, a stitch in my side, wincing at the memory of her. The hurt in her eyes when I called her names. The momentary rush of satisfaction for making her hurt like I was hurting, in my body and in my fucking soul. Because I wanted her, and she was a good girl, and I could never have her in my goddamn life.
One of the guys, jerks her back, and that’s when it dawns on me that he’s holding her, while the other two... what? What are the assholes trying to do to her?
“Hey!” I accelerate, racing toward them at a dead sprint, my heart slamming against my bruised ribs in a staccato of pain. “Stop! Fuck off, you fuckers. Leave her alone.”
“Oh look,” one of them says as I approach, standing in the middle of the street, hands on hips. “If it isn’t the devil himself.”
“Let her go!” I shout as I launch myself at him.
Edward again. He thinks he’s holding something over me, when he attacks Luna. He’s insane. Sure
the girl’s hot but I never...
Never knew she was important to me.
I punch him in the stomach and he doubles over, a surprised look flitting over his ugly mug. What, just because I let them beat me up most of the time, he thinks I’d let him do that to her?
Fucking moron.
By the time he starts fighting me back, another guy comes to his rescue and then I’m elbowing him in the gut and kicking his feet from under him, fighting to get to Luna. She’s struggling in the third guy’s hold, and it’s Ed’s brother, Jonas, this time I’d bet my right nut on it. She’s cursing like a sailor, and a grin splits my face as I grab the guy’s arm to pull him off her.
This girl.
Jonas grunts as he kicks at my shin, and my hold on him slackens. Biting back curses, I grab him around the waist and haul him off Luna.
“Run!” I shout at her, right as Jonas slams his fist into my jaw, and I find myself falling backward. “Run.”
Then I have my hands full with three disgruntled guys, a knife flashes and then my side burns like fire. Even as I try to see if she’s gotten away, another punch to my face darkens my vision.
Shit. I can’t pass out. Then I’ll be meat in their hands. Who knows what they’d do to me then. Before my eyes or my mind have a chance to clear, I’m already throwing punches right and left, mostly hitting air, but also the occasional limb. Shouts tell me my hits are connecting. I’m turning into a tornado of fury. Anything to give her a chance to run.
Is she gone? Is she safe?
Goddammit, I get distracted, trying to see her, and they’re back on me like flies on a piece of rotten meat.
“We were wondering where you’d gone to, motherfucker,” Ed hisses as he kicks at me, his steel-toed boots unerringly finding and hitting older bruises, making me curl and groan. “So here’s where you’ve been hiding, is it?”
“Fuck. Off.”
Another kick, to my back this time, and another, and I struggle to keep a grunt between my teeth. Come tomorrow I’ll be pissing blood for sure. Rolling, I push to my knees, lifting a hand to stop a kick to my face, and I hiss when it connects with my forearm.