He nods thoughtfully. “Well, of course I love her. I’m scared of my mom. Whenever I see her she looks like she wants to kill me. But when Nikki is home it’s okay. She always brings me home food. And she makes me clean my room. She let me keep Turtle. The worst part is she’s always happy and laughing with Persephone and Ares but when we’re at home she’s never happy and she never smiles and I know it’s cuz she’s worried.”
“Did you hear him, Nikki?” Marc asks.
I’m looking at the ceiling, blinking back tears.
My soul hurts.
“Okay, Nat, continue.”
She takes a deep breath. “We have talked about it and we would be happy if Dexter would stay here with us. We already have some of the process started to become certified as foster parents. We’ve always talked about it. After the certification, whatever happens, if he gets taken out of the home, we can be first picks to take him.”
“What do you think, Dex?” I ask him.
“Sure. I love it here. There’s lots of stuff to do, and someone’s always home. And the food is good! And Marc and Natalie are nice, but not too nice.”
This is all too good to be true. “So, you want to keep him? Like forever?” I look from Natalie to Marc. “Why?”
They look at each other and now Natalie looks at me. “Marc and I have talked about it every once in a while over the years. We’ve thought about adoption but decided against it, knowing if we were meant to have a house full of kids they would wander in like cats. And here you are.” She smiles. “And I’m sure my kids are more than happy to have him around.” She looks at her kids and they both nod emphatically and Dexter shines with happiness.
“We love him. And we love you. We wish you were ours. I didn’t know the extent of what you were going through until you started fighting so hard for your brother. I should have been more involved and I’m sorry that I wasn’t.” She comes and hugs me. “I’m so sorry.”
Ares locks fiery eyes with me. Not sex fire. Fire like he wants to kill whoever made me hurt.
“So you don’t need to worry about Dexter. He’s safe and healthy and he’s going to be okay. Now what are you going to do?”
I look at my plate as she sits back. “I don’t know. I don’t want to desert her. She’s my mother. I know she does what she does because she’s so afraid of being alone.” I hate this heartache. “I’ll need to work on getting a better job or going to school or something but I don’t know where to start.” I’m overwhelmed.
I want to sleep.
“I found out my assistant buyer is not going to come back to work after her maternity leave. It won’t be for a few months but I know you’d be a good fit. I can have her train you before she goes out. Want me to get you an app?” Marc asks, starting to eat his food, done with the serious conversation.
A real job? That would be awesome. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“You never offered me a job.” Persephone scowls.
“You would get me terrible prices on supplies and you wouldn’t care,” he retorts.
She shrugs with a dirty look. “That’s true.”
“The week before Ares leaves I’m going on a shoot in Portland and I’ll be staying four days. Marc will be in Idaho for two weeks on a build. Will you be okay for Dexter?” She looks at me.
There’s so much information and emotion and embarrassment swirling in my head. My hands are shaky from fainting. My mother is bringing men home. It’s not good.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Yeah, I can take care of him. Thank you.” I’m more alone than ever before. “For everything.”
“We like him. And he helps out a lot.”
I hate the look she’s giving me, that look like she knows me. And now I have to worry about if she’s really upset because she feels like she should have done more to help me, which is a no, or if she’s upset that I’m damaged beyond all repair and is looking at me like I’m tainted and the taint could spread to her children.
“Did you go out to check on the animals?” she asks Dexter.
“Dang, I forgot!”
“It’s okay. We’ll all go,” Persephone says. “It’s supposed to snow tonight so we’ll have to make sure the horses have blankets on and are in the barn,” Persephone says.
“And the ducks.”
“And everything else.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ares
Persephone is completely knocked out and drooling, sprawled out on the floor. Dexter looks the same. I look from them to Nikki and she’s staring at the ceiling, hands on her stomach. She’s wearing Persephone’s clothes which make all the slopes and curves of her body look amazing.
She turns her head and catches me looking at her. “You’re awake?”
I roll over onto my stomach, my head turned to look at her.
“Trouble sleeping?” she asks softly, teasing me with her sad eyes.
“Thinking about you.” I smile a sad smile. “Sorry I ruined everything earlier. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m okay,” she says.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Too many things clogging my brain.”
“I know there are things you’ve gone through you haven’t told anyone,” I tell her, gentle.
“Most things I try to forget. I try to remember my body is not broken and one day I will have control of everything else.”
I let out a getting ready to say some things I can never take back breath. I know it’s hard telling people things. It’s like it becomes a movie in your mind because you’ve lived through it and they can’t grasp it completely because there aren’t always visible scars left over. “My dad beat me. He would come home drunk and beat my mom and then she’d disappear and he was so much bigger and meaner than me and he’d like, pick me up and throw me into walls,” I tell her, seeing the movie in my mind. “I’d get so scared he’d kill me and my mom would be so sad. I’d pee myself because I was so afraid.”
She looks at me, tears crawling down her skin.
“Why are you crying?”
“I can’t believe anyone would be so mean.” Her voice is filled with barely contained emotion.
It shocks me. “Don’t cry, I’m telling you because I know you will be okay, because I’m pretty okay. I know it’s different but I know you’re going to be okay. Someday you’ll be able to talk about it and it won’t give you that yucky feeling. It just started getting that way for me. I think when I started talking to you. I used to get angry thinking about how much I hated how he made me afraid and I hated him for hurting me and not Persephone, and I hated him for taking my mom away from me. Sometimes I hate her for leaving me with someone she knew was a monster.”
She sucks on her bottom lip, trying to stop crying but not able to.
“Please don’t cry.”
“I have to. Otherwise I’ll explode,” she whispers.
“Okay, then by all means, cry. Can I hold you?”
She lays her head against my chest. “I need to get myself together. I can’t believe I fainted.”
“I know. What happened?” I wrap my arms around her.
“They started talking about you masturbating and your girlfriend and I got dizzy and everything went fuzzy. I’ve been a nervous wreck so I think my body just shut down. It happens.”
“What was going on the time you passed out at school?”
“Lots of stuff.” she sighs. “My dad left around that time.”
“Do you want to talk?” I whisper. She’s beautiful. I can’t believe how beautiful she is. I can’t wait to see her watch me dance at my powwow. I invited her and her mom. I’m so nervous about it. It’s just like my art. I want her to like it. I want to dance with her. I want her to see me in full regalia. I want her to see me with my people. I want her to be my people.
She sounded surprised when I asked her and said she’d try to make it.
“I always figured if you don’t have anything nice to say you shouldn’t say anything at
all.”
I don’t know whether to push her or not. “I don’t care whether you say nice things or not. I know anger and hurt and how it comes out. Nothing you can say can make me think any less of you.”
She pushes her eyebrows together and looks at me. “I guess I don’t understand why my dad let her get to him. How can a little kid be stronger than a grown person? I’ve always known everything she said about things was bullshit.” She looks at me with the saddest look I’ve ever seen on anyone.
“What lie did he believe?” I ask softly, touching her face, her tears.
“That I wasn’t his. And every other lie she ever told about me.”
I can’t imagine how it would be to live with that doubt.
“He told me wild horses couldn’t take him away from me. But he left anyway. He lied.”
I pull her into my arms and hold her tight to me while she cries quietly. I kiss her hair, thinking of all the things I’ll do to make up for the hurt she has until we fall asleep.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Nikki
Being a waitress while you’re in a crappy mood is fucked up. It’s like the fake smiling and telling people no, sorry, there are no substitutions sucks out your will to live. Getting free food isn’t worth it.
Then you get the sleazebags in there trying to flirt, and then the ones trying to show off to their friends how cool they are, being nasty asshole customers because they think you have to give them great customer service like you’re one of those guards that can’t talk outside that castle in England. I want to rip out people’s throats Mortal Kombat style and make them eat it.
Ares hasn’t texted or called since he fucked me in his parents barn the morning after the fainting fiasco. It was quick and rough and intense and he trembled like the first time, it was the best fuck I have ever had in my life and I expected so much more the next day.
But I guess we’re not really together anyway.
My mom has been bringing guys over every day and I have to lock myself in my room when I’m home. I hear them breathing and it makes my skin crawl thinking about how unsafe I am. I don’t have to worry about Dexter so I have no one and nothing and all I can think about is having my own place where I can make my own patterns and sew all day, away from boys who don’t call and mothers who do bad things and friends and all that comes with them.
And to top it all off I’m not making any tips cuz I’m working the fuckin’ counter.
Robert walks up looking classy as usual. “Hey beautiful. What’s that face for?”
I bus the place next to him. “PMS. Why?”
“Oh,” he makes a face, “yikes.”
“What’s up?”
“You know what’s up,” he flirts.
“I’m weak and someday it’s going to work and I’m going to kill myself because I’ll have nothing left, so stop,” I warn him, replacing the ketchup and salt and pepper, refilling sugar packets and pouring him a cup of coffee.
“What morbidity today.” He shakes his head and drinks his coffee black. “But seriously. You know why I’m here.”
People would think I was a dumb whore if I was a pharmacist so I might as well make money. “I’m gonna do it. Just give me a few weeks.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He grins his wolf grin. “I can’t wait to hear from you.” He drinks his coffee and eats his food and takes off, leaving a hundred dollar tip I quickly tuck into my bra before anyone sees. Maybe I’ll treat myself to some fabric to make me happy.
I take over half of someone’s tables during a rush and go back to the counter after. I stare at the clock. This day is taking forever.
And out of nowhere Persephone materializes in front of me. I keep wiping the counter, barely looking at her. “Hey. Robert was here a couple hours ago,” I tell her.
She starts bawling. “I didn’t know where else to go!” She wipes her snot nose on her flannel sleeve. “Jimmy’s cheating on me!”
I fight the urge to gag at the melodrama, and to strangle her. “Go outside. I’ll be out in a minute.” I watch her go and refill coffee for curious men. I get a girl to cover and walk out, taking my apron off.
Persephone’s at my car, blubbering like a baby. She looks at me. “The asshole has been cheating this whole fucking time! Guess who I heard it from!”
I shake my head. Everyone in the county?
“Fucking fatass Cristina! She said Amber got chlamydia from the jerkoff! Do you know what that means? He did Amber and also some whore with the clap!”
I shake my head again. I sigh and sit on the hood with her, taking a clove from the pack she’s holding out and lighting up with her. “It also means you might be a whore with the clap too,” I tell her and take a long drag, blowing the smoke out in a bubbly waterfall.
She looks at me, turning as pale as she can get, realization crossing her face. “I’m going to throw up,” she weeps. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
I sigh again and tune her out. I love Persephone but I can only take so much of her when she’s like this.
“Can you take me to the clinic? I don’t want to go to that hellhole by myself.”
Ugh. The free clinic has to be the shittiest place on the planet. “Yeah. Tomorrow morning? Bright and early? That’s my only free time this week.”
She nods, distracted. “I can’t believe he turned out to be such an asshole. I hate him. I can’t believe I put up with his small penis for so long while he was out screwing God knows who else. Oh my God and his stupid ‘band.’ I wonder how many times he was really screwing around. I’ve turned down so many guys for that piece of shit.”
I zone out, thinking about the barn sex for the umpteenth time since it happened. I still feel his shaky hands on me, his dark eyes burned into me with so much intense want. I thought he wanted me. I let him take a picture of us together. I trusted him. I hate he hasn’t called and I have to question myself.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Huh?” I hate everyone right now, especially Persephone and her stupid drama.
“What’s going on with you?”
I frown and blow out smoke, trying to put thoughts into words that don’t include her brother’s name. “So let’s say you had incredible, mind-blowing sex with a guy you’ve been seeing, and a week and a couple of days go by and you haven’t heard from him. What do you think?”
“I can’t believe you’re thinking about your amazing sex life while I might have chlamydia! You’re a horrible friend.”
This bitch is calling me a horrible friend? She’s so fucking irritating.
Break up with him.
Don’t break up with him.
Use condoms.
Deal.
Does it matter what I say? The world doesn’t stop because she got the stupidest VD in the world. We’ve all taken the same fucking class. “What should I say, Persephone?”
“You can give me some sympathy. My boyfriend cheated on me and now I probably have an STD!” she yells.
“Yeah, I know. Everyone’s been trying to tell you this whole time you’re an idiot for staying with him!”
“What is with you?”
“We’re not in high school anymore. If you don’t like him cheating on you, dump him. If you have an STD from having stupid sex with that loser, that sucks. I can’t do anything for you.”
“Well, fuck me then, right? Fuck me for trying to love someone for who they are, imperfect and everything. We can’t all be like Miss Perfect Sob Story Who’s Never Been in Love with Anyone Cuz She’s Smarter than Everyone and Would Rather Just Have Her Needs Met and Be Done. You’ve never even tried to be in a real relationship with anyone so how the fuck would you know?” she says, arms crossed and glaring.
I bite my cheeks and look up to blink away tears. I look back into her eyes. “That’s pretty low. Super low.”
Her jaw drops. She closes it, concern crossing her face and comes to sit next to me on the car, smoking. “
Oh my God. I can’t believe we’re fighting.”
I nod. “Growing up sucks.”
“I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of not growing up. What happened to you?”
I shake my head. “I guess I fucked up.” I look at my clove cigarette. It’s making me sick. I’ve been smoking way more than I ever have, lying to myself about being dependent on them. “I think I’m not going to buy any more of these.” I flick it, watching it hit the ground and roll, smoking.
“Do you think Ares will stay out there in New York when he goes or do you think he’ll come back? I want him to come back. What if he meets some New York chick with black hair and she thinks she’s better than us?” She shakes her head, feeling sorry for herself. “I liked it better when he made out with little blonde chicks for fun.”
“I think they all have black hair out there.” I sigh, my heart breaking a little. “The blonde girl stage was fun.”
“I hope he doesn’t hook up with a hippy artist chick.” She scrunches her face.
That would suck.
At the end of my shift I sit in my car, just taking a breath, and turn on my phone. My car got delivered to my house, all fixed and washed and running like a dream. I’m thinking about sleeping in it right here tonight because I’m dreading going home.
A text comes through from Ares and I open it.
My sister said ur being a bitch because u haven’t gotten any in over a week. Is that true?
I roll my eyes, heart lifting, and text back: It’s not about the sex. I can take care of that myself. I guess I just don’t know where we stand. I thought u kinda liked me too b4, not just my cooch. I put my phone down, waiting for his reply.
I guess I should have texted. I was on a painting bender. I barely took a shower today, after five days. and only because I had to work. I didn’t know it had been that long. I’ve been at home in my room. I’m sorry. I do like u, not just your cooch.
I let out a breath and reply, Hmm.
Can I make it up to u?
Chasing Stars Page 13