I hear the sound of the metal storm door close on my uncle’s house and the movement and crunching noise of shoes grinding against dirt and gravel. My cousin comes into view, dressed in a pair of sleep shorts and a t-shirt. He ruffles his hair with his hands, hops on the back of the tailgate of his truck, and grabs a beer from the cooler. We drink in silence and toss our empty beer cans to the ground then reach into the cooler for another.
“How’s your mom doing?” I feel Clay’s gaze on me, but I continue to stare out at the dark field.
“She’s not one hundred percent, but she’s better. The pain meds that they have her on make her sleep all day. She’ll probably get to go home next week.”
“When’s Morgan coming home?”
“She’s not. We can’t afford for her to fly home then back to school.” I bow my head and concentrate on the lettering on my beer can. “I called and told her to stay where she is, and I’ll keep her updated on Mom’s progress.” I bring my beer can to my lips and take a huge gulp, emptying it and tossing the can with the rest of them then I reach for another one.
“How many have you had tonight?”
I pull the aluminum tab back and start chugging away until my head starts to feel tight. “Not counting,” I belch.
“I think you’ve had enough.”
I laugh. “You ain’t my fuckin’ dad, but shit, he didn’t give a damn.”
After a silent beat, Clay asks, “Is there something you need to get off your fuckin’ chest? You know I’m here if you want to talk.”
I laugh again. “You’re a little too late for that, cuz. A little fuckin’ too late.” I finish off my beer and toss the can into the air. “Just let me be.”
“How long has Uncle Bryce been acting like this?” Clay ignores my words.
“Acting like what?” I turn to my cousin and give him my full attention. “Like he’s a fuckin’ championship boxer who likes to beat on his son instead of a gotdamn punching bag and his wife who should’ve left his ass years ago when drinking became his favorite hobby. He never touched his precious Morgan, though, because he knew I would kill him. So, I let him take all his frustrations out on me instead.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clay chokes his can, causing some of his beer to spill out.
I reach inside my pocket and pull out a joint that I bought from that fucker Mondo earlier. Even though I swore I wouldn’t buy from him again, I'd hope that I would run into Ava. “Because Staci took care of me.”
“Staci? Who the fuck is Staci?”
I let out a harsh breath. “Mrs. Vinson.”
“Mrs. Vinson?” Clay’s face scrunches into confusion, and he repeats her name. Seconds later, his eyes widen in surprised recognition. “Our old anatomy teacher?”
“The one and only.” I light the joint and offer Clay the first hit, but he declines. “What does she have to do with all this shit?”
I take in a healthy amount of smoke into my lungs and release it slowly. “She gave me a place to stay when her husband was out of town with work. He’s a union worker, so he was always contracting jobs out of state. She fed me, let me wear her husband’s clothes, and taught me the art of fuckin’.”
“You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me right?”
“I wish I were.” I inhale and blow smoke in his face then laugh.
“What’s so fuckin’ funny?” Clay sneers.
“The look on your face alone says that you don’t believe me.” I grit my teeth together.
“I never said I didn’t.” Clay hops off the tailgate and catapults his can into the air. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Clay hauls my ass from the truck and shoves me away. “Why?” He pushes hard against my chest then knocks my joint to the ground.
“What the fuck?” I glare his way. I bend down to retrieve it, and I’m shoved on my ass.
“You should’ve told me!” Clay hollers. “About every fuckin’ thing.”
I bellow out in laughter.
“Man, it fuckin’ explains a lot now.” Clay clenches his hands into fists. “Your parents’ refusing to show up at family functions, the rumors about Uncle Bryce cheating on Aunt Julie, to you whoring around.”
I come to my feet and wobble, but once I gain my footing, I tackle Clay to the ground. We roll across the grass, cursing and swinging punches at each other.
“You’re like a fuckin’ brother to me.” Clay pins me to the ground and punches me in the jaw. “Don’t keep shit like this away from me again.”
I throw him off of me and examine his battered face while he observes mine.
“You need some fuckin’ help,” Clay voices then uses the back of his hand to wipe away the blood from his busted lip.
I bring my knees up, pull a dandelion from the ground, and rest my elbows on my knees. “I’m so far gone that there’s nothing that can help me.” I pull the flower apart.
Clay spits on the ground. “Well, the shit you’re doing now isn’t helping. What are you planning on doing? Smoking and drinking yourself to death?”
“If I choose. It’s my fuckin’ life.”
“Your fuckin’ life?” Clay shakes his head at my bullshit. “What about Morgan? Your mom?”
I say nothing.
“What about Ava?” Clay asks. “Does she know about all the shit you’ve been keeping from me?”
I toss the last piece of dandelion to the ground then I nod. “She knows everything since Staci decided to show up at the house to check on me after she heard about my mom.”
“Oh, shit,” Clay murmurs under his breath.
“Ava says she needs some time to think.” My heart begins to ache. “Fuck, I should’ve told her everything the moment I started receiving the text messages.” I bring my hands to my mouth and yell, “Fuck my life!” into the silent night.
“Give Ava time. But in the meantime, you need to get help,” Clay says after several moments of silence. “At least, if it doesn’t help, then you can say that, but don’t give up just yet.” He crawls my way. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk to my parents together, and we’ll figure this shit out.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“Calm down. I’m already a step ahead of you. I have a meeting with someone in a couple of days, and if all goes well, I’m going to get the help I need and, hopefully, the girl that I love back.”
Chapter 27
Bryce
Purgatory. Is this what life feels like when it seems everything in your life goes to shit, and you feel like you have nothing to live for?
Why didn’t the bullet that was meant for me kill me instead? The question plays on repeat in my mind. Morgan will be okay without me. Mom was released from the hospital two ago and is recovering well. Dad will be out of the picture since Mom borrowed the money from her sister in California to file for a divorce. The day he was released from jail, he came home to find the locks on the house were changed. From my bedroom window, I could see and hear him plea for my mom to forgive him and take his ass back. I can’t believe all the judge did was sentence him to anger management classes, rehab for sixty days, and revoked his firearms license. His ass got real lucky considering he intended to kill me along with his legacy of the Richardson bloodline. The sound of his rifle going off wakes me from my sleep some nights.
I pull out a cigarette and light it up. My fingers shake as I bring it to my lips. Maybe out of nervousness or lack of nutrition, because I only eat when the hunger pains in my stomach become unbearable, and this happens every couple of days. I take one final puff of my cigarette and flick it to the concrete. I stare up at the monstrosity of Pastor Walker’s church. The front doors open, and he emerges with a brown leather bag in hand, pausing when he sees me. “You’re late.” He regards me for a while then steps aside, pushing the door wide open. He gestures with his hand. “After you.”
No one would ever know what happened to me if he decides to off me right now and bury my ass across the street in the church’s cemetery.
I look down at the two brown leather chairs positioned in front of his desk and take a seat in one of them. I observe the many Bibles, certificates, Christian art, and family photos sitting on his shelves. My heart crumbles into a billion pieces when I see a gem-encrusted frame with a photo of Ava dressed in her cap and gown, hugging her mom and dad.
“Bryce.”
My eyes snap back to Mr. Walker, and he’s scanning over my appearance with concern. I know I must look like some runaway, strung-out druggy since I’d decided to let myself go. I needed a haircut and a shave. I probably would’ve never showered if I didn’t have to come here. My legs bounce up and down nervously.
“You made an appointment with my church secretary.” Mr. Walker’s chair creaks as he leans forward and places his hands on his desk. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
I train my eyes on the muscles bulging in his arms. “I, uh—” I bet he could squeeze the life out of me with little effort.
“Okay. Let’s try this.” e leans back in his chair and steeples his fingertips together. “Let’s not make this any more awkward than what it is.”
I clear my throat. “Excuse me?”
“Young man, did you expect me to sit here and pretend that things with you and my daughter are on good terms?”
“I love your daughter. No disrespect, but I’m not here to talk about our relationship.”
“Love?” he slams his hands on the top of his desk, startling the shit out of me. “Forgive me, Bryce, but I’m trying hard not to jump across this desk and—”
His hands flex into fists and release then he takes several deep breathes to regain his composure. “You know what? You better stop wasting my time and start talking then maybe all these negative thoughts I have coursing through my mind right now will keep you alive and me out of jail.”
Shit. I stand up.
“Sit down,” Mr. Walker orders while pointing at the seat I just vacated. But I remain standing. “Sit. Down,” he repeats, and the grim expression on his face has me surrendering to the chair.
“Before we get to the reasons why you called me, how about you tell me why my daughter doesn’t want to come out of her room, finds every reason in the book to skip choir rehearsal, and why I’ve heard her crying herself to sleep every night for the past two weeks?” He stands and walks around his desk and sits on the corner of it, in front of me, then stares at me to the point that I’m afraid to fuckin’ move.
“My wife and I have been going back and forth with each other since the day I found out that you and my daughter got together. She’s eighteen, my wife would say. Let her enjoy her young man.” Mr. Walker laughs a little and drops his head. “I knew the day would come eventually when my daughter would start dating. A father’s worst nightmare.” He lifts his head and narrows his eyes on the cross pendant around my neck that Ava placed there when she thought I was asleep during the early morning hours after my mom got shot and I asked her to stay with me. It was the same pendant he gave his daughter after she was baptized.
He rises from his desk, and I immediately come to my feet when he charges my way. In seconds, I’m slammed against the wall so hard that a picture falls to the floor. “So help me God…” Spittle hits my face. His hands wrap around my neck. I close my eyes, waiting for the moment when he’ll tighten his grip and choke my ass out.
“You’ve ruined my sweet baby girl.”
My air supply is slowly fading when his hand tightens around my neck.
“Imagine how I felt when I found out that my daughter was no longer a virgin,” he seethes. “Like most dads, I explained to my daughter that she should save herself for marriage. I know things are different nowadays. Girls are more open about their sexuality, and boys like you will screw anything that walks.” His grip tightens. “I can’t say that I didn’t try to school her right, but when I’m going through footage from my home security system and find several instances of you coming into my home at odd times of the night when my wife and I were out of town, I immediately became suspicious. Then you had the audacity to have sex with my daughter in our laundry room.”
Dark spots start to float in front of my vision.
“I have cameras everywhere except for in the bathrooms and bedrooms.”
Thank God!
“Mr. Walker,” I grip his wrist as his fingers tighten more on my neck, “I can’t breathe!”
“My wife took her to the doctor and got her tested for every STD. Praise God that she’s on birth control.” He lets me go, and I drop to the ground. I cough into the carpet while my lungs fight to retain oxygen.
A horrific reflection washes over Mr. Walker’s face as his eyes scan over his hands as if they have my blood on them then in a trancelike voice he says, “You need to end things with my daughter.”
I sit up from the floor when I hear the sound of his desk chair creak with weight. I rest my back against the wall and hold my hand around my neck. “I’m in love with your daughter.” You stupid fuck! You really want to die, don’t you?
“Why are you still in my office?” Mr. Walker’s voice comes out gravely low.
“Because I love your daughter and if I’m going to be the best for her, I need to get my shit together. I’m here because I need your help.”
Mr. Walker runs a hand over his low cut fade then regards me. “I almost choked you to death, in the house of the Lord, no less, and you still want my help?”
“I’ve had worse things happen to me.”
He arches an eyebrow my way.
“I was my father’s favorite punching dummy,” I reveal.
His features soften then he looks down at his desk. “I should’ve never put my hands on you that way.”
“I probably would’ve done the same thing. Maybe worse.”
Mr. Walker nods as if agreeing with my statement. “So, what is it that you need? Money? I can write a check right now if it will get you out of my daughter’s life.”
I laugh like I’m the fuckin’ Joker. “I don’t want your damn money. Can you put all your judgment of me aside for a moment and hear me out as if I’m one of your church members crying out for help?”
He reaches inside a drawer, pulls out a notepad, a pen, and a pair of reading glasses, then puts them on. His eyes rake over me once more. “I’m listening.”
I stand and lean against the wall and tell him everything that got me to this point in my life, from the first time my dad’s laid hands on me to the affair with my former teacher, and how Ava found out about it. The whole time, Mr. Walker listened while keeping his facial expressions stoic.
“Anyway,” I rub the back of my neck, “your daughter has been a blessing to me. She’s helped me learn things about myself that I never knew, and most importantly, she reminded me of what love feels like.”
“So, you think that you love my daughter?” He removes his glasses. “Are you sure you’re not experiencing lust because of, let’s be honest, your promiscuous past?”
I shake my head then pull out a cigarette getting ready to light it up, but I quickly remember my surroundings.
“Go ahead,” Mr. Walker permits me.
I burn the tip ablaze and take one, lazy drag from it. The nicotine loosens me even more. “No, because if Ava told me right now that she wanted to stop having sex, I would still love her the same.”
“So, what are you going to do when you break things off with my daughter? Go back to sleeping around with girls because it feels good and temporarily helps with the pain?”
“Break things off with Ava?” What are—“
“Just like I said. Break things off with my daughter.” He puts his pen down then leans back in his chair. “Did my daughter put you up to this?”
I suck some more nicotine into my lungs. “Ava has asked me to come and see you once before, but I never took her up on her offer. She doesn’t know I’m
here because she won’t talk to me.”
“Oh, I see.” He swivels his chair and looks out the window at the dusky sky. “I’m going to help you, Bryce, but on one condition: that you end things with my daughter.”
“You’re serious?”
“When it comes to my daughter, yes.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Yes, you will. There’s no point in carrying on with this relationship when both of you are going off to college. She’ll be in Georgia, and you’ll be here, attending college at Middle Tennessee and hopefully getting the help you need.”
“But we still have the rest of the summer.”
“No, you don’t. My daughter is leaving in a couple of days for Puerto Rico.”
“You’re sending her away?” I puff out clouds of smoke.
“No. Actually, she came to her mom and me last week, saying she needed to get away and spend time with her abuela before she left for college. She’ll spend two weeks there then she’ll fly out to Maryland to visit some of her family from my side.”
My heart starts to beat triple-time. She was going to leave without saying goodbye? I shrug as if not to care when I’m dying a slow death inside. “She won’t talk to me. How am I supposed to break things off with her if she won’t talk to me?”
“If she won’t agree to see you then that should be your answer to move on and forget about my daughter.”
I’m not giving up on us, Ava. “Fine, I’ll do it.” Whatever it takes.
“Good.” Mr. Walker stands from his chair then comes around and drops to one knee in front of me. “I’m going to get you the help you need. Trust me; you’re making the right decision.” He places a hand on my shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze. “Now, let us pray.”
Chapter 28
Ava
I turn my car off and stare out the windshield at Bryce leaning against his grandfather’s apartment garage, smoking a cigarette. My heart beats ferociously at the sight of him in a fitted, fading graphic tee with an American flag on the front and a pair of distressed jeans.
F*ck Perfect (MindF*ck Book 2) Page 16