“I’ll go get the rest of the stuff out of the car,” Brandon said, heading out the front door.
“My grandfather built this house," I said. "It’s three bedrooms and two bathrooms although I know it doesn't look it from the outside." I opened the first hallway door. “This used to be my room.” Ray peeked her head inside, and I shut the door again. There would be plenty of time for me to sit and stare at the strawberry wallpaper and faded yellow curtains and I didn’t want to break out in tears in front of my guest.
“You used to live here, too?” Ray asked.
“Only during the summers when I was a kid. This visit is the first time I’ve been here in years though.” I showed her the bathroom in the hallway and Mirna’s old room before opening the door at the end of the hall. The mechanics of the former grow house might have been long gone, but the signs that it was once there were all around. The hooks in the ceiling. The nails in the walls where the pipes were connected.
“So that’s how you know Preppy,” Ray lamented, taking a look around the room.
“Yeah, sort of,” I admitted.
“When you came to the house, you really didn’t know Preppy was alive, did you?” Ray asked.
“It was the shock of a lifetime,” I admitted. “I still can’t believe it.” I closed the door and led us back out to the kitchen. I touched my hand to my throat, feeling the quickly fading swollen markings left by Preppy's hands.
I opened the sliding glass door to the backyard. Between the boards of the faded wooden deck weeds grew from underneath, creating huge gaps between the panels. The lawn where Mirna taught me to meditate was grown over, having merged with the field behind it at some point. A train whistled in the distance.
“Well,” Ray said, mulling over my answer. She set the baby in front of her on the counter and smiled down at the adorable chubby-cheeked infant. "That was one hell of a tour."
I looked down at the baby who had stuck one of Ray’s fingers in her mouth and was gnawing away on it with her gums. “May I?” I asked hesitatingly, holding out my arms.
“Oh, of course,” Ray said, picking Nicole Grace off the counter and setting her in my arms. My chest constricted, and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“You must just stare at her all day long, right?” I asked as I cradled the little girl in my arms.
“Yes, her daddy too. We’re tired, but it’s totally worth it,” Ray said. "They all are." She pushed back a tiny lock of baby-soft hair from Nicole's little head. “Do have any?”
I shook my head. “No. I learned a while back that I can’t have kids.”
“I’m sorry,” Ray offered. She must have sensed that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore because she quickly changed the subject.
“I’ve got a few errands to run now," Ray said. "But how about we get together sometime? We can have ourselves some girl talk. I only have Thia to talk to, Bear's old lady, and she's pregnant. I can't tell you how tired I am of talking about diaper genies and boppy pillows."
“That sounds great,” I said.
“You need any help with all this?” Ray asked, looking around the house to the peeling wallpaper and cracked drywall. “King and Bear are about as handy as they come, and Bear has an arsenal of guys that would be willing to help for as little as a few beers.”
I reluctantly handed Ray back her baby and walked them out the open front door. Ray carefully navigated her way down the rickety front steps. I glanced over at my helper who was still struggling to get the FOR SALE sign out of the hatchback of the rental car. “You know, Ray. I might just take you up on that,” I said with a smile that she returned.
“Good, cause that boy over there is cute and all, but he looks like the type that wouldn’t know a hammer if it fell from a shelf and smacked him on top of the head.”
“Unfortunately, that’s very true,” Brandon huffed, after finally freeing the sign. The collar and armpits of his dress shirt were saturated with dark circles of perspiration.
“Oh, shit, I almost forgot the main reason I stopped over. I swear these little ones give me the biggest case of mom-brain sometimes,” Ray said, speed-walking over to the old Ford truck parked on the edge of the lawn. She reached in through the open window of the passenger seat and returned with a folded piece of paper. “I was thinking about what Preppy said earlier? The thing about you being his wife?”
“It was just something he said in confusion,” I repeated the same reasoning I’d given her that morning.
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Ray argued, unfolding the page and handing it to me. It was a photocopy of the marriage certificate I’d made for Preppy. I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. This paper is just something I made up. It’s a fake. All the signatures. The witnesses. All forged,” I explained, pulling the paper down from my face to find Ray staring back at me like she was not convinced. “It was something Preppy needed when he was trying to get custody of King's daughter; it’s not even real. There was no wedding. No minister. No nothing. It’s…not real,” I repeated the same words in an effort to get my point across.
Ray tapped the spot on the lower right corner of the page over the official county stamp, one that would be a raised on the original. It wasn't something I put there.
Ray continued, “I got this copy from the County Clerk’s office this morning,” she said. “And according to them…it’s very, very real.”
"Shit," I swore, turning the page around like it could tell me something more by inspecting the blank side. "That makes us…"
"In the eyes of the State of Florida? Married," Ray finished for me, flashing me a wink. "Congratulations, Dre. You’re Mrs. Samuel Clearwater."
3
PREPPY
A thousand hopeful whispers breathed over my body. Little bursts of air peppered my skin as someone gently lifted my arm and two fingers pressed firmly on the inside of my wrist. I was tucked and untucked in various stages of cocooning, wrapped in unfamiliar softness. The air around me was fresh and light with none of the sticky dampness I'd become used to clinging to the inside of my throat and lungs, the kind of wet air that threatened to choke me with the thick stench of mildew and decay.
The sound of heavy rain pelting against a window overhead rang in my ear drums. A clap of thunder boomed, rattling my aching bones. A burst of bright lightning immediately followed, flashing in front of my closed eyelids as if it was somehow announcing my new semi-conscious state to the world.
Or maybe, just to me.
“Look, his eyes are fluttering again,” a female voice stated. “This could be it.” For a second I envisioned the dark haired girl with black eyes and red lips. The one I thought about so often I started to question if she was even ever real or just part of a fantasy I’d created to pass the time. But when the voice kept talking the image of my girl faded and recognition took hold.
Doe.
My adrenaline surged as well as the immediate need to get the fuck up and join the world around me, the world I’d missed with every cell of my fucking being and the one I never thought I’d have the pleasure of existing in again. It was like it was Friday night and all my friends were going out to do something balls-to-the-walls amazing, and I had to stay home and hear all about it in the morning, feeling shitty and left out.
It was like an extended night out, except with ass rape and constant beatings. Either way, there was a lot of catching up to do. But then I remembered that all wasn’t always what it seemed. I paused and took a brief second to remind myself that what I was feeling, the voice I was hearing, it could be a product of my imagination just like all the times before. That the likelihood of NO ONE being there when I opened my eyes, or that it would be the fucking devil himself, was much greater than the possibility of it being my friend.
I could be dead. Or it could all be some sort of fucked up hallucination.
Someone squeezed my arm. If it was the devil, he had tiny hands and used moisturizer.
But it wasn’t.
The gesture was gentle. Friendly. Reassuring.
Nope. Not the devil.
Although that simple touch felt as if all the bones in my fingers were being crushed, it was also the greatest fucking pain I’d ever experienced because it told me that it all might be real.
I tried to open my eyes but it was like prying apart a frozen sandwich with your bare hands. All I could see were colors dancing behind my lids like a lightshow taking place behind a screen.
When I attempted to speak I choked on my own saliva, and for what seemed like a span of forever, a stream of erratic coughs was the only response I could muster.
“Maybe he’s not ready yet,” an unfamiliar female voice chimed in. “He might just need more time.”
“No,” Doe argued. “I know he’s coming around. I just know he is. I can feel it. He can hear us. It’s different now.” Her voice was confident, albeit desperate, like she was trying to convince herself as well as whomever it was she was talking to.
“Have you two considered the possibility that he’s just being a fucking pussy?” King boomed. There was no mistaking his voice. The fucker sounded louder than thunder amongst a drizzle of rain. “Maybe he’s fucking with us. I wouldn’t put it past him. Shit he could have been up for days already but just wants us to wipe his ass some more.”
“Shhhhhhhh!” was the response. I wanted to smile. To laugh. But nothing I wanted to do, things that were easy before, was happening. What used to be a natural reflex, something I never had to so much as think about, was now a massive struggle to will my muddled brain and somewhat useless body to get together and make the SS Preppy functional again.
“Fuck that shit. I’m not gonna be quiet. This isn’t a fucking library. We’re hoping he wakes the fuck up, so let’s wake him the fuck up! He likes the attention, you know that. Miss Priss over here isn’t going to open his eyes and grace us with his presence until he knows he’s got all of our fucking attention.” There was a pause and then I felt King’s breath on my forehead as he leaned in close. His shadow fell over the light as he spoke to me just inches from my nose. “We’re all here. You can cut the shit now, Prep.”
“Stop,” I started, barely scratching out the word. The room fell silent except for a few gasps. I felt like someone took a tiny sharp rake and ran it down the inside of my throat. I wet my lips with my tongue and started again. “St…”
King leaned in even closer until his chest was against mine. “What was that, Prep?” His facial hair bristled against the bridge of my nose.
“Stop…” My eyes finally cooperated and opened slightly, although it still felt as if they were being held together with superglue, prying them apart was like pulling my eyelashes out by the fucking roots.
I peered through a blurry slit and found myself staring at the top of King’s dark head of hair. Motherfucker was trying to cuddle with me.
It was fucking adorable.
“Prep, try again. We can hear you, but we can’t understand you. Speak louder,” he demanded, enunciating each word as if I was deaf and dumb, the volume of his voice kept changing between a muted tone and a megaphone blast. He leaned down even closer until I was positive he was trying to lie down on my fucking face and his ear was against my lips.
“Stop…trying to make out with me,” I finally managed to say. “I’m not into facial hair.”
King stood straight and I felt the immediate relief that his body was no longer crushing me. He leaned over me with a satisfied shit-eating grin on his ugly ass face. Doe was on his left with tears in her big icy blue eyes. The girl I didn’t recognize was obscured from my view. She took a step back to allow King and Doe more space next to the bed.
“Took you fucking long enough,” King said, looking like a proud parent whose kid just said it’s first words.
“We’ve missed you,” Doe added as my eyelids grew heavy again. It was a struggle to keep them open, but there was no way I was closing them so quickly after finally getting a look at two of the people I never thought I’d see again. “So much.”
King tucked her into his side and kissed her on top of the head.
“Is there anything we can get you?” Doe asked, wiping the moisture from under her eye with her pinky.
“Yeah,” I answered, turning my head to the side so I could see them better. A sensation like a million electrical wires misfiring at the same time sent jolts of pain down my spine. Before I could stop it I let out a strangled cry.
“What’s wrong? Do you need the doctor? Tell me what you need, Prep,” Doe demanded, sounding panicked. She placed a hand on my shoulder and it felt like she stuck a hot branding iron into my skin.
“No,” I said, clearing my throat. “But there are some things I do need.”
Doe darted from the room and came back seconds later with a mini pink Barbie notebook and matching pen. “Go ahead,” she said. She turned the page of the notebook and clicked the back of the pen. It made a cheering sound.
King knowingly gazed down at me like he knew what I was up to. It was a great look. It told me that no matter how much time had passed; he still knew I was an asshole.
I was fucking home.
I kept my eyes trained on King while I dictated my list to Doe. “You ready?” I asked. She nodded.
“Okay, Imma need some blow, the good shit, not the kind you get from that dick over in Harper’s Ridge. Strippers of course, no less than C-cups, and they have to be open to all things anal.” I thought about it for a moment. “Okay, that would make them hookers. Scratch strippers and insert hookers. I need the blood of a virgin goat, three bottles of vintage Mexican tequila with the worm still intact.” I glanced at Doe whose pen wasn’t moving over the page. She raised her eyebrows and lowered her pen to glare at me over the multi-colored notebook. Tears streamed down her face.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she sputtered, dropping the pen and Barbie book on the floor she threw her tiny body on top of mine in a long tight hug. She buried her face in my neck and I felt her hot tears burning against my skin as they poured from her eyes.
I ignored the blood curdling pain radiating from my muscles. I even resisted the urge to scream or even flinch, because I didn’t want to scare her away. “Missed you too, kid,” I whispered. We stayed there, wrapped in our one sided hug for a long while until King cleared his throat and Doe lifted her head from my neck and looked up at him. “He’s back,” she sniffled.
“Yeah, Pup. He’s back,” King agreed, sounding like there was a ‘BUT’ following that statement that he was holding back.
“I’m back,” I muttered, “but King STILL thinks you hugged me too long and is now hoping I fall back into a coma soon because I got to feel your fantastic tits pressed up against me.”
“Something like that,” King said.
Doe rolled her eyes playfully as King pulled her off me.
“‘Cause I’m a total catch right now. Nothing screams, come hop on my cock like a battered body and a coma.” My throat was no longer as scratchy and it was becoming less painful to speak in longer sentences. “By the way, did your tits get bigger?” I asked Doe. “‘Cause I feel like they’ve gotten bigger.” I narrowed my gaze on her tight yellow tank top. Yep, they were definitely bigger.
“Prep,” King warned.
“There’s a lot to tell you,” Doe said, placing her hand over King’s chest. “So much has happened since…” King put his hand over hers.
“Before you guys say anything else, I’m going to suggest an edit,” I said.
“A what?” King asked.
I held up a finger. “Just follow me for a second. Instead of tip-toeing around the subject by saying when I ‘was gone’ and instead of stating the obvious, like referring to it as ‘that time I was held against my will and tortured to the verge of death over and over again at the hands of a psychopath’, I’m recommending we switch it up a tad bit.”
“Okaaay…”
“As much as I’d neve
r like to think or speak of it again it’s just not fucking realistic. And since it’s fucking impossible to just NOT talk about it when so much of what is going on in my life right now has to do with shit that happened while I was…in Narnia.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You want us to refer to your time in a hole under the MC as Narnia?” King asked.
“Yep, that’s what I said.”
King started to mumble which made me realize someone was missing, a very big very shirtless someone.
“Where the fuck is Bear?” I made a move to sit up but my wrists were unable to support my weight to successfully make the transition. King bent over and lifted me up under my armpits, adjusting me into a much more comfortable slightly reclined position.
Neither King nor Doe answered my question. Instead, they looked at each other like they were having some sort of telepathic unspoken conversation that I wasn’t to have any part of.
“What?” I asked, “I mean, where the fuck could Bear be that’s more important? Unless of course he’s out getting the hookers and blow, in which case, I might make a small exception.”
“I’m right here, motherfucker,” Bear grumbled as he came into view, standing on the other side of Doe. I didn’t know if he’d been there the entire time or if he’s just arrived. Either way one thing was clear to me right off the bat.
“All this time…” I said. “And you still couldn't find a motherfucking shirt?”
Bear snickered and placed his hand over my forearm in the same way he always shook hands with the bikers in his club. “Welcome back, brother.”
Doe and King shifted over to grant Bear more access to me. He knelt down and leaned over the bed. I missed the easy launch of insults between us. I missed everything about the stupid fucker, even that stupid quirky smile the chicks always seemed to dig. Even the way he looked as if he was always pissed even if he wasn’t.
Although a LOT of the times he was.
I opened my eyes as wide as I could and took in my old friend’s appearance for the first time in God knows how long. He looked exactly how I remembered physically, blond hair, matching blond beard, tattoos, bright blue eyes, freckles, leather cut.
Preppy, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater: A King Series Trilogy Page 24