by Ariel Ellens
My keys are in my hand when the phone to the bakery starts ringing. I consider just walking and ignoring it but then I think about the people in town. All those people who have come to the bakery, choosing this place first over all the big grocery stores who could probably bake faster and cheaper.
I have to get the phone.
I pick it up and offer my best perky greeting.
Then my face drops.
“Isabella... I. Am. Hurt.”
My mother.
She’s drunk and she’s dialed the bakery out of the number being deep seeded in her memory.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Well... I tripped on the rug in the hallway.”
“You tripped? Are you on the floor?”
“No. I’m not. I tripped. I fell. I hit my head on the bathtub. Now I’m bleeding. I’m at the kitchen table, but I’m still bleeding.”
I hang up the phone and rush to the back door. There’s no possible way she could have tripped from the hallway to the bathtub, but she definitely sounds out of it. Worse than being drunk.
By the time I get to the house, I’m beyond shaking. I can feel the color draining from my face as I live out one of the nightmares I always feared. And that’s find my mother hurt or dead. The drinking can only go so far before something happens. I remember Grandpa telling Grammie that my mother would need to hit bottom before she’d accept her decisions. Each time I thought my mother hit bottom, she’d dig and find more space to fall.
I bust through the front door and run. I ignore the mess and the horrible smell of the house. In the kitchen, she’s just sitting there, staring straight at head. A burning cigarette in her right hand, the smoke creeping out the open window. Her left hand is tight around a bottle and as she stares straight ahead it doesn’t look bad.
“Mom?” I ask.
She turns her head and that’s when it looks horrible.
There’s a big cut at the top of her forehead, leaving a waterfall of blood running down her face. The blood runs between her eyes, down her nose, and forms crimson droplets on the tip of her nose before they fall off, hitting her shirt, her pants, the floor.
“Isabella, I tripped...”
“Sure you did,” I say.
I spring to action and grab a dish towel. I get close enough to my mother to actually smell her. It’s terrible what she’s become. A mix of booze, smoke, and general body odor. As she bleeds, she sweats, only making it all worse by the second.
After I wipe the blood I see it’s just a small cut. It’s at the right spot though, allowing it to bleed like it is. I peel my mother’s fingers off the bottle and force her to hold the towel to her head. I take the bottom and dump it down the sink.
“You took all the money,” I say as I turn around. “You took the money from the bakery. That was supposed to be used to buy supplies.”
“It’s my money,” she says. “I need a paycheck too.”
“Speaking of which, I won’t be able to cash mine.”
“Oh well. Sell more bread.”
Sell more bread.
That’s where it was left. Sell more bread. As though I am doing something wrong and I’m the one killing the business.
“I don’t know what else you want from me,” I say. “Look at yourself, Mom, please. You don’t think things are hard for me too?”
“Hard? Isabella, you’re twenty... something years old...”
“You don’t even know how old I am.”
My mother moves the towel from her head and looks at it. It’s saturated so she unfolds it and finds a dry spot. The blood has mostly stopped. I try to imagine what could have happened and I know asking her will only offer lies. My mother is really good at lying... I guess not really good but she truly believes her lies. She’s so into them that her mind actually can paint the events happening that didn’t.
I leave the kitchen and the first thing I notice in the hallway is that the carpet looks normal. It doesn’t look like someone tripped over it and there’s nothing messy about it that would allow someone to trip over it. I look to my left, into the bathroom, and see where it all happened. What my mother failed to tell me was that she had been sick. There was a sick mess on the toilet, running down the sides... you get the picture. My guess is that she stood up from being sick and got dizzy and fell. On the edge of the tub is a blood spatter, right where my mother's head smacked it.
That's all I need to see for now. And I'm not cleaning it up.
I walk back to the kitchen and my mother is at the sink. The dish towel is soaking in water, turning an eerie shade of red. The cut has stopped bleeding but is already obvious that not only will there be a cut there will be bruising around it.
"What do you want from me, Isabella?"
Wow, what a loaded question. What do I want? How about a mother to start. How about feeling comforted, trusted, and having the ability to feel like I have someone to rely on. Someone to talk to. Someone to love.
I don't say this because I've said it before.
"I want you to be safe."
That much is true.
"I want you to care about the business your parents built. I want you to stop drinking all day."
"I don't drink all day," she snaps at me.
"Okay... I don't want you to drink then. You have a house, a business, all given to you."
"It's yours too."
"No, it's not. I should be in Paris but I'm not, because of the bakery... and you..."
My mother sighs and lowers her head. She finally looks defeated. Maybe the hit to her head knocked sense into her, but I doubt it. When she looks up, she's crying.
"I never wanted this for us."
Now all of a sudden I'm part of an 'us'. Something I've never felt before.
"Then do something about it."
"What do you want me to do, buy you a ticket to Paris?"
I laugh, I have to. It's so dumb to hear coming from her mouth.
"No. I just want you to care."
"I do care," she says, her voice raising.
"Blood and puke in the bathroom isn't caring. It's killing yourself."
"Maybe you should leave then."
I open my mouth and my phone beeped and vibrated.
A text.
I need to look at it.
I can't sense it and feel it...
It's Colt.
I'm at your apartment. If you want a chance at truth, meet me.
A chance at truth. It sounds beautiful, poetic, and romantic.
"I'm leaving," I say while my eyes read the text again.
"Go. You'll see, Isabella. Trust me."
"I'll believe when I see."
I look at her and for a second I think we're going say something but we don't. We leave love implied, if any exists.
I turn and walk away, my body feeling chilly. I’m actually anything but chilly but my body argues otherwise. It’s an odd feeling, one that I don’t want to feel again.
When I’m in my car I think about texting Colt back but I figure it’ll be better to just show up. If he really believes in whatever it is he wants to share with me - a chance at truth - he’ll wait for me.
That’s just what Colt does because as I turn into the parking lot of my apartment I see him leaning against his motorcycle, his arms folded, his stare straight ahead looking at nothing but concentrating on everything. He’s a man possessed, deep within his own life and pain. Not to mention the loss of his mother. Seeing him just reminds me of the way our last conversation ended. How he left. How I forced him to share something so intimate with me.
I park the car and hurry from it, rushing towards Colt with my heart bleeding with something like romance. He turns his head at the last second even though I know he knows I’m right there. My arms are open and I grab him. He stands stiff and I don’t care. I move to my toes and my lips touch his. They’re everything I remember and everything I want. He doesn’t kiss back but that doesn’t stop me as I kiss him again... and again... and finall
y...
Colt growls and turns, allowing our bodies to face each other. His hands are fast, at my hips, lifting me off the ground. I wrap my legs around him, almost instinctive, and he takes the lead on our kiss.
It’s as hot as ever. We act as though we’re forbidden to do anything else so we have to make the kiss count for all the pleasure we want to experience from each other.
It works for me.
By the time I put my legs back on the ground, my knees are wobbly and I feel like I could stumble and fall.
He stares at me, then licks his lips.
“Family emergency?” he asks.
My eyes widen.
Has he been looking for me? Going to the bakery? If so...
“Why didn’t you come here… if you knew?”
Colt shrugs his shoulders. “The counter keeps you at a distance somehow. So I don’t lose control.”
My right hand touches his chest, my fingers casually searching for definition. “I want you to lose control, Colt.”
“Why? So I can send you outside to get murdered? Like I did to that man... oh, excuse me, that gay man.”
His eyes are like dark stones. I’m not sure if I can see into them right now. He has himself so blocked, so hidden, I almost feel like slapping him and walking away. But I think about his mother. I think about the man on the street who tried to come after him.
Colt is dangerous in so many ways and I can’t help myself. I want him to be dangerous... with me.
“You talk as though I judge you,” I say. I take a step back. I need the space. Without it, I’m liable to launch at him again. My body is fighting my brain. Heart versus lust. What a horrible fight to feel.
“No need to judge,” Colt says. “You have all the answers, don’t you? You did your research.”
“That’s not fair to me. Not at all. I told you why I looked up your name. And I swear to you, Colt, I’ve regretted it since. It’s bothered me everyday because I don’t believe a thing. Okay? And I want you to tell me, when you want to tell me.”
“Then I’ll tell you.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“What the hell... you are so confusing.” He pushes from his bike, shaking his head. He’s walking towards the door to my apartment building like he lives there, but trust me, I’m not going to stop him. I want Colt in my apartment, preferably back in my bed.
I take one step and he looks over his shoulder. “Do you want me to want to tell you?”
“What?”
“That’s what I thought. Stick to baking your crappy bread.”
He smiles before he walks again and seeing that smile fills with a sense that maybe things will be okay. Or maybe it’s just the calm before the storm, his way of smiling to ease me into his dark world.
Once we’re inside my apartment he chooses the couch.
Damn, not what I wanted, but I’ll take it.
He looks up at me, waiting for me to sit. I do, close to him, but not too close.
“Is your family okay?” he asks.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does. Are you okay?”
“I haven’t been okay since you left. Actually, I haven’t been okay since you showed up to the bakery.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”
He half smiles and his eyes look cool now. Open and honest.
“My mother stole all the money from the bakery, got really drunk, and fell.”
“She dead?” he asks so casually.
I don’t flinch. It doesn’t bother me.
“No, she’s fine. She swears she’s going to change.”
“They all do,” Colt says and puts his hands together in one big white knuckled fist. “But they don’t. They never will. Not until... they’re gone.”
Shades of his mother? Maybe. But I’m done pressing buttons with Colt. No more researching, no more digging. What I see before me is a man that I’m falling in love with. A man that makes my heart race, my body ache, a man that’s worth whatever past and pain he has because I sure as hell will be bringing enough to the table.
Colt looks at me. “Is that all?”
“That all...?”
“Just your mother?”
I nod. “Everyone else in my family has left. And my grandparents...”
I won’t say the word ‘dead’ because I’m not sure what it’ll do to Colt. I still can’t believe Colt is so calm about his mother’s death but I know people have their own way of dealing with tragedy. Then again, I don’t know if his mother’s death is a tragedy.
“You want to know about my nightclub.”
It’s not a question but a statement.
I don’t react.
“First of all, the place has long since closed.”
I nod. I read that.
“It was supposed to be something new for me. My businesses are generally small, manageable. I wanted more, to prove to myself and the world. To prove... whatever. Through a friend I met a guy who had bought a nightclub and needed help. I made him let me buy into it, taking control of the place. What can I say? There’s a greed in me sometimes... just like how I lose control with you, Bella.”
I smile as my body tingles.
“The place opened and it was great. The business was amazing. Tons of people, tons of cash, tons of everything. Including trouble. Being the owner, I could do what I wanted. So I... drank. A lot. I enjoyed it. It was an open bar, my open bar.”
Colt moves towards me, sensing my apprehension. The last thing I want in life is to fall in love with a guy who drinks.
“I don’t drink now, Bella, I swear. Not like that. Because of that night. I hate thinking about that night because there was probably more I could have done. I never once thought I was putting someone’s life in danger and never once did it matter that the man was gay. All that was written up with a certain angle. I swear on it. I know how I said things and the way they came out, but it wasn’t with the intent the article forcefully implied to anyone who read it. I hope you believe me.”
“I do,” I say. “I promise, I do.”
“Hey, I kind of like that...”
“Like what?”
“Hearing you say that... I do...”
Colt winks, leaving my head and heart spinning some more.
He continue his story.
“What happened was that I was at the bar having a few drinks. Chatting. Enjoying myself. I heard a commotion near me and when I looked I saw two guys chest to chest. Mind you, both men were the same size. It was a fair enough fight if a fight was going to happen. I told my security guy to go down there and break it up. I watched him break it up. He talked to both men and they split up. A few minutes later it started again. This time one of the guys was holding another man’s hand. It didn’t bother me but it started to paint the picture. The other man had a gun and I knew something serious could happen. So I wanted them to leave. I wanted them to leave to diffuse the situation. What I told security to do was toss them both out and make sure they get to their vehicles and leave. Or call a cab. Or catch a ride. Whatever. The last thing I wanted was a gun to go off in the nightclub.
And for the record, the man without a gun - the gay man - he put his hands on the other guy first. He shoved him. He put his finger to the man’s nose. Anything to piss him off. Granted, if the other guy, the one with the gun, was calling him names, I could understand it.
In my mind, security was to escort both men out and keep the separated. What happened was at the door, another scuffle had started between two women. Security went to break that up, allowing the men to go out into the parking lot. I watched the security tapes with the police many times. The man with the gun yelled something to the men holding hands. One turned and charged at the man with the gun. He did raise the gun and allowed the man to punch him in the face. When he turned, that’s when the gunman shot. And shot... and... shot...”
Colt closes his eyes and I have no idea what to do. My left hand is shaking as I reach for him. I skip his
shoulder and go for his back, my hand gently touching him.
“I was angry,” Colt says. “Angry at everything. Angry that I had gotten involved with a business like that. Angry that I was drinking. Angry that people in the world could be so cruel. I’m not very good with some emotions and when I spoke to reporters, my comments came out wrong.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “You did what you feel was right.”
“Yeah, what was right. Tell that to the people who threatened me. To my family.”
“Your family didn’t believe you?”
Colt looks at me. His eyes are glazed over, glossy with tears. “My mother did. She was the only one.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
There’s a strange pause between us, like time coming to a grinding halt. It’s a moment where everything is going to change, I just don’t know what will happen or what will change. I see Colt taking heavy breaths, blinking. I start to open my mouth, hoping some kind of consoling words will come, but instead, Colt falls towards me.
He collapses to me, his face just above my chest. There’s nothing sexual about the move as I can tell by his breathing, he’s weeping. He’s finally weeping. And he’s chosen me to weep to.
My hand on his back moves and my other hand works its way into his hair.
And I hold him.
I let him stay as long as he needs and we both stay in silence.
I hate to admit it but I enjoy this. Not in some sick way but in a way that I can understand Colt’s pain. I can appreciate it. And I can hold it, literally.
When he moves from me, he sits back up but stays very close. Close enough that the tips of our noses are touching again. My lips quiver with anticipation of the taste of his mouth.
“I’m sorry to you,” Colt whispers.
“Me? Why?”
“Because of your mother. Your family. Your... everything...”
“I don’t care about that right now,” I say. “I only care about you. Seeing you. Being with you. I don’t think I can manage without you, Colt.”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“No. You told me when you’re ready.”
“Do you want to know about my mother? My family?”