I can’t help but look up at him. His eyes are hard and unforgiving.
Talon says, “Quinn, do you need someone to accompany you to the funeral? I’d be glad to.”
A shaky breath escapes my lungs. “I did come alone. You guys were my only friends here.”
“We still are,” Ryder says with finality.
Talon nods in agreement.
Liam looks away.
I’ve longed for him … but I expected nothing else after what I did to him.
Liam Knight was my home … once, but I lost it. I haven’t been home since.
“Quinn, when is the funeral?” Cade asks, breaking the awkward silence that hangs in the air.
“Monday.”
“Today is only Friday,” Cade continues. “Where are you staying?”
“Motel 6,” I reply. “Student budget. I figured it was on the bus route too, so I could get from place to place.”
“Bullshit,” Ryder breaks in. “I’ll be your personal chauffer while you’re here.”
“I don’t know …”
“I do,” he says. “There is no reason for you to have to do this alone.”
“Thanks.” I know I’m going to cry again. Shit! Here it comes. My voice shudders. “My friend Shellie wanted to come with me, but final exams are looming … and I don’t know how long it will take to deal with my mom’s stuff.”
Cade steps forward and wraps me into his chest as the sobs break through me. “I’m sorry,” I whimper, feeling like the weak little girl I used to be—with no light in the darkness.
“Nonsense, you have nothing to be sorry about. And you are not staying at any motel. Ryder will take you to get your stuff, and then bring you back to the house. It’s always there as a home for you.”
Home. I manage a nod. My home is the person standing within arm’s reach of me, yet we’re separated by a thousand miles.
“Well, it looks like you guys have this all taken care of,” Liam says, looking completely dumbstruck. “I’m late getting to work. I’m sorry again for your loss …”—he hesitates before he says my name—“Quinn.”
He turns and strides out of Cade’s office as if the building were on fire.
“He’s going through male PMS,” Ryder quips.
“Come on, let’s get you settled into North House. We’ll take my car,” Talon says. “Ryder is a robot and rides his bike even in February.”
They start their banter and I’m caught in the turbulence of the man Liam has become—and the memories of the boy I knew and loved …
Chapter Four
2015
Liam
The pain that clouds over her countenance because of my reaction is horribly apparent, yet I can’t stop the forward tumble I’m taking.
I let my eyes cut away from her—despite the fact that the act of doing so feels like a thousand tiny jagged splinters going through my iris.
Goddamnit, I’m crumbling … right here in front of her … I can’t. I can’t let myself be that vulnerable. Not again.
I watch as her pretty little mouth moves. Her thin, petal colored lips work, but no words take form as tears fall from her eyes.
I need a wall! I need a concrete and steel-fucking-reinforced wall.
Oh my God, I would rather die than stand here. I don’t think dying would hurt as much as this moment does. I want to grab her into my arms and hold her so tightly that our hearts would have no choice but to beat together. What kind of man am I that I can’t look at the best friend I ever had? How can I simultaneously hate someone so strongly and love them so incredibly ardently?
I loved her with everything I was, and she left me! She promised—we promised—we’d never leave each other, never! No matter what happened! I want to hate her, to loathe her.
I don’t want her to know that, when she stole away that fateful night, she took, right along with her, my breath and my heart. My very soul.
When Talon and Ryder come through the door, I know I have to get the fuck out of here!
I can’t get into my car fast enough. I tear out of the parking lot in a daze, the wheels of my 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R creating smoke on the blacktop.
What the fuck? “WHAT THE FUCK?!” I shout at the windshield.
For seven years I couldn’t move on with my life. I waited for her, watched the phone, checked emails, begged Cade to tell me if he heard from her. Nothing, not one fucking word!
“I waited for you, Quinn!” I rage into the empty car. “I believed in you so much that I knew you’d come back, was sure you’d come back, but you didn’t! You obliterated me!!”
It’s been just over the past few years that I’ve been able to piece my life together. A future without her was never part of the plan. And it still hurts like hell, but I moved forward. I got my business up and running, started fighting professionally, got laid when I wanted to …
But everything I’ve done, everything I’ve accomplished, I’ve done as half of a whole.
With just one look from her, I feel like my fucking vital organs were just ripped open.
I’ve never gotten over her, not in the slightest.
*****
October, 2004
Liam
“That movie was frigging awesome!” Quinn crows happily.
“Yeah, it was,” I agree.
We talk about our favorite scenes as we walk out into the safety of dusk and hop the bus back to my foster home.
We’re almost there when she says. “I don’t know, Liam. I shouldn’t get too used to sleeping at your house … or being with you.” Quinn stares down as she picks at the frayed material of her jeans, exposing her knee. “I should go back … to where I belong.”
“You’re not stupid. You don’t belong on the street, and you know it. Give me a little time to figure out what to do.”
She eyes me skeptically. “No one belongs on the street,” she says.
I stand my ground. Quinn, considering what she’s been through, should be a hardened, street-tough girl, but she isn’t. Far from it. She’s sweet, soft and sensitive.
It’s not hard to talk her into coming with me. We pick up some Subway sandwiches and cookies for dinner and take them back to my room. All the cash I’d accumulated is gone, and I don’t mind at all. Money is liquid; I’ll get more.
We’re sitting on my bed when I take an intimate leap.
“I have something I want to show you if you promise you won’t laugh.” My tone is a lot more serious than I meant for it to be.
She takes in my countenance. “I won’t laugh.”
“I’ve never showed anyone before, not a soul,” I confess.
The nervousness that started deep in my stomach when I suggested it spreads through my entire body. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
I take out my backpack, unzip the back compartment and pull out my most prized possession.
Reaching towards her, I pass her my art portfolio. “I used to travel with my sketch pad only, but after a while, I had done so many drawings that I felt something about, I put them into a binder to protect them.”
I need a distraction. I can’t watch as she looks through it, so I plug my MP3 player into a mini speaker and put on Linkin Park’s Meteora album. Somehow they say everything in their lyrics that I feel. I start it at “Somewhere I Belong.”
Peering back over at Quinn, I think maybe I shouldn’t have shown my deepest shit to her. What the fuck was I thinking?
I’m so fucking nervous I decide that the best thing to do—instead of watching her reactions—is draw. I sit beside her against the wall at the head of the bed, prop my pad on my knees and work a pencil against the paper.
“These are amazing!” Quinn exclaims.
“You think so?” Is she lying? Being polite?
She catches my eyes. “I know so.”
I take a deep breath.
She flips through the pages of dragons and knights, swords and fancy script. There are skulls, trees and flowers, old time ships, animals, sexy pin-up gir
ls, fiery phoenixes, eyes dripping with tears or blood …
“I draw what I feel at the moment. Some of them are gruesome,” I say when she reaches a particularly dark drawing of a monster crushing a boy’s skull.
“Yeah, and some of them are beautiful. All of them are incredible. You’re so talented.”
“Thanks.” I almost want to tell her that if she studies the pictures she might be able to discern which are from my real life—like the boy and monster—and which are simply just for the hell of it, for the fun of drawing. “I think if I can get really good, I want to be a tattoo artist.”
“I think you already are really good. You could totally be a professional tattoo artist if you wanted to be.” She says this matter-of-factly, but the weight of her words and compliment impact me like a meteorite striking a planet. “Do you have any tattoos?” she asks.
“One. I made a homemade gun last place I was at.”
“You tattooed yourself?” She’s incredulous.
“Yeah.” I laugh.
“Didn’t it hurt?” Her eyes are so wide. “I hear they hurt wickedly!”
“Yeah it hurt.” I’m lost inside her blue oceans as they look back at me. I have the strongest urge to grab her face and kiss her.
“Can I see it?”
Can I kiss you? “No.”
“What do you mean, no? Let me see it!”
After an exaggerated eye roll, I lift the left sleeve of my t-shirt.
As she studies the messy script above my bicep, her fingers reach up and gently trace the lettering I etched into my flesh. Her brow creases and her expression is pained.
“Damned?” she reads aloud with a questioning inflection.
“Everyone wanted to brand me, so I decided to brand myself.”
“You’re not damned,” she argues.
“Yeah, yeah I am,” I insist. “I have enough fuck-ups to fill a lifetime.”
“What have you done that’s so bad?” She’s still touching my shoulder and I don’t want her to stop.
“Enough, trust me.” I decide to rework the direction of our conversation “Anyway, I want to get some really cool tats with someone who’s willing to do my artwork on me.”
“Do you have a specific one in mind?” Quinn looks back to the portfolio, studying it carefully.
“Yeah, I want to do something great someday and have the horse and knight tatted on my arm or maybe my back,” I explain. “You know, as a play on my last name.”
“I love that idea, Liam Knight. And you know, you’ve already done something great,” she says.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” I fire back.
“You became my friend and helped me when I needed it. That was pretty brave.”
I can’t answer her. I never thought that making friends with Quinn would’ve made her look at me or think of me that way.
I find my voice. “So you don’t loath me like you did when you first looked at me when I bothered you down by the angel.”
Gently she shakes her head. “I was only trying to protect myself.”
Of course she was.
“What tattoo would you put on me?” she asks.
“You’d get a tattoo?” I don’t believe her.
“If you did it I might.”
“I’ll think about it.” But I wouldn’t ink anything into that China-teacup-perfect porcelain skin of hers—I wouldn’t want to fuck it up!
“How do you become a tattoo artist?” she asks, passing me back my binder.
“I don’t have a fucking clue.” I shrug, putting it away again, into hiding. “Maybe an apprenticeship under another artist … I certainly don’t see an art degree at a university in my future. What about you Quinn, what do you want to do? What do you dream about?”
“My dreams are stupid.”
“No dream is stupid.”
“Okay, then it’s unrealistic,” she retorts.
“Hey, I just shared mine with you …”
“Fine. I want a family,” she says firmly. “When I was living with my dad and his new family I felt like an outsider the entire time. My stepmother wouldn’t let me sit next to my dad in the evening when we were supposed to be having family time and watching a movie or something. She’d tell me she was going to sit next to him, then she’d have one of her kids sit there instead. He never seemed to notice. After a while I stopped trying. And he never invited me to join him, either.” She leans her head against the wall. “She made sure we had no time together, ever. And like my mom, he worked all the time. Even when I got him to talk with me, it was never for any real length of time or very meaningful. I felt like he didn’t care if I was there or not, and my stepmother was usually criticizing me—telling me how fat I was, how ugly my nose was, or how stupid I was—I soon learned it was better to stay alone in my room and read books. On the rare occasion I actually got my dad to hug me, he’d do it for the quickest second before pushing me away saying, ‘That’s enough.’ But it was never enough.
“My mom didn’t want me, my dad didn’t want me, my stepmother didn’t want me … but to anyone looking in, it looked like I had a perfect life. Nice furniture, designer clothes, new cars and upper-middle-class money. Abuse isn’t always bruises and cuts; sometimes it’s selfish, materialistic, cold, unloving people who learn to inflict pain in ways others can’t see so easily. Being smacked around with a ping pong paddle, being refused physical affection and food, being told you’re fat and ugly and that no one would ever love you—how could they if your own mother doesn’t?”
Quinn wipes a tear. “I want a family and a home. That’s my dream.”
She’s right, that’s not a dream; it’s a need, a necessity for existence.
“You know when you go to someone’s house and see a family picture with all of them together in it? I’ve never been in one of those. I want to be.” She shrugs. “My dad, stepmom and her two kids have one—I wasn’t invited.”
“That sucks, Quinn, I’m sorry.” It feels natural to put my arm around her shoulder.
“I don’t belong anywhere, Liam.” I feel her tears against my arm.
“I get it,” I say. “My grandparents loved me; at least I thought they did when I was little, but my mom hated them.” I did too, now. “My grandmother’s the one who really raised me. My mom couldn’t stand looking at me and refused to take care of me. She took off completely when I was still a baby. My grandfather died when I was eight, and my gran died about a year later. The court found my mom and gave me back to her.” I go quiet as the buried memories threaten to crawl up out of their graves. “And that obviously hasn’t gone well.”
“So, you want a family too,” Quinn says decidedly.
“I guess maybe I do, probably. I don’t know. I gave up on the notion a long fucking time ago,” I snap. “Plus, a family isn’t a dream.”
“It’s my dream,” she whispers.
It bothers me terribly, like the gnawing when I saw her in the cemetery; I want to smash that stupid idea of a dream! She needs to know that homes aren’t real for kids like us. She needs to toughen up if she’s going to survive out here! But part of me hates myself for even thinking that. I like her tenderness … too much.
I don’t know what to say, so I move my arm and lay down. “Tomorrow is Sunday and I need to think.”
“What do you need to think about?”
“You, and how to get you somewhere better than under a fucking bridge.”
She lies next to me, but doesn’t turn and face the wall this time. Instead, she curls against me and lays her head on my chest.
God, the feel of her against me like this is amazing.
And just like that, she’s my somewhere I belong.
I’m stirred awake as I hear angry voices shouting in the other room. I look over at the clock. Two a.m.
“I told you not to fucking bet all the money!” Mrs. Richardson screams. “You gambled away our fucking rent!”
“Shut up, bitch! I don’t need your shit anymore; I heard your grating
voice all the way fucking home!” Mr. Richardson shoots back.
Goddamnit! They’re back. And he sounds drunk!
I shake Quinn awake. “Wake up; you have to get under the bed.”
“What’s wrong?”
It only takes a moment before she hears them fighting. She presses her lips together and bravely nods.
Once she slips underneath, I pull the blanket so it drapes over the edge of the bed to hide her.
“You don’t need my shit?!” Mrs. Richardson yells. “Good! I don’t need to look at your ugly, worthless face anymore!”
Fuck! If they keep this volume the neighbors are going to call the cops!
“Bitch, shut up!”
I hear him smash against something. I squeeze my eyes closed against the inevitable.
“You can’t even hit me, you’re such a pussy!” she taunts him.
I’ve been here long enough to know exactly what’s going to happen, she’s going to go to her room or go to the kitchen for something to eat, and he’s going to come in here and start shit with me.
I tune out for a second and wonder, if two people like me and Quinn ever got together, would we be miserably dysfunctional like these two asshole excuses for human beings? I could never imagine Quinn like that—and I’d rather cut off my own fucking arms than ever hurt her or a kid.
My door blasts open so fast it makes me jump, even though I was expecting it.
“The little douchebag is awake.” Mr. Richardson staggers in. “This room is a fucking pigpen!” he rages as he looks at the food wrappers on the floor. He grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling me up off the bed and throwing me to the floor. “PICK THEM UP, PIG!”
I quickly snatch up the two Subway wrappers and smash them together in my hands.
“Two sandwiches, you fat fuck? Where did you get the money for those?” His foot kicks into my ribcage.
I steal a glance under the bed at Quinn, who looks terrified.
I’d like to reassure her. I can take the asshole easily—I have before. I’ve stopped fighting back, though, since the weather turned colder. I usually let him hit me a few times until he gets tired and goes off to bed. My biggest concern right now is that I don’t want him discovering her.
Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) Page 7