by Diana Gardin
“It’s good to see you both.” Aunt Tay’s greeting is warm and genuine, and she ushers us inside the refurbished farmhouse to sit in the great room.
The house is beautiful, with accents of both old and new. I remember thinking when we first moved in that it seemed like someone else’s fairy tale. After what I’d gone through, I never felt like I deserved any of this. I was dirty, stained.
Used, used, used.
The inside hasn’t changed much. White bead board covers the walls, light wooden beamed ceilings with cavernous heights. The furniture is casual and tasteful, but the place has a lived-in appearance despite its style. I choose a spot on the khaki sectional sofa and kick off my shoes, tucking my feet up beneath me. Mikah sits a few feet away, spreading his legs wide and placing his forearms on his knees.
“So what’s up, Aunt T?” Mikah’s voice is deep and rumbly, and always manages to sound jovial and nonchalant at the same time. I envy the carefree way he goes about his life. It’s what I try to do, but mine is fake. His is real.
My aunt sits down across from us on a plush ottoman and begins wringing her hands.
I glance at Mikah. Never a good sign.
“It’s about your father.”
Well, leave it to Tay to get right to the point. Just hearing those words cross her lips, your father, makes my insides begin to tremble, turning me in a mess of goo. I clench my muscles together, trying to get control of the shaking. Hot tears spring to my eyes, and I blink rapidly to try and keep them in. Why?
Lately, he seems to be everywhere. I’ve tried to keep thoughts of him buried deep for years, but all of a sudden they’re popping back up to the surface again, dead bodies that won’t stay sunken.
“What about him?” I can’t disguise the tremor in my voice.
Mikah, his face hard and set, grabs my hand and squeezes it. I know what he’s saying without using words. I’ll never let him hurt you again, Mea.
He thought he was protecting me all those years ago. But it would have made things so much worse. So I did what I had to do in order to protect us both…
I lay in bed, my sweat suit causing me to roast but also giving me a sense of false security. My knuckles are white, clenching the covers as tightly as I can. Each muscle is taut, and I’ve been like this for hours. Hours.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Please, not tonight. Dear God in heaven, if you’re up there…if you can hear me? Please. Just not tonight.
I pray the prayer over and over again. I’m not sure why. It’s never saved me before. At this point, I don’t know what could save me. There is no longer anything behind my mother’s eyes. In the last year, they’ve gone completely vacant. It’s like she’s stopped living, but her body still functions. The kids at school don’t understand why my mom doesn’t come to stuff like the other parents do. They don’t get why Mikah and I never invite them over to play. And Daddy’s so controlling, we wouldn’t dream of asking to go to someone else’s house.
We’re the town weirdoes. And that’s the least of my problems.
The blackness in my room gives me no warning that the doorknob is turning. It’s silent, and I don’t know he’s coming until I see the sliver of light from the hallway. Then it’s gone.
Which means he’s in my room.
I can hear his heavy breathing as he stands there.
Watching. Watching. Watching.
I’m holding my breath, but the tears are already streaming down my cheeks.
My stomach is so tight it hurts, all my muscles coiled and aching from overuse.
You are strong. You are strong. You are strong.
When my initial prayer mantra fails, that’s always the next one. Because I am strong enough to handle this. It hurts, and it twists my thoughts into things dark and abysmal, but I am strong. I am in control.
When he grabs my ankles and yanks me around, flipping me so that I’m facedown, I scream. I never scream, he told me not to, but I can’t help it. This is new. He’s never flipped me over before. He pulls down my sweatpants and underwear and slaps my bottom as hard as he can. The sound makes my stomach curl. Bile rises in my throat when he touches me, spreading my legs apart. His weight crushes me, my face mashes into my pillow.
Then his voice is in my ear, and it’s like grease coiling around in a skillet. Slow, oily, and hot.
“Told you to shut your mouth. You like this, just like your mother used to. You’re gonna like tonight even more. Shut up, if you want to tell me how good it is, you whisper.”
I can feel him fumbling around, hear the ragged sound of his zipper as he pulls it down. And then he pounds into me, and I scream again. Oh, God. I’m not strong enough for this.
Then my bedroom door creaks open. The light flips on, and there’s a sleepy eleven-year-old Mikah rubbing his eyes. Almost twelve, he’s halfway between a boy and a man. He’s tall, but gangly. His voice is just starting to change, and he’s outgrowing all of his jeans and sneakers.
Horrified that he’s going to see me like this, I hiss at him. “Get out Mikah! Go!”
My father doesn’t say a word. But he backs up off of me and rises to his knees.
Mikah doesn’t move. I watch as his face flits between sleepy, confused, horrified, and then finally to rage. Blinding rage that he can never come back from. He surges into the room, pulling my father off of me and throwing him to the ground. Standing in front of me, he gulps heavy breaths.
“You’re touching my sister! No…No! Fuck you, you bastard! Don’t you ever touch her again!”
“Mikah,” I whimper. “Please. You have to go.”
Because I’m afraid. I don’t know what this monster will do to my little brother now that he knows. I have to protect him. I have to be in control.
Our father zips up his pants and stares at us, his eyes moving from me to Mikah and back again. Finally, he turns and heads for the door as if nothing happened.
“You’ll both pay for this later. I can promise you that.” And then he’s gone.
We hear his bedroom door shut just down the hall.
Then Mikah flings himself at me. I can barely move I’m in so much pain. And the blood…the blood is all over my bed. Mikah goes for towels and he helps me clean up.
He sleeps with me in my bed that night. Just before we drift off, he murmurs beside me, “I’ll never let him hurt you again, Mea.”
I keep the thoughts to myself, but I know it’s me who can never allow him to be hurt.
The very next day at school, I go to my guidance counselor. And I tell her everything. It changes our lives forever.
Tay’s lip curls in disgust. She never met my father. When he and my mother married, he moved her away to Kentucky and she never kept in touch with her sister. We’ll never know if it was her choice or his, but Mikah and I had never met our aunt and uncle until the day they picked us up from the state care system.
And then my father was found guilty on all counts of child sexual abuse.
“He’s been an exemplary prisoner. He’s undergone hundreds of hours of therapy and counseling over the last ten years that he’s been behind bars. And now he’s up for parole.”
I just sit there. I’m not sure if stunned is the correct word. More like frozen. Chained to my seat. Distraught.
But Mikah, always needing to move, jumps to his feet and begins pacing the room. “How’s that possible, Aunt T? I mean, can’t we go and tell them there’s no way in hell that monster should be out of prison ever?”
She nods miserably. “You could. You could go to the prison in Kentucky in two months for the hearing if that’s what you want to do and plead for his continued containment.”
That’s absolutely the last thing I want to do. I never want to see his face again. I can’t. That will most definitely spin me out of control, and I can’t allow that to happen. Not while I’m in the same room with that man.
Mikah is looking at me like he’s ready to jump a plane to Kentucky right this second.
�
��I’ll…think about it,” I say quietly to Tay. She nods. She understands completely, I can see it written all over her face.
“Let’s go, Mikah.”
His mouth clenches tight, but he follows me to the front door and out to his souped-up Tiburon.
“That’s it?” he asks as he slides behind the wheel. “I mean… I’m with you, Mea. Whatever you want to do. But don’t you have more to say?”
I stare out the window as he begins the drive down the country roads back toward the shore that I’ve grown to love.
I have no words.
11
Drake
January flies by in a blur, with me working at the garage, fixing up my Yamaha, and then sliding into See Food every night for a drink. Or more than a drink.
But one morning, I wake up to a phone call from Mea.
“Hey.” My scratchy morning voice is in full effect. “What’s up?”
The sexy rasp of her sleepy morning voice lights a red-hot flame inside me. I’m instantly awake.
“We have things to do today. You’re not working today, right? I’ll swing by in a half hour.”
Sitting straight up in bed, I squint at the phone, like that’s gonna help me understand what she’s talking about. “What do we have to do?”
The smile in her voice reaches out and hugs me. “Our best friends are getting married in a couple of months. We have a party to plan.”
Sinking back down into the softness of my pillows, I sigh. “Oh, right.”
“Drake? You just laid back down, didn’t you?”
Chuckling, I swing my legs around and stretch. “I’m up, Mea. See you in thirty.”
I’ve just walked into the kitchen, freshly showered and dressed, when she knocks at my front door. When I open it, she waltzes in with two large cups in her hands.
She thrusts one in my hands. “Coffee for you, green tea latte for me.”
She settles in at the kitchen table. Sipping the bitter black liquid, just the way I like it, I follow.
“Good morning to you, too. Thanks for the coffee.” I take the seat beside her.
And the she pulls out a fucking binder. A binder.
“This,” she says, her voice full of pride, “is full of possible bachelor/bachelorette party activities.” Her voice is pumped.
Not sure what it is with women and weddings. It’s like candy or something. They all get high just thinking about them. Trying to bite back my groan, I slide the binder toward me.
She starts chattering away, talking through the ideas she has for the event, and I get lost. In her excitement, in her energy, in the way her teeth sink into her soft lips as she scans her notes.
“See?” Her voice is all bubbles and giddiness. “They have this code-breaking place in Savannah. Wouldn’t that be fun if we had to break out of this scary room by solving clues and stuff?”
I just stare at her. “Pretty sure we’re gonna be drunk most of the weekend. Breaking codes is like work for the security guys. So I veto that idea.”
Her dark eyes narrow on me. “Pretty sure I didn’t give you veto power.”
I lean in, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Pretty sure you’re not the boss of me.”
Her eyes dart down to my lips before flashing back up to my eyes. Her small, pink tongue darts out to lick her lips, and I can’t stop the reaction my body makes. “Fuck.”
“Bar crawl.” I grind the words out, my teeth clenched tightly together just like the rest of my muscles. Her looking at my lips isn’t exactly an invitation for more.
But damn do I want that invitation.
“What?” She looks confused.
“Bar crawl. It’s what we should do one of the nights we’re in Savannah. Laid-back and fun. Split up the guys and the girls for the night, then meet up at the end of it.”
Her eyes light up as she turns a page in the binder and jots something down. “That’s a good idea.” Looking up at me, her bottom lip juts out just a bit.
She’s trying to kill me right here in my kitchen.
“But I still like the code-breaking idea.”
I lean in, studying her gorgeous face, taking advantage of the closer distance. “How about we save that for another weekend? One where we’re not all likely to be three sheets?”
With a smirk, she taps the end of her pen against her lips. “I might be willing to take that deal.”
“Let’s talk to Dare and Berkeley about what activities they want to do while we’re there, and next time we get together we’ll book some stuff. Sound like a plan?”
She nods.
I reach over and close her binder. “Good, because I’m hungry. Let me take you to breakfast.”
Her lips pull into a distracting smile. “I’m in.”
In the following weeks whenever Lenny sees me rolling in to See Food she slides my tumbler toward me and pours my whiskey neat. Sometimes we chat, sometimes she’s too busy with other patrons.
Mea works there waiting tables six nights a week, so I see her every time I come in. Seeing her whipping around the place, grabbing orders and dropping off food, chatting with the customers, makes my mouth water. I want more of her. She always stops by, has a seat on the stool beside mine, and we talk about life and shit. I tell her about my bike and she tells me about her studio. She’s already leased the space, now she’s saving money for licenses and equipment. It shouldn’t be long now; she’s thinking maybe early fall she’ll be able to open the place. The way her face shines when she talks about it is enough to make my heart grow a size bigger. There’s just something about the wild girl…when she’s happy she makes everything around her seem that much brighter.
One night in the middle of February, we both get to talking about the wedding, which is now just a month away.
“So we all set on plans for the bachelorette weekend, right?”
I stroke my chin slowly. “You mean the bachelor weekend?” I shoot her a wink. “Yeah, that’s coming up in two weeks, ain’t it?”
She nods, leaning onto the bar top with her elbows. She wrinkles her nose. “I still think it’s a mistake, doing it together. I mean, there’s no way I’m gonna be able to get a pack of strippers for Berkeley now that Dare will be around.”
“Oh, was that your plan?” I tweak one of her long curls. “Watching naked dudes dance?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “It’s called a bachelorette party for a reason. She’s saying good-bye to the single life. In other words, she’s saying good-bye to all the fun.”
I study her. Her lips are pouting out in a painfully adorable way and her hands are cradling her delicate chin. “That’s what you think? That settling down with someone means all the fun is gone?”
She doesn’t answer aloud, but her thoughts are written in the conviction of her expression.
“How much fun have you been having lately being single?”
She cuts her eyes away from mine, and that’s all the answer I need. Chuckling, I elbow her gently. “So, not much.”
She turns to me with a challenge in her gaze. “I’ve been busy. But I’m not too shy to take a guy home from a bar, Drake. I could pick any single guy in this place tonight and have him wrapped around my finger in a heartbeat.”
Now my dick is straining for some attention. At the same time, my blood is rushing in my ears at the thought of her bringing some random asshole home from the bar with her. “No deal. I don’t need proof. I know you’re a wild girl.”
She nods firmly. “And don’t you forget it.”
I lean in closer. “But you wouldn’t really want someone else, sweetheart, would you? Not when I’m sitting right here waiting on you.”
She visibly shivers, and I grin, pulling back just a little to see her all hot and bothered.
As I watch, she schools her face, and I realize she’s not going to show me all her cards no matter how flustered she is. Not unless I have her alone, and under me.
I finish my drink, and then I lean in again. “So you want to come home with
me tonight?”
She takes a glance around the quiet restaurant and bar. It’s Thursday night, so it’s entirely feasible that the crowd went somewhere a little livelier tonight. Either way, Lenny is wiping down the bar and it’s only just after eleven, and I can see the other waitress leaning a hip against one of her male customer’s tables, clearly shooting the shit.
“Hey, Len.” Lenny raises a brow at Mea, who is placing her hands on her hips. “Are you gonna have to roll this one outta here under your arm again?”
Lenny gives me a quick glare, but I know underneath all the sass she’s worried about me spending so much time in front of her bar.
“Nope. Not tonight. I think he stopped at three.”
I give her a proud grin. “Sure did. Had some eye candy to keep me busy.” I wink at Lenny.
She harrumphs. “Don’t play me, soldier. I know the eye candy sure as hell ain’t me.”
Mea jerks her hand toward the door. “Mind if I go ahead and dip out? Silverware and ketchups are done.”
Lenny pats one of Mea’s cheeks like a grandmother might. Only Lenny is tougher and about ten years younger than most grandmothers I know. “Sure.”
I settle with Lenny by throwing a bill on the bar and tuck Mea under my shoulder as we walk toward the door. All of her curves seem to melt whenever they touch me, and I pull her just a little tighter. Peeking up at me from under my arm, she shoots me a mischievous grin. It has me so stiff and aching it’s hard to walk straight. My body answers to this girl like she’s the only one with my number.
“Huh. Didn’t think you’d actually say yes to my proposal.” My smile is aimed down at her.
She’s busy texting on her phone. “Oh, I’m not. Not yet, anyway.”
I pull up short as we reach the Challenger. “So I’m just taking you home?”
The thought brings with it a surge of disappointment. I haven’t had Mea alone in weeks, and I’ve been missing all those miles of creamy, light-brown skin laid out before me. Tonight I was planning on treating her like a dessert buffet, because that’s what it’s like when she’s naked and in my bed. Like I have the most delectable selections of sweetness anyone could ever taste. And one night with her, even though we didn’t have sex, wasn’t enough. I’m not exactly sure when I’ll get enough of her, but I haven’t had my fill, and I’d like to see how far this fascination with Mea goes.