Kamikaze Heart

by Craze, Chelle C.

  Clutching my useless fist in the air, I answered her, although she couldn’t hear, “I will.”

  13

  Trinity

  My heart screamed in torture. How could I be so stupid? I was not ready to meet him, but how was I to know that when I did. I did not belong in his world, even though my incredulous mind had let me entertain the idea. It was undeniable the day we met, but I’d caught a glimpse of it anyway, and now I knew my battered heart would never forget it. I hated my reckless need for wanting something more and not being satisfied for the pitiful existence I was bound to accept and live someday.

  It was there in the way he always distanced himself from me, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to see the truth about him. This was my fault. Of course, it was. I had never asked him about his life, only if he was an ax murderer. The irony of how broke I was did not escape me. I’d grown used to it before Roland. It was just a part of who I had been. Barely getting by was something I could do with efficiency. I made it work.

  Stepping over the threshold, I took in the scant things this vacant house had to offer. Eli was right. It needed a paint job. I wondered why he hadn’t given the walls a few coats before I had traveled here, knowing a new tenant was arriving. I wanted to do this one thing for me, but after checking my wallet and cringing, thankful moths didn’t fly out from it, I knew it was not in the cards. I was exactly what the inconsiderate woman in the game shop had called me years ago. Trash. Somewhere between losing him and now, I had lost my way to the truth. To myself. I used to have a fire that burned deep within me. A willpower to slap in the faces of those who pointed a righteous finger in my direction. Maybe Armon had always been my reason to remember and thrive. He was my inspiration. Without him, I was useless to the outside world. What was the point anymore?

  “Mommy, can we get it?” Armon asked, picking up the game most of his friends already had. His voice piqued with excitement, but was quick to fall into an understanding disappointment as his eyes met mine. I wanted nothing more than to tell him yes without hesitation, but I couldn’t. Being a single parent, slinging tacos as a means of employment wasn’t the most lucrative income even for the two of us.

  “Not today, sweet pea,” I answered him, guilt climbing up my throat and sneaking into my words. As an adult, I got the value of money, but him being five, he didn’t. He knew enough to understand we did not have a lot of it, but didn’t entirely grasp the concept of a seventy-dollar game being entirely out of our reach, despite how long he thought his growing fingers were.

  The sad part about it all was he had grown accustomed to hearing this and placed the game back onto the shelf, without so much as even a little bit of argument on his part. Not one word, which might shock most parents, but Armon understood I was doing my best. It didn’t matter, though. I still wanted to die right there in the store as the eyes of the other parents were on me. Also, I wanted to scream at them to mind their own damned business, but decided to take the higher road for his sake, not theirs. If Armon were not here, I would have told them exactly where they could go and how. Hell, I might have even drawn a map for a few of the mouthy ones, but he was here, and being a parent meant occasionally biting your tongue for their benefit. It was what parents did to instill morals into a child. Any parent worth a shit, that was.

  “Trash,” one of the other shoppers mumbled under her breath not so quietly, her eyes roaming our hand-me-downs. The lady fully intended for us to hear the insult, and my car traveling the high road instantly came to a screeching halt as Armon’s head fell in defeat from her words.

  I shook my head and bit my lower lip, trying to keep its quivering down to a few twitches here and there. It was something that only happened when my irritation was boiling over and rising into being full-blown pissed off.

  She scoffed, and my body twisted around as my two middle fingers made their way into the air on their own accord. “You know, I’d rather be humble trash any day, versus a self-righteous, inconsiderate bitch,” spat out of my lips before I could stop the words from flowing, shocking everyone in the store, including me. It was one of those moments where your body and mouth moved quicker than your brain could process what was going on at the moment.

  The rest of my fingers joined the middle ones in the air as my hands clapped together, and I addressed everyone in the store, “Well. Now that we all have learned a new word or so for the day, I bid you farewell.” I bowed as I walked backward, grabbing Armon’s hand within my palm and clamping my lips together to keep from laughing at the people standing with their mouths hanging wide open with disbelief.

  Armon was not as successful. A few small laughs managed to escape his body that had almost instantly begun to shake with silent laughter as soon as the woman insulted us. At times, he knew me better than I knew myself. Apparently, this was one of those moments, which reminded me sometimes it wasn’t biting your tongue that was the example you needed to set for your child. It was standing up for yourself and those you love. Even if I hadn’t handled the situation as mildly as I hoped, I had let my son know it was not okay for a person to treat someone else in this manner. We were all human. We had flaws. Weaknesses and strengths.

  “Armon.”

  “I know, Mommy. It’s a bad word…and it’s rude to flip people off.” He laughed, pulling the seatbelt over his shoulder and shoving the latch into the buckle of the lap belt. After it clicked, a singular loud laugh filled the small space in our car. “But, she was a bitch.” He snickered, his eyes meeting mine staring at him from the rearview mirror.

  My eyes locked with his determination and innocence. I wanted to correct him, but she was a bitch. I just smiled as I shook my head, letting this time he cursed slide. I wasn’t what some would call a strict mother, but I was not a pushover either. He had rules and knew to follow them. I tried to stay within their bounds to set a good example for him, but I wasn’t always successful. It was just my belief that you could have faith and still say a bad word every now and then, and it wouldn’t be the deciding factor in making you a bad person.

  “As long as you know…and don’t let your granddad hear you say that. He’d whoop both our as—butts.” I stopped myself from cussing again and shrugged my shoulders, holding my foot on the brake and wrapping my hand around the gearshift to put the car into drive.

  “Oh, trust me, I. Know. Better,” he assured me, pulling his Rubik’s Cube from the pocket of his hoodie, calling out the order he was moving the sides. “Front face clockwise. Right counterclockwise.” It was something my dad had taught him, claiming it would help him focus. I really think Dad had done it just because he knew it annoyed me when he announced the things he did aloud. So what better way to seek vengeance on your kid than to teach their kid the same annoying habit? Either way, Armon believed him, so I wouldn’t dare say a word to convince him otherwise. He believed it, so maybe it did help.

  It was easy for me to speak my mind to most people, but Armon was my son. I was always honest with him, but I tried to protect him from the heinous attributes of the world. He and I were a team from the day I found out I was pregnant with him. It wasn’t that I didn’t love his dad. I did. I just wasn’t in love with him as cliché as it was to say that. It was hard to love someone when you were only in love with the idea of them.

  I promised myself I would never keep Armon from his father, but promises were hard to keep when one of the parties involved was a drug addict. Most addicts were unpredictable at best. It was when they were predictable that you knew you were losing them…or in the case of Armon’s father, I had lost him. When Armon was born, his father was there and clean, or so he said. I believed him. After a few weeks passed, his visits became increasingly sparse, until the night I knew he wouldn’t return. That was the predictability I referred to. It was a pretty brutal dose of reality for someone to leave a paper practically signing over their rights as a parent on your doorstep. Well, as much as he could with us both being sixteen. We both knew he would never step foot into a courth
ouse right then, unless he was forced, which did come on Armon’s second birthday when his father was arrested for shooting someone over drugs. It was then I knew I would never fulfill the promise I had made to myself, and I made a new one. To protect him from his father. As depressing as it was, it was something I had to do for my son. I did not limit the protection to his father. It was to protect him from anyone.

  Only I had broken that promise, unable to foresee what Armon needed protection from the most. Me. Something told me not to let him go that day, but I always got nervous when we were apart. I thought it was only natural for any parent to fear letting go of their protectiveness, even a little, for their child to experience life. But, that day, I was extra anxious. Everything within me told me not to let him go. I did, though, and now, I would never get him back.

  A persistent knock rattled the door, and there was only one person who knew my location. Eli. I didn’t know how long I had sat in the corner of what I figured was intended to be a living room, lost in memories, before he found me.

  I swiped my fingertips underneath my wet eyes and then did a second pass, just to make sure I had gotten all the tears. I didn’t bother to answer the door, because I didn’t want to see him. I wasn’t as angry with him as I was me for putting myself in the situation in the first place. Sure, he could have told me of his engagement when I told him mine had ended, but he didn’t. He did not owe me that information then. I wasn’t sure if he did now or not. Technically, nothing intentional had happened between us, other than sharing laughter and time. However, that time was not mine to fill. Those laughs and earth-tilting smiles he had gifted me were supposed to be shared with someone else. The way his voice contorted with guilt as he blurted out the words, “I’m engaged,” told me whoever had been on the phone was important to him, and I was the root of his shame.

  “Go away,” I yelled, rubbing my cheeks and washing my hands over my face in annoyance.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” I argued with him, but almost didn’t, in case he had brought Alf to me.

  “Not a chance, Trinity McConaughey,” he argued, the door squeaking as he entered, his profound steps growing closer to where I sat.

  “Why do you know my last name? Ax murderer,” I complained and refused my body’s natural instinct to look at his face, wanting to see what emotional state he was in. Playful. Guilt-ridden. Completely unfazed. The last would be the worst. It was one thing to overlook growing close with someone, because it had taken me by surprise how seemingly natural it was for us to be around each other, for sure. But for him to be completely unaffected would make him a cheater. Even though we hadn’t gotten to that part and might not have.

  “Not. An. Ax murderer. And because I am a businessman who reads his contracts, ya know, like the one we both signed.” His voice carried a hint of humor, but a stern tone similar to the one he used to recite the strange creed he had to Bart.

  “That’s an invasion of privacy,” I weakly argued, my tongue rolling over my teeth behind my sealed lips afterward. “Probably,” I added, staring at his boots that now stood in the edge of the room.

  “I should have told you. I know. But, I didn’t mean…” His voice lost all confidence, and he hesitated.

  “To care?” I finished his statement as a question, knowing what he was going to say, but wanting to hear it for myself no matter the cost. Even though I would more than likely be better off without the crippling knowledge, I needed to know.

  “Yes,” he huffed sympathetically, dropping beside me onto the floor, stretching his long legs out in front of his body, and handing me a bag.

  My eyebrows knitted together, and even though I wanted to refuse whatever the contents were, the smell was glorious. A burger and fries, if I had to guess.

  “Let’s just eat.”

  “What’s Dad’s Skillet?” I pondered, reading the name off the bag, following his lead to open it and unwrapping the burger as my stomached growled. If he had enough time to get food, I had clearly been alone longer than I realized, which wasn’t anything new when Armon was on my mind, so I didn’t give it much thought. Other than making one quick trip with Eli to fetch necessary toiletries and food, that I think he actually bought for my benefit, not his, I had not left this ranch. So, I had no idea how close or far away from a food establishment we were. I didn’t even know if that was what his plot was called. Did you have to have cows and horses for your land to be classified as a ranch? Honestly, I didn’t know what to call it, and that included when the term home was thrown into the mix.

  “Only the best damn restaurant this side of the Mississippi!” he beamed, and it was the first time I allowed myself to look at him as he stared at me in bewilderment.

  “Not from here,” I reminded him and bit into the burger, grease running down my chin.

  “Here.” He plucked a napkin from his bag and handed it to me.

  “Thanks.” My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and I ignored it, no longer wishing to feel anything when around him. I didn’t want him to affect me as he did. I wasn’t even sure he knew what he did to me, but I now knew it was wrong that he did.

  “I hate to tell you, but if your accent didn’t give you away, your layers would. Are you not burning up?”

  I was, but I was too proud to tell him that I had been in such a hurry to leave West Virginia I had forgotten the climate would be different here than it was there. I shrugged and focused on the food. What hadn’t slipped my mind was the gargantuan elephant trampling its feet and swinging its long trunk around us. One wrong movement or slip of the tongue and we would be beneath its fury. I needed to keep reminding myself of it, because it was important not to forget it.

  “You’re engaged?”

  “You had a son?” he answered, shoving a fry into his mouth, and pulled two beers out of his bag. Ouch. I almost cussed him for bringing up Armon, but somewhere between our houses, the internal battle we both carried had gained life. The words we both spoke allowed it to pulsate.

  “You bought beer at the best Mississippi restaurant?” I ignored the subjects for the time being, not wanting to discuss Armon any more than he wanted to talk about his relationship status.

  “Louisiana,” he corrected, “And no, they came from the Quick Stop. The rest of them are in a cooler on your porch.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He shoved them both under his forearm and opened them one at a time and handed me the first, brushing off the things we were both now avoiding.

  “Yes,” he cleared his throat, “to answer your question, I am engaged. But, I’m going to end it.”

  “Because of me?” blurted out of my mouth before I was able to stop it.

  “No. Well, kinda, but not entirely.” He held my gaze for a moment, and then his eyes transfixed on his food, not capable to look at me as he spoke, or not wanting to. “She cheated on me with my best friend. The same guy that’s supposed to be my best man in our wedding. I thought I had forgiven them, but that was before you came into my life. Before you, I didn’t know what I was missing. Now, it is all I can think about. Jocelyn and I have been together so long it just became who I am. I was going through the motions, but not really living them. Then you came into Blackwell and reminded me it was okay to live my life for me. Or something like that.” He cleared his throat again and took another bite of his food.

  “Don’t do something because of me, Eli. I don’t want to be another Olivia in someone’s life. Whatever you do, make sure it’s for you and only you.” My honesty flittered into the air before I had a chance to process what I was saying. And there it was, the truth. It was my turn to be honest again. It was time to shed a piece of my armor and join him by stepping onto the battlefield.

  “First off, I need a job. I can’t keep mooching off you. If anything, I owe you more than I will be able to repay for some time. So, the sooner I get a job, the better,” I said in a casual tone, knowing it wasn’t the topic I dreaded, but needed to be discussed.

  “Is the Skillet
hiring?” I wondered, tracing the black and green letters on the bag with my finger. The obvious career choice would be at a hospital, but I was emotionally exhausted, something that made it difficult to care for others. I guess it was the events that happened in the past years, but I was in no condition to care for someone else anymore, not to the extent that was needed when working as a nurse. I thought I could handle delivering burgers to people’s tables, though. With that job, a temporary bond was formed with the customers, but it was not as intimate as the one shared between a nurse and patient.

  This metaphorical and literal war of sorts that I’d been inaugurated into was a hostile with a loaded gun. It was as if Eli’s news was the last piece of information my body could withstand. The farther it burrowed into my body, the more bruised and brittle I became. Every occurrence that splintered my heart took turns blasting its fragile exterior with vehemence.

  Armon’s death was when the universe voluntarily used me as a human shield, and the shards of shrapnel were still embedded deeply within my flesh. Boom. My heart exploded. Seeing my best friend and fiancé divulging each other’s fantasies was the point I earned my Purple Heart medal. Whoosh. Shots were fired, but not deadly. I had made it out alive. Lastly, the unexpected news of Eli’s engagement was my third and final tour of heartache, and it was not friendly fire ripping my skin with regret. Pow. I had stupidly thought I made it out of the warzone and would only reenter by choice. The truth was, I had never left. I was a prisoner to the war of the heart, and the years I had spent running were those of delusion. Eli wasn’t alone with his constant turmoil, but he embraced it, while I denied it. Until now.

  I didn’t know what it was about this particular moment that brought acceptance into light, but it was something that couldn’t be ignored. Once the rays caught on the surface of acceptance, they ricocheted off into thousands of reminders, and they splintered into millions more to lie in every path I took to retreat. I gave up and did the only thing I could do. Embrace it with him.