by London Casey
Maddox broke the kiss, stared, and kissed me again. Then he moved his mouth to my ear.
He whispered four words that forever changed me.
“I’ve got you, sugar…”
23
MADDOX
PRESENT DAY
I stood at the balcony and enjoyed a smoke. It wasn’t the first time that I’d a little fun in the middle of the afternoon when I was supposed to be working. But it was certainly the first time it felt like it mattered so much.
Hazel was everything I could have ever dreamed of. The curves on her body were made for my fingers to explore. The way her skin tasted, something like a rare, delectable honey, one that I now thirsted for, and that thirst never went away. The touch of her sweet core, feeling that wet heat, proof that my touch mattered to her.
Fuck.
I was still piecing everything together in my head. I couldn’t stop seeing the stain on the wall, the glass on the floor, her camera in pieces in that grocery bag.
I sucked on the cigarette hard and curled my lip as I blew out smoke. I was shaking. Fucking shaking. I never got like that. Not from a woman. Not from sex. Not some situation that had nothing to do with me.
I heard the door open behind me.
I looked back and saw Hazel with the green eyes as she stepped out, now wearing nothing but a long t-shirt with a faded picture of a motorcycle on it. Her hair was pulled back, still messy, almost glimmering with the leftover sweat from what we had done in her bed.
I hurried to put the cigarette between my thumb and middle finger, ready to flick it away.
Hazel grabbed my forearm. “No. It’s okay.”
“It’s not the greatest habit in the world, sugar.”
“Could be worse.”
“Right.”
I smiled. I wasn’t wasting half the cigarette.
Then it hit me…
Was I just about to toss my smoke because of a woman?
That hit me hard in the gut, too.
“Maddox, I don’t know what I’m feeling right now…”
“Ah, Hazel, don’t go deeper than it needs to be,” I said. “Okay? I’m not that kind of guy.”
“The way it felt was different. And I’m not saying that to scare you.”
“Meaning?”
“I let it happen because it always happened around me,” Hazel said. “Okay?”
I nodded.
That didn’t make it right, but I didn’t need to tell her that.
I then stood there and stared straight ahead, giving her some space but being close at the same time. Again, something I was not used to doing.
When I blinked, that split second my eyes were shut, I saw her, arms open, apologizing, going off the ridge.
That wasn’t going to happen to Hazel.
“I don’t want you involved though, Maddox,” she said. “It’s not your problem or your fault.”
“I can’t stand by and watch you get hurt. I think we both can agree that this time it was a flower vase and a camera…”
I saw the look on her face.
I saw the scar under her right eye.
Slowly, I reached for it. With the tip of my index finger, I traced the line on it.
“See, I know how strong you are. Even though you don’t believe me or don’t believe yourself. But I know it. I watched you stand up to me. I’m an asshole. I wanted to chase you away but you refused to leave. Pictures or not, you refused to leave. And this. This scar. This scar has a story and you wear it.”
“You can’t get rid of a scar, Maddox.”
I flicked my smoke away and turned, leaning against the railing on my left side. I put my hand to her hip. That damn curve wanted to kill me.
“You can cover up a scar,” I whispered. “Or a cut. Or a bruise. Anything you want in life you can cover up. But from the day you busted into my life with your damn camera, that scar has always been visible. Beyond those beautiful green eyes, there’s the scar.”
“Yeah, well, not wearing makeup doesn’t make me some warrior or anything, Maddox.”
I pulled her close to me. Her hands touched my bare chest. She let out a gasp.
“Yes it does,” I said. “To me, you’re a fucking warrior, sugar. And whenever you’re ready to keep giving me pieces of the story, I’m here to listen. And if you ever need me for something more, I’m here.”
I saw her chin quiver. “Maddox…he just shows up when he wants. I broke it off a long time ago. To him, he still has that power. And the camera? He gave me the money to buy the camera that I started my business with. So…”
“So, what?” I asked. “That gives him right to take it away like that?”
“I can’t have this conversation. I can’t.”
Hazel put her hands to my chest and pushed away. She wiped the corners of her eyes and then cleared her throat.
“I have some stuff to do. So…if…”
“You want me to go,” I said. “Not a problem, sugar.”
I grabbed the handle of the sliding door and wanted to rip the fucking door off its track and throw it a mile away. I hated the way Hazel felt, and I hated that I couldn’t just fix it.
I gathered up the rest of my stuff and met her at the door.
I touched her chin one more time. “I know you’re not going anywhere. I know you’re not doing anything. Don’t be afraid to be honest with me, sugar. I promise I will always be honest with you.”
“It’s not you, Maddox. Okay? It’s just all this…”
“Shit,” I said. “I know. I get it.”
I leaned in and planted a soft kiss to her cheek. As I pulled away, she grabbed for my shoulder, wanting me close. I turned my head a little and our noses touched. Her lips were gorgeous. Lips meant to be kissed. Lips meant to watch as she spoke words or let out moans as I touched her.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For being here. Right now. Like this. Today.”
I nodded. “I’m not going anywhere, sugar. And you’re not quitting St. Skin. Not yet, at least.”
“I don’t have-”
I brushed my lips against hers.
Then I left the apartment.
I hurried down the stairs and grabbed my phone.
I called for Max. He did portrait tattoos at the shop. He was the best. Honestly. The best I had ever seen in my life. He could do a portrait tattoo and you’d swear it was the real thing. Because of that…
“Max,” I said. “Brother. I need a favor. I need to know everything you know about cameras…”
24
HAZEL
YEARS AGO
The foot thunder was so twenty minutes ago. Crazy as it was, it turned into actual thunder after a while. Like the universe lined up within itself and a storm wasn’t just in the house but also outside. I saw the lightning before the thunder. And when the thunder smacked, it sounded like it was right over my room.
That, at least, took away some of the sounds from downstairs.
But there was a serious problem.
The storm distracted me.
I left Wink behind and walked to my window.
It was dark outside.
I stood there with my hands gripping the faded rainbow curtains that my mother found at a yard sale. I really didn’t like rainbows, but my mother was so excited to find curtains that were kiddish and girlie, so I smiled and thanked her.
They also smelled weird. Even after she washed them a few times, it smelled like a cat had peed on them. But I didn’t tell her that. She had enough pain in her life, how fair would it be for me to add to it?
So, I stood with my hands holding the curtains, waiting.
When the lightning would light up the sky, my eyes got wider. Then the thunder would smack against the sky. It had me in complete awe, as though I had never seen a thunderstorm in my life.
It was nice distraction from what was happening downstairs.
It was too much of a distraction.
So much so that when my bedroom door blasted open, I though
t it was thunder outside at first. Then I realized I hadn’t seen lightning. By the time I turned around, he was there, hands reaching for my neck.
I should have been in my closet. Holding Wink. Trying to muffle the sounds.
At the very last second, I ducked down and he hit the window. He broke it. His hands went right through the window. Suddenly the rain, thunder, lightning, and wind were all part of my bedroom. It was noisier. The floor started to get wet.
When he turned, there was blood on his hands.
“Bitch,” he growled.
I didn’t know what that word meant, but I knew he called my mother that a lot. So maybe it was a good word. But probably not. Nothing was good about him. My stupid father.
He reached for me again, and I ran toward the door.
My mother appeared in the doorway just in time to grab me and hug me. She spun me around and pushed me into the hallway. She looked down at me and smiled. Nothing about the way her face looked like it should be smiling.
“Go into my room, Hazel. Under my bed there’s a box. There’s pictures in there. And books of pictures. Look at them. Go to what you see. I’ll be there soon.”
“Mom…”
“Now,” she said.
I hurried down the hall. I didn’t look back.
But I heard my mother scream.
I dove into her room and slithered under the bed, shutting my eyes, wishing the storms would go away forever.
The door slowly opened. I was looking at a book of pictures about small towns. It was all random stuff. An old-looking pharmacy. A tall bank. A baseball field with kids playing. That kind of stuff. I studied the pictures for what felt like hours. When I heard screams, I pretended I was on the baseball field. Even though I didn’t have a bat or glove or know how to play baseball, that didn’t matter. It was my fantasy. And in my fantasy I was the best baseball player ever. Yes, even for a girl.
I poked my head up and saw my mother entering the room.
“It’s okay now,” she whispered. “Your daddy went for a ride.”
“To the store?”
“Yes. To the store.”
Later I realized to the store meant the bar, where he would get drunker and come home even angrier.
“Whatcha looking at?” she asked, pointing to the book.
She didn’t want me to look at her swollen face. I wasn’t scared of how she looked. She was my mother. She was always beautiful to me. What I wanted to do was kiss her. Kiss all the boo-boos on her face and make them disappear. And I always wanted to make it so they never came back.
“This book of stuff,” I said.
“Hey, look at this picture,” my mother said. She flipped the page to a field of yellow sunflowers standing tall, trying to reached their heads to the sun. “This is my favorite. Want to know why?”
“Why?”
“There’s something secret in it.”
“There is?”
“Yeah. Look.”
I studied the picture but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
My mother giggled.
I looked at her.
Her face was really rough tonight.
I got angry.
Why did this have to happen? What could she have done so wrong? Her meatballs weren’t the best, but still…did that matter? It wasn’t like he was ever home to eat dinner.
“Hazel, did you see it in the book?”
“No.”
“Right…here…” she pointed to a spot. “There’s a scarecrow. Hiding in the sunflowers.”
Sure enough, there was a scarecrow hiding in the sunflowers! Yellow straw stuffing and a green hat, which was why it was hard to see the scarecrow. The closer I looked, the more I saw. A potato sack face with button eyes. A checkered green and black shirt, half-hidden behind a super tall sunflower. It left my mind racing with thoughts. Did someone put that scarecrow there on purpose? Or was the scarecrow there before the sunflowers grew?
It was amazing. It stole all my attention and that meant it stole everything that was happening around me.
My mother slowly put her arm around me and pulled me close. She smelled different. Weird. She smelled like him. But it was my mother. Her skin, body, I knew it was her.
“See, in each picture there’s a memory. A moment. And there’s a story. You get to find the story. And tell it. To yourself. To anyone you see. The best part is that you may never know the actual story. So one picture can tell you so many things, Hazel. That’s what I want you to look at. What could be there. Not just in these picture books, but in life. Beyond what you see. Okay? When you first looked at this picture, what did you see?”
“Sunflowers,” I whispered.
“Right. But when you looked closer, you saw the scarecrow. So always look closer, Hazel. Don’t take it for what it’s worth. Promise me that.”
“I promise,” I whispered.
“We’ll get your window fixed, okay? For now, just sleep here. In my bed with me.”
“Can Wink come?”
My mother grinned. “Of course.”
“Can I keep looking at these pictures?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Can I have a can of soda?”
“Of course…not!”
I giggled.
“But I’ll bring you some milk.”
“And cookies?”
“A cookie.”
“Fine,” I said.
My mother hugged me. It was one of those silent hugs that actually weren’t silent. You know what I mean? The kind where my mother didn’t speak, but I could feel her heart pounding, I could tell she was crying, and I knew she wanted to say something. Probably tell me she was sorry about my window. About my father. About what he did to her.
It was okay, I suppose.
My mother left the bedroom, and I went back to the picture books. I started over and really started to study them. I found so many things I never saw before. I was so involved that I left the milk and the cookie on the nightstand. I was so involved that my mother fell asleep, softly snoring, as I kept looking. I was so involved, my eyes started to burn. I looked at the clock and saw that it was one in the morning. I never saw one in the morning. Only that one time when my stomach hurt and I threw up. I got to miss school that morning and ate chicken noodle soup when I felt better.
But this was different.
It was like my life was changing.
Two things came to mind.
One: I was going to do something with pictures as my job when I grew up.
Two: I was never going to let what my father did to my mother happen to me. Ever.
One of those things came true.
25
HAZEL
PRESENT DAY
I found the shoebox in the back of the closet. I didn’t keep much from years past, but I always managed to hang onto that shoebox. Sometimes I added memories to it. But I hadn’t touched the box in a long time. Being in the back corner of the closet took me back to being a kid again. I wasn’t sure how exactly that made me feel. There was a big innocence back then that didn’t exist now, but what used to happen made me uneasy.
The first picture I saw when I flipped the lid off was of Donna.
I stroked my thumb over the picture of me and her. Standing under a brightly colored tree that had freshly blossomed.
I tried to check on Donna from time to time. She owned a handful of salons. Her dream had been to get to Hollywood to be a makeup artist for movie stars or to work on horror movie sets. She was into that creepy stuff, but not me. She didn’t get to Hollywood, but owning her own business was pretty cool.
The picture made me smile.
It was a nice memory to have.
I missed her. I really did. She had been my best friend since first grade, when a girl named Rebecca tried to take my chair. My chair had been steady while hers was wobbly. Before I could figure out why Rebecca took my chair, Donna appeared. She was bigger than everyone else at the time. This girl with pudgy cheeks, freckles,
honestly looking like a cliché bully. She punched Rebecca in the shoulder, and Rebecca never bothered me again. Donna sat next to me, we both kept our good chairs, and when she needed to borrow glue, I gave her my glue. And that was the beginning of our friendship.
Donna turned out to be a beautiful young woman. While the rest of us went through some awkward stages with pimples, periods, and worrying about the size of our boobs, Donna filled out perfectly. She paid her price in elementary school being the tallest girl with extra weight and glasses. But come middle school into high school, she was like a super model.
Her desire to fight and protect never left her soul, and that was the downfall of our friendship. Which was caused by me. She never understood why I couldn’t fight and defend myself. Neither could I, half the time.
I dropped the picture and just sat there in the closet.
Why the hell was I doing this to myself?
I was trying to figure out what was happening with Maddox. Going down memory lane probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do right now. But I was bored. I had to cancel three jobs because I had no camera. I added up what I had left on credit cards and found that I could get a basic camera. But it wouldn’t be the same quality I wanted to offer people. So that meant I needed to get a new job. Work, save, start over. Or find someone to lend me the money to get a new, proper camera. But I hated that idea. I didn’t want to owe anyone a thing. Not after what happened with Mitch.
I shivered.
I could still picture him touching my shoulders as I put in his credit card info to buy the camera. The way he squeezed, now realizing it was him sinking his teeth into me for good. Taking control. All I saw was the camera. My business. Finding my happiness.
Sliding the lid to the shoebox, I tucked it away.
I put my head back and let out a sigh.
My cell phone started to beep. I wrestled to get my hand into my pocket.
It was Maddox.
Come to St. Skin. Don’t argue, sugar.