Holding Her in Madness Copyright © 2014 Kimber S. Dawn
Published by Kimber S. Dawn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Published: Kimber S. Dawn: March 2014 [email protected]
Editing: Mickey Reed
Cover Design © Cover design by Kari Ayasha of Cover to Cover Designs
Cover photo – Copyright © Sarah Genskow, SMMG Photography LLC
https://www.facebook.com/pages/SMMG-photography-LLC/
Custom Photo Shoot by Sarah Genskow with Cover Models Tianna Ohren @ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tianna-Ohren-Pro-Staff-Model and Joshua Gawrysiak @ https://www.facebook.com/gawrysiakmodeling
Formatting by: Kassi Cooper @ Kassi’s Kandids- Formatting http://kassiskandidsphotography.com
***This book is intended for mature audience members ONLY.***
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Playlist of Holding Her in Madness
Bonus Materials
Or some pussy-ass way of writing a damn letter to the ones who have read AWGM
What’s up? How the fuck are you doin’? I know. Probably worlds better than I am right now. Look, all right? I’ll fucking tell you like I told her. It ain’t gonna fix a fuckin’ thing, but I’ll say it…
I fucked up, okay? I fucked up and I know… I know I did. I let my little firecracker down so many goddamn times.
Fuck!
I know I don’t fucking deserve her, but I’ll be goddamned if I leave her again, and I’ll be even more fucking damned if I let what I deserve or don’t deserve in life keep me away from her. Period.
I told her that everything I touch, I fuck it up. Why the hell do you think I ran from her little ass all those years ago? I was trying to shut her out before she got under my skin. But I couldn’t. She wouldn’t let me keep treating her like an irritating gnat.
Shit, I even told April I thought she was a narc. Damn, that was lifetimes ago... I’d give anything to go back and keep shit from falling apart. I would tell her dad to fuck off, just grab her up, and fucking run.
I never should have let her out of my car that night when we were kids. I could have protected her from fucking everything. From all of it... Fuck!
I’d ask where I went wrong, begging for an answer that would soothe this fucking terrible ache, this guilt that I’ve carried for decades. Even though I don’t deserve a break from my pain.
As for you, I know you think you know Lil now that you’ve read her story and walked in her shoes through this fucked-up life of hers. But until you hold a woman like Lil, until you stare into her drunken eyes, heavy from ecstasy while you’re balls deep inside of Heaven, inside this woman that is so fucking unlike anyone else on this goddamn earth… Until you hold her shuddering body as her tears soak your shirt while she cries out for something even she doesn’t understand, just so long as it takes away her pain… Until you’ve been where I’ve been with Lil, you don’t truly know her.
Not like I fucking do.
That fateful May night, I felt the dread in the marrow of my bones. It really started that morning, another of my countless mistakes, I ignored the hair-raising sense of dread that hit me that morning. I was supposed to be on my way to Atlanta for some stupid fucking merger meeting between my company’s marketing department and another new upcoming marketing company.
I was hauling fucking ass from one terminal to another, trying like hell to catch my connecting flight from Houston to Atlanta, when it hit me like a motherfucking brick across the face. I stopped right where the fuck I was, assholes crashing into me from behind, cussing at me.
I took my ass to the nearest fucking ticket counter and asked for the next flight to get me back home. Shit, I’d been gone for almost three months straight. I hadn’t seen Lil in over six months—that she knew of. I’d still kept an eye on her. I just couldn’t fucking explain what the hell my eyes were seeing. She was so far gone, I couldn’t see a single thing in my wife that resembled the woman I had fallen in love with over twenty years ago. The woman I’d waited all my life for was truly and irrevocably fucking gone.
Do you know what it’s like as a fucking man to have to look at your wife and watch her all over these cheesy fuckers, drunk and high out of her goddamn mind, so fucking lost she’s beyond ever being found?
Oh, I knew what the fuck she was doing. I knew about the drugs and ALL the men. But I was such a fucking coward! I just walked away like I had all the other times. I told myself that at least she was happy; at least they made her smile. For more than a year after my boy died, I could only get her to look at me or speak to me when we were in the throes of passion.
I was a pussy, that’s what I was. I just wanted her to be happy, and she was only ever happy when I wasn’t home. Every time she looked at me, all she really saw was what could have been had our son lived. With me or my presence came memories of what should have been. And if there is one thing Lil and I have, it is a fucking world full of what-should-have-beens. There isn’t a fucking thing in this world worse than what should have been.
When the plane finally touched down, I drove like a motherfucking bat outta Hell to get home. Only, she wasn’t at home… Shit! She was never home. I couldn’t find her at any of her normal hangouts. I hit every bar and lounge up and down Common and Market Streets.
I called every goddamn five-star hotel within a hundred-mile radius and still couldn’t find her.
That’s when I got scared. I was sure that I was too late. I hadn’t been there when she’d needed me. I knew she’d finally done it. She’d taken her life and killed the love of mine… She’d killed my firecracker.
As far as I was concerned, I’d fucked up and all but handed her whatever drug or weapon she’d needed to get the job done. When she finally, really needed me, I’d been off being a pussy because I didn’t know how to take care of my own wife. I didn’t know how to bring her from the darkness and depth of misery she fed off.
Instead of manning the fuck up and grabbing Lil’s demons by their throats, killing them one by one, snuffing out every single one of those bitches fucking with her head, I’d stood aside, waiting for her to come back to me, waiting for her to need me enough to come back.
Fucking thank FUCK my cell rang! I knew it was her. Even though she didn’t say a word, I knew it was my firecracker. I knew I wasn’t too late. I knew it was her calling me for help, calling because she finally needed me.
I will thank God every night of my life for that call… ‘Cause I had a motherfucking number.
In only twenty minutes, that abundant victory immediately gutted me, leaving in its wake nothing but bleak desolation.
Shit, y’all were there. You know what the fuck I saw when I walked in the bathroom of her hotel suite.
Her beautiful head was lulled back. Fuck, I’ll never forget that shit. It’s imprinted in my brain, etched across my skull. It’s seared into the backs of my eyelids.
She had a blood clot smeared from behind her ear, stringing like a fuckin’ spider web to her shoulder. Her skin was as pale as a full moon, not a fucking trace of my firecracker, not a trace of that beautiful tan skin of hers that I loved. Lying there in a pool of bloody water was the woman I fuckin’ swore I’d never leave. How many times had I fuckin’ promised her?
Too many fuckin’ times. And I swear, I swear, I was there.
It just wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I’d never be enough.
After the docs got her physically well enough to be moved to the psychiatric unit, she was admitted to The Center. I knew then that my fate, my happiness, my fucking LIFE depended on being strong enough for her. Everything in our goddamned life depended on me stepping up and doing any and every damn thing I could to save my firecracker, be there for her, and make fucking sure she knew I was there and that I wasn’t going anywhere.
And I did.
I made fucking sure I was enough. I killed all those fuckin’ bitches in her head. I went through Hell for my fuckin’ firecracker and brought her back to life.
And now, even if I have to stay here in Hell for the rest of my life in order to keep her out, that’s what the fuck I’ll do. As a man, sometimes you just have to do what the fuck you have to do.
When you’ve been where I’ve been, seen the shit I’ve seen, and been shredded as many times as I have, there is no other option. Even if it means your life is hell. Even if it means from this point on, you are the one who carries all the weight and burden.
You fuckin’ do it because you love a woman, the only woman in this whole damn world. You do it because she’s your soul mate. And without her, YOU would rather be fucking dead.
Summer 1991
“Holy fuck!” Rolling over from my stomach, I try to grab the rubber band from around my wrist and pull this fuckin’ hair from out of my face and into a ponytail at the nape of my neck when my hand gets stuck in some stiff rats nest lying on my stomach.
What the fuck…is this bullshit?
“Ouch!” Raccoon eyes look up at me from below. “Shit, Leo. Let me move before you try and kick me out already.”
Why, God? I ask you, why do you let her be the only one to answer my fuckin’ calls at three a.m. when I’m so fuckin’ drunk I don’t know my own goddamn name?
“Sorry,” I grunt out, getting up to make it to the shower and wash the skank whore off of me.
“You know what they say, right? When you’re as drunk as you…well usually are when you call, that’s when the truth always comes out.”
“That so?” What the fuck ever, you dumb bitch… If it helps you sleep at night.
“Mmm hmm. That’s why I’m always here.” She lets out a sigh as I cross my eyes and try hard to hold my tongue. “The morning after, here I am… Every time, darlin’.”
Nu huh. Fuck this shit.
I make a detour on my way to the bathroom and yank all her shit off the floor, throwing it at her and saying, “Heather, get the fuck out. It’s too fuckin’ early and I’m too hung over to be polite right now. Don’t wanna see your ass out here when I get out of the shower, you hear me?”
“Why do you always have to act like a dick? Huh, why?”
I narrow my eyes on her then point at the door. “Bye. Like I said, get the fuck out.”
“Fuck you, Leo. See if I answer the next time you call. Because I won’t!”
After the door slams shut behind her, I make my way into the blessed shower, really fucking hope she wasn’t lying. It’s mornings like these that make it so damn hard not to run my ass back to Cali and out of this Podunk piece of shit town.
After my shower, I throw on an old beat up t-shirt and some blue jeans before I slip my Doc Martin boots on my feet and make my way outside. I don’t blow dry my hair. I just tuck that shit behind my ears and let it dry however the fuck it wants.
I step out onto the back porch, light up my morning cigarette, and hear my cousin Josh next door yelling at his girl, April. “I wasn’t lookin’ at shit, bitch! You’ve lost your fuckin’ mind!”
“Who the fuck is she, Josh?”
I head next door and walk straight into their convo. “What’s up, pussy?” I smirk at Josh. Shit, he is pissed. I slap him on the back then take a drag off my cigarette.
He flips me off before zeroing back in on April. “She’s some fucking babysitter my mom hired for Jules, April. Last time I saw the chick, she was in the seventh damn grade. I don’t know her, babe. I don’t want to know her…”
I watch as Jason, Josh’s little brother, and some other kid come running out of the house. “Ah… I’m guessing that other kid wasn’t her.” I laugh at my own joke. No one else does. “Ya know, ‘cause it’s a he…not a… Shit. Never mind.” I look between the fighting couple then settle my attention on April. “What the fuck’s your problem, April?”
“There’s this fucking cheerleader bitch that Josh was eye fucking in the kitchen this morning. And apparently he’s known her forever, right, Josh?”
“Tell her we don’t know this bitch, Leo! Please! This is such fucking bullshit.”
“No… I don’t know her. Course, I just moved here so I have a very short list of people I know.”
“Oh yeah, and by the way, asshole, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call my friend over in the middle of the night for a drunken fuck then treat her like shit the next morning!”
Well damn, April is on a fucking roll this morning… Mid-morning. Okay, afternoon—whatever. My thoughts are severed by a voice I’ve never heard before.
The three of us are standing on the front porch when the door opens. “Jules?” I swear to God, the cigarette hanging in my mouth falls to the ground, along with my jaw.
Holy fucking Christ… Standing in front of me is a damn angel, I know it. Blond hair in big curls hanging down to her ass. She’s wearing some fuckin’ denim cut-off shorts that have got to be illegal in more than forty states. Are those… Fuck me, she has clogs on her feet that have me as hard as hell the second I fully take her in from her head to her toes.
“Oh.” The angel blushes. She fucking blushes. “Hey, y’all. I’m Lil.” Jesus Christ, her smile has me stumbling backwards. It’s like looking into the sun. Or an eclipse. You know it’s gonna fuck you up but you can’t make yourself look away.
I’m fuckin’ grasping at straws here and coming up short on every fuckin’ level. I can’t even speak. I swoop down to grab my cigarette, turn around, and carry my fumbling ass back to my yard, back to my house. And away from…whatever the fuck that was.
I’ve never in my life had trouble talkin’ to chicks. Ever. But that bitch—whoever she was—threw me on my ass. I can’t even think straight when I’m around her.
Problem is this bitch seems to be everywhere now, all the damn time. And I can’t keep my shit straight, much less my devious and dirty thoughts of what I’d do if I could get just one little bite of Lillian.
It’s been over a week and I still can’t shake this shit off. I’m n
ot on my game. This girl fogs up my head, ties my tongue. She fucks me up. And I hate her for it. I’ve even thought about packing up my shit and moving back to Cali, but I know I can’t. I fucked that up beyond all repair. There’s no going back to that life.
My parents divorced about six years ago. It shook me up pretty bad. I knew they’d fought a lot, but I’d never expected a divorce to happen to our family. I was pissed, so instead of trying to make shit easier on my mom, I set out to make shit worse, to make it harder on her.
Within two years, I’d fucked up enough and she shipped my ass to my dad’s, which made life for a fifteen-year-old boy suck ass.
My dad’s new wife was a stuck-up bitch who had three small kids from her first marriage, and instead of fighting with her, my dad just let her make the rules and run the house. I still hate that bitch, and we still fight like a motherfucker, especially when she tries to force me to go to family functions where she pretends she has a perfect family, including a perfect stepson. Fuck that shit.
It didn’t take long for me to run out of patience with my dad and his bitch-ass new wife before I ran away.
I lived on the streets for a solid year before my mom finally found me and carried my ass back home. But by then, I was way too deep into the game. Selling drugs for some piece-of-shit small-timer, I climbed up the gang-of-thugs ladder pretty quick. Being tall for my age and not afraid to lose anything because I had nothing left to lose made me a good commodity in their world.
This created the beginnings of my first fuck-ups. I tried to do it right, keep my shit out of mom’s life.
I surfed when I wasn’t studying for my GED or sketching, and when I wasn’t surfing or sketching, I was either selling or fucking.
My Saturdays were as normal as Tuesdays—no change, just the same thing, every day of the week.
In less than a year, my mom got tossed under the eye of Child Protective Services because of my bullshit. She’d remarried, had a two-year-old daughter, and was pregnant again. They were trying to take her babies away.
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