Mom’s car was in the driveway, and I silently thanked God. I took it as a sign that she was okay. She had to be. We hadn’t gotten a chance to be cat ladies yet, and that was something she promised me. She hadn’t given me her word for a lot of things, but that she did I was going to hold her to it.
“Mom!” I screamed as soon as Cal and I were behind the locked door and rushed to her room. She wasn’t alone, though. A man I never thought I’d see again was sitting on the foot of her bed. Phillip Black.
“Tell her,” he demanded, and she shook her head. “Tell her, Maria, or I will,” he reassured her with the flash of his handgun. Cal somehow remained hidden in the hallway. I’d only heard one other person refer to my mom by her legal name, and that was my dad and he died shortly after the word passed his lips. My hand gripped the doorframe for support as my chest heaved and the room started to spin. A tidal wave of fear crashed into me. I had to look calm on the outside, even if I was screaming on the inside.
“What is he talking about, Mom?”
Phillip laughed as if something I said was funny.
“You’re supposed to be in prison.”
“Really? That’s what you told her?”
“What did you want me to tell her, Phillip?”
“How about the fucking truth, Maria? The fucking truth would have been nice.” He cracked his neck, and rage bounded from his eyes. Cal disappeared and then reappeared with a butcher knife from the kitchen, but when I saw him out of the corner of my eye, I gave my head a slight almost unnoticeable shake. He needed to stay hidden.
As Mom opened her mouth, Phillip interrupted her, and every bit of hate I felt for him as a kid had only grown as I did. “Since she’s decided to keep the truth from you, I’ll tell you. She’s your adoptive mother, and the man you found dead was your adoptive father and my partner. Your real parents were nothing but junkies, and your mom here, she hid you and your sisters from us.”
“Want to hear the best part?” He laughed, making it clear the question was rhetorical as he spoke again. “She was with me first. We have a daughter older than you and one younger, but my so-called partner buried Regina, your younger sister, so deep into the system it’s near impossible to sift through all of the shit.”
“Mom?”
“I was protecting you from him, honey.”
“My ass,” he fumed and shoved the gun into her mouth to further make his point. “The only thing that comes out of that mouth of yours is lies. Isn’t it?” He pulled the hammer back, and I fell to my knees.
“Look at me. Not her. Tell me what you came here for. Please,” I pleaded with him, trying to think of anything to keep my mom alive. I’d meant it when I’d promised myself I’d keep her safe, but as my eyes scanned her room, I didn’t see a thing that could be used as a weapon.
“Okay. Fine, she’s not a complete liar. I might have been trying to use you as blackmail, but your daddy,” he used his fingers to make air quotes, “was supposed to be off the day I killed those fucking crackheads you came from, but no. He had to be the good cop in our relationship…and you know what that made me? The criminal.” He shoved the muzzle farther into her mouth, and tears streaked her face. To most people, this wouldn’t be strange, especially given the situation, but to me, it said everything. She thought she was going to die, and so did I.
“Come on. Tell me the rest. What about my sisters?” I tried to remain calm as I spoke. Fear took over and made my voice waver slightly toward the end of my sentence.
“That’s who I want to know about, too. She won’t tell me about her. She claims to be clueless, but I’m not fucking stupid. They’re my daughters, so technically they are your stepsisters,” he corrected me and gritted his teeth as he tapped his temple with the gun and then forced it back into Mom’s mouth. I winced with her as she cried out in pain.
All of this information was too much to process. My head spun and my eyes tried to close as the heat in the room went from normal to unbearable, but I refused to give into the desire.
“Mom?” This time I turned my attention to her and hoped he’d let her speak. I wanted this all to be a dream. No, this would be a nightmare, but at least it wouldn’t be real.
“Her name is Eris, and she’s been in Dad’s Skillet. She’s older than you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Phillip insisted she tell him, but she wasn’t talking to him. In fact, she refused to look at him. I swallowed hard, knowing she was risking a lot by telling me who she was referring to. If it was who I was thinking of, Mom was lying. She had to be.
“It’s all in Ruby. It was going to be my graduation present to you,” she explained in a coded manner that only I would understand. All those nights she’d been “working” on her books, she must have been writing for me, too. “Just remember, run like hell, and baby, it’s okay to cry,” she reassured me just as a cop appeared behind me and Phillip pulled the trigger.
A loud bang rattled through the house and my mom’s temple. It was then I gave up and gave into unconsciousness.
* * *
There were times in an “adult’s” life where they felt anything but that. This was one of those times. For the second time in or lives, both Cal and I were covered in my mom’s blood and I couldn’t stop the tears even if I wanted to, and I did. Fuck. I wished my life could be remotely normal, but I didn’t know what that entailed.
“Shit,” I cussed, letting my eyes focus on Cal and not my bloodstained hands as I scrubbed the floor with a bleach-soaked cloth. I wanted to give up. I wanted to die right along beside her. I wanted to blame her, but I couldn’t. One person should only be expected to live one life. Mom could have lived thousands of pages in someone else’s fictional world except she never had the luxury of her reality being make-believe. Each event that unveiled with a flip of a page was reality. Her story, which could be a number one bestseller if it were published, was genuine. It was her short, miserable existence. She’d spent her entire life protecting my sisters and me. Cal had hidden Mom’s laptop in my backpack before the cops had a chance to take it for evidence. Eventually, I would try to find my sisters, but at the moment, I wasn’t capable of doing the task at hand, much less piling more on top of it.
I wanted to scream it wasn’t fair, the life she’d given me. She should have told me she wasn’t my legal mother. I wished I could thank her for every bit of love she’d found in her heart to give me, but it wasn’t a possibility. She was gone. My mother was gone. Essentially, she had all but taken her own life, by protecting my stepsisters and me. She’d finally given into the devil’s offer in her life that he’d been dealing her since the moment she took her first breath. Specific people were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, so to speak. Mom was born with a needle bevel down in her freaking vein. She never stood a chance to survive in this world. I wondered if I did.
Cal noticed my hesitation on the third or hundredth wring of the rag dripping with blood. I had no clue what the number was. I tried not to count the times my heart broke before us. His red-tipped fingers found my saturated hands and he pulled me away from the event that was slowly killing me. I didn’t mention to him he couldn’t save me. I didn’t tell him I was a lost cause. I didn’t tell him how he made me feel, because I didn’t plan to be alive long enough to fulfill the promises that ultimately came along with that statement. I couldn’t give him the happiness that came along with that declaration, when I didn’t plan to find the ability to see tomorrow. I’d decide to give into the temptation of the dark. It was a difficult decision to give up on Cal, Dax, and Mar, leaving them to fight the world without me, but they were better off this way.
Once Mom’s body had been removed and the crime scene was cleared, they allowed us to clean the house. Honestly, I just wanted to burn it. There was nothing in this house for me now, just memories of someone I’d never see again.
“Why don’t you come live with us?” Dax whispered, petting my hair, and pulled me out of my mom’s bedroom.
&n
bsp; “That’s… That’s a good idea,” Cal managed to say in a shaky voice and his eyes begged me to agree, and so I did. As I looked into his eyes, I wondered if they’d darken with time as whiskey did the longer it’s in the barrel. It was funny, I’d never considered myself an alcoholic, but then again, what alcoholic does? His eyes were the color of a whiskey that hadn’t spent much time in the barrel, but he’d been my lifelong addiction. Even in this situation, he held power over me, and although I wanted nothing more than to give up, he silently asked me to live.
Twenty-Seven
Cal
Seeing Jaci’s mom brutally murdered in front of us unraveled each and every word I’d retained from therapy. I managed to call the cops while Jaci kept the man I learned was named Phillip Black busy, a tactic she surely hadn’t learned from us being in the hospital. I needed to be there for her, but I was barely hanging on myself.
Dax laid trash bags in the back seat of my car, and I carried Jaci out and held her against me. None of us spoke on the ride home. No one was home, so Dax unlocked the door and I lifted Jaci from the seat and immediately headed to the bathroom. Grabbing a trash bag from beneath the sink, I stripped off all of her clothes and then my own and stuffed them into it. Next, I guided us into the shower and stared into her watering eyes. When you wanted to move heaven for someone but didn’t know when their paradise began and their hell took over, you were helpless. I wanted to be strong for her, but I didn’t know how to be, so I broke with her. We stood beneath the water until the red ran clear, and even then we didn’t move. I sat down in the bottom of the tub and cradled her against my body as she cried. I stared at the ceiling, telling her things, not knowing if they were lies or not.
“It’ll be okay, Jaci. I promise,” I uttered another lie and rocked us back and forth.
“I’m here for you, and I always will be,” I whispered the only truth an eighteen-year-old could. I wasn’t capable of giving her the world because we’d only seen the tip of the iceberg life had to offer. It was the most jagged tip any two people could ever witness, but still we’d only begun to scratch the surface.
“I know,” she finally spoke and reached for the knobs to turn off the water. “Do you have lighter fluid?” Her question caught me off guard, but I didn’t ask questions. Only answered her as simply as possible.
“No, but we have whiskey.”
I was afraid she’d never speak again, so anything, no matter how crazy it seemed, was progress. She was doing a hell of a lot better than I had when I found my dad’s and sister’s lifeless bodies. I hadn’t spoken more than one hundred words in the two years’ time that passed, until I met Jaci. There was something about her that made me want to remember the joys of conversation and what it was like to truly laugh.
I retreated to my room and grabbed some clothes out of my drawers. It didn’t matter what they were as long as they covered us. Jaci met me in the hallway in a towel, dragging the trash bag full of our bloody clothes behind her. My heart fell apart in that moment, and I wasn’t sure it’d ever be repaired. How could you fix something if you weren’t sure where all the pieces had gone?
Slipping my feet into my pants and watching the towel around my waist fall, I walked behind her and stopped her from walking down the stairs in only a towel.
“Let’s get some clothes on you.”
She looked down, as if she hadn’t realized she was barely covered, and then gave one solitary nod. She took the clothes I gave her, sliding the shirt over her head and arms and then stepping into the shorts I knew would be too big for her, but they were the smallest pair I had, and then continued her path down the stairs and out our back door. Holding her hand out for bottle after bottle of whiskey, she poured one onto the bag and then the next. Once she used all the liquor our moms kept in the house, she asked for a match.
I watched the little girl who’d pulled me back into reality slip away from her own in front of my eyes. The flames reflected in her pupils, and she only moved to wipe the tears off her cheeks before they slid down her chin.
Twenty-Eight
Jaci
I refused to go to formal. It was a time for everyone to celebrate, but I had little to be happy about. Cal’s mom and Dax’s mom were surprisingly cool with me crashing at their place, although that whole two moms thing confused me. It wasn’t any of my business, though.
“Your mom would have wanted you to go.” Cal’s mom made her presence known as she approached my back.
I eyed the dress splayed across Cal’s bed and ran my fingertips along its blue and black décor. The top had one strap that was adorned with black jewels in a zigzag pattern that led to the bottom of the seam. The bottom was a beautiful deep blue that changed colors as the light hit it differently.
“Thank you for the dress, but no,” I politely declined her offer and wondered when everyone would give up on trying to cheer me up. The only person who wasn’t trying to “fix me” was Cal. Mar came over every evening suggesting we do makeovers or something else equally exciting in her eyes. Really I just wanted to be left alone, but knew from the countless years I’d spent trying to make Mom’s life brighter, that Mar would no more give up than I did. She had the same fight in her that I used to.
“At least try it on?” she urged me and rubbed her hand on the small of my back. I nodded my head in agreement to make her happy. They were all only trying to help. I just didn’t want what they were trying to do.
I’d no more than gotten the long skirt pulled up when there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” I told Cal’s mom, but didn’t turn to see her reaction. I stood in front of Cal’s mirror picking at the gems and adjusting the top.
“You’re beautiful,” Cal’s deep voice filled the room, and I bit my bottom lip as he slowly walked to where I was.
He wore a black suit that had to been tailored just to fit his muscular body and a white shirt underneath it with the top buttons undone.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I honestly admitted with a small smile, and my stupid heart kicked into double time, giving me proof that I was still alive. Proof despite how much I wanted to forget the world and fade away, he’d never let that happen. Proof that I loved him.
It was ironic. I always thought you needed sex and romance to have love, or at least they all fell in line with one another. Sometimes, though, all you needed was a little proof.
“Go to formal with me?” he asked one last time and I accepted, even though I still thought it wasn’t something I should be doing. Before I could completely turn to face him, he crossed the room and was to my side, but when we were at arm’s length, he took a step backward. Shoving his hand into the right pocket of his slacks, he cautiously watched me as I closed the space between us. My heart beat out a rhythm so forcefully that I was sure the drummer from Mom’s favorite band would have loved to have composed. The realization that I loved Cal scared the ever-living hell out of me. My hand shook as I nervously picked the nonexistent fuzz off my top, needing something to occupy me. I didn’t know what the feelings I had for him exactly meant. The only thing I was certain of was ever since I met him, I’d wanted to be next to him. Even when I was supposed to be ignoring him and not thinking about him, I still wished he was by my side.
Most of the time we’d spent together had been overshadowed with sadness, current times included. Yet, it’d taken reconnecting with Cal to figure out it wasn’t the tragedies of life that were intended to drive us. It was the miracles. Meeting a freckled-faced boy who skirted on the line of sanity and being a complete lunatic had been my small miracle all those years ago. Now, he was the only thing that reminded me to live, when all I wanted to do was give up. He’d kick-started my heart when I prayed for it to flatline. All of these thoughts were overwhelming and left me drunk on him. Since they were all too new to speak of, I didn’t quite understand all of them, so there was no way I expected him to.
In this moment, as he nervously rocked back and forth on his heels and I silently pretended to hav
e something else to do other than kiss him, I gave into the hormones…because we all were aware they were assholes and would eventually win the fight anyway.
* * *
Cal switched his car off and grunted as my hand landed on the door handle, shaking his head in protest.
“This is technically continuation of our first date, so I’m doing it right.” He smiled, climbing out of his side and jogging around the front of the car to open the door for me. He took my hand in his and kissed it before helping me stand, even though I was perfectly fine to stand on my own. I didn’t complain. It was a nice gesture and I was trying this new thing. I wanted to just let us be us, without all the other stuff that was going on in the world around us.
I politely smiled, but as soon as my eyes zeroed onto a few proud parents taking pictures with their children, my happiness faded. I wished Mom and Dad could be here more than anything. I’d held it together when Cal’s mom asked me to wear this beautiful dress, and I didn’t even cry on the way to this stupid event that everybody wanted me to attend. Seeing all my peers happy and blissfully clueless to the disaster and heart break that the unlucky few, like Cal and I, lived in, made me envious. I fought the tears that stung my eyes and batted my eyelashes that Mar had buried under three layers of mascara and eyeliner.
“Don’t pay attention to them,” Cal whispered, kissing my cheek and closing the door behind me.
A slight nod was all I gave him in response. If I spoke, I wouldn’t be able to deny the tears’ presence any longer.
“Come on. I want to show you something.” He led me by the hand and dramatically took a step with his right foot. “I know it’s hard,” he took another exaggerated step, this time with his left foot, “but it’s only one step at a time. Nobody expects any more than that. If they do, they’re dicks. Plain and simple, Blue.” He offered a sexy smirk and reminded me it was okay to continue living, but still miss those we’d lost, too.
Proof Page 15