by R. K. Ryals
“I should,” I agreed, but I didn’t say I would.
For a long time, we stood there, the shadows deepening until the world was dark. It cloaked her, erased the sunburn, the smeared eyeliner, troubled eyes, dirt-crusted clothes, and mussed hair.
“You don’t have to forgive your mother,” she said into the darkness.
“You’re the only one who thinks that.”
Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around my waist. “I didn’t say you wouldn’t forgive her. Just that if you feel forced to, you never will.”
“Says the girl with issues.”
“Replies the guy with issues.”
I couldn’t figure out why Tansy got to me, why her troubled eyes dug their way past my walls. The no tears were part of it, but there was also something else.
“You shouldn’t stay,” I said. “How about I walk you to your vehicle.”
“Yeah.” She laid her cheek against my chest, unsettling me. A quick nuzzle, and she was gone. Walking away.
I followed, edging past her.
Grass rustled. Crickets sang, the sound rising. Frogs called from the pond behind us. Above, the sky was clear, the ebony backdrop full of bright stars. Brighter than they’d ever been in Atlanta. The air was full of smells, honeysuckle and trees. Summer.
Gravel crunched, grass whipping my legs.
We stopped outside a van at the end of the drive.
Tansy climbed in, and shut the door. Her window was rolled down, and I pulled out my lighter, the moon too obscured by the trees to produce much light.
Flame danced between us, and I found myself saying, “Hey, do me a favor, roof girl.”
Bathed in the orange glow, she looked older, the dimness drawing circles beneath her eyes and hollowing her cheeks.
She licked her lips. “Yeah?”
“Let me be that roof, okay? If you feel like you need to jump, come find me, all right?”
I couldn’t take back the words once they were out there, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“Only if you do me a favor,” she countered.
“Yeah?”
“Stop seeing me,” she whispered.
Starting the van, she backed up, turning the wheels into the drive before speeding into the night.
“Too late for that,” I told the air.
In the wild, animals always noticed the weak, either helping or destroying them. They depended on the strong. When the strong died, confusion ensued. Battles for dominance took place. The strong, when injured, often licked their wounds and hid their frailties. Until it was too late. More attention should be paid to the strong.
Turning away, I stomped up the drive. There was a shower in my near future, and quite frankly, I needed to fucking get myself off. And I needed cigarettes, which I didn’t have. Damn it all to hell.
But first, before I did anything else, I walked into the cottage guest room, peered at the familiar white punching bag anchored from the ceiling, and sighed. I’d chosen the color for a reason. Black and red words covered it.
On a dresser next to the door, a coffee cup sat, my permanent markers resting inside.
“Thought of everything didn’t you, Pops?” I asked the room.
Grabbing a black marker, I approached the bag, twisted off the lid, and wrote Tansy.
FIFTEEN
Tansy
The clock radio read 11:15 p.m.
My grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table when I walked into the house, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. A stack of paperwork rested in front of her, a cup of tea steaming next to it.
“It’s still a decent time, I guess,” she told me, not bothering to look up.
Removing my shoes, I dug my toes into the carpet. “Is that the stuff from the boxing club?”
She scribbled, ignoring me, her back stiff and unyielding. Unease trickled down my spine. I watched and waited, recognizing her posture for what it was—trouble.
Setting her pen down, she leaned back in her chair, peering at me over the frames of her glasses, and said, “You know, there’s one minor disadvantage to living in a small town.” Her eyes darkened. “I got a call from a friend who told me she saw the clinic van at Lockston Orchard tonight.”
Heat suffused my face, climbing from my neck to my cheeks, and I was suddenly grateful for the sunburn. “Oh?”
Hetty removed her glasses. “Please tell me it’s not the worst case scenario. With the court appointed guy no less. I said be young, Tansy. I didn’t mean go looking for … stuff.”
Air whooshed out of my lungs, the euphoria I’d been feeling escaping with it. Eli Lockston could be a real bastard, but he saw me. He saw the holes in me, and he didn’t seem disgusted. Better yet, he didn’t lie to make me feel better.
“I’m not looking for anything,” I assured her. Stepping forward, I set the van keys on the bar. “Just friendship. Eli is surprisingly a pretty decent guy.”
“So you did go see him?” Hetty frowned. “I’m not sure I want—”
“What about what I want?” I interrupted.
Blinking, she massaged her forehead. “Tansy, Eli Lockston doesn’t have a good history.”
I stared. “So having a good history is a requirement for being someone’s friend? If that’s the case, I’m a terrible buddy. You’ve seen me right? How many parents would let their kids hang out with an eccentric high school dropout?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Hetty protested.
“No, but it’s true.”
Rather than disagree, Hetty murmured, “You have an excuse. He doesn’t.”
The roar in my head that had driven me to seek out Eli in the first place returned. “You don’t know that.” Hetty didn’t know about his mother, or about his former fiancée. Pulling a chair out, I straddled it, my chin resting on the wooden back. “You’d really judge him because of his record? No questions asked?”
Hetty leaned forward. “You’re putting words in my mouth. I never said I judged him, but you don’t go over to a man’s house and stay this late, especially one you barely know, just to be friends.”
“Why not?” It was a sincere question.
Pursing her lips, she blew exasperated air across the table. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.” Other than seek out a guy with a “history” and try to seduce him. Eli wasn’t the problem. I was.
Hetty glanced at the paperwork next to her, worry lines caving in around her eyes and lips. “You’re starting to sound like Deena. You can’t just go somewhere without letting me know first.”
My heart clenched, my gaze meeting her anxious eyes. I would have taken her hand, anything to soothe her, but that seemed too personal somehow. Too soon.
“You can’t touch her, but you can hug and kiss Eli?” my brain screamed.
“Shut up!” I told it.
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I’ve gotten used to doing things on my own. I’m sorry.”
“Well,” Hetty’s face softened, but her eyes became firm, “things have changed now.”
“How much?” I asked seriously, a touch of defensive wariness creeping into my words. “Are you saying I can’t choose who I’m friends with? Or are you simply asking me to tell you before I go see them?”
“Don’t start being difficult, Tansy. Please,” Hetty begged. “Deena is difficult enough. This hasn’t been easy for any of us.”
Really? I thought. You didn’t lose your father! You didn’t sit with him and do nothing! You didn’t listen to his stories about Mom, constantly reliving them through him! You didn’t fucking beg God for some kind of deliverance!
Guilt drowned me, shame over my selfish thoughts reducing my words to a whispered, “I’m not trying to be difficult.”
Reaching out, Hetty patted my hand. “I know that, and I’m not trying to be hard on you.” Her hand dropped. “I’m not going to ask you to stop being friends with Eli, but you can’t just go over there.”
It didn’t. “He’s a twenty-year-old man with DUIs.”
I stood, the chair scraping against the floor. “And I’m a young woman whose been raising her younger sister while taking care of her brother and broken father.”
She stood with me. “I haven’t forgotten that, Tansy. I just don’t want to see you throw away your life now that you’ve finally gotten it back.”
It’s not the same anymore, I thought.
Rather than say that, I nodded, letting her draw me into a hug before plodding down the hall to my room.
Hetty’s dog, who’d been lounging on the couch in the living room, followed me, shoving my door open and entering before I had the chance to push her out. Jumping on the bed, she circled, and then settled into a staring heap where my feet would have been.
“She doesn’t know,” I hissed at Snow, my door clicking shut behind me. “She doesn’t know what it was like.”
Memory upon memory lashed me.
I stumbled onto my bed, a storm of thoughts sinking a damaged ship. My fists pummeled my stomach, my throat working to fight back sudden nausea.
Mom was dead. The funeral was over, the drive back to Atlanta full of chaos and confusion. At fourteen, despite not having a license, I’d been forced to drive after Dad pulled off onto the side of the road. Jet refused to take the wheel, his grief too strong. Or so he said. Wailed, actually.
Folding a blanket, I sat on it, readjusting the seat and pedals so that I could reach them. Even so, my body was stretched to the limit, my head aching by the time I pulled up at home.
Wan-faced and sullen, Dad trudged through the house and fell onto his bed. He remained there for days staring at the wall, taking just enough food and water to keep us from panicking before disappearing into himself again. A beard grew, his red-rimmed eyes watering until they were bruised and swollen.
Darkness. Daylight. Darkness.
The sun climbed up the wall, brutal slashes pressed through closed blinds, and then trekked back down it again. A stale stench rose from Dad’s sheets.
I didn’t know what to do.
“Dad, you’ve got to get up,” I begged.
Down the hall, Jet sobbed. Deena railed at God, at life, and at nothing at all.
Tears streaked my face. “It’s all coming apart!”
Leaning over, I shook him.
Out of nowhere, Dad shouted, “Stop!” The sound echoed, repeating itself, “Stop, stop, stop …” Turning over, he grabbed my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise. “Just stop! I can’t do this! I can’t take care of you right now. I need time!”
“It’s been three weeks,” I whispered, too afraid to move.
“I’m dead now, Tansy,” he groaned. Rolling himself out of bed, he stumbled past me and left.
When he returned, he was drunk, putrid odors rising from his skin and breath as he lurched over chairs and banged into walls.
Deena hid out in her room, grossed out and terrified. Jet wailed, cursing the world.
I cleaned up vomit, and scrubbed my father’s piss off of the walls. I did dishes and clothes, too, because we all couldn’t just give up. Someone had to do it.
I sobbed while cleaning. It would be the last time I cried.
“Oh, God!” Leaning against Snow, my fingers trailed through her golden coat. She flopped over, offering me her stomach. “I had to learn so much, Dad!” I hissed. “How to still go to school and manage things. How to pay the bills and file taxes. Dad, you didn’t want to work. You did sometimes, but not enough to cover everything. Jet got a job. I got one as soon as I could. At sixteen, it was just easier to quit trying to do school with everything else. Deena needed it more than I did, and Jet was gone as soon as he graduated.”
Somehow, it didn’t feel like I was pitying myself saying these things in front of a dog. It was more like words I needed to say, words I needed to get out there.
“Damn you, Dad!” I bit out. “I hate you!”
As terrible as the confession was, I finally understood why it felt so good for Deena to say the words.
Laying back, I stared at the ceiling, at the way the moonlight danced over the spackled surface—like glowing water stains.
I thought of Eli, of the way I’d acted, and the way I’d climbed over him. My stomach lurched, a heavy, warm feeling slinking from my limbs to a place just between my thighs.
Sex should be the last thing on my mind. I’d used the whole fuck it to forget it philosophy with my ex-boyfriend, Jeff, when my father was sick. Jeff broke up with me because of it, because I was too intense, too crazed over everything. It made him uncomfortable.
I didn’t blame him.
Subconsciously, I’d been looking for that with Eli. Instead, I’d gotten a ‘we can’t’, and a ‘let me be your roof’.
The pain was real. Too real. It pressed against my skin, begging for relief.
Climbing out of bed, I went in search of the boxes that were delivered to the animal clinic. My grandmother wasn’t in the kitchen when I tiptoed through the living room. The lights were off, a bulb above the stove the only illumination.
After tripping twice, banging my shins three times, and cursing the house, I found the boxes in a small hallway closet. My knitting needles and yarn were in the top box, and I pulled the items free, hugging them to me as I rushed back to my room.
Once inside, I stared at the needles, my vision blurring when I pressed one of them into my palm, bearing down until it hurt. Not hard enough to break skin but enough to cause discomfort.
The pain felt better than it should, easing the butterflies.
Too real.
SIXTEEN
Eli
Morning brought mist over the lawn, the finger-like tendrils taunting me, the wind dragging moist air across my face. The sun sneezed light, leaving glowing droplets over grass and flowered bushes. Birds fluttered in the trees, faint car noises drifting in from the road in the distance.
“Hey, you!” Jonathan cried. He was standing on the porch of the main house, his hands circling his mouth. “You hungry?”
I shook my head and took in a lungful of moist, azalea scented air.
Frowning, his lips parted, another shout ready when the door behind him opened. Pops stomped out, glanced at Jonathan, and then kept walking, shoulders back.
From the porch to the yard. His shoes plowed through the dew, daring me to leave while warning me to stay.
I mimicked his body language, my hands sliding into my pockets, shoulders rising. Ready for war. A guy didn’t need to know how to fight to know a battle was coming.
“You want to explain a phone call I received this morning?” Pops asked, his gait bringing him to the porch stairs and no farther.
Leaning against a wooden beam, I arched a brow. “Depends on the call.”
He studied my face. “Hetty Anderson from Refuge Rescue called. She had some concerns.” His foot touched the first step, his piercing gaze boring into mine. “Was her granddaughter here last night?”
“Yes.”
His chin rose, his narrow-eyed look and creased brows telling me he was startled that I’d told the truth.
“Did you expect me to bullshit you?” I asked, maintaining eye contact.
“Maybe.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “What are you pulling, Eli? You couldn’t give me a few more days before you brought trouble to the door?”
“Define trouble.” I flashed him a tight-lipped grin. “Last time I checked being a friend wasn’t doing anyone harm.”
“Did you have sex with her?” The words spilled out of him, impatient and accusing.
“Go with your gut on that one, Pops.” Mouth twisted, I turned away from him.
His shoes pounded up the stairs, his hand grabbing my arm. I pulled against the grip, and his fingers tightened, surprisingly strong for a man his age.
“Give me some credit here,” Pops growled. “Talk to me. Did you have sex with the girl
?”
My gaze dropped to his hand on my arm before rising to his face. “No.”
Releasing me, he rubbed his eyes. “Okay.” He stepped away. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but do you really want to get involved with the girl? Her grandmother says she just lost her father.”
I shrugged. “Do you want me to leave?” My gaze flicked to the house, to the sanctuary housing my mother. “I didn’t ask to be here, remember?”
“Is that what this is about?”
“She’s just a girl,” I hissed, suddenly furious. At everyone. Especially Tansy. If she was trying to start something … damn it! “She came to see me. Maybe you should ask the old woman why that is, huh? I don’t care what the girl said—”
“The girl didn’t say anything,” Pops interrupted. “Lonnie Herrington, from down the road, saw the Refuge van at the end of the drive and called Hetty.”
Relief swooped down into my body, the anger rushing out of me. “Tansy didn’t say anything?”
“No.” Pops’ stare was hard and pointed. “I’m hoping this Tansy girl didn’t have anything to tell.”
Veins in my neck throbbed, my fists clenching. “She’s been through some bad shit, is all. I’ll be training her kid sister at the boxing gym.”
“Have you known her long?”
“No.” I massaged my temple, a burgeoning headache forming. “Are you here to tell me to stay away from her?”
“Would you? If I told you to?”
Frustrated rage replaced the earlier relief. There was one thing I hated more than my mother: assumptions.
“You know I wouldn’t,” I answered. “The girl seems decent. Hell, I’ve only got a few days to go by. I’m not interested in a relationship, and God knows, I’m pretty sure she isn’t either. You tell me to back off, and I’m likely to push harder.”
Pops leaned back, considering me. Silence stretched.
“You know grief has a funny way of manifesting itself,” he said finally. “I saw a lot of things in the military, experienced a lot of loss, and saw a lot of people grieving. I’m not saying the girl is bad news, she’s hurting, but watch it, Eli. Loss can translate into lust. It can—”