by Falon Gold
“Anna, when you didn’t scalp the man after he just sat down next to you at the bar—”
“You saw us at the bar? Of course, you did. So, why didn’t you tell me that I was being rude to the guest of honor?” Probably because I was rude to just about everybody I know and didn’t know.
“…that alone made him special,” she kept right on talking like I hadn’t interrupted. “And you may have pushed him away, but you didn’t do it Anna-style.” Which equaled to mad white woman, her name for my perpetually-angry condition and a running joke since we met in second grade after school on what most people would call a beautiful, ordinary sunny day.
I had already established that I wasn’t like most people, not even twenty years ago when I’d already lost touch with the side that appreciated the splendor in ordinary things. Even as a kid, I was mad about life kicking me while I was already laying on my face in the dirt. At nine-years-old, I had been through more shit than a toilet on the account of my mother.
A few more years would have to be painfully tolerated before my suffering and neglect at Shelly’s and her crack buddies’ hands stopped. It was probably for the best that nostalgic and remorseful weren’t traits of mine. They had been shoved right out of me as a child. Plus, I wouldn’t have been able to put Kay’s bully down hard the day we met if I had empathy for others.
If ever I had met a second-grader that needed to be laid out with a hard punch to the nose and left on the sidewalk for their sidekick to help them home, Kay’s bully was it. Besides, someone had to make sure Kay got home in one piece. How fucked up was it to pick on someone just because they were smaller?
No one should ever know the answer to that question, but Kay and I did. My mother and whatever visiting drug addict at the time were really good at being bullies too, when they weren’t high. I couldn’t do much with an adult bully twenty years ago, but another second-grader was easy pickings for an angry nine-year-old. That anger followed me over into adulthood.
For the last month, I hadn’t been an angry anything, just a bump on a log, and the fault for that goes to Roland. Bo turned on my new street. A little bit of pride fizzled through my system. I had a feeling that even that little bit of thrill at my new status in life had something to do with Kay feeling proud of me for reestablishing myself on a new street. I looked up to her though I was two years older.
We shouldn’t have been in the same class, but I’d been kept back twice in the second grade due to the failings of my parent. I may have paid the price for Shelly’s shortcomings, but I got Kay out of it. It hit me that we won’t be able to spending as much time together since she had Hayden now. I wouldn’t dare come between the two, but it was going to be lonely in the house twice the size of the townhouse.
Suddenly, I wasn’t keen on living alone, and it was best not to think about that either, so I picked up the dropped threads of the conversation. “Actually, I did push Roland away Anna-style at the bar. He just didn’t rise to the bait and give me a reason to scalp him.”
Bo snickered.
Kay exclaimed, “Finally and thank God!”
What was there to be relieved about? The man had been riding my mind like a cowboy for thirty long days. Sleep had been hard to come by. Peace impossible to find. I had never been particularly happy, but I hadn’t been this damn miserable either.
“Finally, and thank God for what?” When she didn’t answer right away, my gut-churned. “What did you do, Kay?”
“It’s not what I did per se, although…” she trailed off, and that certainly wasn’t good.
“What did you do, Kay?” I demanded adamantly, suspicious of her.
“Well, I threw the party for Roland because I wanted you guys to meet and force you to have some fun together at the same time.” What?
“Oh, you have no idea how much fun we had together, sister!”
“Oh, I think I do,” she responded smugly. “And I knew someone like Hayden would be good for you because let’s face it, his unit mates have been through some shit in the military. A soldier can relate to a soldier. Roland got most of his stripes and scars on a real battlefield, which is exactly what life is and where you earned your stripes and scars. No matter what you think about yourself, Anna, you’re a survivor, and finally thank God, you met a man, Roland, who you didn’t bark and bite at as much as you would have anyone else. He got past all that by simply being him. If he hadn’t, there was always Kurt Jansen and Sebastian Elders in Hayden’s old unit.”
“If he hadn’t?!” I shrieked. “Oh my God! You had a whole damn lineup of potentials for me, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I guess it’s too bad for Kurt Jansen and Sebastian Elders that I fell for your first attempt at matchmaking, isn’t it?” Fell for Roland on her first toss of him at me.
“Yep… and then, you wouldn’t accept my calls, so I thought you’d figured out why I really threw the party.”
Deep guilt for just how much I had hurt her by staying away descended upon me. “Oh my baby girl, you thought I was mad at you for the matchmaking that worked really well by the way, but I was more worried about you being mad at me if I made you choose between me and Roland.”
“It would be you every time, Anna.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t come around. I didn’t want to start any issues with Hayden and you since I couldn’t look at his friend without wanting to take his clothes off.” Again. “I don’t want to want Roland or anyone else like that. He deserves so much better than me.” And it hurt so badly to want something that I knew I shouldn’t have for fear of ruining it.
“Anna, everyone deserves someone who’ll stand up for them, do right by them, and put them first. As long as I’ve known you, that’s what you’ve done for me though your mother wouldn’t do the same for you. It’s past time though for you to find someone who could do the same for you and love you like I can’t. As much as I love you, you’re just not my type, so I can’t work behind your shields to take some of your pain away like a man can.” She was certainly working behind them to find me a man though.
“Kay, I don’t think it’s fair to a man to have to carry my baggage. The load is too heavy for me sometimes.” Doubts and an inferiority complex, from having less than everybody else no matter what it was when I was growing up, weighed a fucking ton. “If I could offload all of it and forget my early years, I would, and it isn’t that I don’t really want love in my life, I just don’t know how to take care of someone else’s heart. Look how much I just hurt you to save myself. Save my own damn heart. I always survive the best way I know how, and sometimes, I don’t take other people’s feelings into consideration.” My biggest fault was that I just wasn’t a good person just like my mother wasn’t, and I didn’t know how to be a good person either.
“Sometimes, you don’t consider other people’s feelings, Anna?” She snorted with contempt. “Girl, I’ve never met a person who was more rude or deeper in survivor mode than you. That doesn’t stop me from loving you who is human, so you’ve been hurt, you’ll get hurt some more, and you’ll hurt people. That’s what forgiveness is for, and there’s so much pain to be experienced in this world, it makes love a delicacy that we should sampled every time we get the damn chance.”
Some rustling fired off on her end. She was getting comfortable somewhere and about to go in even harder on me. “Anna, somewhere along the way, you encased yourself in your pain and self-doubts and made a ten-foot fence out of them, hoping you don’t feel anything behind it. But, honey, I hate to tell you that lust and love finds a way every time, and you’re no longer behind your fence alone. Whatever you feel for Roland is sitting right inside you, and if you like him as much as I liked Hayden, you’ll have company for the rest of your life. Wouldn’t it be better to have Roland beside you instead of just your feelings for him that won’t keep your warm at night or be there for you to lean on when you need someone?”
“But, Anna, my life is—”
“Stop
! If you forget where you’ve been and what you’ve not only gone through but come through too, you will repeat your own damn history. And you’ll forget what you can and can’t handle and how to treat other people. The Anna I know can handle anything.” Except liking someone. “I can’t see you treating your child as Shelly did you because you know how much what she did to you hurt. People like her makes what me and Hayden have worth having, and it doesn’t hurt, Anna. You don’t have to be worthy of love, just appreciate it when it finds you. Aren’t you tired of only hurting? Of being alone? Speaking of hurting, after what Jarod and Bethany did to me and Hayden, I think he and I have earned the happiness we bring each other. Besides, I didn’t think that my family loving you was so bad. With a man, it’s just a different form of love but it feels the same; good.”
The Jesters had wormed their way into my heart the same day I met Kay because they helped Kay when I demanded them to, but a question was always at the back of my mind. If a mother couldn’t truly love her own child, who could? Or would? Convinced that seeking out the answer would only bring me more pain, I accepted that I’d never measure up to people like Kay or find a man with just as a good a heart as hers to love me as I am.
She came from a good home and was worthy of people like Hayden and Roland, who stuck their necks out for a whole damn country. Just looking at all three of them, you could see they were good people through and through. After living with nothing but the bad, the good was easily recognizable a mile away to me. Though I never had a chance to be anything but a survivor with Shelly Harp as a parent, her neglect taught me the hard way to grow stronger if whatever I was going through didn’t kill me.
And she had taught to take care of those who would do the same for me and could stomach my presence. I had forgotten those lessons while I was hiding away from Roland therefore Kay, who was doubting how much our relationship meant to me. I’d regret for the rest of my life not taking care of her heart like I should’ve.
“Your family’s love saved my life on too many days to count, Kay. The Jesters were the best thing to happen to me, but I stay away because I didn’t you in any awkward positions when me and him were in the same room with you and Hayden.”
But, what if Roland was one of those best things too and I threw him away, thinking I had to earn him? Be a better person to deserve him. But, what if Kay was right, and I’d been through enough already with Shelly to know how to love someone besides the Jesters? What if it was too late to have with Roland what she had with Hayden?
“You certainly were the best thing to happen to me, Anna. You’re everything I don’t have in an older sister. God knows that my brother Tony certainly could never take your place and we all have baggage. You think Roland doesn’t come with any? Please, girl! He’s done shit for this country he can’t even talk about. That says a lot within itself, but love heals if we let it, and what the heck do you think men have muscles for? To carry shit.”
I snorted, couldn’t argue with much of anything she’d said. It had all made sense. With Hayden, Kay certainly had been the happiest I had ever seen her. Maybe, I could have what she had, and then I got an eyeful of a large, black dually truck parked in my new driveway. Seriously! Couldn’t my only neighbor wait until I moved in before becoming the neighbor from Hell who didn’t respect property lines?
Chapter Eight
~Anna~
That old, irrational anger surged through me, and oh, how I missed it. That feeling was how I knew I was alive for as long as I could remember. It was better than feeling miserable and familiar like slipping on an old pair of slippers.
“Kay, we are not done talking about your transgression of matchmaking that equals my transgression of ignoring you, but I need to call you back. There’s someone parked in my driveway, and they’re about to regret it.”
“Wait, Anna! At least, tell me where you’re moving to?”
“Shit! Sorry, I’m out of touch with how to be best friends and sisters. My address is 132 Belmont Avenue. Bo, as soon as you stop, I’m getting out. Park on the lawn to make it easier to unload the truck. I’ll be next door, giving my new neighbor a piece of my bark and my bite.”
“132… Oh shit!” Kay slung through the phone. “Anna, is there a black truck in your driveway?”
“Yeah, so let me call you back, sis,” I requested, distracted by the vehicle only a man overcompensating for something would drive… or he wasn’t overcompensating and really needed the room. If the latter was the case, then I’d better keep my purse with me. There was something in it for poking his big ass if not his big ass tires should he get belligerent about those property lines.
“Anna, do not go next door!” Kay commanded loud enough for the neighbor from Hell to hear her through the U-Haul’s rolled up window. Of course, she’d try to keep me out of trouble, but that was exactly what I needed to get into, to take my mind off… things. To feel like myself again.
“Oh, I’m going next door, Kay.” Just anticipating a confrontation over my territory made me feel like myself again. I had lots of frustration to work off, and giving it an outlet while being in the right was fairly new to me. Usually, I was in the wrong and angry because ‘wrong and angry’ was what I did best. But oh, how I liked having the right to be angry. It felt way better than ‘wrong and angry’. Please, neighbor, be a smartass to me. I got something for you.
Bo shook his head as he rolled to a stop a few yards down from my home. On the other side of it was a vacant house. Its lawn propped up a For Sale sign. Someone had forgotten to take a twin For Sale sign off my lawn. I’d be ripping that up in just a minute.
While waiting for me to get out, he prepared to back across the lawn by cutting the wheel. “Anna, you remind me of my damn ex-wife. Both of you are always ready to nut up on somebody just because you can, and I ain’t going over there with you. Part of that reason is because I’m black and I’d go to jail for just being in the area.”
“Anna!” Kay hollered.
“Exactly, Bo, this is my confrontation,” I agreed, wouldn’t insult him by saying that the color of his skin didn’t matter still in this day and age. Opening my door, I grinned back at him while pissed off at the same time. “You just move the furniture in the house. Kay can bail me out of jail.”
“Anna!” she screamed again.
“Call you back in a minute, Kay. Bye.” I kept my eyes glued to the practically illegally-parked truck as I jumped down from the U-Haul to the street. Beads of sweat popped out on my head immediately. Despite it being an overcast day, Georgia’s heat was just as unreasonable as I was… sometimes.
“Anna, stop!” emitted from my phone.
“Call you back in a minute, Kay.”
“Dammit, don’t—” flew out the speaker just as I jabbed the end-call icon.
Dumping the device in my purse, I slung the Gucci strap over my head to lay across it my chest before burying my hand inside the bag to palm my chosen protection; a switchblade I took to carrying in my teens. It didn’t hurt that blades didn’t run out of ammunition and leave your ass helpless. I don’t do helpless anymore, but it certainly felt like I’d been helpless for the last month. Had no idea what to do with myself after work ended each day, but that had ended at least for the moment with a new house to make a home.
Gleeful about jumping down someone’s throat feet-first, I dashed across my only neighbor’s freshly cut front yard. A sidewalk ran down the middle of it from the front raised porch to the adjoining sidewalk laying parallel with the street. Skipping up three concrete steps, I put my knuckles to the black, gleaming door like I worked for the Sheriff’s Department, then waited with adrenaline coursing through me for someone to answer my knock.
“I said thirty minutes, numb nuts, not thirty seconds!” a deep masculine voice growled on the other side of the door before it was cracked wide enough for just a head and broad shoulder to materialize out of it.
Immediately, I recognized the hooded eyebrows shading eyes that were as green as emeral
ds and looking over my head. Roland? I froze, staring like a starstruck fool with my mouth hanging open. His chiseled jawline was still sporting a neat five o’clock shadow as it had a month ago. And my palms still itched to stroke his jaw just to hear the rasp of the stubble coating his sun-kissed skin.
With two-inch strands of coffee-brown hair arranged in bedhead, his head finally angled downward. Those emerald orbs landed on me. He froze then blinked. Most functioning parts of my body screeched to a halt. My adrenaline and fury took a massive dump in levels. The rest of me became hyperactive, like the beating of my heart and breathing.
“Ro-Roland?” I stuttered like I was just learning to speak.
Oh hell, no, no, no! When did he move here? I backed up, about to turn around and do a runner back the way I came, away from the catalyst that had flipped my world upside down. I had yet to fix that, and now, I was pretty damn sure that I wouldn’t. It was clear as day to me now that Anna Harp was not the same, and if Anna Harp wanted to go back to normal at some point, well, she needed to bounce now.
With one foot poised in retreat, my brain kicked in, reminding me that Anna Harp didn’t run from or chase anything either, and somebody had to tell him to move the damn truck. Or, I’d have to park my Acura on the street. Oh hell, no, no, no to that too. So, I stood my ground, and couldn’t stop my eyes from taking in all of him, which I didn’t do unless I was sizing somebody up for something.
His sun-kissed skin extended to naked pecs that bulged like contusions on a freshly-battered skull. They were big enough to be considered as peeking out the door too from his massive chest. Oh boy, I loved massive chests, especially this one. His exuded power. I could practically smell the pheromones that my body was leaking like a sieve. My knees wobbled, nerves went bad, but my spirit skyrocketed. Oh God, I was damn glad to see him, and that was proof that who I was, what I did or didn’t do was a thing of the past.