Finding Redemption

by Emilia Finn

  It’s time for me to let her go. It’s too hot down here in hell and she deserves to fly.

  My baby sister is having another fucking baby. Gross. But at least she has Jim now. He’ll always treat her the way she deserves. My sacrifices were worth it and now she’s happy and safe. My brother Bobby and his wife are having a baby now too. There are babies every-fucking-where and I know that I’m holding Casey back. She deserves those things.

  I saw the hurt in her eyes tonight. Everyone is partnered off and happy and I’m holding her down. She can’t even move on and start a relationship with someone else because my stubborn ass won’t let her sleep in her own home, and she sure as shit won’t be bringing a man back to my place; which is exactly why I don’t let her go home.

  I need to rip my heart out of my chest, painful as it may be, and I need to just give it to her and send her on her way. She deserves better than me.

  I was being all noble and shit, I was going to be the martyr. I would fall on my sword and set her free… That was my plan until I went searching for her. Until I walked into 188 after I couldn’t find her at her apartment and I watched some punk ass prick leaning in to kiss her.

  Nope. Not on my watch.

  I grab him by the scruff of his neck and I throw the piece of shit as hard and as far as I can. With the adrenaline firing through my body, it was easy. His hundred and eighty pounds isn’t shit for my broken heart to handle.

  “Get the fuck off her!”

  I watch as his body flies across the room, as he takes out tables and chairs in flight. I watch the broken glass from the empties rain down over him and the dregs of warm beer drip and stain his shirt.

  Then I turn with a snarl as Casey runs to him. She runs past me, away from me, and runs toward him.

  She drops to her knees over his slumped body. “Oh my god, Scotch. Are you okay?”

  Scotch. What kinda stupid ass name is that?

  I step toward them, ready to tear her off him, ready to tear her away and drag her to a cave and keep her forever. I can’t be noble. I can’t fall on my sword and give her up.

  She’s mine!

  My steps are halted when a beefy arm wraps around my neck as Mike pulls me back, then as some other fucktards grab onto me and push me away from my Sunshine.

  Another dump of adrenaline floods my body as I throw my elbow at Mike’s face, then I kick my legs out and nail the pussy band geeks. Mike grunts as I move several of his teeth but his arm doesn’t let up. We’ve trained together too long, he knows my shit, he knows my weaknesses, but he doesn’t know Casey is mine.

  He drags me backwards, digging his muscled arms into my windpipe, pressing down over the pressure point in my neck and I know I have seconds before I’m unconscious and Casey might get away.

  Fuck. She might go home with Scotch. To nurse his wounds. Fuck that. I throw my head back and nail Mike in the face, ready and willing to break anything to get him off me, and when his arm slips loose, I duck out of his hold and turn back to Casey.

  I expect to find her on the floor still licking her boyfriend’s wounds, but instead she’s barely two feet in front of me with her hands planted on her hips and her eyes on fire.

  Such pretty mossy green eyes.

  “What. The actual. Fuck! Is your problem, Jon?” She tries to shove me but my adrenaline filled body ain’t going anywhere. “What is your damn problem? What do you want?” Her words come out on a raging pissed off shout. She’s beyond pissed.

  “Well?” she shoves me again. “What. Do. You. Want?”

  I glare over her shoulder as the other guy gets up, picked up by his friends and steadied before they let him go, and I feel a literal jaw snap as he approaches us.

  My lips peel back over my teeth as Scotch roughly grabs Casey and shoves her behind his back.

  He’s manning up. He’s stepping up and I’m not backing down.

  “Woah!” Case jumps away from him and tries to step between us. “Nope. No way.” She tries to push my chest but I push toward him. A small part of my brain realizes and feels bad for pinning her tiny body between us.

  My Casey is tiny, her head nowhere near his face, so I swing out and smash my fist down on his pussy jaw. His head snaps around and he drops so suddenly Casey falls too.

  I pick her up roughly, hating myself for how rough I’m being but I feel like I have no control over my shit. I can’t stop.

  I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder and she rains her closed fists down on my back. “Put me down!”

  Nope. I walk past a stunned and bleeding Mike as he glares at me. Then at the wide eyed groupies as they watch from the corner. The rest of the Backstreet Boys are by Marky Mark’s unconscious body but I don’t give a shit about them as I haul Casey off toward my car.

  “Put me down!”

  “No.”

  “Put me down! You can’t just manhandle me like this.”

  “Yes. I can.” You’re mine.

  “I hate you, Jon.” I can hear the tears in her words and my steps falter. “I fucking hate you. I wish I never met you.”

  She slays me.

  I stop on the spot in the middle of the 188 parking lot as the heavy downpour soaks our bodies and I slide her off my shoulder. I put her on her feet in front of me and I stare at her soaked eyes.

  “You don’t hate me. You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.” She swipes tears and raindrops away as they bead over her lips. “I really do. I’m done, Jon. I’m done with us.”

  I know that’s exactly what I’d come here to do, but-- “No you’re not. We’re just having a fight then tomorrow we’ll be back to normal.”

  “No! We’re not just having a fight, Jon. I’m done. I’m tapping out.” She shoves against my chest in a rage. “I don’t want you anymore!”

  That’s not true.

  “But I love you, Sunshine.”

  “Well I’m not Sunshine and you’re not Leo. I’m just Casey. I’m just Casey and Casey isn’t good enough for Jon.”

  My eyes flare wide at her stupidity. “Not good enough? You’ve always been too good.”

  “I can’t be too good, Jon. You’ve had me for two years. I see no commitment. I see no promise of anything more. I see nothing.”

  “That’s exactly it. You’re too good for me. I’ve told you this!” I’m shouting now too, sick of repeating the same shit time and time again. Bobby and the other guys have all been up my ass about this too.

  I can feel the rain drops flying from my lips as I shout. “I can’t give you those things because I don’t have them to give!”

  “Those are just words, Jon. Excuses! You do have those things to give. You have you, and you’re all I wanted.” She tries to shove me again. “I played your part-time whore for two years in hopes you might toss me a little more, but nothing. You give me nothing!”

  She turns on her heels and sets off into the street.

  Nope. Not getting away.

  I jump forward and grab her dripping arm and she spins on me. “I saw your disgust tonight. I saw the way you looked at me when you worried your precious freedom might end. You hurt me, Jon! You hurt me that after all this time, after our friendship and everything we’ve been through, it hurts that you’d look at me like I was a two-bit whore who might trick you into something.” Casey snaps her arm out of my hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t be carrying your babies.”

  “Exactly!” I continue stomping behind her, following her as she storms away from me and stomps in the puddles in the street. “I won’t put my poison in you. I won’t do that to you. I won’t pass on the shit to a whole new generation of broken boys.”

  “Broken? Why are you broken, Jon? Because from what I see, you’re a grown ass man who is choosing this life. You’re choosing to be a lonely bitter man, and you’re taking me down with you.”

  “Choosing?” My eyes fill with that familiar red haze and I take a step away from her before I do something stupid. I want to hit something. I want to smash something
beneath my fists. I spin on the spot to escape her, then I spin back and face her.

  “You think I choose this?” My fists are shaking. My body is sweating as I try to hold my shit together. “You think I chose to wake up to dirty old men helping themselves to my body for a whole decade? Do you think I chose to be brutalized and raped? Do you think I chose to be sold?” I stand in her face and shout, and though I’m disgusted with my behavior, I can’t stop. I can’t stop this ugly flow of hatred. “I was sold by my parents! I was five years old the first time I was torn open! Five!”

  Casey’s sympathetic eyes turn watery. “Jon.”

  “My parents had to figure out ways to pay the rent since their money went to their next hit. They sold my body to any filthy piece of shit that had the cash. They sold me for ten years. And when they couldn’t sell me, they beat me. They beat me so fucking often, I didn’t even know what it would feel like not to have broken ribs and blood in my piss.”

  I cover my face with my hands and I scream. I scream like a little kid. I scream the way I did into my pillows every time they did those things to me. I scream that I was strong enough to survive it then, to escape it, to protect Iz, but now that I’m a grown ass man and no longer under their power, I’m too weak to let it all go.

  I scream until my voice is hoarse and my throat hurts, then I move my hands and I stare at the most beautiful woman in the world as her hair sticks to her face and her mascara runs with the rain. The woman who knows all of me now. The woman who wants to save me, but can’t. I can’t have her. “I’ll spare you the details, but that’s why I won’t be perpetuating that cycle. Hart men will die out with me. That’s why I’m broken and can’t make babies with you.”

  Casey steps toward me. I expect sympathy but instead I get fire. “Jon, those things, when you were a boy, they weren’t your fault and I’m really fucking sorry that happened to you. I wish you’d told me. You didn’t have to live with that alone. I could have been your Leo for a while. I would have held you and scratched your hair and I would have tried to make it better for you. But you didn’t share. You didn’t let me in, and now, you don’t have to worry anyway. I can’t have your babies. Hart men will die out with your bitter ass.”

  She understands. She finally understands. And I hate that she now knows that about me. But it’s the right thing. “Exactly!”

  “No.” She shakes her head sadly. “Not that I won’t. I can’t. I can’t have any babies, Jon. ”

  “What are you--”

  “I had yours once.” Casey’s eyes turn sad. “I had your baby in my belly for a little while. I had him inside me and I loved him for as long as I had him.”

  My heart is beating a dangerous tattoo inside my chest and I feel pressure squeeze my skull. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I had your baby in my belly, I even saw his heartbeat on a screen. Do you want to know why I’ve been so mad at you, Jon?” She shoves me again as her sadness turns to anger. “I lost our baby. I lost him in a very painful way, but in the short time I had him, I was fucking terrified to tell you! I was terrified. I couldn’t celebrate with you and then I couldn’t mourn with you. I couldn’t do anything but go to surgery alone. They took my baby and I never ever got to see him.” Casey’s eyes spill over with angry tears and each and every one cuts me open, shredding me to pieces more than anything else ever has in my life. “I came home and what did you do? You took care of me, you were so fucking sweet, but then you reminded me at least twice a week, every fucking week that you would never procreate, you would never marry.”

  I had a baby? She carried my baby for me? “You should have told me.”

  “How could I?” She shoves me again and my weakened body actually moves with her blow. “How could I tell you when you were so damn vocal about how smart girls don’t make stupid mistakes? How could I tell you and give you more reason to hate me? To hate you.”

  “Hate you? I would never--”

  “You hated me tonight when you thought I might be pregnant. I saw your eyes, Jon. You hated the very thought of having something more with me.”

  “No!” How could she think that? “I hated the thought of my poison tainting you.”

  “Well it already did, Jon. But it wasn’t your sperm and child that tainted me. It was you. You and your poisonous attitude.”

  “Casey--”

  “But don’t worry.” She steps away from me angrily. “It’s all done. It’s all over. My baby is gone. And I’m gone. I have nothing left for you, Jon. I’m officially out. Take your poison, take your good intentions and take your bullshit. Give them to Sonia. Maybe she can save you.”

  I cringe from the blow. Bullseye. “How do you know about Sonia?”

  My question has her sad eyes spilling faster. I’m hurting her. “Because I’m a smart girl, remember? You live with a guy long enough you learn shit. Even shit that you wish you could turn a blind eye to. I don’t want to be your side piece, Jon. I don’t want to tag team with Sonia.” Casey stops, breathing heavy, then she lifts her whole frame and shoots me down with her beautiful eyes. “If I can’t be your everything, then I’ll be your nothing. Goodbye, Jon.”

  Part THREE

  The Real Ending

  Twenty Two

  Jon

  Annie

  “Jack! Get out here!”

  “Baby, relax.”

  “JACK!”

  “Kit--”

  “Bobby, swear to god, if you tell me to relax again, I’ll kill you. I’ll run you down with your own damn car then I’ll back up and do it again.”

  “You need to just calm down and take a breather. This isn’t good for the baby.”

  “Jack. Get out here!”

  “Baby, you’re acting crazy.”

  Oh shit!

  I’ve been sitting in front of my TV, moping around with my own misery, smugly listening to my noisy neighbors bitch each other out in the yard like trailer trash rivaling that which I grew up around, but shit just got serious.

  “Crazy?”

  “No. I didn’t mean--”

  “You’re saying I’m crazy?” Kit’s voice takes on a whole new epic level of screech.

  “Kit. I’m sorry--”

  I jump up from my couch at the sound of Jack’s voice and I run to my front door. He’s a dead man and I really want to watch. I skid along my porch in training shorts and a tank and I instantly find Kit storming around her front lawn. Strangely she’s carrying her wedding bouquet and some books.

  I look toward Jim and Iz’s porch to find them watching on, then to Aiden and Tina doing the same from theirs. Evie darts across her lawn toward the excitement unfolding with Uncle B and Aunty Kit, but I skip forward and grab her up before Kit accidentally tramples her.

  “Stay with me, Bug.”

  “Kitkat has fowers.”

  “I’ll buy you your own flowers if you stay with me.”

  “Kit,” Jack steps toward Kit warily, like she was a wild dog and he’s just about to lose his face. “I’m sorry, okay? I’ll have them fixed.”

  “You can’t fix them! They’re ruined.” Kit thrusts the bouquet toward Jacks face. “Where did you find it?”

  “Baby.” Bobby steps toward his wife as slow and warily as Jack did. He places his hand on Kit’s forearm. “It’s okay. You made them once, you can make them again.”

  Every time Kit stomps around, every time she thrusts her fist toward someone, a new flower falls off her bouquet and as I stare closer, I realize it’s been mutilated. There are missing lilies scattered, the ribbon is loose and hanging down around Kit’s elbow. I hold back my smile when I spot the novel in Kit’s other hand, then I squirm at the missing chunks and torn cover and spine.

  I don’t know what Jack did, but to be fair, I’d be pissed if someone ripped my books too.

  “Bring it out here. Now!”

  “You’ve scared her, Kit. She won’t come out.”

  Her? My eyes flare wide. Is Jack’s girlfriend hiding somewhere
, and if she is, why did she attack Kit’s stuff?

  “Her? It’s a her? What the hell is it?”

  Jack holds his hands up in front of him in surrender. “Kit, you just need to calm down. This isn’t as big a deal as you think it is.”

  Kit scoffs sardonically. “No, I think it is!”

  “Baby--”

  “She ripped my bouquet, Jack! This was the only picture I had of Dad. This was the ribbon from flowers he gave me before he died!”

  “Kit, I’m sorry--”

  “What are they talking about?” Aiden’s words filter in from behind me. I shrug my shoulders, though I don’t take my eyes from the hormonal psycho in front of me.

  “This is all I had of him, Jack. And now they’re ruined! They’re ruined and I have nothing left.”

  “Baby--”

  “You have me.” Jack’s words have Kit stopping on the spot, as her tear soaked eyes spill over and she watches her brother gulp sadly. “I’m sorry she messed up your flowers, but it’s not the end of the world. Dad’s not here, I know your baby is making you feel that more right now, but I’m here. Am I not enough?”

  “Jack--”

  As though Evie knows exactly what’s going on, she stills in my arms, watching the emotional breakdown taking place twenty feet away from us. Startling us all, Kit lets out a wailing sob and steps forward and hugs Jack. “I’m sorry.”

  Jack’s hands hold his sister against his chest. His right hand brushes her hair down as he watches Bobby who’s speechless and stunned behind his wife. Kit’s arms hang loose between their bodies as she clutches her book and flowers. “I’m sorry, Jack. You’re enough. You’re definitely enough.”

  Jimmy steps off his porch with Sissy’s hand clasped tightly in his. “Can you idiots tell us what’s going on?”

  “I don’t actually know.” Bobby admits. “We just got home from a baby appointment and our house looks like a bomb went off.”

  “I didn’t hear any bombs, B.”