CHAPTER SIX
The first thing that most people notice when they enter this house—that is, of course, when people used to come here—is the darkness.
All the blinds and curtains are drawn. Despite the sunny day outside, inside our home it feels like the middle of the night. The only room where the curtains are always open is mine. I suppose it’s my own little form of rebellion.
It’s a way of saying that we didn’t all die that night six years ago. There’s a musty smell that comes from the windows not having been opened and that just contributes to the feeling that you’re walking through a mausoleum. I’d given up trying to throw open the curtains and open up the windows a while ago now.
There were a lot of things that I’d given up on a long time ago, and having anything resembling a normal life was one of them.
My mom hadn’t left the house since my father had died. She hadn’t even gone to the funeral. We had thought that she was in shock—that’s what the doctors had said anyway. That she was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I remember asking the kindly but ultimately useless doctor if that wasn’t just something that soldiers got when they came home from places like Afghanistan. I remember that Doctor Moyes had been impressed at my knowledge. He had explained that sometimes the shock of something is so great it sends us somewhere else, and sometimes it can take a long time for us to find our way back. He told me that’s what had happened to my mother—that she was somewhere else, trying to find her way home to me.
I had clung to that hope the way a drowning man clings to a life-preserver for days—days that had turned into weeks, weeks that had turned into months, and months that had eventually turned into years that passed with no discernible change in my mother.
It was only recently that I’d finally begun to realize that Doctor Moyes had left out a vital piece of information when he’d explained the diagnosis to me. He hadn’t told me that the patient has to want to come back in order to find their way, and I don’t think that my mother has any inclination to rejoin the real world.
The world where her husband is dead and she’s living in a nightmarish town that seems like something out of Mad Max. I don’t blame her for wanting to check out of this place. If I were her I would probably figure that there wasn’t much of anything to come back for.
Except for me, I guess. Except for her daughter.
“Mom, I’m home,” I shout as I drop my keys onto the table by the door.
Silence is my only reply. This is no great surprise, I don’t even feel disappointed anymore, or at least I try not to. After all, it really is just a waste of time. I had only recently noticed that I stopped holding my breath as I walk into the house, hopeful that I would find my mother in the kitchen making up a batch of her famous cookies and that she would ask me about my day.
But that never happened, and there came a point when you had to stop expecting a miracle. It just made you feel like an idiot when it never came to pass.
I find her in the armchair where she’d pretty much taken up residence since dad had gone. She slept down in the lounge, presumably because she couldn’t bear to sleep in the bedroom that she had once shared with the love of her life.
Her once lush, thick, beautiful red hair that made her look like a force of nature is now thin, dirty, and flecked with grey. She had always been slim, but the slightness of her frame has turned into boniness.
She is a shadow of her former self, but when I think about her I still manage to remember the person that she used to be even if it’s getting harder and harder. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, so full of life and love. She loved our family. She and my dad had been together since they were kids, and they used to say that they were soul mates and I had completed their family.
That’s what made it so hard when everything changed after dad died. It was like a piece of my mother died that day as well—the piece that made her who she was. All the neighbors and friends had pitched in to help when it became clear that my mother wasn’t able to cope.
They would bring food for dinner, make me hot chocolate, make sure that I did my homework, and that I had medicine when I was sick. All while my mother shrank further and further away from real life.
After a while, the well-meaning members of Painted Rock had slowly drifted away, leaving me alone with the woman that had once been my mother. Sally and Bill Summers were the only people that had stuck around for the duration.
I had become a pretty permanent fixture in their house, after all—it felt way more like a home than the old house did. I used to pray and pray, night after night, that my mom would come back to me. I don’t do that anymore. After years of unanswered prayers, I started to realize that God had left Painted Rock a long time ago and there was no sign that he ever planned to come back.
“Momma,” I say quietly, gently placing my hand on her shoulder, but she barely even reacts and just continues staring straight ahead of her, at the armchair that was my dad’s customary place. “Momma, I’ve gotta go back to work soon, but I’ll fix you something to eat first, okay? What are you hungry for?” I ask, trying to keep my voice as even and calm as I can.
I had learned the hard way that the slightest hint of tension or pressure would send her into a spin that would end up with her screaming and crying. The good Dr. Moyes has told me that her illness would “last as long as it lasted”. I hadn’t told him that the diagnosis wasn’t a lot of comfort to a fourteen-year-old girl who was now essentially alone in the world.
“Momma?” I ask again, giving her a little nudge to make sure she knows that I’m there.
“Hmmm,” is the only reply I get as she breathes out and the rattle in her chest sounds like a creaky door. I wonder when the last time she’d had any water was—probably early this morning, when I’d managed to get her to take a few sips before I’d left for work.
“How you feeling today Mom?” I ask, walking around the chair to look at her. Although our eyes meet it’s like she isn’t really there, not in any way that counts.
There’s no response and I try to remind myself that there’s no point in feeling disappointed, that it didn’t make sense to expect something would suddenly change as if by magic after so long. “It’s Jake’s birthday soon—you remember Jake Summers?” I ask, kneeling down beside her and holding her dry, scrawny hand in mind.
She doesn’t reply or make any sign that she has the first clue of what I’m talking about. I’d been doing this since the beginning, since her phases of hysteria had stopped and she had lapsed into this state of near coma. I would come home and tell her about my day, talk about the funny things that had happened in class, or the A that I had gotten for my science project.
Of course, she never replied, never laughed at the joke I would tell, or congratulate me on my academic achievements. But even so, it was nice to tell her about it all. It was nice for me to be able to share things with her, even if she didn’t know that’s what was going on.
“There’s so much happening,” I say to her in nothing more than a whisper. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about. Everything is changing, Mom, and I need you.” I try to keep the tearfulness out of my voice.
When there’s no response, I stay there for a few more minutes, wishing that I could feel the comfort I so desperately need from her, but sitting here with someone who isn’t really there just makes me feel even more alone and lost than I already do.
“I’ll go fix you something to eat,” I finally say, and wander into the kitchen, squeezing my eyes shut against the feeling of loneliness that is threatening to overtake me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I let the cool water of the shower wash over me and I finally let the tears come. This is the only place that I will cry, the only place that I can let go of the tight hold I’ve placed over myself. The day after my dad died I vowed that I wouldn’t ever let the Angels see me cry—I’d given them too much power over me already, I wouldn’t let them see how
badly I was hurt.
I wouldn’t even let myself go with Jake. There were times when I could feel the tears coming and I had to pinch myself hard to stop them from overflowing and spilling out onto my cheeks. There was a time for tears, and it wasn’t in front of anyone else. I didn’t want to let myself cry until this was all over—until the Angels had paid their dues, until Jake was safe, until it seemed possible for there to be a life after all this madness.
As I’m toweling my long, dark hair dry my cell vibrates insistently with an incoming message. I don’t even need to look at it to know it’s from Jake.
I hate it when we fight, make it up to you tomorrow night at The Hideaway? Jx
I can’t help smiling as I read it. I know exactly what he means—arguing with Jake is the last thing I like to do. With Suzie we had been The Three Musketeers, but now it was just the two of us and I wasn’t about to let a few angry words pull us apart.
Alright, but you’re buying, Summers. Ax I reply, wondering how long it’s going to take for me to forget the way his touch on my cheek had made me feel warm between my thighs and how I’d suddenly become aware of every part of my body, from the tips of my toes to the longest hair on my head.
I stand in front of the mirror as I rake my fingers through my wet hair, already starting to dry in its customary waves. I inspect my face and wonder what it is that Jake sees when he looks at me. My skin is a light caramel color that comes from my dad’s Cherokee heritage, and my eyes are green almonds that are exactly like my mom’s.
I’ve always thought that my mouth looks too big for my face—when I was a kid I’d always tried to put my hand over my lips in photos because I was so paranoid about it.
I let the damp towel drop to the floor and examine the body reflected in the glass. My breasts are nothing to write home about, since they’re probably on the smaller side of things and it didn’t look like they were going to fill out anymore anytime soon.
I trace my hands over my flat stomach and towards the dark mound of hair between my thighs. I imagine that my hand is Jake’s and feel a familiar warmth bloom in my pussy. I’m about to delve down deeper to the wetness that I know is starting to pool between my long legs, when I suddenly realize what I’m doing and hurriedly cover myself with the towel.
I look in the mirror to find that my cheeks are flushed and my hands are a little shaky. What the hell was that? I ask myself. One little touch from someone you’ve known since you were a kid and you go all needy and crazy, the little voice tells me. That’s what happens when you’re a stone’s throw away from twenty and still a virgin, I guess.
I give myself a little shake, trying to dispel the feeling of need that is still racing around my body, but as I concentrate on putting on a fresh buttercup-yellow uniform before I head out to the diner, I can still feel the heat between my thighs.
I kiss my mother goodbye on her dry cheek and walk past the calendar that I keep by the door, where I keep track of the countdown to Jake’s birthday and what had been the countdown to us getting out of town.
My eyes lock onto today’s date and I question how it was possible I had forgotten that it was the end of the month. There’s a faint tremor in my hands as I close the front door gently behind me and start walking towards the diner, as purposefully as I can.
It’s collection night and, although we went through it every month, it still made me angry—angry and afraid—partly because I knew it had been a slow few months at the diner and we already owed them more than we had in the tills. The Bleeding Angels would be at Sunny Side Up tonight and they would want their money.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The graveyard shift at the diner was never a lot of fun. The shift usually passed about a hundred times slower than it did at any other time, as if time had been stretched. Years ago this place had been buzzing at night. There would be a constant stream of truckers and travelers coming into the diner, but that was before word had gotten out about the Angels. Now, most people tried to avoid Painted Rock at night.
Truckers would add another hour onto their journey just to bypass the town to avoid the MC that had gained a reputation for taking what they want without asking any questions. The Bleeding Angels were “bleeding” this town dry, and there was no one to call time on them. There was no one left who gave enough of a damn to do something about it.
Tonight the diner wasn’t even a quarter full, which meant the tips would be pretty pathetic, but at least the night shift was charged at time and a half. I wait for the last few tables to finish up and ask for the check, then go back to the psychology textbook I’d borrowed from the library.
I had found the psych introductions that we’d had in high school so interesting that I’d become a bit of a nerd, reading whatever I could get my hands on that was linked with the field. I suppose a psych professional would say that my interest in the human brain had something to do with my mother’s breakdown.
I wonder if there is something to that theory—that I’m looking for a way to bring her back. I read the college textbook underneath the counter until the owner of the diner, Dick, walks in. I then push the book further out of view to avoid a lecture from my boss on the importance of “front of house” courtesy.
Dick is an improbably small man but he still manages to live up to his name. When he had hired me, he had made it clear that he wasn’t taking me on because of my summer waitressing experience or because of my work ethic—it was because of the way I look.
He had “suggested” that I undo a couple of the bottoms on my uniform to give the customers enough to whet their appetite so they come back, but not enough to make them feel like they’ve seen it all so they don’t need to become a regular. The only time I followed his so-called suggestion was when I knew that he was due at the diner.
I quickly realized that flashing a bit of cleavage wasn’t the reason that our regulars kept on coming back—it was Big George’s cooking. He’s the one that makes Dick’s Diner what it is: one of the most successful businesses in Painted Rock. Dick treated him like he was something the man has found stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
I’d asked George why he lets Dick get away with the way he treats him, but all George had done was concentrate on my lips as I spoke and smile cheekily at me. Then, in the middle of tossing a pancake, he had pulled an earplug out of each ear and shrugged as I hooted with laughter.
After the business from the truckers started to thin out, so did Dick’s hair and his visits. He pretty much just leaves Big G in charge now and doesn’t even try to make a semblance of a show of running the place. The only time I really even see him anymore is for the monthly handover of payment to the Angels, and every time he sees me he forgets my name, despite having worked here for years and despite the fact that my uniform bears a name-tag.
“Evening Dick,” I say his name more emphatically than is necessary, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Right, evening...” he starts and then looks at me as if he has never seen me before.
It’s pretty funny actually; Dick started to forget my name around the same time I told him that if he kept feeling my ass I’d report him to the police back when my dad still had some friends on the force. Dick is known around town for liking girls who are way too young for him—girls who are young enough to be his daughters. Dick edges around me as if he’s concerned he may accidentally touch me and I’ll make good on my threat to report him, and he heads into the back to speak to Big George.
Only a couple of minutes pass before Dick comes back out of the kitchen and heads towards the door again. “No handover tonight?” I ask, knowing that this is highly improbable, but confused as to why Dick would be reaching for the door before the Angels have even shown up.
“Big George is going to deal with it. I have some… other business to attend to,” he says, his voice is squeaky and his forehead as shiny with sweat as always.
I don’t ask him what possible business he could have to attend to at one in the morning, partly bec
ause I’m a little shocked that, for the first time, Dick wouldn’t be here when the Angels arrived. As soon as the door closes behind him I rush into the kitchen and find Big George standing by the range with a brown envelope in his hands, staring down at it as if he suspects it might grow a head and bite him.
“What’s going on?” I ask, not liking the expression of fear that I’m seeing on Big George’s face.
“It’s not enough,” the big man replies quietly. “Not enough by half.” I feel myself go cold as he says the words.
“And Dick the dick left you to deal with it?” I ask, disgusted. It turns out people can always surprise you. Even when you think you know how pathetic they are, they can always go one better.
Big George doesn’t say anything. He just nods slowly, clearly thinking about what the heck he’s going to say to the Angels when they arrive and find that they don’t have anywhere near the money that they were expecting.
Seasons of Change (Bleeding Angels MC Book 1) Page 4