by Smoke, Lucy
She was quiet for a moment, her eyes averted and my hands started to sweat.
"It's not good, Baby." I knew it wouldn't be, but hearing it hurt. All the good that had filled me from talking to the guys bottomed out and drained away. I gripped the edge of the counter to keep my hands from shaking as I nodded my head. "You might wanna go home, now. She's gonna need you,” Mrs. Grace suggested.
I let go of the counter. "Thanks for taking her."
She wouldn't look at me as I passed her, but she nodded. Her house was so full of life, Jazzy and Devin's toys in strange places, sticking out from the couch cushions, hiding under the entertainment center. They had so many years left. Sometimes, in the moments when my mom let paranoia and her mood swings take over, it felt like she was already gone. But she wasn’t, not really. Because even amidst all that, there were times when she came back to me like she had the night before.
I crossed the street to my duplex and stood at the front door for several minutes, attempting to steal myself against what I might find. I took a deep breath, reached for the door, and twisted the knob, letting it swing inward. Cleo’s distressed meow came from somewhere in the house. I rushed in and followed it to the kitchen where her little black and gray form was barely visible under my mom's chair. She hissed, and meowed, and cried out when I entered, but my mom didn't seem to notice that her shoe was planted firmly on Cleo's tail. I eased closer, trying not to startle my mom or Cleo. The little kitten meowed at me in desperation, begging me to save her. I slowly lifted my mom's foot, glancing up to see if she would react. Cleo meowed again, hissed at me and my mom, and sprinted out of the room.
"Mom?" I sat across from her, keeping my hands in my lap because I was afraid to reach for her.
Her dull eyes fluttered before they refocused, seeing me for the first time. "Hey, Baby." I sighed in relief and slid my palms toward hers.
"What did the doctor say?" I asked. I needed to know.
"I'm sorry, Baby." Her words were a whisper that cut me to the core. I bit the inside of my cheek, hoping the pain would keep me from floating away or being crushed by the impending wave of desolation. "I'm trying," she said. She stopped, her eyes filling with tears. I held her hand, squeezing it tight. "I forget, you know I change – he said I probably shouldn't take my normal medication anymore. He gave me a new prescription. I hope it works. I'm just so tired, Baby. The chemo makes my bones ache."
"I love you, Mom. Whatever happens, I'll make sure you're okay." I took a breath, deciding to tell her a piece of the guys' offer, hoping it would ease her a little bit. I had a choice to make and I hoped I was making the right one.
"I got a job offer," I said with a small smile. "It looks like it'll have a decent income." I had to trust that the guys would keep their promises and would help. If they wanted me, this was my price, I decided. "You can go into a nice facility if you want. You don't have to, but I'm sure they would be able to take care of you better than I can. I'm gone most of the time and I know you need someone..." I trailed off, guilt eating the rest of my words.
"It's not your fault, Baby." Her hands tightened on mine. "But I'm so proud of you. A job? I didn't know you were applying to new places." Her head hung low in shame, as if not knowing about my life was a crime. Most of the time, she didn't know her own life.
"I didn't apply," I assured her. "Alex – my boss – suggested it and recommended me."
"What is it?"
"Recruitment, I think." I realized that I truly had no clue what they wanted from me. Even if I did, I suspected they wouldn't want me to go around telling everyone. She nodded her head, eyes boring holes into the table, once again losing the light in them.
"Maybe you should call Michael. He'll help you when the time comes, he knows all of those legal documents."
"Mom–"
"I'm tired, Baby," she interrupted me. "I think I'll go lay down." I didn't know what to say, so I nodded and let go of her hands when she pulled them away to stand. As soon as she was out of the room, I put my elbows on the table and dropped my head into my palms. It hurt. Everything hurt. So much.
When I crawled into bed later that night, after a somber day of cleaning and studying – though I could hardly keep my attention on any one thing – I stayed awake. I decided to cancel our home phone after programming my brother's phone into my cell and called to tell him about Mom. He hadn't seemed happy, but there hadn't been any real sadness behind his promise to visit if anything should happen. My head ached thinking about it.
I stared at my ceiling, the fan attached to the light cast shadows against the wall. My bedroom was a dark and mild representation of me as a person; the walls bare and the mismatched furniture all pieces purchased from garage sales or thrift stores. My phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Heaviness weighed over me, spinning in my head, making me dizzy. What would happen in the next year? What would happen in five? Would she still be here? Would I? My phone buzzed again and again, the sound prolonged as someone attempted to call me. I rolled away from it, putting one hand under my head as I curled in on myself.
Even if Michael did come back, he wouldn't stay. He only called, only talked to me out of some sense of duty. He felt guilty, I knew, for leaving me alone with her. He, himself, had admitted that he couldn't handle her anymore. The phone clattered on the nightstand again, the screen lighting up against the ceiling. I wanted to turn it off, but I didn't have the energy to reach for it.
What would I do when she was gone? I wouldn't go with Michael. He would offer to take me with him, but I couldn't picture it. Would I go to college? What would I go for? I didn't even know what I wanted to do with my life.
I was so lost in my own thoughts, the scraping at my window startled me back into reality. When the glass slid open, I clambered for the lamp on my dresser, holding it up over my head, my heart pounding. The figure slinking through my window straightened and I lunged, the lamp flying. The cord stuck, but he was close enough that it descended on the stranger's head.
"Shit!" One arm shot out and knocked the lamp away before it made contact with his face. It crashed to the floor, the fabric top falling off. "Harlow! It’s me!"
I gasped and sank to the floor, one hand clutched over my heart. Marv bent down, breathing heavy. "Jesus," he snapped, wiping his face. His hand came away sticky from a small cut at his hairline. "Were you trying to kill me or something?" he demanded.
"I'm sorry," I whimpered, my heart still racing. Tears burned my eyes, and relief flooded me. I tried to shove them back because now that the pressure in my mind had popped, they kept coming. I gasped for breath.
"Hey, hey, hey, none of that." Marv knelt down in front of me, fingers running over my brow, down my cheeks and my jaw line. "I didn't mean to scare you so bad. I just needed to get in to see you. Didn't you get our texts? We tried to call."
"I was in bed." My hands shook so much that he had to lift me up and deposit me on the bed before retrieving the lamp to put it back on my dresser.
"If I had known you were going to attack me when I came in, I might have rethought ringing the front doorbell." He sat next to me. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." My grip on the blankets hid my trembling as he sighed and leaned back, his big body taking up more than half the bed.
"No, you're not," he said. "What's wrong? Your mom had her appointment today. Is that it?"
"How do you know that?" I hiccupped and wiped my nose with a corner of the blankets clutched in my fists. "How do you, Knix, Bellamy, and Texas know everything in my life? That's not fair. If you're allowed to dig into my private affairs, yours should be free game too."
"Whoa." He sat up. "I'm an open book. You can know anything you want about me."
"What's Iris?"
"Anything but that," he amended. I growled in frustration and he grinned. "Technically, that's not specific to me, so you can't call me a liar."
My urge to hit something swelled. I stood from the bed to face him. "Why are you here?"
"You would know if you checked your phone." He sighed when the thing in question began to buzz again, the prolonged vibration indicating another phone call. Reaching over, he plucked it from my nightstand and answered.
"Hey," Marv answered. "Yeah, I've got her." Those gray eyes of his slid over me. If I looked close enough there were flecks, shinier than the rest of the clouded tones in his swirling irises. It made it look like he had burning, silver stars swimming through his eyes.
"I'm getting to that – did you – yeah? I'm not surprised. She's a little defensive." I wished I had the courage to hit him. I didn't like him talking about me while I was sitting right there. "Yeah, talk to you later." Silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable after he hung up. He lounged against my sagging mattress as though he was in a king's palace.
"So," he began, "I take it things didn't go well."
"You already know, don't you?" They already knew so much about me, I didn't have any secrets, any privacy, or any boundaries.
"We want you to come to us if you need us, Harlow." His starry eyes hinted at sympathy, making me want to choke. "But I know girls like you. We've all had our run in with the type–" His body, though not quite as massive as Knix, or quite as broad as Bellamy, overwhelmed me when he pulled me to him and hugged me to his chest. "You're incredibly selfless. You do more for anyone else than for yourself. You give and you give. You're strong willed, but you don't think so. You just think you're trying to make it."
"I am making it," I mumbled through his shirt. "And you don't really know me. You only just met me a week ago."
"Hush." One hand came up and cradled the back of my head. "Even if we had known you for years, you wouldn't tell us. So, you might use the excuse that we're just getting to know each other, but you haven't told your friend Erika anything either, have you?"
I wasn't normally so comfortable being touched by people I didn't know, but it felt nice to lean against Marv's chest – even if I didn't want to listen to what he was saying.
"You aren't a burden, not like you think you would be to your brother, or your mom if she was working full time and supporting you."
I brought two hands up and pushed, creating enough distance to look up at him. "You know about Michael?" He raised an eyebrow and I gave him a sardonic look. "Of course you do."
He shrugged, running his fingers through my hair. "I know you have a brother. I know that the relationship between him and your mother is strained. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he couldn't hack it and left you to deal with the fallout. We're not like that, Sunshine. We stick with our family. We support them, protect them–"
"Your family doesn't seem to need that."
The smile he turned my way made me feel guilty. I was jealous. He knew it and I knew it. Not of his wealth, but of his family. I had watched him and his mom and how they acted towards each other. I had seen the way she looked at him, like he was her baby – her loving miracle – no matter what. I wanted that kind of tenderness and devotion from someone else.
"No, my blood family doesn't need my help. But that doesn't mean my other family doesn't."
I knew he meant Knix, Texas, and Bellamy. The way they worked together was so odd before, but when I realized that they truly were family – in their minds, at least – it made sense. It felt like he was offering me a place there and it was tempting, even with the price tag attached.
Families could rip you open, soul and body, and you would always come back because that's what we were conditioned to do. Family is blood and blood is the strongest connection in the world. No matter the insult or injury, they were family, so they had to love you and you had to love them back. I didn't love my brother anymore. My mom was growing further and further away. Soon I would be alone.
"You're not going to be alone," Marv said. I blinked at him before realizing that I'd just said everything I was thinking aloud and my face flushed bright red.
Fingertips traced the edge of my jaw line, drawing me away from my embarrassing thoughts. He smiled down at me. His eyes shimmered with empathy and compassion. A part of me wanted to twist away from him and order him to leave, but his eyes told me that he understood what it was like to lose someone – and even though my mom wasn't gone yet, she would be eventually.
"We're each a cog in a big machine," Marv said. "None of us are burdens. Sometimes, we get a little rusty and we need someone to take us out and fix us or we get a little dirty and need to be cleaned. That's just the wear and tear of time. That stuff happens to everyone. It doesn't make what we do or who we are any less important. Your problems are not burdens. You just need to be taken care of for a little bit before you can run smoothly again."
My eyes itched, tears threatening to spill again. I cursed them. I had just stopped crying. Cheeks on fire, I held my breath to keep from breaking down. Goosebumps trailed up my bare arms and down my back. I shivered against his chest, burrowing a bit because he was so warm. Fatigue threatened to drag me under.
"Come on, let's go to sleep, Sunshine." Marv twisted, sliding away from me as he set me back against the bed. He tucked my covers around my side, turning me over to face away from him with gentle hands before unbuttoning his dress shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked. He picked up his phone, typed a message and sent it before I heard the telltale sound of his phone being turned off. I peeked behind me.
"I told the guys that I'm staying the night with you. They'll call your phone if they need me. I don't have my charger." He reached for the button of his slacks and I flipped back into position, staring at the wall with wide eyes.
I didn't last thirty seconds before I asked the question that weighed on my mind. "Why?"
He didn't reply as he lifted the covers and crawled beneath them, moving close, spooning up against my back. The heat was a welcome reprieve against the cool air of the room. I waited for an answer, but I didn't have any fight left in me to make him tell me if he wasn't going to offer it up.
Marv's boxers brushed against the backs of my legs as he slid one corded arm around my middle, bringing me closer to his chest. I reached down and gripped that arm, holding it tight like one might a teddy bear as another slid under my neck. He was so close, so warm. It was too much. Yet, it was also perfect.
Chapter 10
Sweat stuck to my skin, making me feel unbearably sticky beneath the blankets, but my feet were like frozen blocks of ice as they peeked out from beneath my comforter. Keeping my eyes closed, I jerked them back under the blankets and one ankle smacked into a hairy leg. I stiffened, eyes sliding open before turning towards the body on the other side of my bed. That's when I realized Marv's arm was still around my waist, holding me to his bare chest, which was also lightly matted in drying sweat.
Moving slowly, so as not to wake him, I scooted to the edge of the bed closest to me before sliding the blankets off to the side without uncovering his body. I lifted the arm around my waist and turned so that my butt was the first thing out from under the covers. I touched down on the cold, wood floor with the tips of my toes, shivering.
"Stop it." The arm around my middle tightened and jerked, drawing me back under the sheets and into his embrace. I blinked up at him, stunned.
"You were awake the whole time?!" I seethed, glaring up at him as his lips curved up while his eyes remained closed.
"You're cuddly and warm." His lower lip stuck out and I blinked again at the image it presented. I never would have thought Marv was a cuddle maniac.
I resisted the feeling of how good it felt to be held. Maybe I needed to get a boyfriend. I’d never really seen the need for one, but now I was in constant contact with hot guys who liked to touch. I went limp in Marv's arms, my glare dropping away though my eyes stayed fixated on him. In the early morning light, his hair revealed more sandy highlights that were naturally hidden by the rest of the dark brown strands.
"I have to get ready for school," I reminded him.
One storm colored eye lifted,
the focus of the pupil blurred, and he groaned. "I forgot that was still a thing for you." He shifted, releasing me and I found myself not in too big a hurry to dart away.
"Yeah, at least for the next two weeks," I replied, slowly pulling the blankets back once more. I stood up and padded across the room to dig through my dresser.
"Week," he grumbled.
Right, I had almost forgotten about getting out a week early thanks to them.
"I'm going to get dressed," I said, holding the clothes I had chosen close to my chest. "Don't leave the room." If my mom found out I had let a boy stay the night, whether she was in a good mood or not, she would lose it.
I hurried across the hall to the bathroom, flicking on the light. The bulbs illuminated the blue tiled shower and the cracked sink. Flipping the lock and setting the clothes on the counter, I took a breath and stared at my reflection. Brown clumps of hair hung down past my shoulders and over my breasts. Brown eyes in almost the same shade stared back at me. Red lines cut into the skin of my cheek where I had slept on wrinkles in my pillowcase. My hands shook.
A knock on the bathroom door had my hands flying for the knob. I yanked it open and gawked. "I think you might be late." Marv stood there fully dressed in his clothes from the night before with a cell phone in each hand, mine and his. I grabbed the collar of his dress shirt and yanked him in, eyes scanning the hallway as I slammed the door behind us.
"What are you doing?!" I hissed, panicked. "I told you to stay in the room." He continued to look down at his phone, scrolling through messages and reading.
"Knix texted me. You're not going to school today." He typed something into the phone and dropped it into his back pocket before looking up. "Why aren't you dressed yet?"
"I would be if you would give me two minutes!" I whisper-screamed as loud as I dared. "What if I had been naked when you knocked?"