Military Romance Collection

by E Cleveland

  I pull the bag open and wrap my trembling hand around the stack of bills inside. The wad of neatly wrapped hundred dollar bills is mine. I’ve been with Knox for five years, and for as long as I’ve known him, he’s kept his emergency stash of cash taped up in his car. He always said it was enough to get to where he had to go if shit went down, but not so much that it would ruin him if his car ever got jacked. Knox isn’t big on bank accounts. Instead, he has bricks of cash like this one hidden all over the condo and lord knows where else.

  I flip my thumb over the bills, there’s at least ten grand here. I can go anywhere with that kind of cash. Anywhere in the world. Start over. Go get a fresh start somewhere.

  Like the fresh start you got with Knox?

  I wave my hand, trying to swat the intrusive thought away like a buzzing mosquito. This will be different. I’m not a kid anymore. I won’t end up in the arms of another psychopathic drug smuggler. I’ve always learned my lessons the hard way, but I still learn them.

  I don’t have my purse, so I split the fat wad of cash in two and stuff each half into the cups of my bra. I look like Dolly Parton, but I don’t care. I’d probably get a lot more stares if I walked around holding ten thousand dollars in my hand like a clutch. My eyes flit over the car to see if there’s anything else I should bring. They stop on the gun lying on the passenger seat, gleaming up at me. I spin around in my seat and cautiously look around for any security guards or passersby who might notice what I’m doing. No one around. Quickly, I wrap my fingers around the cold steel and give the gun a quick wipe down using the stretchy edge of my skirt to lift it back up and toss it under the driver’s seat. I pull the keys from the ignition and cast them aside the same way. One quick look in the mirror to make sure I don’t have raccoon eyes, and I’m out of Knox’s car. I lock the door, slam it shut and gasp instinctively at the gash slit down the driver’s side door from where I scraped the ticket box.

  Knox would kill me if he saw that. Shit, Knox will kill me if he ever sees me again. The car should be the least of my worries. After half a decade of living with his rules, his anger, his abuse…it’s hard to shake the feeling that everything I’m doing won’t come with horrifying consequences.

  I need to get away. Start over. I need to go now. Logically, I know that with a gunshot wound to the leg, Knox isn’t going to be hot on my tail chasing me down. It’s not like he can just call in his car stolen to the Miami police. They would love to hear from him, as one of the biggest cocaine importers on the Eastern Seaboard, I’m sure it would be the bust of a lifetime for them, to have Knox drop into their laps.

  No, I don’t need to worry about any of that. For now. I slam the door shut and make my way to the airport. I just need to get on a flight and get out of here. The further the better. My heels click against the cement loudly as I struggle to think up a plan. Maybe Europe would be a good place to go.

  Shit.

  I can’t leave the country! Not when I left my passport at my parents’ house five years ago. My mind flashes back to a similar time, when I let my parents think I was going off to school, my backpack stuffed with my belongings. Instead of heading to my grade eleven classes that day, I jumped on a bus for Miami. After grieving my twin sister’s death for almost a year, I couldn’t take it anymore. I could deal with the stares, the whispers, the rumors. I couldn’t, however, handle the emotionless void in my mother’s eyes, or the heartbroken and forced smiles from my Dad. I had to leave it behind. To start over. I left and never looked back.

  After living in a town as small as Everglades City, getting lost in a real city like Miami seemed perfect. It didn’t take me too many nights on my own before I realized how wrong I’d been. A fresh-faced seventeen-year-old in a huge city, it wasn’t long before I attracted the wrong kind of attention.

  I saved you, you ungrateful cunt! Without me, you’d be turning tricks on the street. Or dead.

  Knox’s words that I’ve heard so many times echo in my mind. My heart wrenches as hot tears slide down my cheeks. I remember when being his girl felt like a privilege. When he really did feel like my knight in shining armor. I was so young and fucking dumb.

  I wipe away the tears with the back of my hand, the welts on my leg and my swollen ankle are painful reminders of how wrong I was. A salty tear trails down my face and burns the split in my lip, making me wince.

  No, I don’t owe him shit. He didn’t save me. He ruined me.

  I reach the door of the airport and my stomach sinks. I have no ID at all. None. It’s not just a matter of having no passport. I didn’t have the time or the presence of mind to grab my purse when I ran out of Knox’s place. I’m not just stuck in the USA, I’m stuck. Period.

  I fight the urge to lay down and give up. To just crumple into a fetal position and let the authorities deal with me. I’m exhausted. The adrenaline of leaving Knox behind has faded out and, for the first time in five years, so has my coke high.

  When I first came to live with Knox, I remember how the endless partying and mountains of coke would light up our nights. What started as fun quickly turned into necessity. I began using coke how most people drink coffee. After a while, I needed it just to feel normal. I haven’t been clean in almost half a decade. Right now, I’m fading fast.

  Without thinking, I jump into one of the yellow cabs waiting by the airport curb. I feel cocooned inside the car. Safer than I’ve felt in years.

  The cab driver turns to me, the white teeth revealed in his smile are a stark contrast to his midnight skin. “Where can I take you?” He asks cheerfully in a thick Jamaican accent.

  Where? Where can I go?

  Tears blur my vision and flood my face. “I… I don’t know,” I sob.

  “Whoa, hey now. Don’t cry. It’ll be ok,” worry flashes over his dark features as his eyes flicker over my swollen lip. “Are you in danger? I can call the police if you want?” His velvety voice wraps around me like a soothing hug.

  “No!” I yelp. “Please, no police,” I wave my hand frantically.

  “Ok, ok,” he answers. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out together. Do you have any friends you can go to?”

  I solemnly shake my head from side to side as tears choke off my words.

  “Ok, how about family. Surely you have a mother and father? Right?” He prods.

  “I can’t see them. I haven’t talked to them in five years. I don’t think they ever want to see me again anyway,” I whimper.

  “Hold up. Listen to me young lady,” his thick Jamaican accent rolls his words, “I am a father of three girls,” he holds up his fingers at me to clarify. “I wouldn’t care if I hadn’t heard from them in fifty years, if they called me, I’d take that call. You don’t know a parent’s love for a child. You can trust that.” His kind eyes are comforting.

  “I don’t have a way to call them,” I explain. “I have money for this trip, but I didn’t take anything else when I ran… I mean, when I left.” I try to keep the details to myself.

  The cab driver nods slowly, digesting my words. “Listen, young lady, that’s no problem. You can call your folks on my phone. No charge. Just call them. I promise you, they’ll want to help you.”

  He hands his cellphone back to me and I stare at it blankly. It’s been so long since I left. Since I walked away from the confusion, hurt and despair I caused them. Will they be happy to hear from me? After what I did? After this much time?

  “Please, as a father, I beg you. Call them.” He repeats.

  Breathing in deeply, I dial the number I grew up with. A number I haven’t pressed into any phone for years. My shaking hand holds the cell to my ear as a broad smile flashes over the cab driver’s face.

  Br-ring! Br-ring!

  “Hello?” My father’s voice cuts through the years of silence. I can’t speak. I can picture him so clearly, as his voice tethers me to reality. “Hello?” He repeats.

  “Daddy,” my voice cracks as my tears flow freely now.

  “Holly? Oh my God! Holly
, is that you?” His voice is strained with desperation.

  “Yes. Dad? I need help.”

  5

  Holly

  The yellow cab lazily lumbers into my parents’ driveway like we’re traveling underwater. Time comes to a standstill as I manage to separate four sweaty hundred dollar bills from my bra and hand them over.

  “This is too much,” the driver gently corrects me.

  “I owe you much more than that,” I answer. The hour and a half drive might have come to just over two hundred, but I am more than grateful for the kindness this stranger has shown me. Besides, I have no problem spending cash from a man who earned it keeping people like me addicted to drugs.

  “Thank you,” his teeth flash a brilliant white as he smiles.

  I open the door and step out onto wobbly legs. My knees threaten to buckle beneath me, like a newborn fawn standing for the first time. Exhaustion battles with my nervousness, making my head spin with the terrible concoction.

  I slam the door to the cab shut behind me and pull a deep breath of fresh air into my lungs. This is it. I haven’t seen my parents in five years. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know what to say. I don’t…

  “Holly!” My father explodes from the front door in his tattered, brown slippers and his robe flapping behind his flannel pajamas like the superman cape I used to imagine he secretly wore under his clothes when I was a child.

  Suddenly, the world speeds up as Dad runs down the front steps and over to me. It’s a blur as he throws his arms around me, tears cascading down my face as I tuck my head into my father’s chest.

  “Daddy,” I croak the word. My emotions are a cyclone of confusion. In a way, it feels like it was only yesterday that I left without looking back. In many more ways, it feels like it was a lifetime ago.

  My father grabs my shoulders and locks his brown eyes on mine. “Where did you go? Why did you leave? Are you ok? What happened to your mouth? Oh my God, I’m so happy to see you!” He rattles off his questions in rapid fire. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You’re home now. That’s the main thing,” he folds me into him, holding me in another tight bearhug. “Let’s get you inside,” he steps back.

  I follow his lead toward the house and watch as the cab driver pulls back out of the driveway and onto the suburban street. The darkness obscures my view of him, but he changes gears under the streetlight and I can see the sweet smile spread across his face as he drives away.

  I step inside my parents’ house and nothing has changed. The living room furniture with the worn navy blue stripes is in the same place as when I left. On the wall are the same photos, encapsulating our family in a moment we probably all wish we could go back to. A moment where we looked genuinely happy. A moment when Heather, my twin, was still alive.

  The only thing that has changed is that I don’t see my mother anywhere. I scan the room, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Her shoes are still in the front hall and her knitting is sitting half-finished on the coffee table. I know she’s still living here.

  “Where’s Mom?” I turn my face toward my father. His deep wrinkles burrow into his skin as he frowns. “She’s here, honey. She went to bed. She just needs time, ok?” He explains so softly, his voice is like a summer breeze. Yet the words smack me in the face as hard as the back of Knox’s hand.

  She doesn’t want me here. She doesn’t want to see me. I never should’ve come home.

  “Here, you can wear this,” Dad slides his tattered robe off his arms and onto my shoulders. I remember that Heather and I gave him this housecoat for Father’s Day when we were nine. I can’t believe he’s hung onto it for thirteen years. I slip my arms inside and glance up at my father’s face. His eyes are clouded with tears as he gazes down over my skin-tight, short dress.

  Shame floods me as I pull on the robe and wrap myself in it, like a protective blanket, trying to hide what only hours ago felt like perfectly acceptable clothes. I can see the disappointment in my father’s face as he tries to piece together my disappearance. As he tries to make sense of all of this.

  “Holly, are you in trouble? Do you… are you…? Well, are you running from someone? A pimp?” His voice trembles.

  A pimp?

  I don’t know what to say. Is the truth any better? I may not have been working the streets, but Knox always took everything from me when he wanted it. It didn’t start out that way. It never used to be shelter and coke in exchange for sex. At least, that’s what I told myself when he first took me in. Of course, to a seventeen-year-old runaway, a twenty-seven-year-old with money and power was alluring. Add the idea of him loving me to the mix and I never had a chance.

  “No, I’m not a prostitute. I swear.” The relief washing over my father’s aging face breaks my heart.

  “What happened to you? Where did you go?” He leads me over to the couch and I curl my feet up under me as I sit down on it. The warmth of the house, his housecoat, knowing for the first time in almost half a decade that I’m safe, it’s all making my eyelids heavy.

  “I ended up in Miami,” I confess, my voice thick with exhaustion. “I ended up with a man. A really bad man. Dad?” I somehow manage to pry my eyes open to look up at my father. His nose looks bigger than the last time I saw him. His ears too. My eyes start to travel over his face, lined deep with worry. Aged beyond his years. He’s lost most of his hair, too. The thin, salt and pepper clinging to the sides of his head and combed over his shiny bald spot is fooling no one.

  “Are you in danger now? What can I do to help you?” Dad prods.

  “I am, Dad, he is a drug smuggler. One of the biggest on the East Coast. If he finds me, he’s gonna kill me. I swear, he’s terrible. I need to get clean and I need to get help. I want to start over. I want to get off the drugs and start a new life. He doesn’t know where I am, I never told him where I came from. Plus, I parked his car at an airport to make him think I flew somewhere. He won’t look for me here. But, I still can’t stay here. Daddy,” fat tears stream down my face and drip off my chin, blotting on his robe, “I need to get real help. For drugs. I need to get clean.” I repeat and I see the realization of what I’m telling him takes hold of my father’s face.

  Five years ago, if I would’ve admitted to using cocaine, hell, even pot, my Dad probably would’ve kicked me out to the very streets I ran away to. Now, I can see the years have softened him. I suppose losing not only one, but both of your children will do that. Guilt floods through me, coursing through my veins as I realize for the first time the pain and suffering I’ve put him through. I’ve put them both through.

  “Ok, we’ll get you into rehab. There’s plenty of good programs out there, we’ll do some research and find the right one.” Dad nods and throws his shoulders back with determination.

  “I can help pay. I have money,” I reach inside the robe and pull the wads of bills out, lying them on the couch between us.

  “Where the hell did you get all of this?” Dad’s eyes flash with suspicion, no doubt questioning if I have been working the streets after all.

  “I took it from him. He was beating me, Dad. He… he hurt me all the time. I couldn’t take it anymore so I left.” I start explaining.

  Dad holds up his hands and I fall silent. “Ok, enough. It’s late, it’s been a crazy day. I’m sure you’re tired.”

  I nod.

  “So am I,” his voice grows weary as his face falls. “Tomorrow, we’ll figure this all out. We’ll get you into rehab. We’ll make a plan. For tonight, I think the best thing any of us can do is get a good night’s sleep. Ok?” His tone tells me he isn’t really asking, he’s telling me. That’s fine with me.

  “Sure.” I mumble.

  “Your room is still how you left it, Holly. You can sleep in there.” He instructs me.

  I stand up and shuffle over to the stairs. I try not to limp on my bad ankle. I don’t want to worry my father any more than I already have. As I approach the stairs, I hear my mother scurry from the top back to her room an
d shut the door.

  She was listening the whole time.

  I make my way to my room. Dad was right; it hasn’t changed a bit. The bedding looks fresh on the single sized bed, but other than that it looks like a time capsule in here. My collection of cheap perfumes is still lined up on my dresser and my poster of Channing Tatum is still tacked to the wall. I slump into my bed and yank the covers over me, still fully dressed. Sleep quickly begins to overtake me as I relax back against my pillow.

  My mother’s voice makes me startle. I can hear her getting louder as my father tries to hush her. Is she yelling? I tilt my head toward my bedroom door and listen. No, she’s crying. My heart sinks.

  “It won’t change anything,” she sobs. “You can send her to rehab, you can do everything you can, but it won’t change a damned thing!” Her voice is shrill.

  She’s never forgiven me. She still hates me. Blames me as much as she did six years ago, when it happened.

  The day my sister died.

  6

  Jake

  April 1st. What a day to be sent off to rehab. I guess that makes me the April fool. More like fuck-up. I watch the massive cedars slide by the window of the taxi. On the other side of the highway, the Pacific Ocean quietly laps at the shoreline. I’m not sure why the brass decided to send me to British Columbia, Canada, of all places. The United States probably has more top-notch rehabilitation centers than any other country on earth.

  I watch the calm, green waves of the Pacific, mesmerized. I’ve lived and sailed on the Atlantic my entire career. I’ve grown to love her wild, uncontrollable swells and her craggy shorelines. The Pacific seems more refined, her gentle rolls hypnotically grazing the sandy beach. They’re like twin sisters, separated at birth. One reckless and free, the other reserved and shy.