I’m thankful for the chance Kristen has given me but this job is going nowhere and I’ve always wanted to go everywhere.
It makes my plan for the future easier to make. Scrolling through the many websites on the internet, I find a local drug addiction counselling group close to my mom’s house. If I can show my father I’m focused and determined to stay clean, maybe he’ll let me go home.
I’ll never forget what I went through but here, I don’t think anyone’s going to give me the chance to forget. ‘Junkie whore’ rings through my head again.
Back home, I can fade into the background and no one will know what I was unless I personally tell them. I was enjoying spending time with Ricky until he told me about Kathleen. He deserves to have someone in his life who he doesn’t have to always be wondering if they are going to slip back onto the drug that killed his sister.
After a long, steaming hot shower my body aches from tiredness and not withdrawal. It’s like my body floats across the room and down onto the mattress. My legs mould to the sheets and I close my eyes enjoying not having to move for the next eleven hours. After making my decision to leave I ignored everyone when the prospect dropped me off after my shift and hid in my room all evening, researching everything I need to show my dad I am serious.
I’m on the verge of sleep when I hear, “Enjoy your ride with the prospect?”
My eyes fly open and Ricky is standing at the foot of the bed. I didn’t hear him knock or come in.
“I asked if you enjoyed your ride with the prospect?” he repeats.
What’s his problem? Is he jealous?
“He drove me to and from work, there was nothing to enjoy.”
“Why did you sneak out of here this morning?” he asks, his jaw tense.
“I didn’t want to wake you, we’ve been up pretty late lately and you needed the sleep.”
“Oh, so now you’re looking out for me?” he smirks.
“Someone’s got to,” I shrug.
He moves around the bed and drops to his knees beside me and I roll onto my side still lying down to face him.
“I don’t know what’s happening between us but I want every minute I have alone with you to figure it out,” he admits.
“You shouldn’t want that with me,” I whisper, knowing what my plans are, “I’m no good for you. You’ll only be wasting your time.”
“I think I’ll be the judge of that, this has never happened to me before but I like it,” he smiles.
It’s hard to see when I know I want to leave. He deserves more than me and my history. I’m doing this for him, for us both.
I lay there unable to find anything to say without lying to him or leading him on.
He stares at me hard, stands and folds his arms across his chest.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, walking back to the foot of the bed.
“I’m just tired, I had the day from hell and all I want is to sleep.”
“I’ll let you get some sleep then,” he says, but it’s like it’s against what he really wants to do.
When the door closes behind him, I put the pillow over my head and kick my feet out in frustration.
Why couldn’t have I met him under different circumstances. He thought I was a firecracker before I was an addict. I fall asleep imagining him seeing me for the first time back then and how he would pursue me until I gave into him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Pope
The scar on my left hand zig zags from the base of my thumb all the way across my palm. I don’t remember how I got it. I don’t know why that’s important right this minute.
“What’s wrong, Thomas?”
Sally’s voice trickles from behind me. Resting my arms on my thighs, Sally leans up on her elbow and runs her nails down my back.
“Talk to me, Thomas.”
“I shouldn’t have left her, I’ve been gone for too long. I should get back to the club.”
I’ve always lived without regrets, always believing that what I’ve done is what I’ve wanted to do by free choice and that choice was made for a reason. Now I feel like every decision I’ve made has been wrong and the consequences are hitting me in the face full force.
“Don’t do this to yourself, if you convince yourself you can’t ever leave her then I’ll have to do the same, and neither of us can be with her all the time. Kyla made the decision alone to let herself go down that road and it’s her now who isn’t fighting you to go back. This is us helping her too.”
The woman speaks the truth but I’m not ready for it to sink in yet.
I need to see with my own eyes that she hasn’t relapsed in my absence.
“Why don’t you come to the club before you go? Ky would love to see you and you can see for yourself how she’s doing.”
Sally drove down yesterday as a last minute plan and met me at the motel in the town one over from Willow’s Peak. After I was done with Linc and the Devil’s Bastards, I joined her and we spent the night together.
“Sure.”
Leaning over I kiss her gently, “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, you shouldn’t want my lips on yours,” I grunt, still confused as to why she still gives me the time of day.
“They’d be pretty lonely without them,” she smiles, like an angel.
I lean back in and kiss her once before getting dressed and leaving her in the motel. Leaving now will allow some time before Kyla leaves for work.
I like this time of day in the clubhouse, only a few stragglers are around and the sun barely makes it through the windows and fills the bar. I only have to wait ten minutes for Kyla to bounce down the stairs ready for work and when she sees me she smiles brightly.
In all my visits to see her as a child, I would make the ride eager to see her innocent smile, I thought we had lost that but now it has returned.
“Hey, you been okay while I was away? I heard you had dinner with Cas and Alannah the other night too.”
“Yeah, Alannah is really nice. Listen, I need to talk to you about something,” her voice changes from light to dark and she has my attention. I knew it, I knew there was something wrong with her. My gut is never wrong.
“Talk on the way,” I mumble, my bad feeling intensifying.
She fidgets in the passenger seat as soon as we are both seated and my attention turns to apprehension.
“Just say what you want to talk about.”
“I spent the whole day yesterday thinking this through, I know it will be hard and I’m prepared to do everything I have to in order to stay clean. I researched groups…”
“Get to the point, Kyla,” I huff, unable to hide my lack of patience any longer.
“I’m ready to go home, I’ll go to counselling, I’ll find a job and help mom out with the house.”
She babbles on so fast it takes a moment for it to sink in what she is saying.
She wants to go home, where has this come from? Before I left she was all about staying here.
“Did you hear me?” she asks.
“Yeah, I heard you.”
I keep my eyes on the road, afraid I’ll lose concentration if I let her words get to me. The rest of the ride is quiet and the tension is thick with unspoken words.
I pull up outside the shop and she stalls.
“Are you okay, dad?”
I finally look at her and see the daughter I can be proud off and now I’m going to lose her.
“I was getting used to having you around,” I admit to her. I’m not giving her the go ahead, it’s more of a statement.
“We’ll still see each other, it won’t be like before. I’m not going to go back to that dark place,” she promises.
When I found out she was an addict I was angry, more than angry, I was furious beyond reasoning. All I feel now is disappointment and it is strangling me from within. I thought I had my daughter back and willingly, now I know she doesn’t want to be here with me.
“We’ll talk more tonight when I pick you up.”
I watch her cross the street and until she is through the door. She has come so far in the last couple of months and her strength is resurfacing and now she wants to leave and I’m not going to see it grow each and every day. I won’t be a part of it.
Dialling Sally’s number, I hope she hasn’t left the motel yet. She answers on the fourth ring.
“Hey, long time no speak,” she laughs into the phone.
“Kyla wants to leave town, she wants to go home,” I blurt out.
Sally doesn’t say anything.
“Did you hear me? She wants to leave Willows Peak.”
“I heard you, I’m just processing,” she whispers, “Why now? What’s happened?”
That’s a good question, and I intend on finding out.
“Are you still coming to the club before you leave?”
“Yes, I was going to stop by town first.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
I hang up and throw the truck into gear, wheel spinning away from the pawn shop I head back for the clubhouse.
Ricky is nowhere to be seen in the garages or in the bar when I return. His bike is out front so I head up to his room and find him locking his door as I get to the top of the stairs.
“What the fuck happened while I was gone?” I yell, gaining his attention.
He swivels around and shoves his keys in his pocket.
“Not a lot,” he frowns.
“Something must have happened, Kyla just informed she wants to go home. She has it all fuckin’ planned out. So I ask again, what the fuck happened while I was gone?”
He holds his hands up in defence when I step closer to him and he sees I’m not fucking around.
“Nothing happened,” he assures, “Are you sure she wants to leave?” he asks.
“Extremely sure.”
He lowers his hands and leans against the wall. He looks as if he is taking it as well as I am and that leads to a whole new load of questions I want to ask.
“I don’t understand, she didn’t say anything about wanting to leave. Did she say why?”
I shake my head and step away from him, if I stay too close I’m going to lash out.
“I was hoping you knew why.”
“Well I don’t, I swear to you Pope, nothing happened to make her want to go.”
For some reason I believe him. I don’t want to, but I do.
He stares off behind me and I get another feeling creeping up on me that he is as affected by Kyla’s wanting departure as much as I am.
“Are you going to let her leave?” he asks.
“I can’t make her stay, the answer is out of my hands,” I lie.
“But you said she wasn’t to go anywhere,” he tries to argue with me.
Right there is my answer, he fucking likes her. Motherfucker.
“Is there a reason you want her to stay?”
This time he moves away from me and says nothing. The sooner Sally gets here, the sooner everyone will know where they stand.
Ricky
Rolling my neck I try to relieve some of the tension that’s been building all day. I can’t fucking believe Kyla wants to leave. I thought we were going somewhere. I know last night something was up with her, I mean, I told her I felt something between us and she said nothing. I believed she was tired, I was too, but there was something in her eyes that didn’t belong there.
I don’t like the idea of her leaving, it shouldn’t bother me, I’ve only known her a couple of months and the first time I laid eyes on her she was a sickly creature heaped on the floor begging me to let her die.
I haven’t been able to move from the table by the bar where Sally is currently talking to Cas. When I saw her walk in, my stomach dropped assuming she was here to take Kyla home. When Pope didn’t make any move to pick Kyla up from work it had me rethinking. He would have picked her up surely, there wouldn’t be any point in finishing her shift if she was going home.
I should go find Jessica and occupy my evening with her and her tight little body, but for numerous reasons it isn’t happening and I don’t see it ever happening again. When I think of lying in bed with a woman, it is always with Kyla. Sighing heavily, I down the rest of my beer and try to think what I’m going to do. I’ve ruled out picking Kyla up from work myself and riding off somewhere with her until I can get her to change her mind. Pope would track me down and kill me.
I’ve ruled out going to Pope and telling him how I feel about his daughter and begging him to make her stay, he will kill me.
No scenario will end up with me breathing, hence why I’m rooted to this chair and waiting for Kyla to walk through the door and see her mom here.
“Has the place changed much since you were last here?” Cas asks Sally.
She looks around the bar and answers, “Strangely, not that much. I was only here about an hour so I didn’t see much.”
“Did you meet Mark Blake? My old lady is his daughter and she likes listening to anyone who met her father, you’re like fresh meat for her.”
She shakes her head lightly.
“I’m afraid I didn’t personally talk to him, he was furious with Michael about me being here at all.”
“Mom, you came.”
My eyes flick across to the door and Kyla’s face lights up when she sees Sally here. My stomach drops even further when I see how happy she looks about the prospect of going home and how Pope looks like he wants to smash something. A part of me hoped he would’ve talked her around on the ride back.
“Look at you, you look even better than the last time I saw you,” Sally smiles, taking her in her arms when Kyla reaches her.
They hold onto each other for a full minute before Sally pulls back and wipes Kyla’s tears away.
“Your dad told me you want to come home…”
“I’m better now mom, please believe me,” Kyla begs her, adding, “I’ve looked on the internet and there is a counselling group just down the road from where we live, I’ll get a job and everything will be the way it should have been.”
Sheer determination covers Kyla’s face and makes it hard to listen to, all I can think of I hope this doesn’t set her back if she doesn’t get her way.
The chair next to mine screeches as Jessica takes a seat and strokes my arm. Obviously, not taking a word in I told her to stay away from me. I’m too busy listening to bother pushing her away and I regret it instantly. As if a magnet is pulling her eyes my way, Kyla sees Jessica close to me and pain flashes across her face.
Why show pain of someone sitting close to me if a second ago she didn’t give a fuck at leaving me behind?
Sally holds her face and forces her to look at her, “I’m sorry Kyla, the answer is no. You’re doing well here and for the first time in two years I’ve been able to sleep at night knowing you’re safe here with your father. Until you love someone with all your heart and you’re scared to death you’re going to get the cops knock on your door to tell you that person has been found dead, you won’t know what you’ve put me through, two months clean can’t make up for that yet. I’m sorry.”
The bar suddenly goes quiet and Kyla looks around and sees everyone watching them. Her face flushes bright red and she pulls out of her mother’s hold. I jump to my feet when she turns to run out, her back isn’t going to be the last thing I see of her.
“I’ll go talk to her,” I tell Pope as I pass them and jog after her.
I step outside and can’t see her anywhere, she couldn’t have gone far this quickly.
“She ran for the main gate,” one of the prospects say.
I nod in acknowledgment and set off that direction.
Bent down leaning against the wall, her head is hiding in her arms crossed over her knees, and relief flows through me.
My boots crunch on the gravel and she looks up at me.
“Leave me alone, Ricky.”
Her wide brown eyes are watery and red and I want to make it go away.
“I can’t leave you alone when you’re this upset.??
?
She leaps to her feet and moves in front of me.
“Why? I’m not going to go and score, there is no reason for you to be out here,” she cries.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“No, but you were thinking it. For once, heroin wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. I came out here to calm down.”
That’s good.
“Are you done being a brat?” I snap, my temper coming out.
“What did you call me?”
“A brat,” I spit out, “I’m the one who should be pissed, you wanted to leave, in fact, you couldn’t wait to get out of here. I thought we had something between us, I still do.”
“You shouldn’t want me, Ricky. I’m a mess. You went to prison for the same drug I used to love more than life, the same drug that killed your sister.”
I flinch back her using my sister but I press on.
“No, you used to be a mess, you can’t keep putting yourself down because of what you used to be,” I near enough plead with her to listen.
“Call me crazy, Ky, but I actually like you and every day we spend together, the deeper I feel.”
It’s all coming out now and it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
“I don’t understand why, how can you stand to look at me when you’ve got the likes of Jessica hanging for your attention?”
Not this again.
“I’ve told you before there isn’t anything between Jessica and I and I’m not going to keep repeating myself.”
“I don’t like that she’s always there and touching you,” she continues to argue.
“I don’t see her anymore, you’re beautifully stubborn and I know you’re still struggling but I only see you.”