That night, Mom cried.
The next day Dad left for three whole days. I thought he had another cheap whore but he was just working a lot. They were building a bigger case against the original case. I didn’t know what that meant. But Dad worked a lot. He looked tired. He didn’t get his haircut like he usually did. He grew a beard and it was grey and made him look funny. His eyes got darker and I noticed he drank from the bottle in the special holiday cabinet a lot.
That’s when they started fighting again.
Every night, sometimes for hours. Dad would drink. Mom would yell. Dad would yell back. Mom would cry. Then they’d each come and talk to me.
I begged Dad to stop the case. He said soon.
I tried to believe him and I tried to be happy.
The sad and strange part was that everything settled. It became something normal for us. Dad working days at a time. Mom cooking dinner for me and her. She would stare at her food, looking sad. Nobody ever asked me about school. Nobody came to the art show. They forgot about soccer in the spring. My birthday came and went with a quick party that Dad didn’t even attend. All because of the case.
When I blew out my candles, you know what I wished for?
I wished for the case to be over. I wished for it to somehow die. I wished for that really bad guy to just disappear or get hurt or get caught by someone else. I wished for my Mom and Dad back together, like they were after the cheap whore. I wished that my life could be normal.
I was way too young to understand what I was saying or thinking, but it was all there.
I blew out those candles so hard, I spit on the cake. Everyone laughed. Nobody cared though; they all ate the cake. I got a new bike for my birthday, without training wheels. I wanted Dad to help me learn how to ride it. But it was only Mom there. I leaned on her and she leaned on me. I didn’t understand what that meant at that age, but I somehow knew it was important to both of us.
It was Saturday morning. Time for cartoons. They still had cartoons on then in the morning. Usually Mom would go grocery shopping on Friday but Dad surprised her and took her out dancing! They hired a babysitter named Jennie, who was sort of nice, mostly mean, and talked to her boyfriend on the phone all night. But I was happy my parents were out.
So that morning my mother decided to go grocery shopping. She asked if I would go with her and I said no. She made me pancakes, extra butter and syrup, and I had a glass of OJ. I settled in on the living room floor, on my belly, with my food on the floor. My feet were in the air, tapping, kicking, twisting.
Best. Saturday. Ever.
That’s what I always thought though.
But that Saturday… no way. That was not the best Saturday ever.
It turned out to be the worst Saturday ever.
That Saturday… my mother left and never came back.
twenty-four
(belle)
NOW
I was on the verge of tears when I heard the knock at the door. There was so much lingering between me and Slam it was hard to swallow. He had to have known by then that something was wrong with me. A man like that didn’t see the same women more than once without fucking her. And even that… was he fucking other women?
It wasn’t like we were together. Or going steady or even dating. It was just…
He loved to go down on me. All. The. Time.
And in return I loved to test my limits with his cock in my mouth. Thinking the words made me blush and turned me on. Slam had officially became the greatest distraction I could have ever asked for. Everything he said had come true. I never heard from Kyle again. And when I talked to my father, he said Kyle contacted him to say he was moving out of state. That he took some new job and he was sorry he let me down.
I opened the door and Slam stood there like the giant outlaw he was. His eyes were always brooding, always up to something.
I could only whisper his name. “Slam.”
“Babe,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I instantly looked for blood on Slam, thinking something bad happened.
Slam stepped forward. His hands grabbed my hips. I stepped back, definitely sensing something was way off. Maybe Slam knew something. All the times we were together and not even a hint of actual sex. But the other stuff was so good though. At least for me.
“Fuck,” Slam whispered.
“What?”
“You’re goddamn beautiful, Belle. I can’t stop looking at your eyes. I can’t stop wanting to touch your body. I can’t get you out of my fucking head. I’m making decisions I wouldn’t have made before I met you. Shit is getting out of control here.”
I swallowed hard. “What are you trying to say?”
“There’s some stuff I want to tell you.”
“I have something to tell you. About me. It’s kind of important.”
Slam leaned down and kissed me. “Okay, babe. I want to hear everything. I want to tell you everything. Then we can see where it all ends up.”
“Ends up? What does that mean?”