A Woman Gone Mad (13 page)

Umm… It’s official. I’ve gone mental. He totally lost me after ‘Gonna fuck me up, Lil?’ Yep, he took a sharp left into fucking crazy town, busted a Uey in the middle of five-o’clock traffic there, then took me straight to WHAT-THE-FUCK-IS–GOING-ON-HERE-VILLE!

I’m stuck. I haven’t. Shit, it’s impossible to even process whatever just fell out of Wesley Jacob’s mouth, so I allow myself the Fifth Amendment and shut the fuck down.

“Lil, I’mma see you tomorrow, baby. Get rid of your boy though. You hear me?” He leans in—
YES HE LEANS IN, DAMMIT!
—and brushes his lips across my head, keeping his eyes pinned up, maybe scoping for Clark. Shit, I don’t know. All I know is I hear myself mumble, “Um, ’kay.”

Don’t ask me why! I don’t know where my sharp tongue and pissed off attitude ran away to! I TOLD YOU! I am lost! HE TOOK ME THROUGH CRAZY TOWN! I peaced the fuck out!

Now ask me what I do when I get to my car and see Clark leaning against the hood talking to a few of “his boys” and Allen. Hell yes I did. As I throw my backpack into the back seat of the car, these are the sentences that fall from my mouth—verbatim. And I apologize that you have to witness this, I really do.

“Allen, get in the car,” I say, looking at him with a look he freaking knows. Allen hops in the car as I open the driver’s side door, tossing the keys at him. “Turn it on so you can have some AC and crank the radio up.”

I slam the car door shut so hard the car rocks. I look up at five guys who are looking at me like I have grown two heads.

“Bye bye, boys. Go on. Run along.”

I let my eyes settle on Clark as his “boys” leave us in peace.

“Clark, I don’t know what in the fucking hell happened today, but I do know this—I call bullshit. I barely even know where you came from or when you came into my life, and the sad part of it is I don’t really give a shit. Now the problem that I can’t wrap my head around is that you knew enough about me to know it was smart to act like you didn’t and then you hold out on that tidbit
UNTIL TODAY
and pull the rug out from under my feet in front of everyone in hopes of what? That I’d be so shocked I’d just bend over and take it?”

His face is holding nothing but dumb bewilderment. “Lil, what the fuck are you tal—”

“Nu huh,” I cut him off. “Like I said, I don’t know you, nor do I care to know you. Thanks for the good fuck, the free booze, and the shitty pot. Now stay the hell away from me and mine, got me?”

“Fuck you, Lil.” He flips me off and turns to leave.

“Yeah, ya did. In more ways than one. Goodbye, Clark.” I open my driver’s side door, get in my car, and then slam the door. Hard.

Why am I pissed? And why am I taking it out on Clark?

“Lil, you okay?” Allen asks as I shift into reverse.

“Yeah, babe. I’m okay. I feel good.” And I realize that for the first time in a year I do feel good. I am okay.

It’s Friday at six thirty. I’m sitting on the couch, nervous as shit across from Mom and Dad in the living room. I can’t remember sitting in the same room with them for more than five minutes in the last year and a half, but shit, here we are.

What in the hell am I thinking? This is going to turn to shit before freaking take off, I know it.

“Lillian, please stop biting your nails, sweetie.” I yank my hand down into my lap and hear my heel begin click, click, clicking against the hardwood floor because I’m so anxious that my right knee is bouncing up and down. “You look absolutely beautiful, Lil. Doesn’t she, David? I love what you did with your hair. And your dress just makes your eyes pop like crazy.” She laughs. “I’m glad I picked up that one when I did. It was the last one. See, I told you, David, that it would look fantastic on her.”

I hear my daddy exhale. I’m staring at my hands like they will help me figure out how to fix this mess I am
still
in. “You do look very pretty, sweetheart. All grown up, but, still… Your Mom’s right. You look very pretty.” My eyes shoot up to his, filling with tears. This is the first kind thing my daddy has said to me in over a year.

I hate what I did to this man. I hate the disgrace I’ve become and how much I have let him down. And I pray that one day I can make it back to where I was in his eyes before that night.

“Thank you, Daddy.” My voice breaks while I’m trying to shove the words out.

Mom is tittering on while Daddy and I just look at each other. He smiles warmly at me, and I feel it all the way down in my poor-little-girl-with-piggytails soul.

In my mind, I watch her face light up, sitting in Lilly’s lap while Lilly tells us softly,
“See? I told you your daddy still loves you. Daddies can’t just stop loving their baby girls. It isn’t possible.”

“… Mother, you know, from Allen’s baseball team, said that Wesley is always coming over to help fix something or other, and he even practices ball with Jeff. I heard he had a scholarship to LSU for his… Well I can’t remember if it was football or baseball, but everything I hear about him is good. Lillian, your father and I are so proud of you for letting us know he was coming to pick you up and take you to dinner, aren’t we, David?”

Mom’s nervous. She knows as well as each one of us in this family does that there has been thick, palpable tension in every room I’ve walked into for the past year. It’s been like there is them and then there’s me. I know it isn’t their fault—that it’s mine—but Mom has always been the person to take the blame.

About a week after
that
night, while I was doing the dishes after yet another dinner I didn’t eat, I felt her wrap her arms around my waist and kiss the back of my head then slide her face side by side with mine. In the quietest whisper, she said, “If there is one thing in all of my life I could take back, sweet girl, it will always be that I let myself think it was the right thing to do to involve your daddy in any of those matters in your life. It will never happen again, Lillian. I swear to you.”

I realize by watching how nervous she is and her need to keep talking that she is both excited and scared to death about how this will play out. If this doesn’t heal us, it may very well kill us.

I feel my skin get tight at the sound of the doorbell. Daddy stands up to answer the door and Mom scurries over to me on the couch. “It’s gonna be okay, Lil. You’ll see.”

I look up and am absolutely astonished as I witness right before my eyes my mother become the embodiment of calm. She pulls her shoulders back and it adds to her height. Her mask settles perfectly into place as she stands, brushes her hands down her linen pants, and calmly walks to the door.

“Well hello, Wesley. Welcome to our home. My, son, you have grown since I last saw you. Lil, was that was your freshmen year when this fine young man was giving it all he had to catch your eye while handing out locker combinations to the new freshman class?”

Wes takes off his cowboy hat.
Yes you heard me
—
his cowboy hat!
Then he ducks into the living room from the foyer doorway.
Wait, did he just have to duck?

“Yes, Mrs. Shaw. My sophomore year. I did make an idiot of myself falling all over the place, begging for Lillian’s attention. Well, we all know how that worked out,” Wesley answers for me because I’m struck dumb by the sight that is before me.

I can’t tell you how tall he is. I can tell you he is taller than any boy, guy, or man I’ve ever seen. His dark, sandy hair that is still damp from a shower has a hat crease that goes all the way around his head. His bright green eyes sparkle as he smiles, walking over to me. The smile splits his face and two deep dimples pop out on each cheek. His hooded eyes run from the top of my head to the tips of my toes peeking out of my five-inch peep-toe dark blue heels. He gently catches my nervous hand and pulls me to stand in front of him.

I smile. I can’t help it. His smile is contagious and infectious so I smile. I smile for the first time in a year and I feel happiness seep into my bones and all the darkness, all the depression, and most of the painful ache that Leo left me behind with slips way.

Once I’m standing in front of him, he pulls my hand to his lips and softly brushes a kiss across my knuckles that makes my face flame in a blush.

“Hey,” he quietly whispers. “You look beautiful, Lil.”

“Thank you, Wes.” I have no idea where this shy person standing in my spot came from.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Lil, ask him to marry you. Hell, stop taking the pill and ask him
—
HIM
—
to knock you up. I’m totally cool with carrying his child!”

Oddly, my parents just shrug when Wes asks, “Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, what time is Lil’s curfew? I want to make sure to get her home at least ten or fifteen minutes before.”

To which my dad completely throws me off guard with, “Son, I’ll leave that in your hands. I trust you’ll take care of Lil since you seem to know just how precious of cargo she is. Now it’s up to you to not let me down.”

Wait, what?!
“Yes, sir, Mr. Shaw. I will not let you down. Oh, and also I’ve left my parents number with Mrs. Shaw as well as the number to the restaurant I’ll be taking Lil to tonight. Y’all want me to bring y’all home some desert after we eat when I bring Lil home?”

Okay, I’m confused. Where is the bad boy I was promised? Mr. Been Through The School’s Female Population TWICE? He’s either been given a bad rep or he is just that fucking good.

Turns out he’s just that fucking good. There is no restaurant. His parents are out of town, and before I even know what’s going on, I’m bent over the top of Wes’s kitchen table getting my fuckin’ world rocked from behind with Wes’s teeth sinking into the back of my neck. And oh shit, does he have a dirty freaking mouth. Shiiiiiaaat!

There is a reason this man’s name is so closely associated with the words ‘Sex God,’ and it is a lesson that I have a literal fucking blast learning!

Wesley Jacobs and I come together like a motherfucking hurricane in the middle of field chock-full of IEDs. It’s explosive, it’s dangerous, and it’s a whirlwind of passion and obsession that borders on the brink of insanity. We both know we are extremely destructive for each other, that we are enablers for each other. He is my drug and I am his. We consume and devour each other then immediately scream and physically choke each other.

I have never walked the knife’s edge between love and hate before. And those are the best words I can use to describe my relationship with Wesley. I fucking hate him so much fifty percent of the time. I truly think if I were strong enough I would kill him with my bare hands. But when it’s good, it’s so fucking good he makes me feel high.

He makes my body thrum to life with such intensity that it’s fucking euphoric.

It takes Wesley and me six months to consume, destroy, and devour each other from the inside out. We literally use each other up until there is nothing left of him, of me, of us.

God, I don’t know if you have ever had an all consuming love flash into your life before, but for the love, FIND ONE! It is something every woman should experience. Not long term, because you’ll never make it out alive, but at least for a little while. It is fucking EPIC!

A
s fucked up and destructive as Wesley was to be in a relationship with, he honestly did work a small miracle in bringing Lillian Shaw back to life. Even though I fought him tooth and nail every fucking inch of the way, he forced me from my seclusion, and he held up on that promise to bring me back to life and to take care of those shadows he saw in my eyes.

He sparked a fire in me using passion, lust, hate, love, and some of the fiercest emotions I have ever had caused by any one man in my life.

I have friends, and I’m back to my original weight. My blonde hair is thick again, and for the first time in years, I feel happy; I feel whole. Together, Wesley and I may have torn each other apart, but once I separated from him, I realized that I had come back full circle and felt comfortable in my own skin again.

Mom, Dad, Allen, and I go to dinner every Friday night. We’ve grown stronger as a family. We had our hard times at teenage daughter high and we made it through. Now we are stronger for it in the end.