Burn For Him (3 page)

It wasn’t like Dee was intentionally loose or a tease. That was just how she was. She was a flirtatious creature and men flocked to her. It was a shame that all too often, she chose the wrong partner to fool around with. Dee didn’t have a lot of sense, which was why Harper and I had to wade in to save her time and time again.

I was getting sick and tired of Destiny pushing her luck and leaving up to Harper and me to run to her rescue. She was the one that was hung-over, but we were the ones left with the physical bruises.

“Looks like we’re going to have a long, wet walk home tonight. Brilliant.” Harper muttered as he helped Dee up off the floor where she had slumped drunkenly.

The rain started hammering down even before we’d managed to lose sight of the club. Just great. This was really what we needed, a shitty end to a shitty night. I didn’t bother to take a coat out with me because the evening had started out relatively warm. I was sorely regretting it now, though. A white top (now with some not-so-stylish red splatters running across the front of it) and rain weren’t the best combination. Within five minutes, it looked like I had entered a wet t-shirt competition.

Dee walked in the middle of us. Well, she staggered. And we dragged her along. Both Harper and I had an arm around her because she was in no fit state to stay upright by herself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for having a good time and I can neck shots with the best of them, but I didn’t ever get so steamed that I didn’t know who or what I was doing, or that I couldn’t walk under my own steam.

Destiny just didn’t think things through. She didn’t think through the consequences of her actions. Danger wasn’t a factor for her. In her bubble, nothing bad would happen to her. If we hadn’t been there with her tonight, anything could have happened to her and she would have had no way to stop it because she was well and truly out of it. What if Harper hadn’t been there? As much as it pained me to admit, because I always thought that I could handle myself, that guy had swatted me aside like a fly. If Harper wasn’t there with us, anything could have happened to her. All I could have done was run off to go and find Brent and then it might have been too late to stop it.

“Stop! Stop! I need to be sick.” Dee slurred as she dropped away from our hands and fell to her knees on the grass verge at the side of the road.

I didn’t look. I can’t even handle vomiting myself, so I wouldn’t have been any help to her. Hearing her retching like that was bad enough and I had to concentrate hard on keeping my own dinner down.

Harper quickly left my side, patting me gently on my arm. He knew that this was one of my ‘things’. Being sick and snotty kids. I couldn’t stand either. Just the sight of it made me want to puke, which made me feel even worse. I couldn’t go over to Destiny now. I’d only end up getting sick myself and puking on her head or something equally as gross. Not that she’d notice with the state she was in…

“I’m okay. I’m okay now.” Dee said after she stopped throwing up all over the place.

I turned around slowly, thankful that whatever she had brought up was carefully hidden by all the bushes and long grass that surrounded her. Harper was crouched down beside her, holding her hair back from her face.

“Why do you get yourself in this kind of state? There’s no fun in this part, is there? Why do you do it?” Harper asked her. His words clearly came out more harshly than he had planned on as he quickly smiled to soften the blow.

Destiny pushed herself back up off the dirty road and swiped at Harper’s steadying hands. She swayed slightly on her feet but was much steadier than she had been only a few moments before. Vomiting up all that alcohol she had consumed must have sobered her up somewhat.

“What’s your problem, eh?” she said, still sounding wobbly, “It was just a bit of fun. Fun. Remember what that is?” Dee put her hand on her hip, but she couldn’t pull off the menacing look that she was trying to achieve. Her hair was all over the place and there was a trail of sick down the leather bustier bra-top that she was wearing. Plus, she was still having trouble standing up straight in those ridiculously high heels of hers. How was anyone supposed to take her seriously when she was looking like that?

“Destiny, it was just another bit of fun that got us banned from the club. Again. What’s fun about that?” I could tell that Harper was trying his hardest to keep his temper in check, but was struggling with it. He sounded strained as he glared over at her.

“Whatever. It wasn’t like I was actually asking for either of you to help me. Next time, you should try minding your own business.” She muttered sullenly.

I took a step back from the pair of them, the alcohol fumes coming off of Dee was making me feel queasy. I knew that tone in her voice all too well. She was getting ready to sulk. She knew that she was in the wrong, but Dee wasn’t one ever to admit that she had messed up and she would never, ever back down. Especially when intoxicated.

“Are you kidding me?” Harper replied incredulously.

“Harper, I had it under control.” She screamed at him suddenly.

I could see that this was going to get out of hand very quickly. Dee could flip from being a loving drunk to being ultra-confrontational, as she was displaying right now. These nights were the worst and my head felt like it was going to explode. The last thing I needed was for Dee to start screaming like a banshee.

“Like hell you did!” Harper stormed back at her.

“You’re not my father so stop trying to act like it!” She shouted in his face.

“SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!” I yelled, my hands clasping my head so it didn’t spontaneously combust. This slanging match could go on for hours if someone didn’t stop it.

I think it was just damn lucky that Harper had such a strong hold over himself and Dee only pushed him like that because she knew that he would never lower himself to hit a woman. If she had been speaking to me like that and shouting in my face, she would have got a good slap across the chops. I hated it when she got out of control like this. Dee was unrecognisable as the friend she was the rest of the time.

Harper simply shook his head at her, refusing to rise. I knew that he wouldn’t be prepared to get into this kind of conversation with her, especially when she was still drunk. It wasn’t worth it. Things would get said that they would regret, but by the time she was sober, it would be too late to take them back.

Destiny’s father was always a sore subject. He was over-bearing to say the least. She may be a twenty-three year old grown woman, but there was no way on this earth that he would ever have let her leave the house looking like she did right now. It was a bad thing when you got to her age and had to lie where you were going. She was staying over at our place tonight. There was no way she would be able to show her face at home tonight, stumbling in drunk and looking like that. There was no telling what he would do or say to her.

She hated to speak about him. He had been the bane of her life. But, despite all that he had done to her, she loved her father and would defend him to the death, even if he was in the wrong.

He didn’t treat her right, but he was still her father. In her eyes, that was the excuse for him to be able to treat her like a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe. Sure, there were a lot of underlying reasons to his bad temper and treatment of her, but he had always been that way, it was just getting worse as the years were going on. Age definitely wasn’t agreeing with him. I hated to think what she went through caring for him day after day, listening to his inane ranting. Sometimes I thought that her happiest times were back when she was in foster care and away from that poor excuse of a man.

I hated it. I hated everything about it. I knew only too well why she got herself into this kind of state. When she went out, she really let herself go in an attempt to forget everything.   

Destiny’s home environment had always been tense when she was growing up. There was always an atmosphere of unease at her house. It wasn’t until four years ago that she found out that her father had been having several affairs behind her mother’s back when she was younger. Her mother had died of cancer when she was only four years old and her father had found it difficult to cope with a young child. That was how she had ended up in some of the same foster families as me and how we had met.

She also found out that he had not only been sleeping around but that he had also been beating the ever living crap out of her mother, even after she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was no wonder that it had royally screwed her up when Destiny had found out about it. When she had it out with him, her father had blown up and told her that it shouldn’t matter, that it was in the past and that she was too young to remember her mother anyway. He didn’t think that she should hold the past against him, but it wasn’t that easy for her.

The memories of a four year old shouldn’t be clear, but they were for Dee. And what she couldn’t remember, her Aunt had filled her in. Apparently, her mother had died in the hospital after the last time her father had put her in there. There had been a huge argument when she had told him that she was leaving him. For some reason, the police didn’t get involved, but I wished to God they had. If Dee had been away from her pathetic excuse of a father, she may not be so screwed up now.

Destiny was still struggling with the truth of the misery of her mother’s existence. She simply couldn’t get her head around the fact that her mother had stayed in such a destructive relationship and that she had probably stayed for Destiny’s sake. In this day and age, it wasn’t something you had to put up with. There were people out there to help and ways and means to get you out of that kind of situation. But back then, it hadn’t been so easy.

Then, when her father had finally felt up to taking care of his own daughter, when Dee was eight years old, a week after she had moved back in with him, her father was involved in a horrific car accident. It seemed like one bad thing after another was a constant cycle in Dee’s life. She’d had a really hard time of it over the years, one thing after another going wrong.

There had been a lot of nurses coming into her home over the years and then finally, when he deemed her old enough, her father cut back on the amount of carers and told Dee that she had to care for him. It was a guilt trip. He made it seem like he had done her a big deal taking her out of the care system and back into the family home, and that she owed him for that. It hadn’t been easy for a young girl to deal with. She had only been seventeen at the time when he dropped that little bombshell on her.

It was why she lived for these weekends now. Her days at work and her nights out were her only means of release. Harper couldn’t understand for the life of him why she stayed and put herself through all of the verbal abuse that her father dished out to her. But I knew Dee in a way that he didn’t. She remembered promising her mother to be a good girl for her father and that was what she was doing. Her mother had stayed with him out of love and Destiny stayed with him out of misplaced loyalty and duty.

“Come on.” I said to the pair of them, hoping to diffuse some of the anger and tension that was radiating off of them. This arguing wasn’t going to help matters. They were both wound up and they needed to calm down.

“I’m going home.” Destiny said. She had a hell of a stubborn streak in her that even I couldn’t always bend. But I had to try. Reasoning with her when she was drunk wasn’t going to be easy, but I would rather argue with her now than see her crying tomorrow after the cruel things that her father would be sure to say to her if he caught sight of what she was wearing.

“Destiny…” I started to say but she just turned and started to walk away. “Wait up” But she didn’t even pause.

“Forget it, Carrie. She won’t listen to reason.” Harper said with a glare in her direction. She was stumbling and I knew that she wouldn’t get too far without help.

“I’ve got to try. You know the sort of things that he’ll call her if he catches her looking like that.” I had never been a big fan of her father, especially after we’d found out what he’d done to her mother. It just confirmed everything I thought about him. Even the accident hadn’t mellowed him out. If anything, it made him even more bitter and hateful. “Destiny!”

She went over on the heel of her ridiculously high heels as she tried to speed up her steps to get away from me. She fell to her knees, using her hands to save her face from smashing into the concrete.

“Shit.” She muttered.

“Are you alright?” I asked as I crouched down beside her.

“Do I look alright to you?” she snapped as she held up her mud and gravel covered palms.

“Come on. Let’s go back to our place and get you cleaned up.” I said in a voice that I hoped was winning and soothing, but not too condescending.

“I don’t need your help.” She grumbled as she struggled to get to her feet, falling back down to the floor. “I think I’ve busted my ankle.”

Harper laughed and I could have smacked him myself. Laughing at her wasn’t going to help matters right now. “Are you sure you don’t need any help? Are you planning on staying down there all night?”

Destiny pouted. She looked up at him with soft, dopey eyes. I smiled. That was about as close to an apology as he was going to get and he knew it.

“If I do my back in, you are going to have to wait on me hand and foot, you know that, right?” he mumbled under his breath as he bent down to scoop her up off the ground. There didn’t seem to be any fear of Harper putting his back out. He carried her easily, like she was feather light.