Fragile Bonds (28 page)
Authors: Sloan Johnson
“Except for the bathroom,” Jacob giggles, causing the room to
burst into laughter. Maybe we’re the ones making this harder than it has to be.
“Yes, except for then.” I kiss him on the forehead before continuing.
I hope you aren’t too mad at me for leaving you. Miss Melanie promised me she would help talk to you so you would know that I didn’t want to leave. I wish I could have lived forever so I could see you grow up. I’m sure you’re already huge compared to the last time I held you in my arms.
Whenever you miss me, remember that you can talk to Blaze and I will hear you. And if you miss me at Christmas, look to the top of the tree because that’s where I will be.
You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I will love you forever and ever, no matter where I am.
Love,
Mommy
I wipe the tears from my eyes and see everyone else doing the same. Jacob’s body sinks against my chest. He’s not crying, but he’s also not saying anything. “Buddy, are you okay?”
“Yeah, kinda.” He turns to look at me, his face very serious. “Do you think my angel mommy is happy that I have you as my every day mommy?”
Before I can say anything, Xavier joins us on the floor. “Jacob, I think that if your mommy could have picked anyone to love us the same way she did, it would have been Melanie. In a way, she kind of did, but that’s a story for when you’re a lot older.”
I slap him, wishing he could have left well enough alone. I know that now I’m going to be peppered with questions until I figure out a way to explain the situation to a five-year-old.
“Well, I’m glad she picked Mama
Melly to love us,” he says, wrapping his an arm around each of our necks.
I have no clue how long we sat on the floor like this, but when I look up, I see headlights backing out of the driveway and the house is empty.
“Here, let’s put her where she belongs,” I say, taking the angel from Jacob and handing it to Xavier. I hold Jacob in my arms as Xavier climbs the ladder. We watch as Xavier carefully places the angel on the top of the tree. And just like Alyssa did last year with the star, I spend a moment telling him to move it this way and that, making sure the angel is perfectly straight in her place.
“She’s beautiful.” Jacob sighs, wrapping his arms tighter around my neck. “She even looks like my mommy a little bit.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that Alyssa hunted to find this exact angel, with shorter dark hair and green eyes. It’s not the Victorian style angels that flood the shelves at the holidays, this one is a bit more contemporary and edgy, just like the woman she symbolizes.
I carry Jacob to the couch and lean against Xavier when he sits next to me. The three of us sit in the dark, the only light coming from the glow of the fireplace. I look up to the angel watching over us
as the guys fall asleep, thankful that she’s trusted me with these two amazing men.
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Links to my other titles:
Isthmus Alliance Series
Unexpected Consequences
Truth or Dare #1
Coming Soon
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Sloan Johnson is a big city girl trapped in a country girl’s body. While she longs for the hustle and bustle of New York City or Las Vegas, she hasn’t yet figured out how to sit on the deck with her morning coffee, watching the deer and wild turkeys in
the fields while surrounded by concrete and glass.
When she was three, her parents received their first call from the principal asking them to pick her up from school. Apparently, if you aren’t enrolled, you can’t attend classes, even in Kindergarten. The next week, she was in preschool and started plotting her first story soon after.
Later in life, her parents needed to do something to help their socially awkward, uncoordinated child come out of her shell and figured there was no better place than a bar on Wednesday nights. It’s a good thing they did because this is where she found her love of reading and writing. Who needs socialization when you can sit alone in your bedroom with a good book?
Now, Sloan is a tattooed, purple haired mom of two kids, one of which was a thank you present to her husband for letting her get a Staffordshire
Terrier with more anxiety issues than Sloan has, which is saying something. She’s been kicked out of the PTA in two school districts and is no longer asked to help with fundraisers because she’s been known to lose herself in a good book and forget that she has somewhere to be.
Unexpected Truth
Isthmus Alliance #4
One foot in front of the other. Left, right, left down the dimly lit hallway. They say it's supposed to be soothing to have the lights down like this, but I find it disconcerting. My pace quickens as I pass each door, fully expecting someone to jump out at me. It’s not that I’ve had some sort of traumatic event I need to overcome, I simply find open doors lining dark hallways to be disturbing. Before I came here, I don’t think it upset me this much, which makes me wonder if the very place meant to help me clear my head is, in fact, making me crazy.
That’s the bullshit line Father tried to feed me when he checked me in here. I needed to clear my head after Marco’s arrest. I think it had more to do with the fact that my trust fund is now mine to do with as I please and he was worried I would post bond for the asswipe who claimed to love me. Yeah, he loved me so much that he cleared out my bank account that he was able to access and gambled it all away in one crazy weekend in Vegas. And then, when I confronted him about it, he had the audacity to unleash a cocaine-fueled tirade that ended with him busting out the windshield on my car before the cops showed up. It’s not my fault he had outstanding warrants.
From the sounds of it, even if I was pathetic enough to think I can’t live without him in my life, he’s going to be in there for a long while. But I’m not that girl. I haven’t been for a long time, I simply needed to figure out how to make a clean break. Whenever that
little punk does see the light of day again, I fully expect that he’ll come crawling back, telling me how sorry he is and how he’ll never steal from me again if only I will let him come home. Despite what my father thinks of my judgment, it’ll be a cold day in hell before that’ll happen. Marco started out as a comfortable distraction in my life, someone to be there so I didn’t have to walk into an empty house every night. Recently, he’s become far too much trouble to be worth hanging onto, no matter what feeble purpose he served.
Yes, my father found me that night curled in a ball in the corner of my tiny front porch. Yes, I was bawling my eyes out. And yes, when times got tough in the past, I turned to some self-destructive coping mechanisms. But that’s not what was going on that night. The tears streaming down my face were from shock and disbelief. For the first time in over a year,
me reaching my breaking point and Marco being where he couldn’t get to me came at the same time. All I wanted to do was take a few minutes to pull myself together so I could call Marco’s sister to come and pick up his shit while I changed the locks on the house and called the security company. Leave it to my father to screw all of that up.
Seeing me falling apart, he did what any concerned parent would do and took action. Never mind the fact that he has
never
been a hands-on parent or that I didn’t want his assistance. Even if I had needed something to provide me a release from the shit swirling in my mind, it wouldn’t be pills, but I doubt he’ll ever believe me when I tell him that. So, he called a friend and said that I was having a nervous breakdown. It’s frightening how quickly I was admitted and watching my father’s back as he walked out the door, knowing that I was where I couldn’t tarnish his reputation.
Ever since he got involved in our local political scene, he’s felt the need to turn our den of dysfunction into a Norman Rockwell painting. Even though I’m twenty-one and legally an adult, it was easier to sulk
my way over to his BMW and let him bring me here for a not-short-enough stay in the loony bin.
“You’ll feel much better once you have a chance to sort out your feelings,” he assured me as we rode the elevator to the top floor of the hospital. I pursed my lips, refusing to get into a fight with him. He had never been the biggest fan of Marco and had no problem telling me how it was just the most recent in a string of bad decisions; a skill my father is certain I picked up from my mother. I’ll have to take his word for it because she took off when I was seven years old.
That was over three weeks ago and, unless my shrink was feeding me a line of shit, I’ll be getting out of here tomorrow. Not yesterday, when she broke the news to me, and not today, but tomorrow. Why tomorrow? Because now that I’m safe and somewhere that I can’t embarrass my father, he’s on vacation. And thanks to him putting me in here, I need someone to babysit me when I leave. You know, so I don’t wind up stealing anyone’s prescription painkillers the way I did once when I was seventeen. It’ll be interesting to see who he’s paying to keep tabs on me this time.
“
Megaen, so nice of you to join us,” Dr. Maxwell says in that syrupy sweet voice that makes me want to punch her. She’s another thing about this place that makes my skin crawl. It’s not that Doctor Maxwell does anything questionable, it’s more the way she senses someone coming before there’s any way she can see them. “Please, take a seat so we can begin.”
The rest of the freaks are already sitting around the lounge, all staring at me. I know that might not be the politically correct way to refer to them, but it’s similar to girls calling one another “bitch” as a term of endearment. No one
wants
to be up here and, other than the mental issues, none of us are sick, so we don’t like being called patients. One rainy afternoon, we all decided that we’d call a spade a spade. We’re freaks in the eyes of society. For one reason or another, we’re the ones who aren’t normal. I see Trevor look away before he busts up laughing at the twisted face I make in Doctor Maxwell’s direction when she’s not looking.
If he wasn’t gay as the day is long, I could see myself hooking up with Trevor. He’s well over six-feet tall, thin in a very hipster sort of way and makes me laugh, even when all I really want to do is hit something. He got here a few days before me and, from the sounds of it, will be here for quite a while. Where I was shoved up here as a way for my father to avoid being a parent, Trevor is here because he’s completely and utterly fucked up in the head. He decided to down a handful of pills with a glass of vodka. When we first met, he wasn’t even ashamed of the fact that he was pissed about his roommate walking in shortly before Trevor checked out.
After having his stomach pumped in the spa and being fed a gourmet dinner of activated charcoal, he was brought here, to the five-star resort, for some relaxation. I told you, we’re all a little fucked up around here and have no problem finding ways to entertain ourselves, even if it’s by making it sound like we’re in a five-star resort instead of the psych ward. Because honestly, being here is just depressing, and the way I see it, that defeats the purpose of being here. If we want to leave, we’re supposed to
not
be depressed.
“Is it true that you’re bailing on me tomorrow?” Trevor whispers in my ear. I look over at him and he’s giving me these sad puppy-dog eyes. Is he really going to be upset with me because I’m not volunteering to stay here with him?
“So they tell me,” I respond, my tone flat. Given the choice, there’s part of me that would rather be here at this point. My father has proven, once again, that he doesn’t give a shit and I know I’m going to be stuck with some middle-aged, balding crony until I get through the outpatient phase of the program. Doctor Maxwell continues rambling on about healthy coping mechanisms, but now Trevor is far more interested in why I sound so unenthusiastic about leaving this place. Before he can pry, I hold up a hand to silence him. “Let it go, Trevor. I told you before, shit on the outside isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
At least here I have people who give a damn about me.
The good doctor doesn’t even finish her spiel at the end of our group session before I’m out of my chair, rushing down the hall to my room. It’s still dark and creepy, but I have shit to do and people to avoid. Lisa, a mousy girl with less self-esteem than just about anyone I’ve ever met kept glancing in our direction during the last half of group. I feel bad ignoring her, but she’s new around here and I’ve already allowed myself to get too close to too many people. How else can I explain the fucked up notion that it’d be better to stay here than get outside and enjoy life? It’s the start of summer, I should want nothing more than to feel the sun on my skin.
At the sound of knuckles rapping at my door, I turn to see Doctor Maxwell studying me. Seriously, she’s the one who told me I’m healthy enough to leave, so why the last-minute assessment now? “Meagan, can I have a word with you?” she asks, not waiting to be invited into my room.
“Like I could say no if I wanted to,” I respond sarcastically. Rolling my eyes, I continue pulling clothes out of my drawers, carefully packing them in my lone suitcase.
“Are you ready for tomorrow?” she asks, taking a seat at the small desk in the corner.
“Like you said yesterday, I’ve been ready to go. I know my dad thinks I’ll fall back on the pills, but that’s not the case. It’s never been the case, but he’s convinced he knows me better than I know myself.” Seriously, what does this woman expect me to say?
“Yes, I would agree with you there. Honestly, I’m not sure you ever belonged here. I think you have some
issues that you do need to talk to someone about, but they’re not related to your problem when you were younger. And that is what concerns me about you leaving.” She picks at the corner of one manicured finger before continuing. Fucking shrinks. “You haven’t mentioned anything about the fact that your father hasn’t come to any of the family sessions and has someone else picking you up tomorrow.”
Just wonderful. She’s seriously going to push the daddy issues now. As if I don’t realize that I’m a ticking time bomb when it comes to that man. “It’s nothing new. As soon as I turned fourteen, he decided I was old enough to take care of myself and I have. He didn’t want to be a single father and so he wasn’t once he thought I should be self-sufficient. Then I went through my ‘rebellious phase’ as he puts it and suddenly he jumped in, but it’s always been an act to him.”
A small ache forms inside my chest. It’s the tiny corner of my heart that will always wish I was daddy’s little girl. That’s what sucks the most, knowing that I fooled myself into thinking I was something special to him and then having it ripped away from me.
“Who’s picking me up, anyway?” I ask, wondering why this is the first time I thought to ask. Probably one of the lackeys from his office. There are plenty of people more than willing to kiss my father’s ass if they think it’ll earn them brownie points in his eyes. Little do they know that Gavin Pratt uses that to his full
advantage.
Doctor Maxwell flips open a small notebook, looking at her notes. “It says here that his name is Liam
Caprese.”