Seasons of Change (4 page)

“Aimee, you’re the strongest person I know, whether you see it or not. You have more of your dad in you than you give yourself credit for,” Jake said softly, his hand on my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

It was more than a comforting gesture—it was intimate. The heat of his hand on my face was burning me, burning through me, and all I was damned sure that I didn’t want him to stop touching me.

“Jake, how you getting on with that Dodge?” Bill’s voice came almost out of nowhere and Jake and I sprang apart as if we’d been caught doing something illegal.

I could feel myself blushing down to the roots of my hair as Jake began casually talking to his dad about the car he’d been working on, while I wondered how he’d managed to keep his cool. But I didn’t have to wonder for long—
He doesn’t feel that way about you
, the cruel little voice in my head reminded me,
He was just being a good friend
. I found the idea faintly depressing, but I couldn’t quite pin-point why.

“I should get going,” I said hurriedly, wanting to get out of such close proximity to Jake as quickly as possible.

“Aimee, hold up.” I had heard Jake start to hurry after me, but I couldn’t take looking at him again right now, not when he’d managed to turn my world upside down with what should just have been a simple touch between friends.

“Talk later, Summers,” I’d said jovially, throwing the words over my shoulder, pretending that nothing had changed. But in my world I felt like everything had.

***

I keep going over the events at the body shop as I walk home, trying to convince myself that I’m just reading too much into it, that I was just suffering from a lack of human contact. I hadn’t really ever had a proper boyfriend.

There had been a couple of boys in high school that I’d dated casually, but they had never kept me interested enough to find out what all the fuss was about over having sex. I wasn’t a social leper, but I just didn’t see the point in going down that road with a guy before I knew if I really liked him.

It didn’t make any sense to me and it was something that my dad had always drilled into me. “Just make sure he’s worth it, honey,” he’d said to me, and I didn’t have any intention of letting him down.

So that brought me here: a nineteen-year-old virgin, working in a diner, desperate to get out of a town that was rapidly going to hell in a hand-basket, care of the Bleeding Angels MC.

How did we get to the point where a group of thieves and thugs were more powerful than the cops?
I mull over this question as I reach the slightly-dilapidated wooden house on the outskirts of town. The place could do with a good paint job, but we didn’t have the money for that; dad’s pension wouldn’t remotely cover all the work we’d need to do on the house while also giving us enough to live on.

Trying to push the thoughts of my dad, of whatever’s going on between Jake and me, and of the Bleeding Angels, to the back of my mind, I unlock the door to my home, take a deep breath and, preparing myself for whatever might await me this afternoon, I walk inside.

The first thing that most people notice when they enter this house—that is, of course, when people used to come here—is the darkness.

All the blinds and curtains are drawn. Despite the sunny day outside, inside our home it feels like the middle of the night. The only room where the curtains are always open is mine. I suppose it’s my own little form of rebellion.

It’s a way of saying that we didn’t all die that night six years ago. There’s a musty smell that comes from the windows not having been opened and that just contributes to the feeling that you’re walking through a mausoleum. I’d given up trying to throw open the curtains and open up the windows a while ago now.

There were a lot of things that I’d given up on a long time ago, and having anything resembling a normal life was one of them.

My mom hadn’t left the house since my father had died. She hadn’t even gone to the funeral. We had thought that she was in shock—that’s what the doctors had said anyway. That she was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I remember asking the kindly but ultimately useless doctor if that wasn’t just something that soldiers got when they came home from places like Afghanistan. I remember that Doctor Moyes had been impressed at my knowledge. He had explained that sometimes the shock of something is so great it sends us somewhere else, and sometimes it can take a long time for us to find our way back. He told me that’s what had happened to my mother—that she was somewhere else, trying to find her way home to me.

I had clung to that hope the way a drowning man clings to a life-preserver for days—days that had turned into weeks, weeks that had turned into months, and months that had eventually turned into years that passed with no discernible change in my mother.

It was only recently that I’d finally begun to realize that Doctor Moyes had left out a vital piece of information when he’d explained the diagnosis to me. He hadn’t told me that the patient has to
want
to come back in order to find their way, and I don’t think that my mother has any inclination to rejoin the real world.

The world where her husband is dead and she’s living in a nightmarish town that seems like something out of
Mad Max
. I don’t blame her for wanting to check out of this place. If I were her I would probably figure that there wasn’t much of anything to come back for.

Except for me, I guess. Except for her daughter.

“Mom, I’m home,” I shout as I drop my keys onto the table by the door.

Silence is my only reply. This is no great surprise, I don’t even feel disappointed anymore, or at least I try not to. After all, it really is just a waste of time. I had only recently noticed that I stopped holding my breath as I walk into the house, hopeful that I would find my mother in the kitchen making up a batch of her famous cookies and that she would ask me about my day.

But that never happened, and there came a point when you had to stop expecting a miracle. It just made you feel like an idiot when it never came to pass.

I find her in the armchair where she’d pretty much taken up residence since dad had gone. She slept down in the lounge, presumably because she couldn’t bear to sleep in the bedroom that she had once shared with the love of her life.

Her once lush, thick, beautiful red hair that made her look like a force of nature is now thin, dirty, and flecked with grey. She had always been slim, but the slightness of her frame has turned into boniness.

She is a shadow of her former self, but when I think about her I still manage to remember the person that she used to be even if it’s getting harder and harder. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, so full of life and love. She loved our family. She and my dad had been together since they were kids, and they used to say that they were soul mates and I had completed their family.

That’s what made it so hard when everything changed after dad died. It was like a piece of my mother died that day as well—the piece that made her who she was. All the neighbors and friends had pitched in to help when it became clear that my mother wasn’t able to cope.

They would bring food for dinner, make me hot chocolate, make sure that I did my homework, and that I had medicine when I was sick. All while my mother shrank further and further away from real life.

After a while, the well-meaning members of Painted Rock had slowly drifted away, leaving me alone with the woman that had once been my mother. Sally and Bill Summers were the only people that had stuck around for the duration.

I had become a pretty permanent fixture in their house, after all—it felt way more like a home than the old house did. I used to pray and pray, night after night, that my mom would come back to me. I don’t do that anymore. After years of unanswered prayers, I started to realize that God had left Painted Rock a long time ago and there was no sign that he ever planned to come back.

“Momma,” I say quietly, gently placing my hand on her shoulder, but she barely even reacts and just continues staring straight ahead of her, at the armchair that was my dad’s customary place. “Momma, I’ve gotta go back to work soon, but I’ll fix you something to eat first, okay? What are you hungry for?” I ask, trying to keep my voice as even and calm as I can.

I had learned the hard way that the slightest hint of tension or pressure would send her into a spin that would end up with her screaming and crying. The good Dr. Moyes has told me that her illness would “last as long as it lasted”. I hadn’t told him that the diagnosis wasn’t a lot of comfort to a fourteen-year-old girl who was now essentially alone in the world.

“Momma?” I ask again, giving her a little nudge to make sure she knows that I’m there.

“Hmmm,” is the only reply I get as she breathes out and the rattle in her chest sounds like a creaky door. I wonder when the last time she’d had any water was—probably early this morning, when I’d managed to get her to take a few sips before I’d left for work.

“How you feeling today Mom?” I ask, walking around the chair to look at her. Although our eyes meet it’s like she isn’t really there, not in any way that counts.

There’s no response and I try to remind myself that there’s no point in feeling disappointed, that it didn’t make sense to expect something would suddenly change as if by magic after so long. “It’s Jake’s birthday soon—you remember Jake Summers?” I ask, kneeling down beside her and holding her dry, scrawny hand in mind.

She doesn’t reply or make any sign that she has the first clue of what I’m talking about. I’d been doing this since the beginning, since her phases of hysteria had stopped and she had lapsed into this state of near coma. I would come home and tell her about my day, talk about the funny things that had happened in class, or the
A
that I had gotten for my science project.

Of course, she never replied, never laughed at the joke I would tell, or congratulate me on my academic achievements. But even so, it was nice to tell her about it all. It was nice for me to be able to share things with her, even if she didn’t know that’s what was going on.

“There’s so much happening,” I say to her in nothing more than a whisper. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about. Everything is changing, Mom, and I need you.” I try to keep the tearfulness out of my voice.

When there’s no response, I stay there for a few more minutes, wishing that I could feel the comfort I so desperately need from her, but sitting here with someone who isn’t really there just makes me feel even more alone and lost than I already do.

“I’ll go fix you something to eat,” I finally say, and wander into the kitchen, squeezing my eyes shut against the feeling of loneliness that is threatening to overtake me.

I let the cool water of the shower wash over me and I finally let the tears come. This is the only place that I will cry, the only place that I can let go of the tight hold I’ve placed over myself. The day after my dad died I vowed that I wouldn’t ever let the Angels see me cry—I’d given them too much power over me already, I wouldn’t let them see how badly I was hurt.

I wouldn’t even let myself go with Jake. There were times when I could feel the tears coming and I had to pinch myself hard to stop them from overflowing and spilling out onto my cheeks. There was a time for tears, and it wasn’t in front of anyone else. I didn’t want to let myself cry until this was all over—until the Angels had paid their dues, until Jake was safe, until it seemed possible for there to be a life after all this madness.

As I’m toweling my long, dark hair dry my cell vibrates insistently with an incoming message. I don’t even need to look at it to know it’s from Jake.

I hate it when we fight, make it up to you tomorrow night at The Hideaway? Jx

I can’t help smiling as I read it. I know exactly what he means—arguing with Jake is the last thing I like to do. With Suzie we had been The Three Musketeers, but now it was just the two of us and I wasn’t about to let a few angry words pull us apart.

Alright, but you’re buying, Summers. Ax
I reply, wondering how long it’s going to take for me to forget the way his touch on my cheek had made me feel warm between my thighs and how I’d suddenly become aware of every part of my body, from the tips of my toes to the longest hair on my head.

I stand in front of the mirror as I rake my fingers through my wet hair, already starting to dry in its customary waves. I inspect my face and wonder what it is that Jake sees when he looks at me. My skin is a light caramel color that comes from my dad’s Cherokee heritage, and my eyes are green almonds that are exactly like my mom’s.

I’ve always thought that my mouth looks too big for my face—when I was a kid I’d always tried to put my hand over my lips in photos because I was so paranoid about it.

I let the damp towel drop to the floor and examine the body reflected in the glass. My breasts are nothing to write home about, since they’re probably on the smaller side of things and it didn’t look like they were going to fill out anymore anytime soon.

I trace my hands over my flat stomach and towards the dark mound of hair between my thighs. I imagine that my hand is Jake’s and feel a familiar warmth bloom in my pussy. I’m about to delve down deeper to the wetness that I know is starting to pool between my long legs, when I suddenly realize what I’m doing and hurriedly cover myself with the towel.

I look in the mirror to find that my cheeks are flushed and my hands are a little shaky.
What the hell was that?
I ask myself.
One little touch from someone you’ve known since you were a kid and you go all needy and crazy
, the little voice tells me. That’s what happens when you’re a stone’s throw away from twenty and still a virgin, I guess.

I give myself a little shake, trying to dispel the feeling of need that is still racing around my body, but as I concentrate on putting on a fresh buttercup-yellow uniform before I head out to the diner, I can still feel the heat between my thighs.

I kiss my mother goodbye on her dry cheek and walk past the calendar that I keep by the door, where I keep track of the countdown to Jake’s birthday and what
had
been the countdown to us getting out of town.

My eyes lock onto today’s date and I question how it was possible I had forgotten that it was the end of the month. There’s a faint tremor in my hands as I close the front door gently behind me and start walking towards the diner, as purposefully as I can.

It’s collection night and, although we went through it every month, it still made me angry—angry and afraid—partly because I knew it had been a slow few months at the diner and we already owed them more than we had in the tills. The Bleeding Angels would be at Sunny Side Up tonight and they would want their money.