by A. L. Woods
That was the moment all hell broke loose, the vat combusted, and I broke the distance that I had created between us to lunge at her.
Ma fell into the coffee table, the vase she had cherished crashing to the floor behind her. She moved to grab my hair, but I slapped her, throwing all my anger into the weight of my hand. Ma looked winded, eyes wide with surprise, as if she couldn’t believe I had done that.
Me. The one who had been timid when she lived here, and flaky as a phyllo once she left. I had spent years trying to make her love me, and for what? She never would. It didn’t matter what I gave her. It would never be enough.
I would never be enough.
I was never enough for anyone.
I could never be.
Ma threw her body full force at me, rolling me onto my back like an alligator’s death roll. This wasn’t her first scrap, after all—she knew what to do when she wasn’t underneath her opponent. She had been raised in the school of hard knocks; this was lesson one. Her fingers went for my throat, her thumbs compressing against my airway. Fear licked at me, that panic infiltrating my mind as I struggled beneath her.
God, she was fucking serious. She was actually going to kill me.
As the air left my lungs and my breaths felt harder to come by, my mind played a reel of the past twenty-eight years. I thought about my sister, whose innocence was gone too soon; my father, whose love for the monster straddling me made no difference in the end; of Penelope, who had tried, despite all odds, to befriend me and compensate for what I lacked.
And then there was Sean. The tears that sprung to my eyes burned as they left two parallel tracks that scorched during their descent down my cheeks that I’m sure Ma thought was remorse for my actions.
Sean had been the best part of the almost three decades I had been alive.
All the things and people I had known and loved, left me behind in the end.
Maybe it was better for it to end here, where it had all begun.
“You’ve been fighting to survive. You haven’t been fighting to live.”
Sean’s words rang out in my mind, as loud as a siren over the churning of a thunderstorm. My chest hollowed out the harder Ma squeezed, the skin around the length of my neck throbbing beneath her thumbs.
I had to fight to live.
I wanted to fight to live.
Not for Holly, Dad, Penelope, or Sean.
But for me.
Ma didn’t know the first thing about fighting or surviving; she was an empty shell of a woman with no soul to speak of. She was every bit as dead as Holly and Dad, despite being a corporeal physical being with a heart that beat in her chest.
The fog that ensconced my mind in thick brume cleared like dawn had finally broken, and in its wake remained a verdant meadow that stretched as far as the eye could see. That was my future: An open field of greenery that thrived, with or without anyone in it.
And that was what snapped me back into reality.
Struggling under her, the brush of her hair tickled my cheeks as she leaned forward, compressing harder until my breaths were strangled and the state of consciousness threatened to leave me. I had to react fast. Grabbing that long hair she loved so much, I wrapped it twice around my fist and pulled hard enough that some of the strands came free from her scalp. Ma shrieked, her howl filling the space as she released her hold on my larynx, her weight sagging off of me, her hands flying to her scalp, where the hair extended and threatened to rip from her head.
I relinquished the grip I held on her hair, shoving her away from me as I sat up trying to collect myself, pressing my body into the wall. I sagged there, my body hitting the stiff, dirty carpet. Dragging my knees to my chest, I watched her through lidded eyes, tracking her every movement in case if she tried to attack me again.
Thankfully, she didn’t move. She was in a state of shock, her hands pressed into her scalp, strands of hair circled by her knees where she knelt.
“I deserve the fucking truth, and if you have any love for me at all, you will tell me everything,” I demanded through gasps as oxygen rushed to my lungs.
“You can’t handle the truth, Raquel. There’s your truth,” she spat at me, her chin kicking downward, her eyes burning a hole right through my skull. “You are as fragile as a piece of glass. You want love from me? That’s how I love you, by shielding you from what I know would hurt you.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed, shaking my head, recalling what she had suggested moments earlier. “Nothing in life is done for free, so whose fucking secrets are you protecting, and at what cost?”
For the first time in years, I saw a genuine, honest-to-God smile bloom on Ma’s pout. She was silent for a beat of a minute more, and then the words she spoke were a worse blow than any of the ones she had physically landed.
“The answer to that is closer than you think,” she said, her head tilting to the right, “if you would just open your pretty brown eyes and look.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I was beyond stuffed.
I considered popping the button on my jeans open as I lounged in the tartan recliner in my ma’s living room. My sisters had all deposited themselves around the room, fighting their own case of food-itis at varying levels, all while clad in matching dark L.L. Bean sweatpants. Ma had kept the food coming until we begged her to stop. I was grateful we opted for a Thanksgiving lunch over dinner; it made digesting a massive meal easier. Now, we were all fighting the first signs of sleep as we lounged around, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade replay through hooded eyes while trying to avoid chasing the promise of a mid-afternoon nap.
In the corner of the room next to the massive dooryard window, the Christmas tree stood proudly in its stand, its branches relaxing as the hours passed. It was our family tradition to decorate it on Thanksgiving ’cause Ma loved the twinkle of the lights so much. We were willing to do anything to make her smile around this time of year, when she was most susceptible to succumbing to the pain of her loss, even if pine needles circled the stand by the time Christmas arrived.
Ma was cleaning up the kitchen, refusing to allow any of us to assist. She liked keeping busy, and I think her plan all along was to overfeed all of us so we wouldn’t have the energy to argue with her. I leaned back further in my father’s favorite recliner, my body molding into the outline his had left behind while my hands joined in my lap, my lids coming down hard. Maria and I had done a great job of keeping out of each other’s way, and Trina for the first time in her life had managed to keep her mouth shut about the latest update to my relationship status. Livy had done a majority of the talking over lunch, prattling on and on about the latest drama at the theater and demanding that we all purchase ten tickets each to her opening night performance. What the hell I was going to do with ten tickets, I didn’t know. I didn’t think I knew ten people, unless I started handing them out at the work yard, and it wasn’t like I had a girlfriend anymore.
My eyes flitted underneath my lids, my jaw ticking. I didn’t think I could really call Raquel that. That wasn’t what she was or even what she had been. We were an explosion of chemistry and anticipation that could have leveled the state if left to its own devices. Maybe that was why both of us had remained radio silent since. I was a stubborn prick and she was an obstinate pain in the ass. I wasn’t going to give in an inch, and knowing her, she would sooner crawl into her own grave and bury herself alive before she ever so much as attempted to reach out to me.
My stubbornness hadn’t been enough to keep me from starting and deleting God knows how many texts, but it had been enough to prevent me from committing and hitting send. I had called her half a dozen times a day, I always hung up before the call could ever connect. Anything I could have said to her felt like it was going to fall short, and my arrogance still fed my deluded ideas that if she came to me, maybe she would give me another chance to make things right.
Time and space had shown me that I shouldn’t have said half the shit I had said, even if it was true. She
hadn’t deserved it. She had opened up to me, and I had done the one thing she had confessed was her fear. I’d validated that she wasn’t good enough for someone to stick around long enough to love her.
I probably didn’t have the right to think about her over lunch, wondering what she was doing today, or if she was okay. My past relationships had all ended in similar fashion, on my terms. The difference was, I’d been happy to conclude them. This thing with Raquel, I wasn’t happy about. I hadn’t liked the way that our relationship had been imbued with someone else’s presence, but I hated the idea of not being with her even more. There was an emptiness that pervaded through me at her absence, because she had consumed my every thought since the moment I met her.
This reaction probably wasn’t normal, but I was as good at breakups as I was at getting into relationships in the first place. The passing thought that Maria’s heeding had been right all along confronted me as my mind chased after the lull of the nap that was coming to me in heavy waves, my lids growing heavier by the minute.
A two-hour nap would be exactly what I needed before we got swept up in the frenetic energy that overtook this family when it was time to decorate the tree and my sisters turned into Martha Stewart wannabes, touching and adjusting every single light and ornament several hundred times until it was postcard perfect. It would be a hard reset on my body and mind, and I’d commit to not thinking about Raquel that entire time and being the poster child of Christmas. Hell, I might even let Trina put that stupid Santa hat on my head.
My skin prickled with an unexplained edginess as I attempted to get comfortable in the chair, my body shifting, head rolling from one shoulder to the other. I draped an arm over my head, before I settled both arms across the width of my chest.
The familiar vibration of my phone buzzing in my pocket had me cursing whoever was interrupting me right now. My sleep was already fraught with my own agitation most nights. I was banking on the food-itis to help see this one through. Ignoring the call, I let it go to voicemail, my lids squeezing together as I concentrated on relaxing again.
My heart raced as a thought occurred to me. What if it was Raquel calling?
My insides twisted as the hopeful thought sprang forward in my mind, but before the idea could sprout legs and walk, I cut off its limbs.
There was no way in hell she’d be calling me. She would sooner see my head speared on the finial point of the wood dome atop the Massachusetts State House before she ever called me. Still, when the phone buzzed again, I wrestled the thing out of my pocket faster than a fifteen-year-old girl who had been sitting by the phone all day, my breaths catching in my chest. I couldn’t mask my disappointment when I read the name on the caller ID screen, a frown drawing my features together as I bit out a curse.
What did she want, today of all days?
I hit accept and brought the phone to my ear, letting my lids fall shut again while hoping she would make this quick. If I couldn’t get the girl in reality, I’d at least like to dream about an alternate universe where I did. With my shit luck, Penelope was calling me right now because she had a burst of inspiration that had sprouted into an outlandish full-fledged idea for my next project, and she was about to hard sell me on it. I just hoped it didn’t cost me a fucking shitload of money so I could make a decision quick and get on to dreamland.
“Penelope,” I greeted with a grunt.
“Sean.” Her breaths were heavy as they dragged out of her, panic sending my mind for a trip. The tone of her voice alone had me kicking the recliner closed with a bang that drew my sisters’ attentions from their own catatonic sleep induced state. Their heads weaved in my direction at different degrees, their bodies leaning forward as though ready to answer the call of the charge at my command.
“What’s going on?” I said, sounding relaxed, although I felt anything but. I didn’t want to make things worse, though my skin was on fire as my mind raced to conclusions on whatever the fuck she was going to say, especially as my sisters stared on at me with wide, nervous eyes and tight lined mouths. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” she sobbed.
She tried to formulate a sentence, but all that came out was a slurry of incoherent and anguished cries that I couldn’t pick apart or decipher to save my life. Dougie murmured something to her in the background, and then a shuffling, like the phone was being passed.
“Sean.” Dougie’s voice was gruff in my ear. My anxiety immediately slid away from me. He was fine, so, what the fuck was up with the theatrics? I considered the worst, that maybe something had happened to the pregnancy, even though it made my insides knot. They were so excited about becoming parents. Shit, I was excited about them becoming parents.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting for some semblance of normality. “What the fuck is her deal?”
Dougie heaved a labored breath. “I hate to even ask you this,” he began, and I felt my stress dampen a little at the edges. Okay, it wasn’t about their kid. I could handle whatever they were going to tell me as long as the kid was okay. “But Penelope needs a favor.”
What the hell was she so upset about? I had told her she needed to get the words empira white and vanilla noir out of her head for the next project this week, but she had shot me an unrepentant smile that told me she was going to get her way regardless of what I had said.
I didn’t think that warranted this kind of reaction days later, so I was running out of ideas of what the fuck was going on.
“This is terrible.” Penelope cried in the background, the sound alone drawing my shoulders together until pain spiked there and I was forced to release them.
“What is it?” I anxiously asked, a cold sweat breaking out across the stretch of my skin. “Is this about the countertops? ’Cause if she’s that desperate for the quartz, it’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”
Dougie didn’t laugh. I wished that fucker had laughed, but instead he sucker punched me. Pain coasted right through my balls and settled there, making every breath I took hurt as he said the absolute last words I had anticipated.
“You need to go get Raquel from her mother’s.”
The hair follicles on my head sent the strands of my hair at half-mast as the question left him in a rush of vowels and consonants that I barely heard save for her name.
I was wrong. I couldn’t handle whatever he was going to tell me.
“What happened?” I couldn’t hide my dismay, my heart kicking up. I leaned forward in the recliner, resting both elbows on my knees, one hand shielding my forehead like a visor. Whatever it was he was going to say, I sure as shit hoped it didn’t start with the name Cash. If it did, I’d have to pick her up first, then kick his ass again.
Dougie hesitated for a minute. “She got into it with her ma.”
At that, Penelope hiccupped loudly in the background.
“What does that mean?” I demanded, my nervous foot bouncing against the floor.
He didn’t elaborate, my stomach sank. “Can you just go get her? You know I wouldn’t ask, given the circumstances,” Dougie continued, “but if you don’t get her, then Penelope’s going to do it, and we’re already kind of up shit’s creek with her parents right now. Leaving here right before dinner won’t help matters.”
With my palm still shielding my forehead, I pressed the tips of my thumb and forefinger to rub my temple as an impending migraine licked there with a steady thrum, like a pulse in my brain.
Guess the Cullimores hadn’t taken the pregnancy announcement very gracefully at all. I read between the lines. If they left now, there was a good chance Penelope would be excommunicated from her family. And given that Dougie wasn’t exactly their first pick for their daughter (read: he wasn’t even their last pick; they’d probably sooner send her off to a convent if they had had the choice), it was better not to rock that boat too hard.
I was grateful my family ate early, it made what I was going to do next easier. “Text me the address.” I hung up and got to my feet, surprised when my sis
ters emulated my movements. I saw them pass a nervous look between themselves before Maria stepped forward, her facial expression blank as an untouched canvas as our younger sisters parted like a set of curtains opening and made room for her approach.
“What happened?” she asked, the worried undertone obvious in her question. We shared a look. Maria pressed her lips together, as if she didn’t like whatever I was going to do next—but she respected it enough to stay out of my way.
Livy and Trina looked at me with their helpless wide-eyed stares, waiting for me to reply.
“Tell Ma I’ll be back,” I said grimly, and then shot out of the living room like the devil was on my heels.
This wasn’t a rescue mission; this was the battle for my future.
And I wanted Raquel in it.
I made it to South Boston in under an hour. The city skyline opened up to me like a clam when I merged onto I-93. My blood pumped through me, my knuckles straining against the steering wheel as I weaved the Jeep in and out of traffic, my mind racing. Something told me that getting into it with her ma didn’t mean they’d exchanged barbs resulting in Raquel storming off to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
If anything, what she shared with me at the diner that night left me with an overwhelming sense of dread that the statement implied they’d exchanged something much worse.
My jaw constricted. I didn’t want anyone putting their hands on her, regardless of the relationship.
I knew Raquel well enough to know that she’d never call anyone for help if it could be avoided. So, whatever was waiting for me in the slums wasn’t going to be good.
I was uncertain about what to expect when I found her, or even how to act, given the circumstances. Of course, the priority was her well-being, but I didn’t think she would be all that happy to see me—couldn’t really say I blamed her, either, given the way our last conversation ended. This whole situation sucked. If I’d just checked my bruised ego and not been so harsh, to quote Trina, maybe I could have prevented her from being in this position to begin with.
