Dragging my body up even though it protests every step of the way, I feel my bones crack the minute I’m completely upright and I stare at the door. Who could possibly be on the other side?
If it was Dillon, he would have already barged his way in; the only other person besides Belle with a key to the place, because the last thing he wanted was to go home and face his mother when we came back into town.
Damnit, I said I wasn’t gonna think about her, yet here I am flooded with her scent, her smile, her voice even though she’s nowhere near me. I’m destroying her in my mind the same way I did outside two days ago.
I’ll never escape her.
I never want to escape her.
“Kayden, open the door right now!”
My body freezes. I know that voice. It’s not one I’ve heard in a while, but I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to. It’s engrained in my head as easily as Belle is.
Two women. Similar yet oh-so-different. Both of them loving me at one point in their lives, both of them leaving me, deserving better than what a Walker can give them.
Belle didn’t leave you.
I can’t fucking believe this is happening right now. Looking over at the side of the bed and seeing the half empty liquor bottles staring back at me, begging me to get lost in them, I shake my head, fighting a war inside myself to just give in even though it’s the last thing I need.
Belle didn’t leave me. I misread the entire thing and it cost me everything. Dillon was right from the start. I let my fear override my common sense and now she’s lying in a cold hospital bed and I’m here throwing myself a pity party because I’m the world’s biggest jackass.
Isaac Crawford.
The reason for all of this.
No. That’s not right. I’m the reason. They’re all innocent.
“Dillon told me you’re in there! I swear to god boy, if you don’t open this door right now, I will break it down.”
Hearing her again, breaking through the darkness I’m drowning in, it occurs to me where I get my anger from. With her threat of kicking the door in, the same one I did a year ago when I wanted to beat the bathroom door off its hinges to save the girl I love, it’s crystal clear.
I’m not a Walker after all. I’m a Morrison. I’m my mother’s son.
“Go away!” I attempt again, but it doesn’t do shit because there she is again, pounding her fist into the door. We’re a lot more alike then I realized. She’s just as stubborn as I am.
I need to answer the door and do the same thing I’ve been doing with everyone else for years. I need to remain disconnected and push her the fuck away. She doesn’t want to get close to me, especially since this is exactly what her leaving created. I might have done it on my own, but I remember the good times with her, how much I adored that fucking woman. She caused all of this.
She’s the reason I’m an asshole.
Swinging the door open once I stumble my way to it and coming face to face with the woman that thought it was a good idea to bail on me, I grin, but not in the way I’m used to. No, this one is different. Spiteful, sadistic.
“You having trouble understanding the words go away?”
“Nope.” She says before pushing her way past me and into the room before turning around to face me again. “I heard it loud and clear, but I never was one for listening.”
Another thing we’ve got in common. Hard headed to a fault.
I don’t want to have anything in common with this woman. Even having her here now is messing me up in a bunch of ways and after all the drinking last night, I think I’ve been messed up enough. I don’t need a second hangover.
“What the hell do you want? If you can’t already tell, I’m busy.”
“Yeah, the brewery called. They want their liquor back.” She smirks and I resist the urge to smack her. It’s not my thing, hitting a woman, but she doesn’t get to smile. Not after what she did. “When’s the last time you had a shower?”
“None of your business. Now if you don’t mind—”
“Kayden, I’m not going anywhere.” She says, cutting me off and making herself comfortable on my bed, throwing her one leg up over the other and leaning her upper body into it. Settling herself in for the long haul.
Fuck. I’ve never hated stubborn people so much in my life.
“How did you get in? Why are you even here? Why now?”
I have no idea what I’m even saying. I don’t want to ask these questions, but my brain is so fried that I can’t contain it. I’m spewing up a bunch of crap better left dead and buried. She should have just stayed away.
“You left the front door unlocked and I’m here because I’m a screw up and I’m tired of running from it.”
“Aww, that’s touching, Mom. Really. I feel for you.”
“That’s not you talking.”
“No, you’re right. It’s what you left behind when you thought running off with a fucking piece of ass was better than staying and protecting your kid!”
God, I hate her. I feel like I’m nine again and I’m seeing her in the kitchen that final day. The one that started like every other and ended with her never coming home. My heart being smashed into a million little pieces. I can even see the torture in Dean’s eyes when he had to sit down and tell me she was gone.
Fuck her and her regrets. I don’t want to hear them.
“You’re right.”
“You think?”
“I know you hate me and you have every right. I’m not here looking for forgiveness.”
“Then why are you here? You get wind of how good things were going for me and want to make sure it didn’t last? Take the only good thing I had going for me and twist it until it was as screwed up as you?”
Shit. I’m crying. No. This can’t happen. I will not shed tears over this woman.
“Kay…”
“Don’t call me that!” I roar, the vibration of it reverberating in my head and shaking me to the core. I’m a different kind of angry now. It’s like after everything that’s happened, the torture is evolving, changing me. I really am turning into a whole new monster.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I bet you are.”
“I am. You might not believe that and it’s your right. I screwed up with you and Dean. I told you. I’m not here to make excuses or get you to forgive me, but you need to hear what I’ve got to say. You’re owed so much more than that, but it’s all I’ve got.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want anything from you, other than for this conversation to end and you to get out.”
Where I expect what I said to get through, make her stand and get the hell out of my room so I can be alone, she does the opposite.
“When I was fifteen, your uncle Greg came into my room late one night. He said he wanted to show me something. I was such a naïve little girl back then. Hadn’t even kissed a boy, let alone been around one long enough to see what was hidden under his pants. Despite what they taught me in school, when he said he had something to show me, I thought he meant a new guitar. He always loved guitars and music. He showed me a lot that night and it had nothing to do with music and the beauty that it can bring. He showed me what a real nightmare is.”
“Stop it! I don’t want to hear this!”
I need her to stop because this, I’ve heard it before and I know how it turns out. Amelia went through something like this and her revelation of the way things were when we dated is still raw. I don’t want to go through it again. Especially with my own mom.
“He took everything from me that night, Kayden, but he also gave me something.” She pauses, her face which until that moment had been leveled to the carpet, now steadily locking on me again. Our eyes a mirrored reflection of each other. “He gave me your brother.”
I’m gonna be sick. Holy shit.
“Stop! I don’t believe you. This is all just a bullshit story you’re trying to sell me so I’ll feel sorry for you. Let you back in. Just stop it.”
�
�It’s all true and I can prove it. I had to do it with Dean when I went to see him, so I have no problem doing the same for you.”
My body is weaker than it’s ever been and what she’s telling me, it’s threatening to bring me to my knees. I’m about to hit the floor because the weight of what she’s saying is too much. I’ve been through too much, caused too much. I can’t take any more. I’ve reached my limit.
“When I met your father, I thought it best to tell him the truth about who Dean’s father was. I loved him you see, so I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us. As it turns out it didn’t do any good. It made the man I love hate him and things turned violent very fast. By the time I was ready to finally run; leave that cold, unfeeling bastard behind for good, I found out I was pregnant with you.”
“Kayden, you were the love of my life. Right from the minute you opened your eyes in the hospital, I knew I wanted to do right by you. I wanted the same with Dean too, but there was something about him at that point. A darkness that just wasn’t present in you. You were my light.”
That sound I keep hearing, the one I can’t place; it’s coming from me. The minute my knees fall to the floor and I feel the pain shoot straight through them, I hear the tortured sobs coming from my throat.
Yep. Definitely reached my limit.
“He left and when he did, I thought things were finally going to be okay. I was happy for the first time in years, until the day I got the call that he was coming back for you. I don’t know how much you remember from that time, but I stashed you and Dean at Grace’s house and I took off running. I knew Kayden—I knew that when he got there and didn’t see you boys, he was going to kill me. He didn’t know about my friendship with the lady across the street so I used it to make sure you were safe. It was all I cared about.”
It’s exactly the way Dean said it was. She dragged us both across the street that day ten years ago and left us with Grace. I didn’t want to believe it when I heard it from him, but seeing the way she is now, hearing the pain in her voice admitting it, I know it’s the truth.
“I know the way it looks and I know that me telling you all of this now doesn’t change a thing, but you need the truth. You needed it when you were little, and you definitely need it now.”
“Why now? Why not five years ago? He was gone, Mom. You were safe to come back. We needed you! I needed you!”
The horror I lived through with Dean floods my mind. Every single fight, every drunken rage, even the times when we weren’t beating on each other but drowning in our own loss and sadness together. It’s all front and center like a slide show I can’t turn off.
I needed her. I never stopped wanting her there, needing her there to stop Dean. To stop me. To change me back into the little boy she knew I could be and not the monster I turned into.
“I know you did, but I thought you were safer with your brother. I had no idea that the way he was when he was little was how he was going to turn out. It’s like seeing Greg all over again.”
She’s lying. She’s the one that told me Walkers were defective. She fucking knew Dean was bad. She’s admitted as much since she got here. Seeing something in him at a young age that made him the darkness and me the light. I might have bought into all of the other shit she told me about the way things were, but not this. She’s full of shit.
“You’re lying.”
“About what?”
“Not knowing about Dean, all of the other stuff. I don’t know. I just know you’re lying.”
“I knew there was something dark in your brother, but it wasn’t always like that. I thought he would do right by you. I wouldn’t have done what I did if I thought any different, Kayden. He loved you. It might not have lasted, but back then, he loved you fiercely.”
“Maybe when you walked out, you turned him too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean! Don’t even try and pretend you don’t. Everything went to shit when you left. All of it. The boy you called your light, he died. He’s been dead for ten years.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is! Belle’s sitting in a hospital because I was just like Dean and saw something that wasn’t fucking there! I destroyed the one person since you walked out that loved me. I’m a monster!”
“Kay-Kay, you’re not a monster. You’re human.”
I don’t want to hear this from her. I can’t believe it. It’s the same shit Grace tried to make me see last fall and it’s not right. They’re not seeing it realistically. They’re seeing the guy I was trying to be, not the monster that’s been dormant just waiting for the chance to come out and destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for.
The one I’ll always be.
“Don’t call me that. You’re not allowed to call me that!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that. Mom—” I choke out, completely overwhelmed. “Please just stop.”
“I can’t do that, Kayden. Not when what I did is making you believe in things that aren’t true. Stop putting everything on yourself. Put it where it belongs.”
Where it belongs. I’ve put it on Dean, myself, Dillon, Tim, Belle; everyone really, but she’s right. I’ve never put it where it really belongs.
Her.
“This is my doing, Kayden. If I hadn’t done what I did back then, you wouldn’t be here now. What happened to Belle, it’s horrible and heartbreaking, but it’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
I want to agree with her. I want to blame her for this, but I can’t. The words won’t come and even if I could manage to somehow get them out, they wouldn’t be the truth. Part of my change last year was admitting that I had to own the person I became when my mom walked out of my life. If I blame her now for what I tried to do to Isaac, I’m no better than she is.
I need to own my shit.
“It is my fault. I did this. I can blame you for a lot and I do, but not this. This was all me.”
“You really love her, don’t you?”
Love is a fucking understatement for what I feel for Belle, but this is a subject I can’t get into with her. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do it. She lost the right to know anything when she left, even if she did it for reasons that might seem right.
“Mom…”
“Why are you here instead of the hospital?”
“I did this. She’s hurt because of me. That’s the last place I need to be.”
Before she can respond, which if the pursing of her lips is any indication, she’s about to do any second, I ask the one question I want an answer to. The one question that in her storytelling earlier she didn’t give me.
“Why did you wait ten years to come back?”
“I’ve been running from him.”
“The whole time?”
She nods and even though I’ve done everything in my power not to look at her, I see the single tear slip from her eyes and it rips me apart even more. I want to hate her so bad, but I can’t. She’s still my mom and her crying is not right.
“Where is he now?”
“Jail.”
I should feel something hearing that my father is in jail, but I think I’m numb because I don’t feel a damn thing. It doesn’t even matter. I think that maybe he’s where he needs to be. I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore. I feel like I’m walking around in a nightmare and I just want it to end.
“How long has he been in jail?”
“Six months.”
“So where were you?”
“Saving up to come home. Going to meetings. Cleaning up so that when I finally got back here, I didn’t come back the same person that left.”
Getting clean. Working and saving up. She sounds like me in the summer, working at the auto shop so I could save up to be able to take Belle out, do things for her and with her and not feel like such a useless chump. Making sure I had the money for the house that Dean swore we were going to lose even though it had been paid off ye
ars before.
Changing. Becoming something worthy of coming home to. She’s been doing the same thing I have. I’m not the only one that wanted to change.
When you’ve lost everything, you become numb to what’s left. You’re on the edge and with nothing left to fight for, you jump off, regardless of the way things turn out.
She’s me.
“I screwed everything up, Mom.” I cry, sounding like the little boy she left behind and not the man she came home for. Realizing it and hating the way it sounds, I start to shake it off, but break again as I feel her arms around me. She’s moved from her spot on the bed and is now on the floor with me, bringing my body into hers.
I allow it. I rest in her arms and I do the one thing that I’ve been forcing down since everything happened two days ago. I break down completely and let every tear fall. Not only for what I did to Belle, but for every day I spent without this woman, bottling the pain and turning it into anger.
“No, you didn’t baby. I know it looks that way, but you didn’t.”
“I hurt her. I swore I’d never do that again.”
“What happened, K?”
“She met a guy in her class, someone like her. She wanted to help him. Do right by him and I knew this. She told me right from the very first day what she wanted to do. I saw them together once. They were holding hands. I wanted to kill him, Mom.”
“Okay. Did you talk to her about it?” she asks and as my chest shakes from the pain that the memories bring up, she rubs my back, attempting to do what I’ve wanted for years. Soothe me. Do what a mom should.
“Yeah. We don’t hide things from each other. She told me what was going on. That the guys in class had been on him again and he’d been close to melting down. I believed her, until I saw them hugging.”
“What did you do?”
“I got in his face. I knew he couldn’t talk and I just didn’t care. I yelled at him, shoved him to the ground. He got up, came at me and I reacted. I was gonna get him before he got me. Belle told me he could get violent so I was ready for it. Except he’s not the one I hit.”
God this hurts. Admitting this again is torture. This woman knows what it’s like to feel like a screw-up. My mom knows better than anyone but it still doesn’t make it any easier.
All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) Page 23
