UnTouch Me

by Dawn Martens

  I leave after Ann was able to calm her down. I didn’t want to leave her, not like that, seeing her so broken up because of my shit. Fuck, I wish I could fix it all, but I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t think I ever can. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna give up, though.

  Checking the time and seeing it’s just past noon, I decide to swing over to Kayla’s place to get some time in with Rose.

  Can I come over, see Rose? – V

  Yup, come on over. Brandon just left. Be nice for some company. - K

  Opening the front door, I hear Kayla singing softly to our child. I smile, walking into the living room and seeing her rocking our baby in the rocking chair. “Hey, Vincent,” she says softly.

  “Hey, how’s she doing?” I ask her.

  “Good. I swear, she rarely ever cries. She’s such a good baby,” she says, smiling down at her.

  I pull out my wallet before sitting on the couch and flip through it. Pulling out a picture of Elizabeth, I pass it over to Kayla. “Here,” I say.

  She takes it from my hand and smiles down at my child I share with Lilly. “She’s so beautiful. I wish Lilly would come around, but I understand why she doesn’t want to. I can’t believe how much these girls look alike.”

  I grin. “Yeah, they could almost be twins.”

  “How is Lilly doing, anyways?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “I think she has the baby blues. I went over today to try and talk to her, and she was a mess.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I know how much you love her.” She smiles sadly.

  “How are you and Brandon doing?” I ask her, wanting to get away from talk of Lilly.

  She smiles huge. “I’m in love with him, Vincent! He’s so amazing.”

  “He treats our girl right?” I ask her.

  She smiles so brightly, it’s almost blinding. “Oh, Vincent, he does. He treats her almost as if she was his. It’s amazing to see.”

  That hurts, not the fact that my brother treats my daughter like his, but that Lilly can’t treat my daughter with Kayla like hers too.

  I push the stroller down the sidewalk, walking next to Hilary and Eden. My baby, Elizabeth, is so damn adorable. Ever since Vinny learned I didn’t use his last name for her, he comes over often, even though I told him not to, that he’s to meet Hilary at Momma B’s. He keeps trying to fix us, but it’s not going to happen. I can’t be with him. I just can’t.

  “Um, Lilly?” I hear Eden say, sounding shocked.

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “Oh, fuck no!” Hilary screeches.

  There, up ahead of us, is Vinny, holding a baby girl in his arms, walking next to Kayla, the bitch. Ever since I found out about him having a baby with her, I can’t even bear to look at him. I hate him with everything. I gave him all of me, never once stepped out on him, never even looked at another man, not even during our break ups, but there he was the whole damn time, fucking that bitch every chance he got.

  “Just ignore them,” I tell them urgently.

  “Oh, hell no. He’s here, in public, with that bitch and his other baby. If you are gonna cheat on your girl of nine years with a bitch, and have a baby with her too, you gotta keep that shit a secret, not flaunt it about town,” Hilary says.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say while glancing down at my daughter in the stroller.

  “Lilly, hey,” Vinny says, stopping in front of us.

  Kayla is standing back a bit with her daughter, looking somewhat nervous.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Um, look, can we, uh, talk?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “No thanks,” I say, feeling uncomfortable with Kayla standing there too.

  “Lilly, please, this bullshit of me not being allowed to have my two kids around each other is just that. It’s bullshit. They’re siblings. They should be able to grow up as such,” Vinny says, getting pissy.

  “Yeah, well, you should have thought about that before you fucked everything up,” I spit out at him.

  His face falls. “Lilly, don’t be like this. Fuck, you’ve never had one mean bone in your body, and now it’s like you’re the reigning queen of bitch.”

  “Right, well, good thing for you, I don’t have to be anything but that. If you don’t like it, fuck off. Call Hilary with a date and time to have a play date with Elizabeth,” I say, moving past him.

  “Lilly,” Kayla whispers.

  I shake my head at her. Why in the hell does she keep trying to talk to me? I take a quick glance at the baby in the stroller, and, my God, she and Elizabeth could be twins with how much they look alike.

  Why did Vinny have to screw this all up?

  I look at Vinny with tears in my eyes and turn away before he sees them fall.

  I watch her walk off and feel like complete shit. Kayla walks over to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “Far from it,” I tell her honestly.

  “I wish this wasn’t such a mess. As much as I wanted you, I know I’m not it for you. I wish I could fix this all somehow.”

  “You can’t. She won’t even let me bring the kids around each other. These girls are sisters. They should be able to grow up that way, but she’s not having it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like her at all. I know she’s hurt and upset by all of this, but something isn’t sounding right,” Kayla says, glancing down the sidewalk toward Lilly.

  “I wish I could make shit right. You were fucking right when you kept telling me to tell her sooner. Maybe by now we could actually try again,” I tell her.

  “Okay, no more sad stuff. Let’s get home. Brandon texted me, said he might be over in a bit,” Kayla says, smiling.

  “Yeah, okay.” At least Kayla has something good going for her. I’m happy for her, I am, but at the same time, it eats me up that I can’t have that with Lilly.

  Looking at my daughter sleeping finally, I smile. I think this is the first time I’ve smiled since she was born. Most of the time, I feel as if I hate her, and that makes me feel guilty. I was told after having a baby these feelings were common, but I hate it. Maybe my mom is right. Maybe I should go to the doctor.

  I quietly leave her bedroom and go lay down on my bed. My life is not going the way I planned it. This isn’t the life I imagined with Vinny and our child. It’s been shot to hell. It’s not long before I hear Elizabeth crying. That didn’t last long, maybe ten minutes. What is wrong with her?

  I don’t bother to move off my bed as I cry to the sounds of my daughter screaming. I reach over to my nightstand and grab the razor blade I stashed there. Growing up, I used to cut. It’s been years since I’ve done it, just a nick here or a nick there, but it was something to dull my pain. I just wanted my dad’s attention back then, but even that didn’t work.

  I contemplate using it, just ending my fucked up existence. It would be easier. Vinny will raise Elizabeth with his whore and their child. They’ll have their happily ever after without me.

  As I start to put the blade to my wrist, I hear pounding on the front door, but I don’t bother to move. I stay still, listening to Elizabeth cry and the pounding of the front door. Maybe, if I don’t make a sound, they’ll go away.

  With tears running down my face, I push on the blade. It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies, or sounds when you read about it in books, but it’s not long before I see the blood start to slide down my arm as I push more firmly.

  The pounding of the door gets louder, as does Elizabeth’s crying, and I start to move the blade a little more.

  As I take the blade away, watching the blood trailing down, my front door crashes open. I hear Vinny shout. “Lilly, what the fuck?”

  I hear his footsteps coming up the stairs, and the sound of him opening Elizabeth’s door. “Hey, baby girl. Where’s momma?” I hear him say, calming her cries.

  I still as I hear him moving down the hall to my door. “Lilly?” he knocks softly.

  “Go away,” I cr
oak out, hoping he’ll leave me alone.

  The door opens, and I don’t bother to turn my head to look. “Fuck, babe,” I hear him say, his voice cracking.

  He walks close to the bed, putting Elizabeth in the bassinet that I have in here, and comes to me.

  “Go away,” I whisper.

  He bundles me up in his arms. “I need to get you some help. Fuck, Lilly, I can’t lose you,” he says into my hair, his voice full of emotion.

  I was about to call 911 when Ann walked in, freezing at the scene of me carrying Lilly down the stairs.

  “Oh my word. What happened?” Ann asks, obviously upset.

  I swallow a lump that formed in my throat. “She tried to kill herself. She needs fucking help,” I say.

  “Let me take her. I can get her checked into the hospital and make her stay there for additional help. Are you okay to be the sole caregiver to Elizabeth?” she asks me.

  “Of course,” I say, starting to get pissed that no one thinks I’m a good enough father for my daughter.

  “Okay, good. Could you call up to the hospital and just let them know we’re on our way, so they can expect us?”

  “Yeah.”

  I carry Lilly out and set her in Ann’s car, then kiss on the forehead. Ann bundles Lilly up— she looks absolutely defeated. I can’t believe this shit. If I hadn’t got here when I did to try to talk to her, to try to work shit out, I could have been too late.

  I go back to the porch and stand in the doorway as I watch Ann back out of the driveway. Once they are out of sight, I close the door and go to Elizabeth, peering down at her in her crib.

  “It’s just you and me, baby girl.” I kiss her head softly.

  Leaving her room, I shoot a text to Angel to let him know I’m going to be busy for a while. I let him know what just happened, and he tells me whatever I need, I got it. Feels good knowing I got a lot of people ready to step in and do whatever it takes to get us through this, but I feel like Lilly would want me to be the one here with Elizabeth. Shit, I want that too. I just wish somehow it was the four of us here as a family—Lilly, Elizabeth, Rose, and me. But Lilly…she wants nothing to do with my other daughter, and that hurts. Right now, though, getting her better is what matters.

  I spend the next month taking care of my daughter and loving every minute of being with her. Hilary helps out, and Eden does too, but it’s mainly just the two of us. Lilly would shit a brick if she knew I took Elizabeth over to Kayla’s and introduced her to her sister. They smiled at each other so big. Kayla put a quilt on the floor, and we let them play together and check one another out for a bit. I think they love each other already. I just wish they could be together all the time.

  Kayla thinks that, in time, Lilly will come around and learn to accept Rose in her and Elizabeth’s lives. I sure as fuck hope so. This is tearing me apart inside. At least things seem to be going good for Kayla; she thinks her and Brandon are getting more serious. He’s been coming around a lot more lately, and is usually coming or going when I stop by.

  *~*

  The front door opens. I hear the sounds of women talking, and I smile. Lilly wouldn’t allow me to visit while she was in the hospital, and it fucking sucked. I wanted to be there for her.

  Lilly comes inside with a big smile on her face, with Hilary and Eden trailing behind her. She sees Elizabeth and grins. She’s been gone for a month, and I fucking missed her, even more this time than when she went away for beauty school.

  I get up off the couch to bring her over and place her in Lilly’s arms. “Momma’s home, baby. I missed you,” she says softly, kissing Elizabeth’s head.

  “How are you, Lilly-pad?” I ask her.

  She looks up and smiles at me. “I’m good. Thank you for taking such good care of her.”

  Hope fills me; maybe we can make this work. “She’s my daughter too, of course.”

  She nods and places another kiss on Elizabeth’s head, and then hands her back over. “You can say goodbye to her for now. I’m gonna go get cleaned up a bit,” she says wiggling her nose.

  I watch her walk away, and that little bit of hope I had vanishes.

  “I think you need to let her go, Vinny,” Hilary says softly.

  “No.”

  “I don’t think you really have a choice. She’s still hurt, and that’s not gonna change. I think one day she’ll forgive you, but after a few sessions with her, I don’t think she’ll take you back.”

  “Don’t say that, okay? I love her.”

  Hilary and Eden both come close to me, placing their hands on my shoulders. “We know that, but right now, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  “Then I’ll just give her time,” I say. I hand over Elizabeth, kissing her cheek, and walk out of the house.

  I will get her back, that’s a promise.

  The girls and I have decided to go out tonight for some fun. My mom, Momma B, and Hilary’s mom are all home, watching the kids for us. I’m feeling ten times better than I was six months ago, and I have been slowly weaned off my meds at my doctor’s instruction.

  I’m still angry whenever I see Vinny or Kayla, but it can’t be helped. It’s time to move on, start my life. Since things have been going so well with me, even Elizabeth has been cheerful. It’s like she picked up on my mood, and that’s why she always cried so much.

  I also accepted all the help I could get from my mom and the other girls, and women in the club. Hayley and Alix also opened up a second salon. This one is actually here in town, so I’ve started working again as the manager of the place.

  Dressed to the nines, we hit the local dive bar, and it just so happens to be karaoke night. Eden wasn’t feeling up to coming out, and I don’t blame her, but we managed to convince her she needed to let loose, to forget shit for the night and have fun. Last night, she and Angel got into a rip roaring fight. Sucks that both Hilary and I were there to witness it.

  We were all sitting together in Eden’s back yard, watching the kids play together. The guys were all there too, since Jessica, Ethan, and Glenna invited them all over. I think it was their way of somehow trying to play match maker, but it completely backfired.

  The guys were all standing off to one side of the yard, the kids played on the playset, and us girls and Elizabeth were on the other side. We were all divided. I looked over and saw Vinny watching me, his eyes pleading, almost battling with coming over or not.

  Mason glared at Hilary, and she was making a big deal of ignoring him.

  Jasper was just grinning, staring at his twins, while Eden watched him with tears in her eyes. I could tell she had finally had enough because she got up and went over to him, placing her hand on his arm.

  “Please,” I heard her say.

  I watched Jasper stiffen and move her arm off his. “I’m not doing this with you, not now, maybe not ever,” he growled.

  “Jasper, just talk to me, please. I can’t fix this if you won’t talk to me,” she begged him.

  I bit my lip, worried.

  He shook his head. “There is nothing to fix. There is no way to ever fix this. You got a time machine? Because, Eden, that would be the only way for you to fucking fix this.”

  “I did try to tell you, asshole!” Eden screamed. “I came back, and you were with Monica. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t hear it. You just kept taunting me.”

  Jasper winced. I knew Vinny had told him about that night, but he was trying to play it off as if he didn’t know or something. “It doesn’t matter. You should have made me listen, made me talk, something. But you ran away all over again, like a goddamn coward,” he said, his voice getting louder.

  Hilary and I both decided enough was enough, and by the looks of it, so did the guys.

  “Come on, this isn’t the place for this,” Mason told him quietly. “You got kids over there that don’t need you two to be fighting.”

  “You’re right,” Eden said quietly, her voice hoarse from screaming with Jasper. She took one last look at Jasper as
tears fell down her face. “You’ll never seem to understand how sorry I am that I kept them from you. At the time, I thought it was best. I love you, Jasper. I always have,” she said quietly and walked away.

  I looked to him, and he looked like he was battling his feelings too. For a minute, I thought he wanted to rush after her, but instead, he opened his stupid mouth and shouted to Eden’s retreating back. “You don’t love me, Eden. You probably never did, because you don’t know what love actually is.”

  “Asshole!” Hilary barked at him.

  My heart aches for her. No matter what she tries to do or say, he won’t forgive her for keeping the twins from him.

  I guess, in a way, it’s how I feel toward Vinny for keeping the Kayla thing a secret. I see a therapist once a week still, and I’ve come to understand that Vinny never did cheat on me. Since I found out about Kayla, though, it just hurt so damn much, and I kept flinging it out about him being a cheater. To me, it didn’t matter that we were broken up when he would go to her, but now I understand it. If it wasn’t for him having a child with Kayla, I could honestly say that we’d be together right now.

  We get to the bar, and it’s already going wrong. The guys are there—Vinny, Reaper, and Angel. All of them are brooding over drinks. Everyone looks too scared to even go near them.

  Hilary, though, doesn’t give a shit. “That asshole has another thing coming, if he thinks I’m fazed by his shit,” she says, storming to the bar, right beside the guys, and orders drinks while flirting with the bartender. She flips her long dark hair over her shoulder, looking real hot in her tight red dress.

  Reaper, I notice, stiffens when he realizes she’s right there. I swear, he still has it bad for her. He is practically eye fucking her as his eyes rake over her body in that dress.

  “Shit, I knew we shouldn’t have come out tonight,” Eden says from beside me. She looks cute on the outside, even if she doesn’t feel it on the inside. She’s wearing a tight black shirt that shows off her curves, paired with tight jeans and black peep toe heels.