“I went to see Ryan,” the name comes out of my mouth like something that I’m trying to spit out. It’s strange, I feel like I’m betraying Jake all over again, just by saying Ryan’s name.
My mother nods, all business, still concentrating hard on wiping the grime off of my face. “Sally told me you mentioned doing something for Jake.”
The thought of what I’d been prepared to do makes me feel sick and the bile starts to rise in my throat and tears prick behind my eyes. I recognize the signs - my breathing gets shallow, like I can’t get enough air in my lungs. It’s the start of a panic attack, but this isn’t the time for it, I can’t cope with this now. I push it away, bottling it up for a time when I have the luxury of coming apart at the seams.
“What happened, Aimee? You don’t have to deal with this on your own, not anymore.” My mother’s face is close to mine and there’s something so reassuring in her words that they make me want to put my head on her lap and curl up beside her like I did when I was a little girl.
So I tell her. Just like that the words come tumbling out, falling over themselves in their eagerness to be out and not something that I’m holding onto by myself. I tell her about the offer that Ryan made me and the fact that I kept it a secret from Jake because I was worried that he would do something stupid if he found out what Ryan had asked of me. I tell her about going to ‘Wheels’ and how scared and alone I had felt. I tell her about Ryan acting like I was his whore that he could do whatever he wanted with, how he couldn’t finish the job and then let his frustration out on me, how he’d lied to me, tricked me to get Jake. There are times when I choke up but I don’t cry and I carry on telling the story, as if having it out there and not inside of me anymore is a way of exorcizing this particular demon.
“I never knew that anyone could actually enjoy hurting someone else so much,” I wince as my mother presses the towel against my cheek. “He gets more pleasure out of it than anything else, I’m sure of that. And he’s good at it,” I admit, knowing how easily he had gotten to me. The way he treated me and the things he did will stay with me for a very long time. I feel like he raped me without actually finishing the act. It’s a sensation that I don’t think I’ll shake, not ever. It feels like he broke me, like there’s a vital piece of me that he took away and broke apart and I don’t know how to replace it. The edges are sharp, they haven’t been smoothed out. I wonder if I’m always going to be like this, missing a part of myself.
“He always was a little piece of crap, even when he was little,” my mother’s voice interrupts my depressing train of thought. “I guess he hasn’t improved with age.” I’m surprised at my mother’s reaction. I suppose I had expected some judgement, anger, disappointment in me, something, anything other than what she had just said.
“You’re...you’re not angry with me?” I try to keep the shock out of my voice but I’m not very successful. “You don’t think I’m a...a slut, a whore?” I hate that the words seem to stick in my throat; I want to get them out.
“Don’t ever call yourself that!” she points at me with a force that belies the semi-catatonic state she’s been in for the better part of a decade. “You’re nothing of the sort, do you hear me?” she asks, hands on her hips. “I asked if you heard me,” she repeats and I remember how she used to rule our house with an iron fist. My dad was the good-time guy while she was the disciplinarian. It’s only now that I wonder how hard it must have been for her to always be the one doing the hard part.
“Yes ma’am,” I look down at the table automatically, suddenly feeling like a small child again. “I heard you.”
She nods, signaling that part of the conversation has been resolved, but if only it were that easy for me. Ryan had a way of saying things about you that made them feel real. Slut. Whore. They were the same words that Suzie had used and they had sounded a bell deep within me, as if they just reaffirmed what I was thinking about myself.
“And angry with you?” my mom continues and she seems genuinely surprised that I would have thought that was a possibility. “I’m scared for you, scared of the danger you could have put yourself in,” she motions towards my bruised face. “But how could I be angry with you for trying to do the right thing?” It’s a question that I suppose doesn’t really require an answer.
She cradles my cheek in her hands like I was eight again and she kissed my scraped knees to make them feel better when I fell of my bike. It’s a moment that I never thought I’d have with her again.
“But now Jake thinks that I...that I...” I can’t even finish the sentence. “And I lied to him, I kept this huge secret from him. He’ll never trust me again.” It’s a statement of fact and I’m surprised at how little emotion there is in my voice. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter,” I say after a few seconds. I lift my head out of my mother’s hands.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” My mother gives me a cautious look as she throws the dirty dishtowel into the even dirtier water. Her voice is raised and it’s the first time that I’ve seen her angry in so long I’d almost forgotten what it looked like.
“It doesn’t matter what happens between Jake and me. All that matters is that we get him back,” I set my mouth in a hard line. The words are out of my mouth before I have time to measure them, but I know that it’s the truth. I ache for Jake, I feel a physical pain at the fact that he’s not here with me. But that’s not what’s important anymore. The only thing that is of any importance anymore is getting him back from the Angels.
My mother pushes away from the table and grabs the bowl up, sloshing dirty water onto the kitchen table as she does. The bowl clatters in the sink as she stands over it, gripping onto the worktop. But it’s not supporting her, she’s using it to keep something contained inside of her. She’s pushing back at whatever it is that’s trying to get out.
“You’re so much like your father,” she says eventually, her voice both fond and accusatory. “He would do anything, anything that he could, if he thought that it would make a difference, if he thought that it would make things better. It’s what made him a great man. It’s also what got him killed.” The last word sounds harsh as it falls in the Summers’ spotless, comforting kitchen.
“I know.” It’s the only response that I can give. She isn’t telling me anything that I haven’t already thought about a hundred times already.
“I can’t lose you too,” she whispers, without looking at me.
I don’t say anything, because I can’t promise that she won’t. I’ve already made too many promises that I’ve had to break. There’s no sense in making any more.
We both jump when we hear Sally step on the squeaky last floorboard of the stairs. The sound breaks the tension between us, but Sally is intuitive enough to know that something has happened.
“Everything alright here?” she looks uneasily between her best friend and me, trying to ascertain where the discomfort has come from.
“Fine,” my mother says brightly. “Except I think I may have ruined one of your good dishtowels,” she holds up the specimen she’s referring to. It had been white, now it was a disturbing shade of reddy-brown.
Sally lets out a laugh, it sounds forced but we both smile back at her like we haven’t noticed. It’s the first bit of normality in this crazy night. “I think I’ll forgive you,” she smiles at my mother with a warmth that for some reason makes me think of Suzie. This was how I had always thought the two of us would be, growing up together, having kids together, being friends forever. But that was just one other thing that hadn’t worked out like I had planned. It had gotten to the point where it seemed like making plans was something reserved for the lucky people, not us, not the ones left behind.
“I’ve left out something for you to sleep in,” Sally’s voice breaks through my grey sky thoughts. “It’s going to be getting light soon and we should all try to get some shut-eye before we fall down. I’ve put you in Jake’s old room.” Her smile is kind but she clearly sees the look on my face and
changes tack. “Or we could put you in Jonah’s room, but we only have a cot on the floor.”
“Jonah’s room will be fine, thanks Sal,” I say quietly as I get up and slowly make my way out of the kitchen.
I know the Summers’ house like the back of my hand and I reach the family bathroom without turning on any lights, not wanting to wake Jonah. I take a look at myself in the mirror. I look as bad as I feel. How is it possible to have dark circles under your eyes after only one day? My cheek is swollen but not quite as much as I had feared. I avoid my own gaze in the mirror, afraid of what I might find there. I wash my face with more force than is necessary as if that will wash away everything that’s happened. The ache in my face is mildly comforting, because it’s a feeling of something, something outside of the ache in my chest.
I slip on the old pajamas that look like they might once have belonged to Jake. I push the thought away. I need to keep it together, just for a little bit longer. I open Jonah’s bedroom door, just before the point when I know that it’ll creak and I pull out the cot as quietly as I can, lying on top of it and feeling my entire body welcome the fact that I’m finally horizontal. It’s funny how your body can be so dog tired but your brain just carries on whirring round and round.
I feel the tears start to come and, not wanting to wake Jonah, I bury my face in my pillow, smothering the sound of my sobs. I wish that I could go back and re-do it all, stop it all from going so horribly, horribly wrong. I’ve told myself that this is the last cry that I get, the last tears that are going to fall before this is done, before Jake is back. My tears are no good to him and they’re no good to me either. They make me feel weak and that’s the last thing I need to be.
I look out of Jonah’s window, the curtains only partly drawn against the light of the moon. I comfort myself that Jake is looking at the same moon as I am, that even though he’s far away from me, that we’re connected somehow.
“I’m sorry Jake,” I whisper towards the slowly-lightening sky, as if he might be able to hear me. “I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER THREE
It’s not something that a simple apology can fix. It’s so far past that. My mind keeps going back to the night that Ryan came by the body shop to talk to Aimee. Was that what it had all been about? Is that why she’d been so secretive, avoiding telling me the reason for his little social call?
But I know that Aimee hates Ryan. She hates being within ten feet of the guy. She would never sleep with him. But clearly she had. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought. The Aimee I knew would never have done something like that. She wouldn’t have thrown what we have away, just like that.
I think back to the words my mom had said, that Aimee had been to see her and told her she was worried that she was going to do something crazy, something crazy for me. Was I the reason she’d given herself to that scumbag? The idea makes me hate myself as much as I wish I could hate her. I wish that I could hate her, but I can’t. It’s like my heart won’t let me. If I could, that would make everything so much more straightforward.
Why is nothing simple anymore? As soon as I feel like I’ve got a handle on what’s going on, it all changes up on me. I feel like I’m always a step behind, the last one to know. Clearly all the Angels knew what was going on between Aimee and Ryan before I did. And that just makes me feel like even more of a jackass.
I have all this energy pumping around my system, but I don’t know what to do with it. I need to take a walk or go for a run or scream or something—anything other than just being stuck here in this four-walled room.
I keep thinking about Aimee and try to push the thoughts away, but she always resurfaces in my mind. I can’t get rid of her and I start to question if I really want to.
I force myself to think about something else. Anything else. The few short hours ago when the Angels came to the body shop and I agreed to go with them. I think about everything that Suzie had told me, that Aimee had gone to Ryan and that she’d… I can’t even bring myself to think the words.
“They fucked,” Suzie had said, one hand on her hip and her head tilted to the side.
It’s only now, when I think back, that I see how dark the circles were under her eyes and the sadness that hung over her. At the time, I was just concentrating on staying upright while she told me things that I didn’t want to hear. Things that I had never thought I would hear about Aimee.
“She wouldn’t do that.” My head was reeling, but I had been sure about that much. “Now if that’s all you have to tell me, you’ve said your piece, so you can all get the hell out of my shop.” I’d turned my back on Suzie and her little entourage. Of the three bikers she was with, Elvis was the only one whose name I knew. The faces of the others were familiar—Painted Rock was too small a town for me not to have seen them around.
“You know you’re on borrowed time, Slick.” Elvis’s voice grated on me like squeaky chalk on a board. “Your girl doesn’t want you. Your month’s grace is almost up. What’ve you got to hang around for?”
I’d kept my back turned, not wanting Elvis and the other Angels to have the satisfaction of seeing the emotions play across my face. I heard an exchange of low voices, though I couldn’t quite make out what was being said. But, slowly, there was a sound of heavy boots making their way to the door and then crunching on the gravel outside. Still, I kept my focus on the engine of the Chevy in front of me. Cars—cars I can fix. The other stuff I wasn’t so sure about anymore.
I felt a gentle touch on my arm and I recognized the thin hand with its dirty fingernails as Suzie’s. “Jake, talk to me,” she’d said, and her voice was so much like how it used to be.
Automatically I looked down at her, and I saw the girl that had been my friend; the girl that I had grown up with. She and Aimee and me, we’d been the three musketeers—inseparable. Seeing her then, in the state she was in, made me realize how much had changed since we were kids.
“Suze, you know I can’t.” I shook my head, taking a step away from her. “Not after everything that‘s happened. You can’t really expect me to just believe everything you say. What’s that saying… ‘Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?’”
The silence stretched out between us until I realized that Suzie had started to cry. They were quiet, big, fat tears that rolled down her cheeks.
“Come on, Suze,” I’d said, putting an arm around her just like old times. “You always said you were an ugly crier, but jeez you really weren’t kidding,” I’d joked, and she’d smiled through her tears and pushed me away playfully.
“Thanks, Summers. I could always count on you to make me feel better.” She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, leaving a thin trail of grime on her cheek. She took a deep breath, like she was gathering herself together. “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’m still asking you to,” she had said, looking for all the world like she meant every word she was saying.
I didn’t reply, but I know that my silence spoke volumes.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to help,” she said, stroking a stray greasy blonde curl out of her eyes.
“Help? Suze, the last time you tried to help, Aimee’s house got burned down. Maybe our interpretations of the word are different.” Shaking my head, I turned my attention back to the Chevy.
“Jake, I’m trying to get clean.” The words came out of her like they were wrung out by force.
The tone in her voice made my head snap up to take a look at her. “If you’re trying to get clean then why the hell are you still hanging around with the Angels and doing their dirty work for them?” I asked, absently twirling the wrench in my hand. There was something comforting about the weight of it, something that made me feel grounded.
“I’m trying to get out, but it isn’t as easy as you think,” she explained, hugging herself like she needed the shelter. For the first time I see the sheen of sweat on her forehead and the way she shivered against the non-existent cold. “I asked to come here
. They didn’t make me. I thought it would be better you hearing what happened with Aimee from a friend, instead of one of the boys, who are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.” Her lopsided smile made her look like the girl that I used to know.
“Right, because coming in and announcing that Aimee and Ryan ‘fucked—’” I spat the word out, “—is the height of subtlety.” Shaking my head, I gestured towards the door with the wrench. “If you’ve just come here to peddle more of your lies, I’m not buying.”
“Ryan came here a few days ago, didn’t he?” Suzie asked, her voice ringing out in the empty shop. “I bet Aimee didn’t tell you what they talked about. In fact, I know that she didn’t, otherwise none of what I’m saying would be news to you. That’s why he came here—to tell her what he wanted from her. That’s where she is right now, with him.”
I try to keep a tight hold on every muscle in my body, concentrating on something other than the ice that flooded my system at Suzie’s words. “No, she’s not. She’s at work.”
“Really?” Suzie sounded amused. “Why don’t you call the diner?” She nodded towards my phone perched precariously on top of the toolbox.
A Dream of Summer (Bleeding Angels MC Book 3) Page 2
