by K. B. Webb
I told her about the ins and outs of my day, and then she told me about Lyric’s discovery of her feet and how they spent an hour laughing at her toes together. I loved hearing her talk about Lyric. She was a damn good mom, and it made her even more attractive to me that she spent so much quality time with my little buddy. Molly stood and said she would be back later to check on us. I pulled her into a side hug like I did often, but this time she winced a little when my hand wrapped around her rib cage.
“You okay, Cookie?”
“Um, yeah, I just bumped my side earlier. I guess it’s still a little sore. I’m fine though. I’ll be back a little later.”
“You sure that’s it, Cookie? You know you call tell me anything right?”
“I know, Logan. I’m fine. I promise.”
I nodded and let her go towards the door to the kitchen. I didn’t believe a damn word she said, but I didn’t have enough evidence to argue with her anymore.
“So you don’t believe her either, huh?” Justin was peeling the label off his beer and looked downright pissed off.
“I don’t know, man. I want to believe her so badly because I don’t want to think about what the alternative is. But I can promise you this, if that fucker has laid a hand on her, I will break every bone in his fucking face.”
“I feel you, man. I can’t believe I was ever friends with that guy. I always knew he was a hot head and a bit of a dick, but seeing the way he treats Molly, I just can’t deal with that. I don’t know why she stays with him. He fucks around on her and treats her like shit.” I asked myself that same question all the time. Wynee had told me that Molly felt like she needed to stay for Lyric, but Brian didn’t give a shit about Lyric. For some reason, Molly felt like she deserved the pain that Brian brought on her. I was determined to make her feel differently.
“Tiffany! Fucking stop, right now!” Tiffany was almost full out running out of the kitchen with Molly right behind her and Wynee chasing after Molly looking confused.
Ah hell. I didn’t know what was going on here, but it was obvious whatever it was, wasn’t going to end well.
I knew Logan wasn’t buying my rib story, but I wasn’t about to tell him the truth. With the exception of the previous night, things with Brian had been going well, and by going well, I meant he had left me alone.
“Jesus, Molly! How much fucking perfume does one person need? You fucking reek!” Tiffany had been extra bitchy the last few weeks and constantly found something to complain about. She was always griping about my perfume, or Wynee’s shampoo, or the smell of fried food.
“Fuck off, Tiffany. I don’t have any more on than I normally do. You’re the one who usually smells like scent de-la-whore.” I chomped on some extra French fries Geo had made me earlier. The moment I opened a ketchup packet and placed some on a fry Tiffany started running towards our employee bathroom. She must not have even closed the door because I could hear her throwing her guts up.
Then it fucking hit me. Like a thousand pound sack of bricks, or in my case, a thousand pound sack of worthless whores. Tiffany had a heightened sense of smell, was bitchier than she had ever been; she had decided to quit smoking, and ketchup made her puke. MOTHER FUCKER! As I was walking toward the bathroom door, she came walking out.
“How far along are you, Tiffany?” Her eyes bugged out of her head as she started walking away quickly towards the dining room. “Tiffany! Tiffany! Don’t fucking run from me, you dirty little bitch!” Wynee tried to stop me chasing Tiffany out the kitchen door, but I was fucking fuming.
The doors to the dining room swung shut behind Tiffany and I swung them open now almost full speed running after her.
“Tiffany! Fucking stop, right now!” I realized that everyone was staring at us, but I didn’t give a damn.
“Answer me! How far along are you?”
“Molly, Molly, please don’t do this here. Please!” Tiffany was pleading with me. Pleading with me! Really!
“Fuck you, Tiffany! Answer my Goddamn question. How. Far. Along. Are. You?” My teeth were clenched and my hands were balled into fists.
“Um, um, seven weeks.” She placed her hand on her stomach and looked down at the ground.
“Un-fucking-believable! It’s Brian’s, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Now she was full-blown crying. For half a second, I felt bad for her, but then my sadness quickly turned back into anger.
“Yeah, yeah it is Molly. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’ve already got my karma though, because last night when I told him, he told me he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore or the baby. So there’s nothing you can do now that will make me feel worse.”
“Oh, I can think of plenty that will make you feel worse. I swear, Tiffany, if you weren’t pregnant, I would whoop your slut ass right now!”
“Does someone want to explain to the rest of us what the fuck is going on here?” Wynee looked like she was about to break Tiffany in two, Justin looked confused, Dani was awkwardly looking around trying not to make eye contact with anyone, and Logan looked absolutely furious. His face was bright red, his nostrils were flared, and his lips were in a flat line. He looked more pissed than I did.
“I’ll explain it for everyone unless you want to, Tiffany?” She shook her head and looked at the ground still crying. “Tiffany here is seven weeks pregnant with Brian’s fucking baby! My boyfriend got the town-fucking whore pregnant! Good job, Tiffany! You have lived up to all the rumors we’ve ever heard about you!” As if shit could not get any worse, Brian chose that exact moment to walk in the door.
“Speak of the fucking devil!” Brian took one glance around the bar, spending extra time looking between Tiffany and me. The look on his face proved he had easily put together what was going on.
“Molly, we need to talk, and not here around all these people. Let’s just go home and work this out.” This guy has got to be shitting me right now. We need to talk? Fuck him, I was done talking!
“Fuck you, Brian! Fuck you! I will not be talking to you ever, EVER again. We are over! Do you hear me, OVER! How could you get another girl pregnant when you don’t even take care of the kid you have at home? How stupid can one person be?”
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that, you dumb bitch!”
Before I could even begin to respond, Logan had stepped in between us. “You need to watch your mouth, bro. You’re the one who fucked up in this situation, not her.”
“Really, bro!” The way he said bro was sarcastic and kind of frightening. “This is exactly what you want! You’ve been trying to steal her away from me for months! You will never have her! I’ve told you before, you son of a bitch, she’s mine!” I pushed in between the two of them before things got any worse.
“Hey, Geo?” Geo was standing in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen looking like he was trying to take in the scene unfolding in front of him.
“Yeah, Molls?”
“Is it okay if I take off for the night? I need to go get some shit out of my house! And I think Tiffany can take care of my tables. She seems to be able to take care of everything else that’s mine!”
“Ugh, yeah, Molls. You can head out. Take Wynee with you. I can’t have y’all doing this shit in here. So get this shit taken care of tonight! Tiffany, go clean up and check on all the tables. Dani, I’m gonna need your help too.” Dani nodded in agreement, still avoiding eye contact with everything except the non-existent spot she was repeatedly cleaning on the bar.
“You need to come get your shit now, Brian. It’s fucking over, for good.” I stormed off through the back before he could respond. I could not believe this shit! Did he treat me like shit? Yes. Was he an abusive motherfucker? Yes. Did he cheat on me? Yes. But getting another girl pregnant while he was living with me and Lyric, I couldn’t handle that. I could deal with many things, but I could not deal with this monumental fuckup, not anymore.
I jumped in my car starting the engine, when I heard the passenger door opened and Logan jumped in. Shit. I had bla
cked out for a minute and forgot that I was his ride for the night. I couldn’t deal with whatever he was going to say to me. This bullshit with Brian and Tiffany was already too much. “Look, Logan, I don’t know what you want to say, but please keep it to yourself. I just can’t handle anything else right now. I know I’m a fucking idiot. I know I deserve this, but please, PLEASE Logan, I am begging you, just let it go for a little while.”
The tears that had started to run down my cheeks were from anger, not hurt feelings. You had to actually care about someone to get your feelings hurt, and I didn’t give a shit about Brian. I was just so damn mad. Mad at Brian, mad at Tiffany, and mainly, mad at myself.
“Cookie, I won’t say another word after this, but you have to listen to me when I say this.” He reached over, put his hand on my thigh, and squeezed lightly before running his thumb back and forth. “You are not a fucking idiot; Brian is, and you in no way deserve this. You deserve so much better than this. I want so badly to tell you all the wonderful things you deserve, but right now, we are going to go to your house and get Brian’s shit out. I’m not letting you be around him by yourself. Wynee and Justin are already on the way. Let’s just get through this, Cookie, and we can go from there. Okay?”
I didn’t have any words left to say, so I just nodded, and put my car in reverse heading towards Sterlington. This was not going to go well at all, but as long as Logan kept calling me Cookie and having that blind faith in me like he always did, I could make it through this.
I had been through many things in my life that hurt me, physically and emotionally. Watching my mom and Lucas get hit by my dad, getting hit by him myself, losing Lizzy, all these things hurt in their own way. But I had never in my life felt pain like I did at that moment. Watching Molly drive down the road with silent tears running down her red cheeks, was the most painful thing I had ever been through. My heart hurt for her. She deserved better, better than that sorry motherfucker. My body also physically ached for her. My stomach was in knots and my right hand was throbbing because I was clenching my fist so hard. I wanted to kill Brian James at that moment. Beat his ass for every bit of pain he had ever put Molly through, but I knew I had to be strong for her. I had to keep my shit together while she was falling; she had to know that I would be her calm in this storm, her stable place in all this chaos, her safe place. If her life was the story of the three little pigs, I would be that brick-fucking house that kept her safe from that stupid, dickhead wolf. Except, right at that moment, every brick in the damn house wanted to break every bone in that piece of shit wolf’s body.
As we pulled into her driveway, I saw Wynee and Justin walking across Wynee’s mom’s yard over to us. Molly turned off the engine and just sat in her seat unmoving. She stared ahead with a blank, empty look in her eyes. God, I was going to beat Brian’s ass once and for all for this. I hated seeing Molly hurt like this. I squeezed Molly’s thigh and she looked at me with those sad, emerald green eyes. “Cookie, we have to get out of the car now. This will all be over soon, I promise.” Just like earlier, she didn’t voice a response, just nodded and opened her door. Wynee ran up to her and grabbed her hand while Justin and I hung a few steps back.
“I’m going to fucking kill him, Justin. How could he do that shit to her? Look at her, Justin; she’s fucking broken because of that asshat.”
“I know, man, I know. I’m in total shock right now. Molly gave him everything, not just figuratively, but literally too. She paid all his bills, gave him a bed to sleep in, hell, she even gave him money when she knew all he was using it on were booze and pills. And he repays her by getting that two-bit slut pregnant?” Calm, collective Justin was gone. Raging, fucking furious Justin had shown up, and he was not going to let this go easily.
We walked into Molly’s house and straight to Brian’s room. Wynee was sitting on the bed and Molly had trash bags in her hands.
“All he really has here are his clothes and shoes, and stuff like that. Just start throwing shit in trash bags. He will be here any minute and I want it all to be packed up.” Molly was panicking. I didn’t really know what she was scared of, Brian or what would happen between Brian, Justin, and I when he got here, but she looked downright terrified. She started throwing things in bags as did Wynee. I heard the front door slam, and from the look on Molly’s face, I knew she was scared of Brian. Looking at her eyes, which doubled in size and instantly started spilling tears, I knew in that moment, he did hit her. She was scared of what he was going to do to her once he figured out she was serious.
“MOLLY!” His voice boomed through the house. Molly dropped the bag she was holding and ran to the living room with Wynee running right behind her. Justin and I were a step behind Wynee. None of us were going to allow Molly to deal with this dickhead alone.
“What the fuck are they all doing here, huh? You think they can make me leave? Well, you’re fucking wrong, Molly! This is my house! You’re my girl! You better get over this whole fucking Tiffany thing real quick because this dramatic bullshit you’re pulling ain’t going to fly. You got me?” I had never seen Brian so pissed in all the years I had known him. I took a step towards him ready to lay into him, but Wynee pushed me back and shook her head. She tilted her chin toward Molly obviously telling me that Molly needed to handle this herself.
“Oh, I fucking got you, Brian! I got you the clothes on your lying, cheating back. I got the gas inside that piece-of-shit car you drive. I got that fucking phone in your pocket that is full of different sluts’ numbers. So yeah, I fucking got you! But that shit is over, Brian! Get out, now!” I was so proud of Molly in that moment. She was standing up to Brian and I knew it was hard for her. I could tell she was scared and this was honestly not something she wanted to have to do, but fear or not, she was standing up for herself.
Brian took one huge step towards her and laughed in her face. Fucker. “Well, well, well, look who grew some fucking balls! You picked a bad time to try to fake bravery, Molly. You’re only doing this because they’re here!” He pointed towards us. Wynee was standing in front of Justin and me with a hand on each of our chests. “You think they give a fuck about you? You think they’ll still be your friends after this? You think Logan really wants anything to do with you? Well, he doesn’t, Molly! Who would want to be with a fat, dumb cunt like you? I fucking own you! What don’t you get about that? The only reason all of this shit is happening is because you’re so Goddamned dramatic!”
“Dramatic! I’m fucking dramatic! What’s dramatic is the temper tantrum you threw last night. Now I know you acted like that because Tiffany had just told you she was pregnant. And they may not still be friends with me after this, but they damn sure won’t be friends with you!”
“And why is that, huh?”
“Because no one wants to be friends with a guy who cracks his girlfriend’s ribs because he got his side piece pregnant!” In one quick motion, Molly pulled her shirt over her head and was standing in front of us with just her bra. Both of her sides and parts of her back were covered in dark black and blue bruises. I couldn’t even think about the fact that I was seeing Molly without a shirt on for the first time because I was instantly full of rage. Wynee gasped and let out a small cry and Justin whispered ‘motherfucker’ through clenched teeth.
I didn’t speak. I lunged.
In one fluid motion, I had Brian on the ground and I was straddling his body. Before I could even process what I was doing, I started throwing punches to his face. I knew I was talking but I didn’t really understand what I was saying; the only thing I was sure up was that I kept saying ‘my Cookie’ over and over.
“Logan!” Molly’s voice somehow burst through the sound of blood rushing in my ears. I looked down and saw that Brian’s face was covered in blood and so were my hands. Justin pulled me up and backed me away from him. After a few second of lying flat on his back, Brian moved to a sitting position and scooted over so his back was against the couch.
“You really just punched me in the fuckin
g face over a piece of ass, Logan? I can tell you now that shit ain’t good enough to fight someone who is supposed to be your fucking brother!”
“Watch your fucking mouth, Brian, or I will let him go so he can finish what he started.” Justin was surprising me left and right tonight. He had gone from the laid back, friendly guy I had always known, to some fierce protector in an instant. I looked over and Molly was standing a few feet from Brian with her arms wrapped protectively around her waist. Wynee had one arm over Molly’s shoulders and the other covering her mouth trying to lessen the sounds of her sobs. It was easy to see that Wynee felt partially responsible for this. I already knew she felt guilty because Molly met Brian through her, but after seeing what Brian had done, it would take a lot to convince Wynee that she was not at fault for what had happened to Molly. The only person who was at fault here was Brian.
“Fuck you, Justin! You’re fucking pussy whipped.” He spat blood on the carpet and looked me dead in the eyes then let out a quiet chuckle. “You want to know something, Logan, a fun fact about your girl, Cookie? She was a fucking whore when I met her. After what happened to her precious Colt, she slept around for years till she met me. All those one night stands, and that stupid fucking kid she had, left her used the fuck up!” Brian was going to say more, I was sure of it, but he didn’t get the chance. Molly kicked him directly in the face and he went flying back to the floor.
“That’s for calling my daughter stupid, you motherfucker!” She then planted the heel of her boot directly in his rib cage, “That’s for saying Colt’s name out of your dirty fucking mouth!” And then she went in for the kill, she kicked Brian as hard as her body would allow, with the tip of her squared cowboy boot straight in the dick, “And that is for all those times you beat my ass the past year and I didn’t fight back! Well guess what? I’m fighting back now!” She kneeled down so she was directly in his face. The sad eyes she had earlier had changed into eyes full of hate and anger. Molly was done playing victim to Brian’s bullshit. I could clearly see that something in her had snapped.
