Hurt Like HELL (new adult contemporary romance)

by Casey, London

  I tried to relax my mind, let it open, and find some inspiration. Nothing was coming to me, so I turned and froze in place. The first thing I did was look up, my eyes honing in on the front door. It was locked. And it would stay locked until a customer showed up. I looked back down and found one of the newspapers on the counter.

  Had I done that?

  No, I hadn’t. I cut the twine and took the twine, but not a paper. The papers cost money. I grabbed the paper and walked it back to the holder. I threw it down on top of the pile and patted it. As I tried to turn, the corner of the front page pulled back a few inches as if there was a breeze in the café.

  There was no breeze in the café.

  I touched the corner and held it in place. Then suddenly, more than ever, I felt watched. I stared down at the newspaper, refusing to look up, or look around.

  My hand slid off the paper.

  The corner moved again, gently rocking in a wind I couldn’t feel.

  I gasped and put my hands to my mouth. I smelled coffee and paper. I blinked and then shut my eyes. When I opened my eyes more pages in the paper were folded. Each page was holding its own in the air. They were stuck together. They were all slowly flapping.

  I touched the paper, trying for the corners and they moved back more.

  A black bold headline started to catch my attention but it meant nothing at first.

  OLD MURDER.

  I forced the paper back down where it belonged, feeling my heart pounding so hard I felt it in my chest, my hands, my feet, my head. I took a deep breath and lifted my hands with a quick yelp, knowing it was going to happen again.

  It did.

  The pages folded right back, this time a little more.

  I saw more of the headline and finally just succumbed. I grabbed the entire paper and threw it to the counter. It slid, the sections breaking away from each other. Before I could take a second to think, the next paper in line started to move.

  I touched the corners this time and pulled them.

  Something - or someone - wanted me to see something. My thoughts on life beyond death didn’t matter and really weren’t existent at that moment. They would be a few seconds later.

  I opened the newspaper and read the headline.

  PROMINENT BUSINESSMAN GRANTED EARLY PAROLE FOR DECADE OLD MURDER.

  Him.

  That was my first thought. Him.

  All I had to do was see the name and it crushed me.

  Theodore Belle… released from prison… good behavior… self defense… murder… sixteen year old boy… released… released… released…

  The word jumped at me again and again. My body started to shake and when I let the newspaper pages fall, I could still read it. Again and again. I took a step back and hit something. I spun and screamed, finding nothing behind me except for an empty version of Thorns.

  Released.

  Released.

  “Released,” I whispered.

  Released.

  The time had come, something I hadn’t expected for another ten years.

  My father - the man who abused me, the man who murdered my Jack - was out, walking free.

  4

  I almost forgot to lock the door to Thorns. That would have been bad, and Jerry would have given me hell. I made an awkward move, somehow spinning, putting the key into the door, locking it, and taking the key all out while I kept moving. I charged to my car and by the time I started the car, tears poured down my cheeks. I considered calling Auntie B but she would only smooth things over. Part of me wanted to feel the pain of this truth. I needed to go for a drive, think about what was happening, and then call Auntie B. The last thing I wanted was Auntie B to try to convince to come back to her house.

  I sped away from work knowing people would show up soon. Oh well, I had good cause to leave. My homicidal father was released from prison.

  Welcome home, Dad.

  It was still very early, the pre morning dawn a shade of rich blue and charcoal slammed together against the horizon. How significant a moment it was. Another day had come. Some days could just end, not even remembered. Other days collided together, creating a whirlwind. Like today.

  At a yellow light I sped up, racing through the intersection just as it turned red. I scouted for police and there were none. A small victory in life, and I’d take it right then. The next intersection I rolled through the stop sign. It felt good. Flirting with the day before me. After that intersection came a stretch of road that connected Layette with all the major highways. The road was a perfect road to test the speed limit on my fifteen year old car.

  The engine roared and then cried. My foot pressed harder to the floor. My breathing started to go wild, my lips quivering, and I started making sounds that were like growls. The hate. The pain. Was he really out of jail? How? Why? I refused to relive that night, I did. I didn’t want to see the struggle, to see the look in his eyes. To see the rage, hate, and regret all boil over, resulting in a loss of life.

  More than one life was lost that night. I may not have been stabbed, but I had been wounded.

  Fuck, I was wounded.

  My wounds, though, were able to heal and able to be torn open at a seconds notice. Like the flash of lightning, the quick buzz of an annoying fly passing by your ear, catching sight of something that may or may not be there.

  My foot was heavy on the pedal. The speedometer had me pushing ninety miles an hour. I wanted to break a hundred, then two hundred. I wanted to find the spot in time where I could stop it and control it.

  My hands were tight on the steering wheel, my eyes focused forward. I could feel my eyes getting wider by the second, the only distraction coming was the dawn glare. The sun’s long fingertips shot at my windshield.

  I didn’t care.

  Next to me my phone vibrated.

  I didn’t care.

  Then it made a sound. The custom old car horn ringtone I set for Auntie B.

  She knew.

  I could feel it. I could picture her sitting at her kitchen table, with a pen and paper next to her, always ready to take notes on her next steamy novel. Reading the newspaper, looking for stories to complain about and inspire her. Then, finally, seeing the bold headline. She’d stand up so fast, her extra large backside would knock the chair over.

  And then she’d call me.

  My phone beeped.

  A voicemail.

  Good, I’d get it in a few minutes. I just needed this drive. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere that mattered. I’d drive for a little while, regret being so far from home, and then come back. I’d have to call Auntie B. Then Jerry. Probably not in that order. Jerry would be easier to deal with. I could confess the situation with Brett and then say something about my father. He’d understand, it was Jerry. Plus, I was part-time, what the hell did I care?

  I cared.

  A lot.

  Not because of the job. Because of what it meant. My father being out of jail was already disrupting my life. My routine was becoming an even bigger mess.

  The phone beeped. I looked quickly and saw it was a text message from Auntie B. She never texted, like ever. She still had an old flip phone and had to press the keys one by one to make the letters into words. I could only imagine the grammar errors waiting for me.

  It rang again.

  After three rings, it stopped. Then started a few seconds later.

  She meant business and she wasn’t going to give up. That’s just how Auntie B was, a woman in power, a woman in charge, and when she became a woman of protecting, there was no stopping her.

  Fine, I’d have to answer the phone.

  My eyes moved back and forth between the phone and the road. The phone had been silent for almost ten seconds now, maybe Auntie B was shaking so bad she couldn’t find the redial button on her tiny flip phone. My poor car cried in aching pain as I continued to bolt down the road. I wasn’t accustomed to running from my problems, just attempting to. Trying to taste that sense of freedom, that’s all I really
wanted. To taste the possibility that I could rewrite the past if I went somewhere far enough away.

  Kind of like what I used to talk about with… with Jack.

  Oh, Jack.

  His name poured into my mind, flooding like burst pipe. One little crack and the pressure built, built, and then finally, it broke.

  My phone rang again. I jumped and reached for it. I lifted the phone and watched it sail in the air. The phone crashed against the dashboard and then to the floor, face up, the screen lit, the phone shaking, screaming at me that Auntie B was calling (again).

  I checked the road and gauged myself. All I had to do was keep my hand straight and I’d be fine.

  Two seconds, that’s all.

  I reached down, reached as far as I could, my fingertips barely touching the phone. My two seconds were up but I stayed down, pulling at the phone. I wasn’t sure how long it took me but it was way too long to not be watching the road.

  When I sat back up, holding the phone in another small victory, I saw the deer standing in the middle of the road.

  My foot switched to brake in a hurry, faster than I ever thought I could react. My arms stiffened, one hand gripping the steering wheel, the other was against the wheel as I held my cell phone. The car had no chance of slowing down in time but I told myself I was going slow enough to swerve around the animal. It just stood there, looking at me, living up to the phrase ‘a deer in headlights look’.

  When you’re driving fast and you slow, it’s very easy for the mind and body to confuse fast and slow. Going ninety is really fast. Slowing down into the fifties may feel slow, but it’s not.

  I cut the wheel left, then right, picturing my old car just slithering around the deer. That didn’t happen at all. As soon as I turned left, I felt everything start to lose control. It felt like the car had been hit, the way it jerked. Granted, it could have been the old car, the worn out tires, and the fact that I was shaking. I hurried and turned right, thinking I could then use the deer to stop. Poor animal. But it managed to stay out of the way of the mess I created.

  The car listened to what I told it to do - left, right - but there was no traction. No grip. No control. All my senses became confused, forgetting all I knew about driving. Panic set in and I probably did the worst things possible while in a potential accident. That potential took a turn to serious when my car made a straight line for the guardrail. My left tires hit right where it started, the angled metal acting as a ramp for my car. By then I had slowed down enough that I didn’t go wildly airborne. Instead, the left side of my car lifted up and I was whipped up and over, then sent rolling down an embankment.

  I saw it all happen and then it just stopped.

  I saw the morning, the bright pink colors in the sky saying their last goodbye. I saw the broken blanket of clouds, allowing the reflection of the sunrise. I saw the newspaper heading, again and again, and I tried to see my cell phone. Around me, the sounds of metal bending, twisting, and crunching became the soundtrack to my life.

  It stopped when I was knocked out, during one of the rolls.

  4

  I heard myself taking deep breaths. Very deep breaths. It hurt to breathe but I could still manage. It was a sore pain, some muscular and a wild sting in my back. My brain functioned, sort of, and I moved my arms and legs. I didn’t see them move, but I swore I felt them move.

  I wasn’t paralyzed.

  I thought about the road… Swamp Road. If I had gone left, across the median, and crossed the other set of lanes, I would have been in water. Submerged and sinking, drowning and dying.

  Because I had gone right, I was down the embankment. Nobody would see me. Nobody would find me either. I didn’t remember the sound of my tires screeching. Was there tire tracks to lead help to me? Would help find me?

  My head rolled side to side. My eyes fluttered but still wouldn’t open. A cutting annoyance hit at the left side of my neck. It was like a dull knife trying to slice me open. I twisted my neck, further clarifying my neck hadn’t been broken in the crash. The annoyance remained and then I heard the soft click of my seatbelt releasing. That’s when the annoying pain went away, telling me it was the side of the seatbelt digging into my neck. Darkness faded back in, fast, and I was gone again. While gone, I didn’t have any out of body experiences. I was just gone. Like time had lapsed within itself.

  When reality came back it was with the gentle feeling of being rocked. I quickly cancelled that idea out when I realized I wasn’t being rocked, I was being carried. I felt the hit of feet, one by one, over and over. My arms were limp, dangling free. I struggled to open my eyes and lost. I took a breath, using my mouth.

  I remained alive.

  I took another breath, normally, using my nose, and a smell attacked me. The smell was so memorable that it invoked my senses and memory. I began to scramble, trying to figure out where I knew that smell from. It was a familiar smell… like old clothing, with a touch of sweat. I knew it… I just couldn’t put my finger on it…

  I moaned and fought to open my eyes.

  “It’s okay, I swear on it.”

  A voice.

  A man’s voice.

  A sexy voice.

  Seriously? A sexy voice?

  That’s what I thought.

  A sexy voice.

  A voice that also sounded familiar but I couldn’t figure it out.

  What I did feel was my body being held tight. My body being saved. This wasn’t just a person carrying me to safety. This was something much bigger and better. The way his fingers dug into me, held me tight, this was someone who wanted to protect me.

  Maybe it was someone who had been protecting me.

  My lips started to move. I felt them sticking together and pulling apart painfully. They were so dry, as was my mouth and throat. I couldn’t speak, so I went back to trying to open my eyes.

  I struggled but didn’t give up this time. I let out a hoarse sounding cry and finally did it. I won.

  I blinked at the fuzzy sight and watched as everything became cleared. As it did, I felt myself lowering to the ground.

  No, no…

  The ground was hard but I was gently placed there. I felt hesitatation in my protector’s grip. They did not want to let me go. As he finally let me go, my right arm found strength. I grabbed at him and felt a shirt.

  A shirt!

  I turned my head against the mild pain that would be a stiff neck for a few days, and opened my eyes wide.

  I had to see.

  I had to see him.

  And I did.

  He looked surprised to see me looking at him. He was crouched down, his fingertips resting on the cool pavement of the side of the road. I stared into his deep blue eyes. His hair was light brown and messy, but it worked for his face. He wasn’t clean cut but he wasn’t homeless looking. His lips were thin and slightly parted, making my body suddenly feel warm, safe, and… good.

  Memories battled within my mind, trying to make sense of it.

  “Tessa…,” he whispered and then stopped.

  He stood up and put his hands into his pockets. He wore a blue hoodie and a pair of blue jeans. Such a basic outfit, but my eyes followed him. When he stood, my grip broke. He stared down at me and from that angle, there was a little youth and innocence that reflected in his face.

  My reaction then, finally realizing something important… ohmygosh…

  “There, look,” the man said, and pointed.

  I forced my head to the left, whimpering in pain. I saw a car stopped, a woman rushing from her vehicle, her cell phone to her ear. She looked afraid and shocked, stumbling up to the scene of an accident. Well, I should say the scene of a woman lying on the side of the road. Nobody would realize it was an accident until they found my car down the embankment.

  I turned my head again, wanting to see my protector, the man who was meant to carry me through life…

  But he was gone.

  I closed my eyes and tears came again.

  It had been
him.

  Ten years later, ten years older, he still saved me.

  It was Jack… the boy I loved, the boy my father murdered.

  Sometimes, the pain is worth it.

  1

  The next time I woke up, it was to the sound of a heart monitor and a game show. At first I thought I was in my neighbor’s apartment, but then realized the heart monitor didn’t fit. My eyes opened and a television stuck out of the wall on a small tray. It was small, and the picture quality was terrible. I didn’t recognize the game show, or its host, other than the fact that he wore massive black framed glasses. Holding a skinny microphone, he questioned the contestant on their card choice.

  That was enough of the game show for me.

  I turned my head and a wicked pain shot through my neck. I winced and whimpered, drawing attention to myself.

  As I saw Auntie B jump up, her head bouncing back from being slumped down, asleep in a nap, I smiled.

  I was alive.

  Seeing Auntie B meant I was alive.

  My lips moved but I had no voice, not at first.

  “Tessa… stop, relax.”

  She was at my side, her hand touching mine. I used my pointer finger to touch all the gold rings on her plump fingers, something I’d been doing since I was a teenager. When we would sit at her dinner table and talk (she’d always finds ways to gently bring up what happened with my father) and slowly through the conversation, she’d reach for my hand. I’d let her take it and then I would play with her rings. It was out of being nervous, but it was something little that just stuck with me forever.

  A lot of the rings were different now, she claimed them to be all collected keepsakes from her boyfriends and the men who had fallen in love with her. Knowing Auntie B, it was probably all true. And all gross. I mean, I loved her and yes, she was a beautiful woman, but she was my aunt, the woman who raised me. Picturing her with a man… doing things… yuck.

  “Just relax,” she whispered.

  My finger ran over a small diamond and I pressed on it, hard.

  “What…”

  “Shhh baby, it’s okay.”

  I knew it was okay, I was alive. From what I could tell and feel, all my limbs were in place and I had feeling in them all.