Shifting Gears

by Jenny Hayut

  “Loved that shit, babe, and I was good at it, fucking owned the road and rolled a lot of money from it. Every single fucking penny I took home to Mom. For a while, it seemed like shit was getting better. I didn’t know if Mom was still doing drugs or not, but she seemed happier, so I figured she was better. I was wrong.”

  Just as fast as the excitement came across his face, it’s gone.

  “When Dad came, he had to know the shit I didn’t know, the shit I didn’t see because I was a kid. He never did a fucking thing to help her though. Not one fucking thing. By the time I was sixteen, I was living on the streets. I couldn’t take being at home anymore. As I got older, I knew what I was seeing. Mom had turned into a fucking addict.

  “All the money I gave her went right to her fucking dealer, and when she didn’t have money, she’d let him fuck her. I walked in on that shit one night, and that was the last night I stayed there. I stopped giving her money and started paying her bills myself. I was making enough money on my own, working the docks and winning on the nights I dragged, so I made sure she wouldn’t be living on the fucking street.”

  For the first time since he started talking, he looks down at my hand on his thigh and slowly rests his hand on top of mine. He weaves his fingers between mine, and the simple, intimate act stirs me. I’m a clusterfuck of emotions, from this building desire to agony over the image of his mother.

  “I went to Mom’s every day, and I walked in that door every single fucking time, wondering if I would find her dead with a fucking needle in her arm. I lived like that for two fucking years, until her thirty-sixth birthday. I’d brought her a birthday cake. I didn’t see her at first, but when I put the cake on the table, I looked down. I can remember not even rushing over to her because I knew. I fucking knew. I just stood there.

  “She was half-hidden by the closet door, slumped against the wall in the corner, needle still in her arm. She looked as if she’d been dead for a while, already cold to the touch, her eyes looking back at me.

  “I sat there for hours, just staring at her, at what she’d become. I could still see her, though, behind all the filth, all the needle marks. The only person who truly loved me, took care of me. Who did the best she could. Fucked up way to die, feeling like you’d been thrown away. Lonely. Broken.

  “Me and Uncle Lou buried her. The only other people at the funeral were some of the other tenants from the apartment building. My dad didn’t even fucking show up. I called him. Left a message. He never called, never came, and I haven’t spoken to him or tried to call him since. Have no fucking clue if he’s even still alive.

  “After her funeral, I went on a rampage. I was determined to find Mom’s dealer. Uncle Lou warned me to stay the fuck out of it. I didn’t listen. I didn’t care. I wanted revenge. I wanted to bring my mom back. I found his ass, Nicolette, and I shut him the fuck down.”

  Somehow I know exactly what he did. The thought pounds at my heart.

  “After that shit went down, it caught me some attention on the street. I was approached by Sid, who offered me a job hunting for him. And the rest is history. I didn’t ask questions, I just took the job, found my mark, got him and delivered him.

  “After a few jobs with Sid, I started getting calls from other businessmen and, before I knew it, I had a profession, and I was fucking good at it. Those first few years, I didn’t pay attention to who I was picking up. I didn’t care. I just did my fucking job and collected my money.”

  There’s pride in his voice and a glimmer in his eye. I can only imagine he’s remembering what it felt like to be in control for the first time in his life.

  “After a while, though, I think the ice around me began to melt, and I started actually talking to some of the fuckers I was picking up. A lot of them, yeah, were pieces of shit and deserved whatever they had coming to them. But some of them, some of them, Nicolette, were just people getting caught up in shit out their control, just like Mom.

  “She was all I had, and she just wanted to be loved. I left her there to die, and it fucking haunts me still. Dad left her, and I left her. The only thing I could give her in death was to send the fucker who’d killed her to hell, not giving him a chance to ruin anyone else’s mother, or father, or kid.”

  Oddly enough, and to my utter shock, I’m not bothered by his confession. Not one fucking bit. That dealer took Holt’s mother away from him, forcing him to grow up fast and on his own, pretty much.

  Holt pours himself another shot, apparently done revealing his childhood to me. I hold out my glass, asking for another as well. We sit there in silence, for what seems like hours. I don’t know what to say. I’m still taking it all in. His fucked-up childhood, the fact that he’d just shared it with me, that it seems he trusts me for the first time.

  Everything I wanted from him before...

  I can’t keep all my emotions in. The tears start flowing. Jesus, this man. What he had to grow up with, what he had to see. Only wanting his dad to love him, be proud of him. It’s too much.

  I turn to look at him and grab his hand. “Holt, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It’s not fair, what was taken away from you.”

  He brings his hand up, wipes the tear from my cheek, and shakes his head slowly. “Babe, you don’t need to cry for me. It was a long fucking time ago. I don’t even know why I told you all that sad shit.”

  “But I’m...I’m glad you told me. I’ve always...” I don’t want to tell him, to open up that much.

  He brushes the hair away from my wet face and looks at me in confusion. “Always what, babe?”

  Shit.

  I take a deep breath. Here I fucking go.

  “You were always so distant...back then. I didn’t know anything about you, which made it that much harder when you left. I didn’t have anything to hold on to. Nothing.”

  “Babe.” He lifts his hand back to my face, brushing away more tears with his thumb. “I never tell anybody that shit. No reason to relive the past. Thinking about it now doesn’t do a damn thing for me. It won’t bring my mom back, and it sure as hell won’t wake my dad the fuck up to see how he failed us.”

  “But you telling me, it’s like you opened the door a little, letting me in. Almost like you’re giving me a part of you. Which is what I always wanted.”

  “Babe, when are you going to realize you’ve already got all of me?”

  Caught up in his words and my longing, I forget. I forget my shields. I forget everything. There’s only him sitting beside me.

  “Holt,” I barely whisper. Sensing my need, he cups my chin and kisses me tenderly on my lips. The tears are flowing a little more now.

  My thoughts are still with him as a child, with what he endured. Even though it was terrible, it turned him into the man he is today. Strong, determined, and compassionate. And for the first time I understand why he’s so controlling. He needs it. He didn’t have it all through his childhood. He couldn’t control his father, couldn’t keep him from leaving. Couldn’t control the drugs that took hold of his mother. He couldn’t save her.

  He pulls away from me, looking at my now dropped face. “Babe, you still crying?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

  “It’s okay, baby. I know it was some sad shit, I know, but it’s over. I’m good now.”

  I lift my gaze to him and see that he’s right. He is good. There’s no pain in his eyes. Instead, there’s urgency. He’s feeling it again, just as I am. Sharing this part of his life with me, it changes things.

  I understand who he is more. I want to hold him, comfort him, make him forget. I want to tell him more, give him more of me, but I can’t. Can I really trust him not to leave again?

  He did it before, so he could just as easily do it again. What hurts now is that he knows how it hurt his mother to be left behind by his dad, to be alone. Knowing that, seeing her struggle, and eventually lose that struggle, how could he repeat history like that in his own life?

  I still don’t understand if h
is feelings for me were as strong as mine. He never told me, never gave me a sign. Can I ask him now? Should I? I don’t speak. He doesn’t speak. We just sit there, looking at each other.

  The screen door creaks open, and Aunt Helen is standing there, shouting for Kilo. He lags up the steps, looking like he’s been in a battle with a slew of lightning bugs, but the bugs won. He’s walking like he’s completely worn out as he makes it slowly across the porch to Aunt Helen, who shoos him inside.

  “You two stay out here as long as you want, but this old lady is going to bed.” She looks at me. “So glad to have you here, baby. Love you.” Then she turns to Holt and winks at him, giving him a big smile. “Thank you for bringing her and your wonderful Kilo.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says, grinning back at her.

  They exchange another look I don’t understand, and then she’s gone.

  What the hell?

  “Want another?” Holt asks, holding up the near-empty bottle. Fuck it. Why not? Two shots later, we’re still sitting in silence, though he has his arm back around me, and we’re swinging.

  He’s waiting. I can sense it. Finally, I summon the courage to ask the question I’ve wanted to ask for so long. Even though I fear the answer. “So how could you just leave me like that? I understand what was going on, Holt, what you told me about the guy you were after. But was I so unimportant to you that you couldn’t find a way to explain that you had to leave? You made me think it was me. I wasn’t good enough for you. Wasn’t pretty enough or experienced enough for you.”

  Following Cass’s advice, I’m putting it all on the table. Well, almost all. I still can’t bring myself to tell him everything.

  I’m hoping for an explanation, an answer, but it turns out to be something entirely different. Holt stands up and throws the bottle of Jack across the deck, shattering it, and scaring the hell out of me. I sit there, frozen, not knowing what to do.

  He walks away from me, steps off the porch, and disappears around the side of the house. What just happened? Minutes later he returns, a cigarette in his hand. He went to the car to get his cigarettes.

  Damn.

  I tremble as he climbs the steps, but he doesn’t come toward me. Instead, he walks across to the other side to sit in the chair that’s as far from me as he can possibly get. His back is to me, and he doesn’t speak, just smokes as he looks out into the pasture. I don’t know what to do, what to say, so I sit there, hands in my lap, watching, waiting.

  Finally, after what seems like hours, I can’t take the silence anymore. I stand up and walk to the door, but slowly, thinking he might stop me. He doesn’t. He just sits there with his back to me, like I’m not even there.

  I look at his back one final time then I go inside, passing Kilo, who’s laid out on his new pillow bed. He barely lifts his head, clearly too tired to move, so. I bend down to pat his head. “Goodnight, boy.”

  With a heavy heart, I climb the steps to my room, which, thanks to Aunt Helen, looks exactly as it did when I lived here. My massive Victorian-style white sleigh bed is still pushed up against the far wall, along with the matching vanity she’d insisted every teenage girl couldn’t be without. I didn’t use it, unless burying it under my clothes and piles of books counts.

  The pink sheer curtains with the dainty flowers all over them still drape the windows up against the purple-power, as Aunt Helen called it, wall color. I’d secretly hated the way she’d decorated, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and eventually, it grew on me, minus the vanity.

  After changing into my shorts and tank, I walk down the hall to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth and hair then I trudge back to the bedroom and climb into bed, only to lie there, staring at the ceiling. I can’t cry. I want to, but the tears won’t come. My thoughts are downstairs with Holt, sitting in that chair, in the dark. Maybe it’s wrong to compare myself to his mom, but it’s how I feel. He damaged me. He did. He needed to know it.

  Chapter 19

  “Nicolette, baby, wake up.”

  Holt’s voice.

  I open my eyes to see him sitting in the chair across from my bed. Startled for a moment, I cry out, thinking something’s wrong with Aunt Helen. “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything’s okay. I need to get some shit out to you, babe.”

  I push myself upright and drag my quilt over my shoulders as the guttural sound of his voice makes me shiver. “Okay.” I take a deep breath and prepare for words I’m afraid are about to cut me.

  “I was trying to keep you away from the shit that’s my life. If you know that side of me, babe, you might not like it. No, I know you won’t like it.” He shakes his head as he puts both hands on his legs and blows out a frustrated breath.

  “All the bullshit I was caught up in, the scum I dealt with, my fucked-up life, all that shit got wiped away the moment I laid eyes on you. I wasn’t looking for someone like you, babe. Didn’t think you existed. Not for me, anyway. Totally didn’t fucking expect to find you that night sitting there, with your shyness, your beauty pulling me from across the room.”

  I squirm under my quilt. Trying to keep it together. Trying not to jump out of the bed and into his arms. But I feel his intensity. He’s got to get these words out, and I need to hear them.

  “I followed my mark into Coral Springs. Found out after a few days of tracking him that pissing off the guy who hired me wasn’t his only problem. He was a drug dealer. That made me his problem too. He sold to kids, babe. I watched that shit go down every fucking day.

  “The day I knew he couldn’t run and I had him, I went in, but before I got the chance to even get out of my fucking car, the feds pulled up and took him off the grid. Word on the street was he made a fucking deal with them to testify against the fucker supplying him with the shit, and he was going to get a free fucking ride. No fucking way was I going to watch that shit go down. I found out where they were hiding him, and I had to go. I had to leave. You.”

  My breath hitches. It’s killing me to stay where I am when all I want to do is go to him. I desperately want to tell him I’m sorry for implying he treated me no differently than his father treated his mother. It was a mistake. I was wrong. But I don’t. I sit. And listen. And wait.

  “I had to wait until just the right time, after he testified. That was the only thing the fucker was doing decent, putting another drug dealer away. Even though it was to cover his ass. But I wasn’t gonna stop that shit from going down.

  “So I sat and waited. For three fucking years. Three years for the trial to get to court and for him to testify against the fucker. He did, and even though they say you’re protected for life, after you do the shit they need you to do for them, the feds don’t give a fuck about you.

  “I had my chance, then, after the trial, to go in and get his ass. I did, and I took him back to the man who hired me. I didn’t know what he did, why he was running, and I didn’t care. I just knew the fucker wasn’t going to get the chance to fucking sell drugs to kids anymore.

  “Just like I told you before, babe, I thought of you every single fucking day I spent sitting up in that small-ass, roach-infested motel. The look on your face that day, our last day together, it fucking killed me. You had no clue what I was about to do.”

  I suck in a breath, remembering.

  “As you walked away, you smiled at me, and I knew it was going to be the last time I saw that smile. I knew you were going to fucking hate me. I couldn’t tell you though. I couldn’t risk it, baby.

  “You were all I had going for me. I knew I didn’t deserve it, I didn’t deserve you, but I was greedy. You were my small piece of happy. Leaving you was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, next to burying Mom. But I knew you deserved better than me. I had nothing to offer you. I still don’t. All I’ve got to give you is me, babe. I’m yours. I knew it from the first fucking time I laid eyes on you.”

  My heart is soaring. My eyes well with tears—for the first t
ime in three years, not tears of sadness but joy. He did feel the same about me back then. All those years thinking I’d made him leave. Those months crying until I couldn’t cry anymore. Never, never, did it cross my mind that he’d felt the same pain and heartache.

  “It fucking kills me that you could think I left you for any other reason than because I had to, Nicolette. How the fuck can you not see how fucking beautiful you are? I don’t understand that shit. Don’t you see the way men look at you?”

  There it was again, the same thing Clay had said to me.

  “You are my perfection, baby. Every single fucking thing about you is perfection. You became my little piece of perfect. My own personal heaven. Like a fucking angel sent down to me. And to give me what you gave me, I didn’t deserve that shit. But I took it. I wanted it.”

  My mouth drops open, and all the blood rushes to my head. Every part of my body is being pricked by tiny fingernails as it goes into shock. I never told him he took my virginity. Jesus.

  “You knew? How did you know? I never told you. I never told you, Holt. How could you possibly have known that? I mean, I didn’t, um, I didn’t bleed or anything.”

  “Babe, I knew.”

  My cheeks burn with embarrassment. Of course he knew. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

  “At first, I wanted to stop, not be the one to give you that, but, baby, I couldn’t. I wanted you. All of you. So I took what I knew wasn’t meant to be mine. I didn’t care. I didn’t know how much longer you would want me. You’ll always be my woman. I just don’t deserve you, babe.

  “You know I’ve killed a man. What you don’t know is that there have been more. No regrets there. Did what I had to do.” His eyes are intent on mine as if he’s searching. I imagine he’s looking for a sign of fear. “I do have regrets though, baby...two of them. One is leaving my mom, letting her die in that fucking hole, and the other is letting you walk away from me that morning.