by Addison Jane
I tried to slip through the open doors, but someone else was faster hooking their finger in the rear belt loop of my jeans and dragging me backward. The first face I saw was Optimus—the club president—with an amused smirk as he took a sip of his beer.
Then Uncle Leo grabbed my shoulders and turned my body to face him. He stepped back and folded his arms across his chest waiting for an explanation.
I screwed up my nose. “I had a bad day, okay?” I started, instantly knowing he wasn’t buying it.
“Am I missing something?” he demanded. “Throwing punches and getting on the back of motorcycles… not just any, but one of my brothers? Anything else you’d like to tell me? Like maybe when this brain transplant happened?”
“Oh, dear,” a very pregnant Hadley murmured as she waddled outside with Macy hooked on her back. She placed my cousin on the ground and patted her on the back. “Go play, baby.”
That kid didn’t need to be told twice. She was gone like a flash with one of the prospects instantly jogging after her. Most of them were good like that—they immediately stepped in when they knew the brothers or their old ladies were busy.
Uncle Leo instantly reached for her and pulled her to his side helping to support her aching body. “Hadley, please tell him this is no big deal. I just want to go before Mom comes in and makes some big scene,” I tried to explain. “I thought you were proud of me? Nick has been making my life hell for almost a year.”
“Of course, I’m fucking proud of you,” he responded. “But your mother… if you can’t keep your shit together, she’s gonna stop you from coming round here. Just when we finally had some kind of understanding.”
My heart sunk. The clubhouse had become like a second home, and Uncle Leo had always been there for me. But recently he’d truly taken up that father figure position in my life, and I didn’t want him to get in trouble because of me. “I’ll tell her you didn’t know.”
Hadley opened her mouth to speak, but Uncle Leo cut her off. “It doesn’t matter because I’m responsible for you when you’re here. I’m responsible for you being around the boys, and I promised her there would be no riding on the back of motorcycles.”
“But we’ve—”
“Yes, we have but only around these streets that I know like the fucking back of my hand, and because I know your Mom can be a little overprotective,” he explained, the sharp tone to his voice cooling a little bit. “It’s not that I don’t trust Ham with your life… he wouldn’t be my brother if I didn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that when it comes to the club and people in it, I’m responsible, and either you or he should have damn well spoken to me first.”
Up until that last part, I was certainly feeling like crap about what I’d done, never meaning to risk being able to see my uncle. But then he went and pushed that button.
I threw my hands in the air rolling my eyes. “You’re acting just like her.” I swallowed the hard lump in my throat which was threatening to form into tears. “Why do I have to check in with everyone first? When do I get to start making choices about my own life?” I asked sharply, drawing a lot more attention than I intended.
“When you’re old enough to understand how your actions reflect on you and the people around you,” Uncle Leo snapped, the anger in his tone making me take a step back.
My mouth fell open. Uncle Leo had never been anything but supportive, encouraging me to come out of my shell and stand my ground. It’s why he’d allowed Hadley to teach me how to shoot, and how he was continually telling me I didn’t have to stand and take Nick’s bullshit when I made him promise he wouldn’t take things into his own hands.
Now he was suddenly concerned with how I was going to make him look?
“I’m sorry that my happiness made you look bad,” I threw back, my words dripping in sarcasm.
“Meyah, we don’t want there to be a reason you can’t come here anymore,” Hadley tried, but I shook my head ignoring the pained look on Uncle Leo’s face.
“I’m eighteen. When do I get to decide what’s right for me and what’s wrong?” I declared, not caring anymore who was watching or listening. I knew I was being a little dramatic, but I just couldn’t find it in me to care. I wanted to make a point. I wanted them to hear me. “Ham asked me to go for a ride with him, and I said yes, and for the first time in a long time, I had fun—”
“Meyah.”
My words were instantly lost. My mom had already lectured me on things to do with Ham. Just having him around at the house yesterday, even after the day I’d had, was enough to twist her panties epically. I gritted my teeth trying to stop the tears that burned as I turned to see my mom standing at the edge of the patio. She’d come around the side of the clubhouse instead of through the front door.
“Get in the car,” she snapped. Her eyes were dark and cloudy like I’d never seen them before like there was a storm swirling inside. Even yesterday morning in the Principal’s office, she was upset, but nothing like this.
No, because I was her angel, her perfect child who’d never stepped wrong.
This was uncharted territory for the both of us.
“Carly, just listen,” Uncle Leo tried, stepping forward.
“No,” she clipped. “Meyah, get in the car.”
With all of the brothers there watching, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I wanted to yell and scream, to tell her everything that I’d remembered today. The horse riding. The way my friends stopped hanging out with me when she stopped letting me go. The way it made me afraid to try new things just in case she tore that away, too. But the words were lost on my tongue, and I knew all they would see was a teenage girl throwing a tantrum and disrespecting her mom.
Instead, I lifted my chin even as tears dripped onto my cheeks and turned to face Uncle Leo. “I’m sorry,” I told him, trying to keep my voice firm. I moved my gaze to Optimus who was behind him watching silently. “I’m sorry if I caused any trouble.”
He nodded. “You know you’re always welcome here, girl.”
I cleared my throat. “Thank you.”
With that, I turned and walked with my head high to the end of the patio where Mom was waiting impatiently refusing to look at her as I swept past.
I’d been in trouble before. I’d made her angry before.
But I just had this feeling in my gut that this was more.
This was going to be the shitstorm from hell, and I was right in the middle of it.
The ride home was in complete silence.
I could barely even hear her breathing.
She had her work van instead of our car, so instead of pulling into the garage, she parked out the front, and we walked up to the front door. As we stepped into the house, I realized Denver must have been staying at a friend’s house. Mom was that angry, she didn’t even want him here to be witness to how she was about to yell and scream at me and tell me what an awful child I was.
I followed her in through the front door cringing as she froze in the entryway, her eyes darting to where the bowl should be, her keys hanging from her finger.
Holy shit, I’m screwed.
The broken bowl—I at least felt bad about it knowing how much it meant to her. I’d managed to clean up the mess yesterday before she spotted it, but I didn’t think about what she’d do when suddenly it disappeared.
“I bumped into it yesterday and knocked it off, I’m—”
“Go to bed,” she interrupted before I could even start to apologize.
“Mom—”
“I said go to bed, Meyah.” She stormed off stepping on a piece of the bowl which I’d missed in my clean up, and letting it crunch underneath her shoes as she disappeared into the kitchen.
Any other time, I would have done as she said. I would have gone to my bedroom and not come out again until tomorrow when the both of us had chilled out. My mom would lay down her punishment, I would nod and not say a word, and things would go back to normal.
That was usually how our relationshi
p worked—not that we argued a hell of a lot, and the times we did were mostly about the club.
But that was before I’d had such a shitty couple of days, and before I decided I was done being pushed around or shoved to the side. I needed her to hear me, and I needed her to respect me. I’d finally gotten that at school, but my mom was still treating me like a little girl as if I was too young to make my own choices about who I spent time with and why.
So stubborn as I fucking was, I followed her into the kitchen stomping hard against the wooden floors. “I’m sorry about the bowl,” I began with, hoping that opening with an apology was the correct technique. I couldn’t tell if she was listening or not as she angrily loaded the dishwasher, cutlery and plates clanging and crashing against each other. “I didn’t mean to break it, it was an accident. I’ll help Denver make you a new one.”
Still, she didn’t respond, this time moving on to cleaning off the kitchen counter.
“Mom! Can you please just listen to me for once,” I pleaded, slamming my palm down on the marble bench top fighting desperately for her attention.
She froze, setting down her cleaning cloth and turning her body to face me.
“I just want to be heard. I want to have my say without people telling me that my opinion and my choices have no value and that I’m too young or too naive to know what I’m doing.” I licked my lips and pushed my shoulders back feeling the intense pressure under her hard gaze. “You know how I feel about Ham, and he’s a good guy—”
“You will not be dating a biker, Meyah,” she threw back sharply. “We had this discussion yesterday, and the answer was no, and it’s still no.”
Turning her back to me, she continued to wipe everywhere even though the surface was already sparkling clean. This is what she does, though, she cleans when she’s upset. It’s the reason her company did so well because she was damn good at what she did. And she used it to hide her emotions.
“I didn’t ask for your permission, Mom,” I argued, moving into the kitchen. “He’s not just a biker. Nobody in the club are just bikers. They’ve been nothing but amazing to you and me. Uncle Leo bends over backward to let you have Macy whenever you want to see her. Hadley helped me pass my exams and fill in my college applications.”
“The club is bad news, Meyah. They have enemies. They are dangerous,” she responded keeping her head down and her eyes focused on the benchtop. “Why won’t you just listen?”
I moved closer reaching out to grab her arm. “Because I know them. I’ve spent time with them, and if you would just—”
“I can’t even look at you right now.” She spun around yanking her arm away from my grasp. “I will not watch you turn into your father.”
Silence.
Did she just…
I could feel myself frowning as her words passed through my brain, and I started to make sense of what she’d just told me. Neither of us knew what to do or say, so we both just stared at each other. My body was frozen in shock. The words she’d said were like a knife straight to my heart, but at the same time, she’d just thrown something out there, something she’d always said she wasn’t really sure of. The storm in her eyes had already begun to lessen instantly replaced with sorrow and regret about the words she hadn’t meant to say.
My mom was my rock, she loved me unconditionally.
But things had just changed.
“Meyah,” she pled and took a step toward me holding out her arms. I backed away, shaking my head as I tried to get my mind around what just went down. Whether I’d actually heard the words she’d just said.
“What the hell does that mean?” I whispered, partially dumbfounded. “My father? Suddenly, I remind you of my father?”
Holy shit.
“Mom!” I yelled when she just stood there staring at me with a horrified look.
She gripped the counter so tightly in her hands I thought she might snap it off. “I wondered for so long whether you’d wake up one day, and I’d see him in your eyes,” she finally replied as tears dripped down onto her cheeks. “But you were so quiet, so sweet, and incredibly smart.”
I felt like my entire body was being fed some kind of electric current. My skin felt like it was alive, and there was this dull buzzing in my head. I couldn’t move like the signals to my brain were stalled. I could imagine this was how kids might feel when they were told they were adopted. Like everything you’d known up until that point could have been a complete and utter lie. Or like you were missing out on something important. A piece of you which was out there somewhere, a piece you didn’t even realize until that point was even missing.
“You said…” I finally managed to murmur, shaking my head, rattling around all those thoughts that were flying at a million miles a minute. “You said… you didn’t know.”
She brushed at the tears on her cheeks swiping them away. “I do know,” she replied, her voice cracking. “Meyah, listen, it wasn’t because I was trying to hurt you. It was to keep you from being hurt.”
That whole sentence was so damn cliché that I choked on a laugh. “My whole life, Mom, it’s all been about trying to control me. Trying to drive me in the direction you wanted me to go. Trying to protect me but never letting me experience anything.” I had to remind myself that this was the woman who raised me, who gave up her life to make sure I had everything I needed. Who always put me first and loved me more than anything on this earth. But right now, all those thoughts were being pushed to the side. “You were so scared of me becoming him that what? You decided to stop me from really living? Who the hell was this guy that you were so scared I would become like him? What are you so afraid of?”
I kept wondering how much I’d missed out on because Mom wouldn’t let me ride horses anymore, or go to certain friends’ houses, or watch some television shows. Or how she’d kept me away from the clubhouse for so long only allowing Uncle Leo to see us at home. How I’d constantly been too scared to stand on my own two feet wrapped in bubble wrap for far too long.
“Do you know what it’s like for a mother to see their children get hurt? To feel like there was a possibility that you could lose your entire world before your eyes?” she threw back. “When I found out I was pregnant with you, it was one of the hardest moments of my life. My parents were dead. I’d been given custody of my little sister and was expected to raise her. You were the only thing that made my days bearable.”
She braced her hands on the counter and hung her head between her arms. I could hear her taking several deep breaths as if she was trying to build the courage to discuss a time in her life she’d obviously spent a long time trying to block out.
“Then Kim died,” she sniffled, her breathing sharper and faster. “I lost my parents. I lost my sister. And you and Denver were all I had left. There was no way in hell I was about to lose the two of you. So yes, I did whatever I had to do to protect you, including keeping you from your damn father and his damn genes that are inside you.” Her voice became stronger the more she managed to convince herself that she’d done the right thing.
“Who is he?” I finally found the courage to demand. I heard what she was saying. I knew she was just doing what she felt was right to keep me safe when she’d already lost her entire family. But it still hurt, it fucking hurt really bad knowing that she’d lied to me this whole time. I wanted to understand, to feel like I knew what she was talking about, and that the way she’d handled things was completely sane, but I just couldn’t. It was like feeling a body part was missing and then finding out that the person you love more than anything had been purposely hiding it forcing you to get through life without it.
“Meyah…”
“No, Mom, just tell me!”
She shook her head, and my heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t going to tell me. She wasn’t going to stop this bullshit idea that she was protecting me.
“Fine,” I hissed, pulling my cell from my back pocket and dialing Uncle Leo’s number and putting it to my ear.
“Me
yah, stop!” she yelled, reaching out to grab my cell. I ducked away, but her fingernail caught the side of my cheek. I turned my face away like I’d been slapped instantly feeling it begin to sting. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to stem the flow of tears along with blocking out the pain.
“Oh my God, Meyah,” my mom whispered. But I couldn’t look at her. I just needed to get the hell out of here before things got any worse.
“Meyah?” Uncle Leo finally answered. “Everything okay?” I could tell he was worried. I’d only just left there, and things hadn’t been great at that point.
“I need you to come get me. I can’t be here,” I told him, struggling to get the words out, my voice shaking and unstable. “I’m at home. Can you just come? Please?”
“Jesus! Yeah, I’ll be there in five,” he replied. I could hear him call out to Hadley before he hung up the phone.
“Meyah, this is ridiculous,” Mom started, but I was already heading for the stairs, my hand still pressed to my cheek, salty tears resting on my lips.
Unable to keep my pain concealed, I turned and looked over my shoulder at her determined to let her know how much she’d hurt me. “I can’t even look at you right now,” I responded, throwing her words back at her, my heart breaking into little pieces as I walked away, hurt, but determined. I needed to show her that I was older now. She couldn’t control me. She couldn’t lie to me or keep trying to protect me from everything. I knew there would be times where I would get hurt, where my heart would break, where someone would lose my trust, where friends would stab me in the back. But that was part of learning, growing, and standing on my own two feet. Standing for myself and being strong.
I needed to learn them for myself.
And maybe being here wasn’t the place where I was going to do that.
I needed to keep my head straight and not give these assholes any reason to stop this meeting.
I had shit that I needed sorting out, and I’d already left it for too long.
