by Ryan Michele
Then again, on the flip side, I did trust him. It was in my gut, and I had to follow it.
“Yes,” I answered.
He grinned like my answer was the perfect one before he pulled onto a side street and parked the truck.
My heart began to thump in my chest so hard I swore if you looked at my flesh, you could have seen it. My skin got clammy just as my hands began to sweat. Air didn’t want to go into my lungs, and I had to pull hard for it. The blackness was threatening me. It was right on the cusp, and if I didn’t hold on with two hands to something, anything, I was going under.
When a hand on my knee caught my attention, I turned to Lynx.
“Calm,” he said soothingly. “You’re just fine.” His eyes told me it was going to be okay as he gave my leg a soft squeeze that I didn’t pull away from.
I just wished I could get my body to listen. It was strung so tightly I didn’t know what would loosen it. I breathed in and out, hoping it would work.
“She hates me, Lynx. Why am I even here?” I pled with a crack in my voice. I was struggling. I was digging down deep for some sort of strength to get me through this, and it was only coming in small amounts. It wasn’t fast enough as the darkness began to threaten.
“You tell me,” he responded, not answering my question, obviously trying to get me to talk so I would calm down.
I drew in a deep breath, letting the air fill my lungs, my hands calming from the shaking before I answered, “To get answers about why she allowed my father to hurt me.”
He didn’t give me an inch as he prompted, “And …?”
“To find out why she didn’t fight for me when they took me away.” I felt kind of proud of myself for getting it out. It was small, but it was the little bit of confidence I needed. It didn’t stop the nerves or the panic attack that was right there, but it helped relieve it a bit.
His knowing eyes bore into mine. “Right. You deserve to know. Knowledge is power.”
“I remember,” I whispered softly, recalling every little thing Lynx had ever said to me. He didn’t need to know I remembered all the details, even how he was sitting in the room when he had said them. Lynx was right, and that was why I was here: to get that knowledge.
“You always start what you finish. Always follow through once you’ve made your decision. Right or wrong, you deal with that after, but never back down.” His words seemed to have come from experience, and I had none, so I was taking his.
I nodded in confirmation.
“Let’s go.” He nodded back.
I couldn’t make my hand reach for the door handle. It wouldn’t move to grab it as frustration built alongside my nerves. The panic began to move around me in swirls as I fought to gain control.
I closed my eyes. You can do this. You have to do this. I chanted those phrases in my head over and over as my door swung open.
Lynx was standing there. He didn’t extend his hand; somehow, he knew I needed a minute to gather myself.
Digging down deep, I could feel my body changing. My shoulders rose, my spine stiffened with resolve, and my hands stopped shaking. Yes, I can.
Once I rose from the seat, Lynx held his hand out to me, which I took willingly. One, it was like he was my helping hand, so I clutched it, and two, because the damn truck was so big I was sure to fall out of it without any help.
The door slammed shut and bleeps came from the locks. Lynx turned to me.
“You deserve answers. I’m so damn proud of you for taking this step.”
My insides warmed. His compliment hit me on so many different levels I didn’t have time to count them all. However, I felt it down to my bones, and I liked it.
“Let’s do this.” The authority in his voice was comforting. I focused on that, or tried to, the entire walk to the driveway.
Upon hitting the space where the camper rested, I froze, my feet unable to move. It was like they were stuck in thick cement.
“Reign?” Lynx’s voice seemed far away as I stared at the brick home. Thoughts scurried through my head like little mice on their way to find food. There were so many questions, so many what ifs.
I didn’t remember this place. Had I lived here with them? And what if I had been a better little girl? Would my father not have hurt me? Would my mother have treated me better?
I was getting slammed from all directions by them, my head beginning to spin. The dark pit below me began to open, sucking me in. My only thought was, If I let it take me, then I wouldn’t have to deal with this.
“Reign!”
The voice was loud, and I turned to the source: Lynx.
“Babe, you’ve got this. Answers, remember?” That voice… I was coming to find that I could listen to it all day and never get bored with it. It was deep and powerful.
Slowly, things came into focus as the vast darkness threatened to take me away. No, Reign, pull your shit together, a small voice in my head rang out, and I listened to it. I forced the thoughts inside of me to calm. I was in control of this, not them. They did not have power over me. I had the power, and I was going to take it.
I looked Lynx dead in the eye with every bit of strength I had. “Let’s do this.”
He gave me one of those rare smiles, and I felt my knees weaken, but I desperately tried to brush it off.
Walking to the door, the doorbell stared back at me like a wicked snake. If I were to touch it, it would be dead set on biting me. Lynx didn’t touch it, either; he waited. He was there, beside me, but he wasn’t going to do the job. I had to.
Snake be damned, I pushed the bell. We heard it blare and then movement behind the door.
My pulse spiked as a cold sweat beaded all over me. This was it. I was going to see my mother again. Then it hit me that she probably didn’t even live here. She had probably moved a long time ago, and I was getting myself all on edge for nothing. Of course, I wasn’t sure if that was wishful thinking or avoidance talking.
Locks on the other side turned and then the knob of the door. When it opened, I fully stopped breathing.
The woman was about five-feet-five, my height, with long, dark brown hair, like mine and emerald green eyes, again, like mine. What was different were the lines marring her face. They weren’t laugh lines around the eyes; no, these were like I had seen time and time again. These lines were from stress, hard work, and if I wasn’t mistaken, lots and lots of drugs.
“What?” she barked, her brow raised at us.
It took me a moment before I asked the question I already knew the answer to. “Are you Rebecca Jameson?”
She held a cigarette and waved it around as she talked. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Reign.”
She stared at me blankly, nothing registering in that head of hers.
That was the moment the fire began to burn in my belly, but not from nerves. No, it was from anger. She didn’t remember me? I had the same first name that was on my birth certificate, which she had to have given me.
I gave her a little help. “Your daughter.”
She burst out laughing, the air getting trapped in her throat as she began to crouch.
There I was, serious as a heart attack, and she was laughing … at me.
I didn’t move.
“My daughter is dead,” she said between coughing and laughing.
What was wrong with this woman? I wasn’t dead. I looked just like her, only younger.
“I can assure you that I’m not dead.” I placed my hands in the front pockets of my jeans, the urge to reach out and strangle the woman burning brightly. I fed off that anger, allowing it to help keep me together.
Rebecca took some heaving breaths, a smile still plastered on her face as she said, “She died when she was six.” Which was the time I had been taken away from them.
I had questions, and I was going to ask them.
“If she died, why are you laughing about it?”
I felt Lynx’s heat at my back. It was all the encouragement I needed as the flames sc
orched higher inside me.
She chuckled. “Because she was a pain in my ass.”
My heart felt the hit on that one, but I kept charging along.
“I’m laughing because, even after she was gone, Robert left me. I should have known he wouldn’t be man enough to raise someone else’s kid.”
The bricks above me started to tumble down, each hitting me on the head as everything I thought I knew was blown out of the water in an explosion so big it shook me to my foundation. I tried to hold on as it quaked.
“Someone else’s kid?”
She took a puff on her cigarette and blew the smoke out the door and into Lynx and my face. “I hooked up with my boss a couple of times. Robert couldn’t have any kids, so he knew I fooled around. Damn, he hated that little girl.” Every word that came out of her mouth came with nonchalance, like I had meant nothing to either of them.
The air around me began to press in, but I did my best to force it back.
“Yeah, I looked.” She looked me up and down. It was like her clouded brain had cleared and thoughts started firing. Her eyes widened, and she crossed her arms over her stomach. “It’s you.” This time, there was no laughter, only disbelief. She had to be shitting me if she thought I had bought that whole I-thought-you-were-dead spiel.
“I told you who I was; you refused to see it,” I said with confidence I didn’t have on the inside, but there was no way this woman was seeing any of that. “Who is my father?”
“Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” She paused, and for a brief moment, my heart latched on to the words, hoping she would turn around and be happy to see me. Then she had to go and ruin it. “Damn. I could have lived my whole life without it. And you fucking look just like me. Fucking hell.” The disappointment in her words was more than evident, and I tried to keep my anger from taking back over.
At least I knew now why my “parents” hated me so much. My mother was a cheat, resulting in me, pissing her husband off; something so fucking simple that had absolutely nothing to do with me. It was all on them. This was their burden, not mine. Yes, they had treated me like shit, and my life was hell, but what if I would have stayed with them like I had thought so many times before? I had thought if I would have been better, we could have been a family. I realized in that moment there was never going to be a family here. I was the product of an affair and had to live the consequences of it.
The earth below me started tipping, but it wasn’t pulling me under. No, it was righting itself.
Sure, I had a lot of shit to deal with, but this part was clearer. The more I thought about it, the anger and hate for this woman swirled around me. She was never my mother, only an incubator, and by the looks of her, there was no telling what I’d had in my system when I was born.
“Who is my father?” My words came out monotone, but there was a tinge of demand there.
“You think I’m gonna tell you that? He doesn’t even know you exist.” Another blow, but I took it and still stood tall. “No matter. By the look of ya, he wouldn’t want you, anyway.” That one hit hard.
“Considering I look like you, and he fucked you, I’m sure he’d see me.” Even though my comment was immature, it still felt good to say since it was true.
Lynx’s hand came to my hip, giving me a slight squeeze that I didn’t shy away from. I needed to know he was there, that he had my back. I was the one doing this, but he was there to support me if I needed it, and although I did, I wasn’t going to let this woman see that.
“I’m not telling you nothing, and I don’t want to see your face here ever again,” she snarled.
“You don’t have to worry about that.” But I was going to find out who my father was in one way or another.
Knowledge is power.
“Where are we?” I asked as Lynx pulled the truck into a large lot. Off to the side was a lit up park. We were the only vehicle around, which made my stomach do a flip. “What are you doing?” I tried not to panic, but today had been too much. After the discussion with the incubator, I needed time to process, something Lynx had given me as he was driving, but apparently, he was done waiting.
“You’ve had a shitty day. Let’s do something fun.”
Fun? What the hell was that? I didn’t do fun. I never had the money for it. I worked, paid my bills, and lived in my apartment. I did the occasional going to grab a bite to eat with Andi, but I didn’t do fun.
“What?”
“Something fun for us to do. You may not want to, but you need it, and what I have in mind will help.”
He was right. I didn’t want it. I wanted to go back home and figure out who my father was. There had to be something that would tell me. The determination to find out burned red hot, and I was anxious to try to figure out who he was.
“I need to get back.”
“No, you need to have fun and let all that shit go for a while. You said you trusted me. Has that changed?”
“Of course not,” I answered.
“Then let’s live.”
***
I looked around the vast, open space. Fields lined the area with a baseball field in the center that had a large track circling it. “What are we doing here?”
Lynx reached into the back of his truck, pulling out a pair of tennis shoes then handing them to me. “Put these on.”
I didn’t take them, just raised my brow. “Why?”
He chuckled. “So much for the trust.” He wiggled them in his hands. “I’m going to show you how I deal when I have a shitty day.”
My curiosity was piqued. I really wanted to know. Any coping mechanism was like gold. Therefore, I grabbed the shoes, took my boots off, and put them on. They were quite big, but I made due by tying them extra tightly. Lynx kept his boots on as he led me to the large track. He didn’t touch me, but he walked right beside me, close enough that I felt the brush of his arm every once in a while.
At the field, he bent down on one knee and made sure his laces were tied then rose. “Laps. We run laps.”
I stared at him. He was joking, right? My jobs required me to be on my feet, but running wasn’t on my list of things I did.
He smiled, reading the look on my face. “Yes, we run. It’ll help you clear your head and get rid of all the shit by pounding it step by step into the track.”
Lynx picked up one foot, pulling it to his ass, stretching his muscles. I stared in awe at his fluid movements. Each one was so precise and with reason. Each of his flexes made parts of my body come alive that I hadn’t noticed since I had Drew in my life.
“You gonna stretch?” he asked, and I snapped my eyes away from his flexing, following his lead. My muscles were tight and not used to this, but surprisingly felt pretty good.
“Come on,” he said, taking off in a jog.
I couldn’t stop staring at the fluidity of his movements, like years and years of practice had been put into each. Of their own accord, my feet took off, catching up to Lynx.
We fell into step with each other, my breaths trying to keep up. On the second time around, Lynx spoke.
“I do this to clear the shit out of my head. When I run, I don’t have to think about anything but my feet hitting each step. Any emotion I have racing through me, I push into the steps I take.” He paused, and I thought about his words. Then I thought about my mother and her hurtful ones.
I sent them down to my feet and hit the pavement a bit harder than I had previously. It felt good, almost relieving.
“When I have visions of my brothers”—my stomach dropped for him—“I go to a track like this and run. I could run for fifteen minutes or hours. It all depends on what mood I’m in.”
I was happy he had an outlet he could use to cope.
As each step I took hit the ground, I allowed the emotions of the day to fall with them, the tension slowly leaving my body along with my energy. Each step was putting distance between me and the buildup of pressure inside myself. Each time my knees came up and feet went down, I could work th
rough the thoughts in my head as my body worked through the motions. Motions and emotions all worked together for a common goal: to keep moving, keep going.
“Catch me,” he called out as he darted forward.
He thought I could catch him?
“Come on!” he called back when I didn’t move. “Show me what you’re made of.”
I took off, pushing my used body hard. I gained feet on him, reaching out my hand and feeling the urge to tag him. With one more push, my fingertips grazed his shirt. I did it! I stopped, doubling over at the waist with heaving breaths.
Lynx’s hand came to my back, and I stilled. Taking some more breaths, I let it go.
“You okay, babe?” he asked with laughter in his voice.
“I got you.” I rose to see his smiling face, pride coming off me.
His hand came around my side, resting on my hip, the tingles hitting me hard with the slight touch. I wondered why he wasn’t heaving like me. His touch wasn’t helping.
He took a step closer, and I sucked in deeply. “You did,” he said in his deep, baritone voice. He reached for my hand and placed a soft kiss on the top of it. Every bit of breath was knocked out of me because it was so tender, gentle. In that moment, I wanted to kiss him, but I was scared shitless of it.
He surprised me by saying, “Come on.” Then he held my hand, tugging me back to the truck. He let go only long enough to grab a blanket from the back before he was leading me to a wide open area. I felt nervous, but at the same time, I didn’t. Everything with Lynx came so naturally.
He laid out the blanket then motioned for me to sit. “Let’s take a break.”
Knowing I could use one of those after that run, I sat and Lynx followed, giving me some room, though not much. His shoulder and leg grazed mine from time to time, and instead of getting nervous about it, I began to like it. The warmth of him helped break the ice inside of me, and I cherished the heat.
I lay down, looking up at the sky beginning to fade into darkness, the glow of the sun peeking over the trees. My breathing calmed, and was it weird that I felt safe and comfortable?
I broke the silence of the night as Lynx lay down next to me. “So tell me; why Lynx? Is it your real name? Because I’ve never met someone with that unique one.” In all the time we had spent together, we had focused a lot more on me than him, and I needed to know more.
