My firecracker.
She’s gone.
“I’m so fucking sorry, baby. More sorry than you’ll ever know,” I whisper hours later as the sun rises.
Then I head back to my car.
The evening after the stark dose of reality that I’ll never have my firecracker back, that home is a place I’ll never go again... Josh and I are packing his shit in my back seat, getting ready to hit the road to Lake Charles.
I got my bike on a trailer that I hitched to the back of my car. Damn trailer is old as shit and rickety as hell, and I’m praying that it makes the ride.
“That the last of it?” I nod towards the box in Josh’s hand.
“Yep, that’s it, man. This is gonna fucking kick ass!” Josh slaps the hood of my Camaro then jogs towards his house right as Jason comes out.
“Jason, come here, man.” He looks up at me with a nervous look. “What? Don’t look at me like that. Fuckin’ come here.”
“What?” He’s looking between me and the bike and starts heading over to the bike.
“I need to ask you for a favor.” I’m trying to figure out how to word this shit so the kid doesn’t think I’m a stalker and turn my ass in.
“What kinda favor?” The little guy starts pulling his guards up immediately.
“It’s nothing really. Kinda like spy work, but it’s important. So I will have to pay you for it, and you have to swear to me that you’ll keep it totally confidential. You can’t tell anyone. Think you can handle that?”
“Depends. How much money are we talking?”
Shit, the little fucker is much smarter than his older brother. That’s promising. Even more so if I can get him on my side. “Hundred bucks a month.” His eyes almost bulge out of his head.
Gotcha, kid.
My chest constricts and expands at the same time. I know I have to do this to keep my sanity. I also know that whatever this kid tells me is shit I’m not gonna want to hear. But I’ll lose my goddamn mind without it.
“Done. Whatcha need?” Kid’s face is serious as a heart attack.
“Look, Jason. I’m gonna call the line in my room at Grands.” I unhook the key from the key ring in my hand and toss it to him. “Every Sunday, I want you there to answer the phone. Me and you are gonna have a little chat. I wanna hear how Grands is doing, how you’re doing, and I wanna know what Lil’s up to.”
“Shit, Leo. I can’t hit Allen up about his sister all the time. That’s gonna look weird as hell.”
“No, no, no... Nuh uh. Don’t talk to Allen about it. Don’t ask Allen anything. You just keep your damn ears open. When you’re over there, pay attention to Lil and what she has going on. Anything Allen says, just file that shit away and tell me on Sunday. I know there will be Sundays when you don’t have anything to report, and that’s cool. You’ll still get paid. And I still want to know about you and Grands. You understand, don’t you, Jason?”
“Yeah, yeah, I understand. Okay, I’ll do it. It’s just…” He turns his back to me and runs his hand down his face, “Man, Leo...” I watch his shoulders sag before he turns around.
“Sup, kid? You can tell me.”
“She’s just not like she used to be. At all. Her whole family is worried about her, but they don’t know what to do.”
“I know, Jason. I saw her.”
“You did?” His eyes shoot to mine. “When? She never goes anywhere. When?”
“Last night. Just to check up on her. She didn’t know I was there. Let’s keep it that way.”
“That’s why Josh called last night.”
“Yeah. That’s why. I just wanted to see if she was okay. That’s all.”
His eyes lock with mine. “She’s not.”
“No. She’s not, is she, Jason?” Josh comes up with a duffle bag that looks like it weighs a ton and it’s gotta lot of shit clinking in there. “So that’s why I need your help, kiddo. Ya feel me?”
“Yep. Sure do.” He starts heading back to the house, and I jog a few steps and loop my arm around his shoulder.
“I appreciate it, Jason.” I slap his shoulder, “More than you know, man.”
“‘Kay, Leo. I’ll see ya!”
I walk back to my car, open the car door, and slide in. “Yep! Bye, little buddy!”
Josh and I take off.
“What was all that shit about?” Josh asks, pulling out two beer bottles.
“You are the dumbest, smartest fucker I know, Joshie.” I grab the beer he hands me and take a swig. “Ready for Lake Charles, motherfucker?”
“Hell yeah I am!”
We pull into the apartment complex at around four in the evening. Josh is hammered, and I’m right behind him. We leave all his shit in the car and head up to my apartment.
I get the door unlocked and stumble in because Josh is crashing into my back. “The fuck, dude? Lay your ass on the damn couch and pass the fuck out already. Fuckin’ drunk-ass.”
“Where’s my damn bed at?” He flops face-first into the couch.
“Told your dumb ass I don’t have a bed in your room. You gotta go get one tomorrow.” I’m talking to no one. Josh is already snoring his ass off. “Drunk-ass,” I mumble, heading to my room while stripping out of my t-shirt.
I kick my bedroom door shut, but before it closes, I hear a knock on my front door.
Huh. “Who the hell?” I pull my t-shirt back on inside out walking back into the living room and open the door.
Wow. Shit. No really, WOW. She’s fucking beautiful. I haven’t had that thought about any girl. Not one time since...
“Yeah?” It comes out meaner than I meant it to. It’s not this girl’s fault Lil popped in my head. Damn it!
“Hey, I’m Annalise. I just moved in”—she turns and points at the door directly in front of mine—”I guess next door.” She laughs, and it fucking sounds exactly like my little firecracker. “Across the hall?” She looks back at up at me with the bluest fucking eyes.
Navy, just like my Lil’s. Her hair is darker than Lil’s but just as long. And she’s tiny too. Just like Lil.
I realize she’s stopped talking and I’m staring at her and haven’t said a word. Like a fucking dumbass. I cough and shake my head, trying to clear it, get Lil out of it.
“I’m Leo.” I reach my hand out and she puts her tiny little hand in mine, blushes, and ducks her head. We shake hands a little longer than necessary. Her hand is still in mine when I ask, “Miss Annalise, what can I do for you? Or you just coming over to introduce yourself?”
She slowly pulls her hand from mine and ducks her head again, but I still see her blush deepen. “No, I mean, yes. I did want to introduce myself, but I also... Well the water company won’t be over ‘til the morning. I have electricity, but I was just... If I...”
She tosses her head back and growls at the ceiling. Her neck is some shit I would draw for hours. The curve, dammit it’s beautiful!
“Gahhh! Shit!” She shakes her head. “Sorry. I can speak, I swear. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me! May I have some water please? I’m just gonna run and grab my pitcher, and if you would, please, fill it up with some water? Please?” She laughs again. “Oh my God, how many times is this freak on your doorstep going to say please? Sorry. I’m not crazy, I promise.”
I can’t help but chuckle at her. “You sure? That’s an awful lotta pleases and sorrys all bunched together. You do know it’s just water, right? They don’t charge by the gallon. You’re not asking to siphon my gas.”
“Haha. Yes, I know that. And if the hose in the front bushes wasn’t stuck to the faucet and riddled with holes, I would have been able to bypass this entire embarrassing Seinfeld moment. Instead, sorry—haha, again—you got stuck peddling me water. I’m... I’ll just go grab my pitcher and shut the hell up.”
She turns on her heel and walks into her apartment, but I still hear her funny-ass rants. “So damn stupid, Annalise. The hell is your problem. Have you never seen a hot guy? Christ!”
I clos
e the door slightly, lean my back against the wall, and crack up laughing. “Josh!” I whisper-scream. “Josh! Get your drunk ass up! You gotta check this chick out. Josh!” I kick the couch, but his snoring doesn’t miss a beat.
Annalise clearing her throat has my hand jerking the door back open.
Yes, my face has the biggest damn smile across it. I’m sure it’s red from laughing so hard.
“Finished laughing at my expense?” She shoves her pitcher at my chest.
The smile slides straight off my face.
“Wha—? No, no... That’s... Pssh, no. I wasn’t laughing at you. Come on in.” I nod my head and open my door wider but she hesitates. “You don’t have to. I’m just gonna fill this up.”
I’m at the sink filling up her pitcher when I hear her ask, “You know there’s someone passed out on your couch? Snoring.”
I get the pitcher filled and turn around to see Annalise kicking Josh’s boot. He does some snort-snort snore thing then falls right back into his snoring rhythm. Annalise bursts out laughing and doubles over with her hand cupped over her mouth and pinching her nose. It doesn’t help keep her snort in though at all.
If anything, it worsens it, and my eyes widen and my jaw drops. “Did you just fuckin’ snort?”
She puts her finger over her mouth and laughs a “Shh” around it. Then she whispers, “Come on. I’ll make us some tea.”
She grabs the pitcher from me and I follow her inside her apartment. It looks just like mine does of course, except her couch has flowers all over it and her apartment smells...well, like a home.
She has a few scented candles lit here and there even though she has boxes stacked in every corner. “Just move all that shit off the couch. It doesn’t matter where. I’m not organized at all.”
“‘Kay, you gotta lot of shit. Like a whole lotta shit. Did you move out of a bigger house or something?”
“Ah... Yeah, I did. But that’s pretty much all I’m ever going to share with you, neighbor. Sorry, but I’m not the type to spill my heart and painful past. I left that shit behind, and I’m here now. I live in the present. Period.”
I get all the shit moved off the couch and sit down facing her in the kitchen while she flits around with a kettle, tea bags, and the stove. “Didn’t fucking ask about your past, did I, princess?”
“Wha—” Her head pops up and her long bangs are hanging down in front of her eyes. She blows them out of her face and stands there with a dumbstruck look before she says quietly, “Well, no. I guess you didn’t.”
“Right. So now that we cleared that up, what do you do on the weekends? My cousin, Josh, just moved in today. I’ve been here about six months and haven’t met anybody or seen a damn thing to do in this town. You from here?”
She shakes her head while washing her hands. Then she dries them and walks towards the couch to sit down on the other end, curling her feet underneath her.
“Nope, not from here. Not from anywhere near here actually.” She keeps her head down and pulls at a thread on the couch.
“More past shit, right? It’s okay. I get it.”
Her eyes peek up at me through her dark hair and she nods. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
Silence falls between us, and it isn’t a calming silence. It’s weird and more than I’m ready to handle at this point in my life.
I stand up, ready to get out of this awkward-ass situation. “Well, thanks for the tea offer but we just drove back. It was a long-ass drive too. I need to hit the hay. Got work tomorrow morning—early.”
“Oh, okay. Well...” She stands up and follows me to the door. Both our hands meet at the doorknob at the same time but she blushes and yanks hers back. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Leo.”
I walk out and open my door then look back over my shoulder.
“Nice to meet you too, Annalise. I’ll see you around.”
We smile before closing our doors.
“Fuck that was just...fuckin’ weird all the way around.” I shake my head as I lock the front door then head towards my bathroom.
After I shower and get in bed, it’s only seven thirty, but I’m so fucking emotionally exhausted that it’s weighing down on my body, making it feel like it’s midnight.
I can’t keep my mind from going back to Lil if I wanted to. I just keep seeing flashes of who she was last summer…
Her in the pond.
Her at the lake.
Her in my room or at Josh’s house running it like it was her own.
Then I think back to the woman I saw last night.
It fucking kills me every time.
I close my eyes and one second I see my firecracker. Another second flashes and I see the carved-out shell of her that I saw last night.
I can’t take this shit, but there isn’t a damn thing I can fucking do about it.
After Josh gets settled into Lake Charles, it doesn’t take him long to get a job with Gramps or get himself some new friends.
Shit, his social life is a rave party compared to mine. I’m trying to keep on the straight and narrow, but son of a bitch, it is hard as hell sometimes.
It’s even harder when I get word from Jason that Lil is dating some pussy named Wes.
“What the fuck do you mean she’s happy, Jason? Are you telling me she hasn’t been happy for over a year? When I saw her three months ago, she looked okay. Thin as fuck, but she seemed fine to me.”
“What the fuck, Leo? The only reason I’m still calling you every Sunday is because you said you’d keep your ass in LC and the hell away from Lil.”
“I was in fucking town!” I lie through my teeth, “And I didn’t try to find her, I practically ran into her!”
Okay, so that’s also a lie. I might have been parked a few houses down from her house...for over eight hours before she and her mom came out of the house and got in her mom’s car and then drove to the mall. And I might or might not have followed them...for two hours in the mall.
“I’m just saying that Wes is a really cool guy, and Lil really likes him. She just seems happy. She laughs, takes Allen with them sometimes to the go-kart track. That’s all I really know, dude.”
“FUCK!” I’m fucking seething pissed. “Fine. I gotta go, man.”
“You want me to call you next Sunday?”
“Yeah...” It comes out sounding like the tired sigh of a man giving up. “No. No, Jason, I don’t. I don’t fucking care anymore.”
“All right, dude. I’ll talk to you when I talk to you.”
“Yeah. Bye, man.” I hang up and just sink back into my mattress. I feel tears stinging my eyes and cut that shit off by shoving my thumb and forefinger into my eyeballs.
“Fuck you, Lil. Fucking bitch.”
I don’t know why I haven’t moved on from Lil. Her fucking claws were sunk so damn deep in me. I knew I’d let that bitch underneath my skin. I just didn’t know it was going to take a fucking year and a half to shake her off. I fucking hate her.
I hate her bitch ass for everything she’s put me through, for giving me hope that she still loved me, for letting me think she was hurting as much as I was all this time.
All she needed to do was fucking wait until she turned eighteen. I was coming back for her.
I’m not now, that’s for fuck sure.
“Fucking hate you, bitch. You’re done? Nuh uh. I’m fucking done.” I don’t even realize I started crying until I feel the tears slide down the side of my face and into my hair, along my scalp. “Now I’m crying like a fucking pussy!” I growl.
I jump up and get in the shower before the water has time to warm up. Don’t fucking ask me why. I couldn’t tell you if you held a gun to my head. I beat off one last time thinking of my firecracker. The curve of her neck right before she comes. Her husky laugh after. Her hair a golden curtain making a bubble around us as she rides me as hard and fast as her little hips can.
Her goddamn mouth. Fuck, I want that mouth around my cock. I had plans for
that mouth. My come hits the water right before reality smacks me across the face.
I had plans for that girl. Fuck. “I had plans for you, firecracker.” The coarse sob that bounces off the tile bathroom walls makes me feel like a little bitch. I gotta get over this gut-wrenching pain that’s shredding my chest to ribbons.
After I’ve gotten a semi hold on my emotions, I step out of the shower and wipe the condensation off the mirror. My attention gets snagged on my reflection. I feel hate and rage growing, unfolding inside me, and blanketing the pain. Snuffing out the ache.
Before I can stop myself, I’ve grabbed the clippers and shaved my head to the skull. I toss the shears into the sink, leaving the six to eight inches of blond hair scattered across the floor, counter, and sink.
“Fuck you, firecracker. Fuck...YOU!” I growl at my reflection before stalking into my room.
I’ve pulled a t-shirt and some blue jeans on when I hear Josh come in the front door of the apartment. “Josh?”
“What’s up, dude? WHOA!” He stops as soon as he sees me, eyes wide as hell. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Don’t fucking worry about it. You goin’ out tonight?” I grunt, shoving my feet into my boots.
“Hell yeah I am. Pitchers of Bud Light are only two bucks at Pandora’s.”
“The fuck is Pandora’s?” I grab up my keys and a pack of cigarettes.
“It’s that titty bar off I-90.”
“Seriously, Josh?” I stalk from my room, heading to the fridge and grab a beer. “That’s where you’ve been hanging out? A strip joint off I-90?” I turn the bottle of beer up, draining its contents.
“Shit yeah! You can get anything you fucking want there, dude. The ass there is subpar, but there are a few eights, maybe a nine here and there.”
“Wow, I can’t even believe I’m listening to your ass. Much less willing to go.” I push away from the kitchen counter, running a hand over my stubby head. “You driving, bitch?”
“Yeah, I’ll drive.
We pull up into a parking lot of a building that I am certain hasn’t been open in decades. There’s no sign, no windows. Just a front door that’s barely hanging on its hinges. I start laughing as Josh goes to get out of the car.
Holding Her in Madness Page 9
