Tattered & Torn

by A. J. Downey

  “I’m not a fucking Princess,” she snapped, “Princesses need saving, I’m a motherfucking Queen. I got this shit handled.” I snorted and tried to cover it with a laugh which I think was just as bad. That mask of anger snapped right back into place. Those sapphire eyes burning a hole through me where they were reflected through the glass. If looks could kill I would have been incinerated but Shelly didn’t know I had her game. It was too late for all of her fronting and bucking up. She’d slipped up back when Ron had scared the shit out of her. She wasn’t half as angry as she pretended to be. She was scared and unsure of herself and lashing out because of it.

  “Okay Princess, whatever you say,” I said and turned down the perfectly paved road of Hayden and Reaver’s subdivision. I pulled up to the sloped curb in front of their driveway and killed the engine. Shelly immediately went for the door handle.

  “Night beautiful,” I said without thinking and she froze, her back to me, shoulders hunched like I’d hit her. I blinked wondering what I’d said wrong and opened my mouth but she was out the door, the sharp report of it shutting in my face echoing through the cab and the girl practically ran for the front door of the townhouse.

  What the Hell?

  Chapter 3

  Shelly…

  “Night beautiful,” he said to me and it sounded almost wistful. I froze, so many confusing emotions clashing against one another. Maybe once upon a time, but I felt like I was made of pure ugly on the inside now. I bolted out of the truck as fast as I could and slammed the door behind me on a surprised curse. I raced up the walk and let myself into the townhouse closing and latching the door behind me, resting my forehead on the cool, painted metal of the front door for a minute.

  I heard a sigh behind me but I knew it was Reave. I could always depend on my big cousin… or at least I used to… I didn’t know anymore! I felt my shoulders tremble as I suppressed a sob. I would not cry! I wasn’t a crier!

  “Aww no. C’mere Runt,” Reaver’s hands kneaded my shoulders and I turned around and buried my face in his chest and took several deep breaths of clean laundry soap and freshly showered big cousin, forcing the tears down hard. Reaver hugged me, rubbing up and down my back with his broad hand. I shoved away from him after barely a moment and sniffed.

  “Enough of this touchy feely shit,” I said and rolled my neck which was stiff from sleeping in the truck.

  “Yeah you learn to appreciate the touchy feely shit more when you’re with the right person,” he said and I knew he was talking about Hayden but I made a face anyways.

  “I’m your cousin and you’re married you sick bastard,” I pronounced and made to go up the stairs.

  “Shelly,” he said, not rising to the bait, I paused in my step but wouldn’t look at him. “You need to let someone in, if not me or one of the girls…” he sighed when the set of my shoulders tensed.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, he snorted.

  “Yeah, well…” he palmed the back of his neck and I took the stairs two at a time to the guest room closing the door quietly behind me. I wrinkled my nose. I smelled like metal and grease and automotive leavings, but over that was the woodsy outdoorsy smell that was Ghost. I tentatively raised my sweater to my nose and breathed in, my eyes closing, savoring for just one second…

  I dropped the material and ripped it off, pulling my shirt over my head and stripping deftly in the cool dark of my borrowed room. I pulled on my bathrobe and listened at my door for Reaver. When I heard the door down the hall to the master bedroom shut in the quiet hush of the house I slipped out and into the guest bathroom, taking my most comfortable pair of pajamas with me.

  I shut myself into the small space, locking the door and started up a hot shower. I mean really hot. There wasn’t any sense in pretending when I was alone like this. Ghost wasn’t my knight in shining armor, more like just some asshole in aluminum foil. It was as I’d said though, I wasn’t some weak ass princess in need of saving… but unlike what I’d said, I wasn’t no queen either. That’d been pure bravado on my part but there wasn’t any way I could admit it to anyone else. That I could tell anyone that late at night, when I was by myself like this? Well, I so did not have any of this shit handled.

  It was like I couldn’t shut out the memories, no matter how hard I tried and it was only worse when I was sleeping because then I really didn’t have any control over it. I would dream about it, in full, high definition, living color. The awfulness of that night playing over and over in my mind like some macabre movie I couldn’t shut off until I woke screaming just as long and loud and clear as I had tried to in the woods. Only then his hand had been over my mouth as he took whatever he wanted from me while now, I woke everyone in a god damned three block radius.

  I hung my robe on the back of the door and stared at myself in the mirror, hard, for several minutes. I’d always had a rough time keeping weight on myself and now that I was running harder and more than ever I was painfully thin. I looked like shit, I just didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. Plus, who was I trying to impress anyways? I moved the curtain aside and stepped under the scalding spray with a hiss. Hot! Too hot! But I needed it to be and I would adjust in a second.

  I thrust my face into the spray and scrubbed at it with my hands before bowing my head and letting the water pound the back of my neck and skull. I wanted him off me, out of me, out from under my skin and the inside of my head! I wanted him gone, banished forever more… and I wanted so badly for Ghost to live there instead and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what it was about Ghost that was different from any other man I had ever met, but wouldn’t you know? It was just my luck. If I really were a Princess then Ghost is what I had always pictured my Prince Charming to be and for whatever reason, he just plain wasn’t interested.

  Oh he’d flirt all right, he flirted with the best of them, but when it came to actually doing anything? He would never follow through. No matter how hard I had tried I couldn’t get him to so much as kiss me and it had been infuriating for the longest time. Now I didn’t want him to touch me, but that was because I wasn’t fit to be touched. I hadn’t really been before, I guess, but at least I could hide it then, now though… Now everyone knew I was damaged goods.

  I poured some shampoo into my hand and started scrubbing the hell out of my hair. It was too long but I barely had it in me to get my ass out of bed on a daily basis, let alone deal with making a hair appointment. Now that I wasn’t working I didn’t have the money for it anyways and I was loathe to bum it off my cousin or his Ol’ Lady. Maybe it was time to grow it out. I huffed out a huge sigh and let the water sluice through my hair and down the drain, the soap swirling around the silver plug before disappearing.

  I hated myself so God damned much for not listening to Dragon. If I had just been less of a petulant damned baby, if I’d just taken the rag he’d offered, pretended for one damned weekend to be his! I fell into a crouch on the shower floor and sucked in breath after breath trying to get the storm inside my head and my heart to go away but the harder I tried to hold it back the harder it raged until finally, like always, it broke through and the hot tears rose up and fell, my throat closing up so tight I almost couldn’t breathe.

  I hated that I couldn’t fight the tempest raging inside me. That even though they’d killed the son of a bitch, he still had so much control over me. Him and Jimmy. I grabbed the soap and started scrubbing until I was pink and raw and still the dirt wouldn’t come off. I felt slimy and filthy and I didn’t have clue one on how to make any of the stain left in my soul to come out. This was all my fault. If only I had been a better person if only… If only.

  Ugh! This wasn’t getting me anywhere. I stood up and pulled myself together as hard as I could and shut off the water. I wrapped my hair in a towel and dried off with another and pulled on my PJ’s. Black satin shorts and a black satin camisole edged in cream lace. I swallowed back the bitterness and beat back the demon in my head, the near constant voice of self-doubt I lived with these
days, and pulled my warm fluffy winter robe on over it all.

  I slipped back into my cousin’s guest room and shut the door quietly behind me. I hugged myself and stood for several moments and tried to decide if I wanted to sleep or do something else for the time being. I moved about doing a few little things, plugging in my cellphone to charge, setting my purse on the dressing table where I usually kept it…

  My eyes landed on my discarded pile of clothes and in a moment of incredible weakness I plucked the sweater off the top and brought it to my nose again, breathing in deeply. Fuck. No one was here to see me so to hell with it! I shrugged out of my robe and back into my cardigan before I got into bed. I tugged the sweater up against my nose and burrowed under the covers. The smell of Ghost comforting me the way no words or hands from anyone ever had. I closed my eyes.

  I wanted to be mad at him, wanted to blame him for what’d happened to me, for what he said to me, and for a time I did… I’d lashed out and blamed everyone for what had happened. I’d blamed Reaver for being distracted by Hayden. I’d blamed Hayden to her face for being a distraction to Reaver. I’d blamed Ghost for not wanting me and hated everyone for not trying harder to talk me into taking Dragon’s property rag when really, deep down inside, I was absolutely humiliated and angry with myself for letting it happen. For not fighting harder, for being so weak, for freezing up solid… for so many things.

  I mourned the girl I had been before. Stubborn and headstrong sure, but I used to be confident, I used to be fearless, and now… now there was nothing but fear. Sparks had stripped me of all of those things and more. I didn’t feel safe anymore. Whereas before I had felt pretty and desirable, now I felt like a piece of meat. I didn’t want to be pretty anymore. What once was a confidence booster now hung around my neck like an Albatross, a great big visible mark of my shame and a heavy burden around my neck, dragging me down. I felt like an object, just here for the using and that killed me. Where once I had felt powerful, now I felt powerless. I’d been stripped of all my illusions, I guess.

  I sighed and closed my eyes and prayed that for just one night the nightmares would stay away. I breathed deep Ghost’s smell and secretly wished I were still in his truck. I liked that he didn’t feel the need to fill the silence when I wouldn’t talk to him. I liked that he didn’t pry, that he didn’t ask how I was doing when I so obviously wasn’t doing well. I didn’t feel pressured when I was around him. I never had. He was different somehow, it was what had attracted me to him in the first place, well, after his damned good looks. The fact that he didn’t want me had driven me crazy before but now, now it was a comforting thing but it still hurt… Wasn’t that fucked up?

  I drifted off to sleep slowly, my thoughts whirling around images of Ghost, replaying the sound of him on his ugly yellow cell phone, of his murmured words in my ear… You’re safe when you’re with me. I wanted to believe him, but what I’d said was true, he wasn’t really ever around that much. Especially after what’d happened. To top it off, I wasn’t sure I would ever really feel safe again. Safe was the paramount illusion that I’d been stripped of.

  Still, with my nose pushed into my sweater, breathing him deep, I slept more fitfully than I had in months and woke the next morning to my big cousin waving a steaming mug of coffee under my nose like smelling salts.

  “Morning Sleeping Beauty,” he said with a smile, his blue eyes, an almost perfect match for my own, sparkling with entirely too much good humor given the early hour.

  I snorted, “Sleeping Beauty my ass. I look like shit first thing in the morning, always have.” I pushed myself into a sitting position and took the coffee.

  “True enough,” he agreed and ruffled my hair, I jerked my head back out of his reach and scowled.

  “To what do I owe this displeasure?” I asked sardonically.

  “Ghost called. He’s coming by to pick you up,” he said. I blinked.

  “What? What for?” I took a larger swallow of the hot coffee, bigger than I intended. I blew out and sucked air into my scalded mouth. Lots of flavored creamer. Just the way I liked it, which meant Reaver was trying to butter me up for something. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion when he shrugged laconically.

  “Reaver,” I started, warning in my voice, using the tone that foretold terrible fury and a myriad of ways of attaining my vengeance in the form of practical jokes that could end up very, very messy if not downright embarrassing for him. His eyes widened and his smile got bigger.

  “Sleep did you some good Runt! He’s coming by to take you to breakfast then to your car. You must have made an impression on him.” I blinked stupidly and stared down into my coffee. I could feel Reaver’s smile disappear.

  “Shelly,” uh oh, he used my name, that was never a good sign.

  “Mm?” I took another careful sip of coffee and wouldn’t meet my cousin’s eyes.

  “What happened last night?” he asked in that deathly quiet way of his, the way that told me my loving big cousin had gone on vacay and left the monstrous cold one to house sit inside of his head. I flinched.

  “I may have had an embarrassing epic freak out,” I said dryly staring into my coffee. I didn’t want Ghost to be in trouble, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Spill it,” Reaver ordered and I could tell just by his tone of voice he was back from wherever he’d gone. I told him about his customer opening the door and waking me up. Reaver listened in silence and when I finished gave a great big sigh.

  “Just saved your boy an ass beating. He told me as much this morning when he called,” I looked up at him sharply and backhanded his shoulder. He laughed and put up his arms in mock defense. Sadly I couldn’t hurt him if I wanted to. Reaver was solid.

  “How’s things going with Dr. Hubbard?” he asked me then and I sobered. I think my silence on that matter said everything it needed to. Reaver let out a breath and scratched the back of his neck.

  “Baby Cuz, you need to talk to somebody, if not the Doc, or me, or one of the girls…” he gave me such a pleading look.

  “Reave, I don’t… this wasn’t… I don’t know how! It’s like I want to, I really want to but I’m scared you know?” I swallowed hard.

  “Don’t you trust me?” he asked and he sounded like his heart was about to break.

  “I trust you with everything. I just, I don’t know! It’s like I want to talk about it and then the words, they just get stuck. I don’t trust Doc Hubbard, how do I know he isn’t gonna tell me I’m crazy?” truthfully I was afraid everyone was going to confirm my worst fears and my deepest shame, that what had happened to me was all my own damned fault.

  Reaver hooked a hand behind my neck and pulled me forward and down so his lips connected with my forehead. He murmured against my head, “You’re scaring the shit out of me Cuz. This ain’t you. I don’t know what else I can do to fix it. I killed him, you know I killed him and I did it bad Baby, I made him hurt so much for what he did to you.” I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut and huffed a deep breath of my own. I know my cousin meant well telling me these things but that wasn’t it.

  Sometimes, in some ways, I was jealous that Sparks had gotten to die. Sometimes it hurt so badly, in my heart and inside my head that I wish I could be afforded the same luxury. I didn’t dare say any of these things out loud though. Reaver was scared enough and I hadn’t gotten around to do anything about it mostly because I didn’t know how well he’d do if I was gone. All though with Hayden around, I figured he had a much better shot at happy than I ever would now.

  “Remember when we were kids?” I asked softly. Reaver’s expression darkened.

  “Wish I could forget, but which part?”

  “When you found out Jimmy was coming around, that he was messing with me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember how you started coming over?” I prompted.

  “I started climbing in through your window and would sleep on the floor every night between your bed and the door,” he said nodding.

  �
�I never thanked you for that,” I said and set my coffee aside, taking one of his bigger hands between the two of mine.

  “You don’t have to thank me for that or for anything I’ve ever done for you Runt. We’re family. It was you and me against the world from the moment you were born. I love you. Now get your ass out of bed. He’s gonna be here in like ten minutes.” He got up and extracted his hand from between my own and I lost my nerve, I was trying to build up, to talk to him but the moment was gone, done and over with. I nodded mutely and he frowned at me.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah you big dumb ox. Get out so I can get dressed.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and Reaver nodded. He went out, shutting the door softly behind him. I flopped onto my back and pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. What was wrong with me!? I stared at the ceiling for a heartbeat or two before throwing back the blankets. I untangled myself from my cardigan and rooted through the chest of drawers and the closet for something to wear.

  Everything that I owned clothes wise was from the girl I was before. Revealing or form fitting, which is part of what got me into trouble in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I loved sex. I loved to feel good and I loved to make my partner feel good, and I used to love to engage in it as often as possible. I mean who wouldn’t? It was fun times and even when it was empty of all emotion behind it, it had been a damned sight better than being alone.

  Which was pathetic, I know, but I had always been the girl that had been good enough to fuck but not enough to love and eventually I’d grown to accept that sad fact. After a while a ‘if I couldn’t beat ‘em, might as well join ‘em’ attitude had taken hold and I figured I was young and might as well have some damn fun… So I’d embraced my sexuality and had run with it and I had been moderately happy with the compromise. Still, I had always held out for a Mr. Right to come along someday versus a Mr. Right Now.