Hell And Back

by Natasha Madison

  The excitement over Brenda coming home has been contagious. My mother is planning a big welcome home and we love you so much BBQ.

  She and Bella have gone crazy with the food and decorations. I’m afraid to see the end result.

  We don’t even make it two steps into the room before Brenda is on her feet, purse in hand, ready to leave. She takes one look at the wheelchair I’m pushing and glares at me. “Jackson Fletcher, don’t make me hurt you.”

  She walks up to Lilah, grabbing her hand in hers. “Let’s go party, little heart.”

  Bella leans into me, trying to hide her giggles. “I told you so,” she says before she jogs to join the other two.

  I pull into the driveway and look around. There is practically no parking.

  I hear music coming from the backyard. Making our way into the backyard, I take in the scene. These two have lost their ever loving minds.

  It’s like we’ve walked into a fucking carnival. There are so many balloons, I feel like that guy in the movie Up.

  The backyard is packed with people. Family members, neighbors, acquaintances. It feels like my mother put up a sign and everyone just showed up.

  There are circus clowns, popcorn machines, hot dog carts, jugglers, a cotton candy machine. All that’s missing is the goddamn lion.

  “What in the world did you guys do?” I hear Brenda ask.

  Lilah is so excited, she jumps up and down yelling, “Surprise, Nan!” Her little hands clap out their excitement.

  “It’s your very own carnival.” My mother looks at her, placing an arm around her shoulder. “It’s your happy place.”

  Brenda also claps her hands in excitement. She doesn’t get much time to look around before people approach her with their well wishes.

  I hear shrieks of laughter, giggles, and many, many ‘oh my gosh, you shouldn’t haves’ coming from Brenda. Bella stands right next to her the whole time. I look around the yard as my eyes land on Kendall’s.

  I make my way to her standing beside the lemonade table.

  “Hey.” I lean down to kiss her cheek. She places her hand on my chest, and it’s then I realize it was never supposed to be her. “You look nice.” And she really does.

  “You look like you always do,” she says shyly. “I heard about Adam. I’m so sorry, Jackson.”

  She was with me when I went through that whole thing. She saw the guilt eat at me. She felt me slipping away, felt me push her to the side.

  I’m not sure what to say, so I say what she expects me to. “Thank you.” I turn to look around to see if I can spot Bella, and I find her sitting with Lilah on the grass near a clown making balloon animals.

  “She makes you happy?” Her question breaks my trance.

  “I never thought I deserved to be this happy.” I’m trying to find the right words, but I don’t get them out before I hear Thomas speaking to her. “Hey, baby, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He slings his arm around Kendall’s waist, and her eyes light up when she looks up at him.

  “Hey, Thomas.” I reach out my hand to shake his.

  “Ackson, Ackson, look, it’s a cat!” Lilah says, running to me with her animal balloon.

  I bend down to pull her into my arms, and Bella walks up beside me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Hey,” she says softly, and I lean down to kiss her on her head.

  “Bella, right?” Kendall asks.

  “Yes. Hi, we met once before. I brought over cookies,” Bella says.

  An awkward silence grows until Lilah pipes in. “I so hunbry.”

  We all laugh.

  “Excuse us, you two. I gotta get my girls fed.” I smile at them and say, “It was nice seeing you.” I turn to walk away, but Bella smiles at them.

  “We should have you two over one of these days. That would be fun.”

  I think to myself that would not be fun at all.

  Thomas, who is clearly not feeling the ‘hell no’ vibes both Kendall and I are throwing off, actually agrees with Bella. Giving them a polite nod, I pull my girls to the hot dog stand.

  “I hope you realize that is never going to really happen,” Bella says quietly as we walk away.

  I have no answer, but I am in full agreement, so I just laugh at her.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Bella

  We walk into the house with Lilah passed out on Jackson’s shoulder. It’s way, way past her bed time.

  She didn’t even open her eyes when I unbuckled her from the car seat. She is down and out for the count.

  Making my way upstairs, I walk into her room, watching him place her on the covers. “Undress her or leave her?” She wore her best dress for her Nan today. It’s a long, flower print dress that matches her doll’s, with black ballerina shoes.

  “Angel, the house could shake right now around her, and she wouldn’t notice.” We both lean down, kissing her goodnight before turning on the night light she sleeps with.

  “I can’t believe we just left Brenda at her house without forcing our way in,” I tell him while taking off my shoes.

  He looks at me with one eyebrow cocked up. “Angel, she said she would shoot me with my own weapon if I walked into her house.” He laughs and adds, “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure she would do it, too.”

  I let out a little laugh, rolling my eyes at him. “Like you can’t defend yourself.” I walk to him, placing my hands on his chest, getting up on my tippy toes. “You’re so big and strong.” I continue to joke with him.

  He rubs my arms with his hands, and just the feel of his hands on me makes my heart beat faster each and every single time.

  “I’ll show you big and strong.” He picks me up and my legs automatically wrap around his waist.

  “Yeah,” I tell him while one of my hands snakes around his neck and the other one strokes his cheek. He hasn’t shaved in two days, so his stubble is long. I lean in, placing a kiss on his lips.

  His beard pricks my lips like little needles. “You really need to shave. It’s starting to get dangerous to kiss you.” I rub his beard with one finger.

  “You know you love my beard,” he says as he kisses my neck. The sensation of his beard along my skin is rough and tingly, a sensation I’ve come to love a bit more each time I feel it.

  “Hmmm, really?”

  “Remember the last time I ate your pussy? Your thighs had a lovely razor burn, and every time you saw those marks, you jumped my bones,” he reminds me, and he isn’t lying. The thought of being marked by him was a huge turn on.

  “It’s not my fault. You made me into this.” I laugh at him.

  He places me on my feet, and I look at him in confusion. “I thought we were going to have a repeat of the performance.” I’m almost whining like Lilah does when she doesn’t get her way.

  “Wait here,” he tells me before walking over to the closet and pulling out his duffle bag.

  I can’t see what he’s doing, but he comes back with a smile on his face. He pushes me until I’m sitting on the bed and then kneels in front of me.

  “My sweet, Bella,” he begins. My heart starts beating just a bit faster, not sure what he is going to say. Did seeing Kendall make him change his mind? What if he doesn’t love me? That thought alone has tears forming in my eyes.

  “Did you know I watched you that first night you went outside to watch the stars with Lilah?” I shake my head no, because I had no idea, I thought I was invisible.

  “I watched you from my house, darkness all around me, all around you, but even then I knew I was watching an angel.”

  He grabs both my hands in his. “I kept thinking I had to meet you. I kept wondering who you were. Then you opened the door the next morning.” He laughs at the memory. “I only saw your head. The rest of you was hidden behind the door. I remember thinking you really did look like an angel.”

  “You were very pushy,” I add in, thinking back to those first days.

  “You were a pain in my ass, even then. I came home and you we
re doing the one thing I asked you not to do. I remember thinking, of course I’m going to fall for someone who would bust my balls. And I sure did.”

  I glare at him. “I don’t bust your balls, Jackson.”

  “I fell in love with you while I made sand castles with your daughter. I fell in love with your daughter the minute she asked me to save her from monsters.” His voice is rough, husky. “From that moment, I vowed to always do what I could do to protect and care for you both.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a black box.

  He raises one leg off the floor. “Bella Cartwright, I never want to know what a tomorrow will be like without you in it. I never want to wake up in a bed without you in it. I don’t want to go through this life without you by my side. I want to love you. I want to cherish you. I want to honor you. I want to grow old with you sitting next to me in that swing watching stars.”

  A tear rolls down my face, which he wipes away.

  “Marry me?”

  I look at this man with the crystal blue eyes, who has personally chased off every single one of my demons. The man who showed me what it was like to love and to be loved. The man who shows me tomorrow will be better than today.

  “I used to watch your house after that first day, too, just to get a little glimpse of you,” I tell him shyly.

  “Before I even knew you existed, though, I used to dream of a man with blue eyes who would chase away the bad that was in my life,” I tell him. “I fell in love with you as you built sand castles with my daughter. I fell in love with you when you told her you would build it so high no monsters could get her.”

  I lean in to kiss him, because I can’t not kiss him. “If I say yes, does this mean you’ll actually move all of your stuff over here?” I ask him with a sly smile.

  “Angel, I’m already moved in. You just didn’t realize it,” he jokes, and looking around, I actually see all of his stuff is here. Even his television. “Well then, I guess we have no choice.”

  “You got that one right. You’re stuck with me,” he says while slipping the ring on my finger.

  Tears of joy run down my face as I look at the ring that will show the world I am his. Knowing everyone who sees it will know I’m his, but more importantly, they’ll know he’s mine.

  I kiss him with everything I have and wind up knocking him down to the floor.

  “When can we get married?” I ask him, not even interested in waiting.

  “How is next week?” he asks me while tucking the hair behind my ears.

  “Perfect.”

  It really is fucking perfect.

  I’m in the middle of the house that was just a shell when I moved in, but it’s a loving home for our family now.

  We have both been to the gates of hell, but together we fought our way back.

  Back to life, back to happiness, back to love.

  Epilogue

  Seven years later

  “DDDDAAAAAAADDDDDD!!!” I hear being yelled as soon as I walk into the house.

  It’s like they have a tracker on me. I throw my keys on the table by the door and make my way in the direction of the noise, to the kitchen.

  “I’m home,” I say, walking over to the sink and kissing my wife on her neck as I wrap my arms around her.

  “You guys are gross!” I hear from the table beside us. Lilah is doing her homework at the table while her brother tries to color next to her.

  Lilah is now ten going on twenty, and Frankie is almost five.

  Little Frankie, as we call him, is named after my dad and is the spitting image of me. “Yeah, Dad, you gwoss,” he says while coloring his picture, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration.

  Lilah’s iPad beeps with a notification of a message coming in. She quickly reads it and then erases it. I look at Bella, who just shrugs then looks away smiling.

  “Who is that?” I ask, pointing to the iPad.

  “It’s Jeremy,” Frankie says, not taking his face off the picture he’s working on.

  “Who is Jeremy?” I ask Lilah, then look at Bella for the answer to my question.

  The iPad dings again. This time Lilah gathers all her stuff up, placing it in her schoolbag. “Okay, I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask her retreating back.

  “Over to Nan’s. We had the S-E-X talk today, so Nan is going to go over it with me. Later, Dad.”

  I don’t have a chance to say anything. I’m looking around, wondering when they started talking about sex. “Bella, you need to call that school and tell them we do not want her taking that class.”

  Bella laughs at me while she checks the food in the oven. “Oh, please, it’s normal stuff. We all learned it,” she says while she saunters over to sit on my lap.

  “I did not learn that in school.” I shake my head. “Fine, I’ll just go there myself tomorrow and take care of that, and while I’m at it, I’m going to find out who this Jeremy kid is.”

  “Jeremy is da boy, Dad, da cute boy.” Frankie looks up at me while picking up another color crayon. “Da really cute boy,” he tells me. He repeats whatever his older sister says.

  “You seriously have to talk to her, Bella. No boys. I’m serious.”

  “I have to talk to her? Why do I have to talk to her? You should talk to her.” Bella is still a pain in my ass.

  “I liked it better when you agreed with me,” I tell her, nipping her earlobe.

  She places her hand on mine on the table. Our matching rings shine under the light.

  “In ten minutes, dinner will be ready, so go wash up, Frankie.”

  He puts all his things away, jumps down from the table, and runs to the bathroom to wash his hands.

  “Is that a pencil in your pocket, Mr. Fletcher?” Bella asks me as she grinds her ass down on my cock. My hand moves up her thigh, sliding under her skirt, finding her bare.

  My head snaps up.

  “I missed you,” she tells me while she leans down and kisses my neck, tracing it with her tongue.

  “Frankie, go next door to Nan’s house. Tell her Mom and Dad are talking serious,” I yell at him while he is coming out of the bathroom.

  “Okay, Dad.” He doesn’t question it, just runs right out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Your mother is supposed to come over,” she tells me as I’m unbuttoning my pants to pull my cock out.

  “What time?” I ask her while pulling her skirt up and placing her right on top of my hard cock, reverse cowgirl style. She hovers over me before slowly sinking down.

  “So fucking wet,” I tell her, holding her hips to control her movements. If you walked in right now, you wouldn’t be able to tell because her skirt has fallen down to cover her.

  Her moans, though, are getting kind of loud. Turning her face to mine, I kiss her mouth. Our tongues roll with each other. Her pants are increasing, but at least she’s not loud anymore.

  I trail my hand under her skirt, heading straight for her clit, wetting my finger as I slowly make circles around it. Her hips start to rise and fall faster. I pinch her clit, knowing she’s almost there because her pussy is practically strangling my cock, it’s squeezing me so tightly.

  Fuck, it never gets old with her. It just gets better and better.

  “I’m going to come,” she says two seconds before she slams down on me. Riding out the wave of her orgasm, her pussy contracts around me and I can’t hold back.

  I come hard, emptying myself inside of her.

  We sit here for a minute more, catching our breaths.

  “Why is my mother coming over?” I ask her.

  My mother sold our childhood home and moved into my old house.

  Between Brenda and Mom, the kids can come and go as they please.

  “We need to tell her she’s going to be a grandma again,” she whispers to me.

  I look over at my wife, who has given me everything. Placing my hand on her still flat stomach, I hold her and the child we created, thanking God for sending me my angel.
<
br />   The End

  Marissa & Mick

  Prologue

  I’m sitting here on a stool in this old, dead bar. The smell of stale cigarettes lingers on the walls, having soaked in over the years, way before they were banned.

  I look at the brown liquid in my glass, thinking about how I got here. Thinking about how much I could fuck up, even my own life.

  The stool next to me moves, scraping across the floor, but I don’t take my eyes off the glass.

  I don’t have to turn around to see who is sitting next to me. I know Fred, the bartender, called him. It’s what he always does when he thinks I’ve gone over the edge.

  I think this is my worst bender yet, and trust me I’ve had a lot of fucking benders. How could I not?

  I’ve been here for the past five days, each day coming in at around noon, not leaving till past midnight. A couple of days I passed out on his couch in the office, waking in a puddle of drool and the cat’s hair on my tongue.

  Just another phase, they thought. Just another bad time. If only they fucking knew.

  “So.” I hear Jackson talk. “How long is it going to last this time?” It’s not our first rodeo. Jackson is the only one who has been there for me over the years.

  I shrug my shoulders, not even sure of the answer myself.

  “Is it Marissa? Is it Lori?”

  Just the mention of their names is like a stab to the heart. The pain so unbearable I grab the glass. I drink the amber liquid, hoping to feel it burn all the way down.

  “Gone.” Is all I say. It’s all I can muster up.

  “Gone where? Bella just spoke with her,” Jackson says.

  “Sandie’s pregnant.” The thought alone makes the liquid I just swallowed begin to climb up.

  The shocked look on Jackson’s face mimics mine when she told me.

  “Had heaven in my hands and I let it go. Fucked it up. Now I’m living in hell.”

  With that I close my eyes, remembering the day I actually touched heaven.