Her caretaker, Vicky, walked out of the kitchen holding a cup of coffee, sipping at it. “Hello, sweetie. How was your day?” She wore a tight, white blouse that was cut so low that her chest looked about ready to burst out. Her “skirt” barely covered her ass. She had my mother’s diamond necklace around her neck with way too much make-up and way too high heels on for just being a caretaker.
What the hell?
I looked to my mother, who was squeezing her eyes shut tight, then back at Vicky.
“Did you just call me ‘sweetie’?” I snapped.
“Yes, sorry. I guess you’re too old for that, huh?” She waved her hands in the air at me and giggled. “So,Jase…Your dad will be home soon. Will you be joining us for dinner?”
I’m in the freaking Twilight Zone.
I looked back at my mother again. “Is everybody in this house crazy? Is she actually wearing your necklace and dressed like a prostitute for a reason?”
Vicky started to interrupt me, but I cut her off. “I want to speak to my mother alone,now.”
She cleared her throat and placed her coffee cup down on one of the tables next to the couch. The rim was stained with deep red lip prints. “Fine. I’ll just be in the kitchen preparing dinner for your dad. If your mother needs me, you know where to find me.”
I watched her walk out of the room and my head snapped back to my mother’s embarrassed face. “Are you going to talk to me today? You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
She blinked her eyes slowly and bowed her head, making a few strands of her hair fall in front of her eyes. Knowing she could barely use the muscles in her arms to lift her hands and sweep her hair from her face, I did it for her. She was so helpless that my heart ached.I hated my father for what he'd done to her.
“One of your father’s many replacements for me, Jase. You know how he is,” she whispered with a quivering lip.
“Don’t put up with his shit. I’ll get you out of here,” I said.
“No.”
“What? Youlikebeing the victim?”
“Jase, you will never understand. Not until you love someone more than you love yourself,” she whispered.
“That’s sick. You’re sick. He’s sick. And that nut in the kitchen is sick.”
The front door slammed closed and my father’s voice was a deep, low threat that slid over my skin. “Get away from your mother, and don’t ever talk to her like that again.”
Oh look, the jerk who thinks he’sGodis home.
“What? It’s okay for you to disrespect her with your words, your cheating, and your fists, but I can’t try tohelpher?”
He swallowed the distance between us in two huge steps, and I stilled myself to stand up to him and lifted my eyes to meet his ice-cold stare. His eyes were the same messed up whitish-blue as mine, and I hated that I looked anything like him. I hated anything that had to do with him. I knew what kind of evil he had inside him; that asshole is the reason my motherwas inher wheel chair.
He swung hard and fast, knocking the air right out of my lungs with one quick punch to my chest. As soon as he pulled back for another swing, I blocked his hand and clocked him in the jaw. He tumbled backward with wide disbelieving eyes; I had never hit him back,ever.
Lunging at me, he struck me hard again—landing two jabs at my eye. My vision blurred instantly, and I quickly used my arm to wipe the warm drops of blood that fell down the side of my face. He took that reprieve to jab another two lightning fast punches, to my mouth this time, splitting it open. The taste of my own blood made me furious. He came at me one more time, but I blocked the advance and foot-swept him, making him crash hard to the floor.
I stepped over him, grabbed my helmet, and ran out the back door, slamming it hard behind me. I ran into the garage, gripped my dirt bike by the handlebars, and pushed it through the double doors. My father stood at the back door of the house, leaning against the doorframe, smiling. He wassmilingat me.
“It’s about time you learned to be a man,” he mumbled.
“You are one sick son of a bitch,” I said back, making my way out into the street with my bike. With my right foot, I jumped on the kick-start, bringing the engine to life, and without letting it warm up, sped away. I didn’t even put the helmet on until I reached the corner of my street, and then slammed my visor down.
I rode like a demon through the streets to the end of the neighborhood where the weeds were. I didn’t even stop for stop signs. I was too angry, and I was too reckless—that’s how I always was. I never thought about the consequences for anything. And yeah, I thought about riding fast, head first into a brick building or off the Cross-Bay Bridge, flipping over my handlebars and dying some crazy-ass death. That’s how pissed off I was. Don’t you dare tell me that you’ve never thought crap like that, either! It’s a human reaction, and we’re not freakingrobots. Although I wished like Hell I was one, because then my heart wouldn’t be aching so much. I could just shut myself off. Unplug myself so I could feel nothing.
I rode my way down through the high weeds, along the dirt trail we all raced through, and over the sand to the beach. My red and black Baja Dirt Runner 125-motocross bike was the latest gift from Dear Old Dad after I walked in on him busting his nuts in the first woman he hired to take of my mother. I guess that was his way of bribing me to keep my mouth shut. I took the bike, but I didn’t keep his secrets. I anonymously called the nursing service she worked for and got her fired, then told my mother. But again, my mother didn’t mind, she alreadyknew. Some people like living in Woe-Is-Me-Land, gives them a sense of worth—being other people’s doormats.
Making my way over the rocky terrain, I searched for friendly faces. There were four other guys on bikes, revving their engines, just waiting for me to join them.
When I saw Charlie and Mason standing next to each other, I almost lost it. With everything that had just gone down, I’d forgotten what I was originally pissed off about. Staring at her, I realized I was spiraling into crazed territory. Charlie had on a pair of low-rise jeans with torn knees and a tight white Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt that made her rack look un-freaking-believable. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders—her bangs cut long, letting her gorgeous green eyes play peek-a-boo behind her black-framed glasses. Charlie must have gone out of her way to dress herself up, because even her nails were painted a shiny black. Fuck, I could even tell her lips were painted with her favorite watermelon flavored lip gloss.
