Lauren:And now you won’t answer the phone. Why are you punishing us?
My existence narrowed to the screen. It didn’t surprise me that Lauren was covering her tracks by spelling out a twisted narrative that had no bearing on reality, but the depths of it shocked me. The implications. Theconsequencesif anyone who mattered read it and believed it.
This has to stop.Goddamn, she was right about that.
I left my phone on the floor and rose with a singular focus.
My car was on the road, parked at an angle that should’ve given me pause, and reminded me how eager I’d been to get back to Folk. But Folk wasn’t here, and neither was his innate calm. It was just me and a live hand grenade I’d lost the pin for somewhere between here and my kitchen floor.
I slid behind the wheel, the soreness in my body too distant and sweet to tame the fury ripping through me. Revved the engine as if I was on my fucking bike and a different soul to the mild-mannered idiot who rode my donated V-Rod.
Lauren’s house was a short drive through midmorning traffic. I hit every green light, giving me no time to calm the fuck down and regret my life choices.
I pulled onto her street and abandoned my car in the first space I saw, three doors away from the house where I’d spent the majority of the last few years waiting alone on the doorstep, swallowing my frustration as the neighbours stared at me.
Herculean self-control that deserted me as I bounded up the steps and hammered on the door.
Lauren ripped it open, as if she’d been waiting for me. Like she knew she’d found that magic, evil thing to push me over the edge. “What are you doing here, Seth? You know you’re not supposed to come here without prior arrangement.”
“Fuck you.” I made myself stop a foot away from her. “And fuck what you’ve done to Ivy. You’re not going to get away with telling people it was me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar. And don’t even bother. She already told someone it was you.”
“Who? Your boyfriend? Or the trash bitch with the fat thighs? Because neither of them have been approved by me to be alone with my daughter.”
Folk. Orla. “It doesn’t matter who she told. Just that she did, and she’ll do it again when I get her in front of the social worker.”
Lauren laughed. “And when are you going to do that? Before or after I tell them that you came here and threatened me?”
“Threatened you with what? Social services? You think I won’t call them?”
“I know you won’t because it means they’ll take a closer look at you too. You’re a criminal, Seth. Your friends are criminals. I bet your boyfriend has a rap sheet as long as my arm.”
“Have you checked? Cos I have, and everything Folk’s ever done makes him a better person than you and me combined.”
Irritation flared in Lauren’s heartless gaze. “Whatever. You don’t get to play happy families, Seth. Not when you take a pair of scissors to our daughter’s hair.”
“It wasn’t scissors.” I stepped closer, rage incinerating my common sense. “It was a bread knife, wasn’t it? At least that’s what Ivy told someone you’ll never fucking meet.”
The brief pause let me know I’d scored a point. A tiny one in a sea of shit stacked against me.
Then Lauren lunged and shoved me, knocking me off balance while she grabbed her bag from inside and stepped out of the house.
The door banged shut behind her. She moved to escape to her flashy hatchback, but I blocked her, wishing I’d had the foresight to do it with my car.
“Get out of my way, Seth.”
She shoved me again.
But this time I was ready for her, and I went nowhere, my boots planted to the concrete beneath them. “I’m not going anywhere until we end this. You can’t keep fucking with Ivy. Do what you want to me, I don’t care. But this bullshit manipulation you’re pulling on her, it stops now.”
“I’m not the one forcing your faggot lifestyle down her throat.”
“Tell that to a judge. It’s not the fucking fifties. You think anyone cares where I put my damn dick?”
“I care. It’s disgusting.”
