Chapter 3 #3
Pursing my lips, I looked at my face. I wasn’t ugly and had always had guys interested in me, before my junior year, anyway.
My hair was ginger, burnt copper as Nix had called it before realising his mistake.
I hadn’t held that against him and had chuckled, knowing how bad he’d felt.
I missed that protective, caring side of him.
He seemed to grow out of that more each day as he made that transition from boy to man.
You’ve treated him like shit. It takes two to tango. My conscience interrupted.
Pulling my hoodie back on, I grabbed my backpack and filled it with the recent additions to my collection. I needed to take them to that secret place where I stored all my trophies.
And where was that? Under the floorboards of my old bedroom at home, well, what was left of it, the one at Radcliffe Manor. My room was in the only wing that had survived the fire.
My mother died there, and it was the only place I could go to feel near to her.
PHOENIX
I had a brother?
As I had read through my file, the anxiety I experienced when I first withdrew the papers from the drawer in my nightstand tripled.
At first, I only had my mother’s new married name, Leibrock. Luckily, it was a unique surname in the States. After searching through and a couple of other online directories, I found her and details about her kid and husband. What could I say? I was smart. I excelled at the tech stuff.
Fuck!
Half-brother. I corrected myself, but still, a connection with another human being who shared some of my DNA.
The emotions thumping through my head were still indescribable. There were so many, all wrapped up together in one confusing lump.
I exhaled shakily as I stared down at the papers in my lap. This was the second time I’d staked out the house. I rechecked the address and glanced back up at the large electric gates into the estate where my birth mother now lived with her new family.
The last two days after college, I had been there. My curiosity to know more about the man my mom had ditched me for kept growing. She had walked away and left me with social services so she could start another life without me.
The biggest question being, why?
Relaxing my body against the plush leather of Reed’s Jeep, which he’d lent me this time, I scanned the picture postcard street. The annoyance in my belly continued to stir.
The fucking Waltons could live there. The Waltons were this perfect family who all kissed each other’s asses and never had to deal with any real beef. It was an old show Ma liked to watch on TiVo. Too vanilla for my tastes.
The houses were large, and so there were only eight of them in the street.
They all had big ass gates which led to a long driveway up to a huge house.
I got the gist as one was open, and I could see into the grounds where an old dude was washing one of the many cars parked there.
All expensive types with shiny paintwork that screamed, beware; pretentious cunts; like the Storm Summers of this world.
It was quiet, leafy, and nice, and I didn’t belong anywhere near it.
I had parked behind a large Red Maple tree and was skulking down, watching the fort that kept my mother from me.
Two old ladies in jogging gear walked past my car on the sidewalk, staring in, clearly wondering who the big tatted dude in the parked car was. I smiled and gave them a curt nod, and they turned away. There should be a law against old women wearing spandex. Totally gross.
I’d made it as far as the sidewalk in front of my mother’s gates twice before jogging back to my car. I get it was doubtful, but what the fuck would I say if they did let me in?
Hudson had suggested I put a note through their post box, asking her to contact me.
I wondered why the foster agency or social services hadn’t forced my mother to take responsibility for me. There were so many questions that I wanted answers to.
It didn’t say much on the internet about the dick she married—the father of my half-brother Alex.
My mother had native American ancestry, it was distant, but it was there, hence the name Phoenix.
I read that their surname was German, so I assumed she married a German dude.
Not that it bothered me where he was from, I didn’t dislike Germans per se; I disliked people, period.
When I thought about Alex, I felt a surge of protectiveness.
Shit, I’d only learned of his existence a couple of days ago, and yet the curiosity I felt to meet him was huge.
Like he could fill that piece of me that was missing, like no one ever had.
Well, apart from Harper, if only for a short time. Now that the gap was wide open again.
After wondering fleetingly what the kid's father did for a living, I told myself I didn’t care. It wasn’t about him; he was no one to me. He certainly wasn’t my father; he was tall and thin with sandy colored hair and looked too young.
I took a moment to reflect on the identity of my real father, whom I doubted my mother would even remember.
There was nothing in the file about him.
Like he was a ghost. I had been told that my mother had been a user, which was why I was taken away from her in the first place.
My dad was probably some faceless dude that she’d fucked whilst she was high.
As I sat there, sweating my tits off with no air conditioning, I waited, my jaw clenched.
Only Hudson knew where I was, well, and Molly, who’d been with him at the time of that conversation.
Hudson was the one who’d put pressure on Reed to give me his keys.
He’d still been sore about me taking the Jeep the other day and emptying the tank.
I gave him full marks for realising that this time it wasn’t a trip to the gym or the store, it was important.
I’d spoken to Hudson at Molly’s house the day after I’d opened the file.
He was keen to know what I had learned, and I told him everything.
As I’d become choked up, bearing in mind this was in our old principal’s house, he’d taken me outside.
Hudson admitted that he’d seen my file when he’d first come to live with us.
He joined the family around a year after I did, when he was fourteen.
I didn’t take offense at him not saying anything.
It wasn’t up to him to spill that shit, and I wouldn’t have been ready to learn about it then anyways. Fuck me, I wasn’t ready now.
God, I was tired. Stalking was hard work.
I stilled, as the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
The light on top of the gates into my mother’s house started flashing, and I pulled the sun visor down, another shit attempt to conceal myself.
Luckily, Reed’s truck was nice and shiny and didn’t look out of place.
Hudson’s piece of shit Ford Ranger would have stuck out like a large rusty thumb.
I watched as a large Cadillac Celestiq pulled out onto the street.
A blonde man was sitting in the driver's seat, and in the back, I just caught a glimpse of the woman who must have been my mother and the boy sitting next to her. She didn’t look much different from the shot that had been stored in the file I clutched.
A bit more polished. I could only see the top of the boy's fuzzy hair. As the vehicle drove past mine, I guessed he’d be around ten or eleven?
The woman had hair the same color as mine, and she looked happy, and why didn’t I hate that? She had abandoned me. I should be pissed and want the bitch to be miserable and ridden with guilt.
But. I. Didn’t.
Those earlier thoughts of scaling the walls into the property disintegrated, and I knew it was time to go home. Hudson had sent me a few texts to check I was OK, and I replied by saying I was heading back. Ma was making meatloaf, my favorite.
Hopefully, Harper would be there for supper. She’d been cramming for some exams and had spent a few late nights at the library at school. That sweet place where my brother Hudson had first met his girl Molly, when we were all at the same school together.
We were college boys now and soon to become football gods.
It was only the first semester, and yet so much was going on.
I didn’t have time to deal with family shit.
I needed to focus. I promised Hudson that I’d get my head in the game and start to work hard.
I’d only just graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth, and college would only get harder.
My mother had failed me when I was only five years old, and after a piss poor attempt to visit me when I was taken into care, she’d given up and walked away, starting something new.
I may have been left in the shit, but I had been given a new lease of life when I’d found Ma. We all had, including Harper.
Harper Radcliffe.
She was a thorn in my side that I had no power to remove, and didn’t want to. And one day soon, I would force her to fill in the blanks on her life when I left. I knew it wouldn’t have been easy, living with the two Barker kids.
As I pulled out into traffic, I wondered where Dalton Barker was.
He’d been a year older than me, and I hoped to see the fucker at college, but nope.
He and his sister no longer lived with Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, as I’d checked a couple of years ago.
During one of my stealth visits to check that Harper was OK.
She’d not seen me; I’d made sure of that.
Dalton and Daisy Barker.
Who cared? Good riddance. Neither of them belonged anywhere near my Harper. There it was again, my Harper, that possessive streak she was responsible for.
Thoughts of that kiss still lingered; her hot body pressed against mine.
I’d enjoyed it, but it had been way too carnal.
When the time came, I would ease Harper in slowly.
I knew she was innocent. I’d made sure of that, kept all the little shits at Harbor Heights away from her.
She was a Sawyer, too good for high school boys.
But to step up and be that man, I had to make something of my life first. And I could only do that if I worked my ass off without any added complications.
A dull ache throbbed between my eyes as I drove back home. Tortured pasts and broken promises would have to wait. I would not lose control and let that storm inside me consume all sense and reason.
Once I’d figured shit out, I would make my move. And then those that I had targeted would know about it.
I was Phoenix Carter, and I had every intention of rising from the ashes. And I wouldn’t be alone. I had promised Harper that I would be there for her, take her with me.
And one day, I would.
Hudson and I had started to look at transferring to one of the dorms on campus. He craved privacy with his girl, and who could blame him? Moving out would also give us more independence, as well as reduce the burden on Ma. And then Harper and I could see if there was something real between us.
That couldn’t be determined living in the same house, not for those first steps anyway.
I was no relationship guru, but that wasn’t the way of things.
If I were going to do something about me and Harper, it wouldn’t involve sneaking about in the dead of the night.
I’d want to do it right, be open about it; trans-fucking-parent.
I also couldn’t disrespect Ma and her rules.
Harper and I belonged together like two lost souls. I just needed her to wait for me a little while longer.