Chapter 4 #2
I walk alongside him. It’s not easy, given that the pace he sets is one I basically have to run to keep up with. There’s no turning around and heading home now. I didn’t fully comprehend just how bad ‘can’t be fixed’ was.
I don’t know what to say, except that I remember Dad telling me that Shadow isn’t like other people. If he wants to spar, I’m up for it. I change my tactic, instead of sweet and sappy, I add a little salt. Or a lot. “You do know that this is building walls instead of bridges.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you don’t like me,” he says tonelessly, increasing his pace.
“That’s random, but okay. Is it because you don’t like you either? Has that been going on since the fire or before?”
He stops dead so fast that I overshoot him and have to turn around.
At least I get to see his face. It’s mostly shadowed from the hat protecting his features from the streetlights, but his eyes flash angrily.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly obnoxious in a perky way, which makes it at least ten times worse? ”
“Hey, you chose to bug out on foot. You could have just driven away. I couldn’t have caught up to you then.”
“The bike is a club thing. The vest too.”
That winds me, but I have to put on a brave face and pretend that it doesn’t. This is real. He’s truly leaving. He liked his life here. He said so. He can’t give it all up because I showed up at his house.
“Didn’t you take club vows?”
“Tyrant will let me out of it. He’s not into spilling blood if he doesn’t have to. The club isn’t prison. It’s a brotherhood. You can ask for space from your family when you need it.”
“I think you have enough space. I don’t think you ever were really part of a brotherhood. You were just there. Existing. Living in the shadows. Ironic, don’t you think?” That’s too much. I took the crumbs my dad gave me and used them like a weapon.
Shadow doesn’t blink. “I took my name because that’s exactly how I wanted to function. It’s not ironic. It’s apt.”
It’s the same thing my dad says about his own name. Preacher. He wanted to own both the good and the bad parts of life, the painful and the beautiful. He couldn’t think of a better name.
He starts walking again, setting the same punishing pace. I keep up, but barely. “What are you looking for? What do you want me to say?”
“Your life changed because of me.”
“My life changed because of my own decisions, nothing more or less. You don’t have to worry. I was never going to amount to much, and I never was anything to look at, so no foul. It’s all good.”
“It’s clearly not. Can you stop for a minute?” I hate how whiny my voice sounds. I have to plead and I’m panting, so it comes out all wrong. “I don’t want you to leave. My dad will be devastated.”
“Should have thought of that before you acted like a brat.”
Fair, but I still can’t let this go. “I’ve thought about you every day and every night for five years.”
“Not my problem,” he states callously. “They have pills for that.”
“I dreamt about you.”
“They definitely have pills for that.”
“I didn’t want pills. I wanted you.”
That brings him to a grinding stop, and not in a good way. He rounds on me the way a wild animal does when it’s finally tired of being chased and decides to bare its teeth and make one last stand. “This isn’t some romance, sweetheart. It’s beauty and the beast.”
“Yeah?” I snark him right back. “Thank goodness that you’re only scarred then. You don’t fit the bill.”
His eyes scrape over me and a low heat that’s far more than shame blossoms in my stomach. “You are your father’s daughter.”
“I’m proud of that.”
“That’s why I need to leave. Because you’ll make me a project and I just want to live in peace.”
I already know the answer, but I have to keep him talking. I have to keep him here. “How would I make you a project?”
“You’re twenty-one. You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s unfair. You can’t use age against me. You were my age when you ran into the fire to save me. Anyway, I’m not as sheltered as you think. After my parents divorced, I had to grow up fast, but even before that, I knew a lot more about what was going on than anyone gave me credit for.”
“Kids always do. People think they’re stupid, but they’re probably the smartest ones of all.”
“You’re contradicting yourself now.”
He sighs, his shoulders deflating. His defenses seem to be failing, or I’ve worn them down already, and he can’t keep the pain out of his voice. “I’m leaving because I asked you to leave it alone and you won’t. I don’t know how much more plain I can be about it.”
Ouch. “Would it really be so bad to just exist in the same space as me?”
“The fact that you even have to ask that when I had a bag packed already is disconcerting.”
“I wouldn’t call it disconcerting.”
“Proving my point then.”
“I don’t see how it does.” I’m well aware that I’m being a stubborn ass, so I’m not surprised when he points it out.
“You’re doing it right now.”
“And you’re just being surly because you’re angry and in pain.
You were before the fire, and after the fire, everyone just let you stew in it.
You may think that’s good for you, but it’s not.
It’s good to be human, to make connections, to have friends.
That’s the only thing really worth it in life. ”
“Naive.” The word explodes out of him cruelly, but he angles his face so I can’t see it properly and his emotions can’t betray him.
“You’re so blessed here. You have everything.” I have to try one more time to convince him that leaving is crazy. “A job, friends, brothers, chosen family. You’re just going to throw that away because you’re in a surly mood about my existence and a little bit of change?”
“It’s times like these that I’m so thankful I can only hear properly out of one ear.”
I try to reach out, and even though there’s no skin showing that my fingers could graze, Shadow jerks back like I’m holding a taser. I quickly raise both hands in the air, like he’s the one getting ready to zap me. “You’re not a project. You’d only have to see me once a month. I promise.”
He snorts, but some of the tension drains out of him when he realizes that I’m not going to try to touch him.
I point at his bag. “If you’re going to wherever it is you’re running away to, how are you getting there?”
He shrugs, perfectly happy to be called on what’s likely not bullshit at all. “To the bus station.”
“You’re going to take the bus?”
“What? You think I shouldn’t mix with good people?”
“What the hell? That’s not even…” I trail off.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t be fine! Just- please! Don’t do this. Not because of me.”
I’m still a step in front of him. I cross my arms and spread my feet wide like he did at the house, blocking his path.
He tries to step around me and on instinct, my hands shoot out.
He stops dead when my palms make contact with the solid wall of his chest. He’s rock hard under the hoodie.
Not flat either. I can feel the uneven swell of his pecs, the rippling muscles of his shoulders, and all the latent power in his big body.
From this angle, I can see right under his hat. His jaw clenches and something flashes across his face that is terrifying, that I flinch.
“See. You can’t even bear to look at me,” he mutters.
“It’s not your face,” I say. “Who did this to you? Why do you hate yourself so much?” I quickly drop my hands. I don’t take my eyes off his face, though.
He tries to look away.
“I- I can’t do anything halfway,” I admit. “You’re right. I have this thing and it’s like my dad’s thing. I care. A lot. Of course I care about you, but it’s not pity and it’s not like I’m trying to save you.”
“You think I have a terrible existence,” he accuses flatly.
“I don’t,” I huff.
“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be trying to change it.”
“I think that even the best things in the world have some room for improvement.”
“It wouldn’t be the best then.”
Damn him and his logic. I have no choice but to resort to silly humor. “It would if it was the best times infinity.”
He sighs the kind of sigh that says that he’s finished with this for tonight.
“I have a face that only a mother could love and she doesn’t, but to be fair, she was never much of a mother and I don’t really care.
I have a plan to cover all this shit up in tattoos anyway, now that there are good artists that specialize in wrecked skin.
I don’t need pity and I sure as fuck don’t need friends.
I’m glad I could help you and I absolve you of any emotion related to me becoming something of collateral damage. It’s truly all good.”
I can’t help it. My lip trembles, and when it starts going, my nose burns, and my eyes fill up with tears.
“No! Come on. Don’t go all sad, kicked puppy on me.” His words are unkind, but beneath them, there’s no small amount of panic. He makes a motion towards my shoulder and then the other. “I hereby knight you Madam Sainthood. You can leave now.”
“Here’s the thing.” I suck back the tears and refuse to break eye contact, even if it is intense. “My dad taught me a long time ago to trust my gut. Once a month,” I beg. “I’ll only bother you one time every single month.”
“God. If you think you owe me, fine. What I want is for you to respect my wishes. There. Leave.”
“I can’t respect your wishes if what you want hurts you.”
He rolls his eyes violently. “Congrats on knowing me better than I know myself after all of five minutes. Those tattoos, let’s get matching ones. Let’s make it each other’s names with sweet little hearts.”
“If that’s what you really want. You’d be great at standup comedy.”
“I’ll consider a change of profession in, oh right. Never.”
“Asshole.” I don’t mean to let that out, but Shadow’s lips twitch as soon as I’ve said it.
“That’s already been established.”
This isn’t going to get us anywhere. For every argument I have, Shadow will have a counter argument. We could stand here and argue all night, but he’s not going to hear me. There’s only one thing left to do.
I charge him and snatch his bag off his shoulder. I race back the way we came, eating up the sidewalk as fast as I can.