Chapter Four
Adelaide
Poe comes to the shop every day. It’s making my nerves ragged, and the need to be with him is almost overwhelming. Not to mention the way he watches me work like I’m the only person in the room.
No more taking his eyes off me to look at other women. He gives them a mere dismissive glance if they try to talk to him and goes back to watching me. He learned his lesson well without a single protest or excuse given. It makes me giddy.
I know in my bones he’s waiting for his chance. If I gave him any sign of a green light, we’d be all over each other in seconds.
The problem with that is how I feel about him.
He’s it for me. I can feel it every time he’s around me. When our eyes meet, it’s an instant knee-weakening reaction. I can’t stop thinking about the comfort of his arms around me. His kiss and that instant inferno of heat that cascaded through me. The rightness between us. Like I’d finally come home after a long as hell walk through the desert. I’ve never felt any of that before.
That doesn’t mean he feels the same. For all I know, it will be some wild sex and a goodbye from him. His focus is on me for the moment. Once he has me, he could walk away so easily.
Logic and reason don’t have a place in my brain right now. My emotions are all over the place. The constant nagging doubts won’t shut up, so I’m brushing them to the side like an idiot.
A lot of the SoT members have been coming in to get tattoos. I know it’s all thanks to him. That kind of gesture can’t be wiped away. He could have chosen any shop on this block with ease. He chose mine, and he’s sticking with it.
He’s even convinced several of the survivors’ group to pose for tasteful pictures that get put on the site to influence more people. I haven’t seen it since Grace showed me, but she stops in to check on me a few times a week and keeps me updated on behind-the-scenes stuff.
Or to let Damon hover over her like a love-sick puppy, ready to show her all the tricks he knows to get close to her.
When Poe noticed the check-ins, he said he would add me to the group so I could see it firsthand instead.
I didn’t feel comfortable with it. They’ve seen me once, and most of them didn’t speak much. They need a safe space without a random stranger butting in.
When I told him that, he smiled at me so sweetly, I wanted to pounce on him. Those lips are dangerous. Especially when he softens to give me adoring looks, as if I’m his everything. He knew what I was thinking, too.
“Do it,” he had whispered, his intensity burning me up. “Come on, siren.”
Instead of running to him, I ran away, claiming I had stuff to do.
There’s only one thing I can do to ease all my fears. The sudden paranoia that I’m going to make a mistake I can’t come back from. I need to call my Maman.
There are a lot of pitfalls with it. Sure, I can get my questions answered. But that comes with a price. Everything does with Maman.
She’s been so happy with Asher finding his One that she might lay off me a bit. Daniella and Sophia haven’t found theirs yet, but Suzette has. Three perfect people for her. I can’t be jealous of her. I have no idea how she handles all three of them at once. I’d lose my mind.
Maman’s joy in Asher settling down has gotten extra weird during our phone calls. I haven’t been calling as much to keep it at a minimum.
She has spoiled Ash ever since we found out what had happened to him. I’m not ashamed to say I’m the same way with him. If he asked me for one of my pinkies, I would give it to him with no question. Because of this, I’ve been teased mercilessly by my family over the years. Taunted enough that it stopped being a joke and started to be a battle. It got worse when I moved to the same town as Asher.
No one knows the move was for my sanity.
Yeah, a part of me wanted to be close if he needed the support. The rest of me fell in love with the town. There’s always something going on, sights to see, both good and bad. It’s an experience. Daniella is in love with where she moved too. Neither of us can picture being anywhere else. The only difference is that she’s not close to Asher.
Maman and the rest of the family see me staying here as some kind of attempt to cling to Asher instead of living my own life.
She says I should move back because I’m smothering Asher. I’m leading him into evil by doing tattoos all over him. My influence has ruined him.
Supposedly, my only reason for living here doesn’t need me butting my way into his life anymore.
I haven’t even met any of them. It’s ridiculous to imagine that I’m hovering over him all day and night. I don’t even know where he lives now.
No amount of arguing has ever changed her mind, but I’m still trying to point out the obvious and hope that she finally looks.
If I point out the fact that I’m settled here, she complains about me being a tattoo artist. She thinks it’s disrespectful.
She didn’t stop harassing me about Asher’s tattoos until he admitted he liked them. After that, it was a quiet acceptance, and no apologies for all the tirades I endured. But she still hasn’t given up on making me quit doing what I love.
Maman hasn’t approved of anything I’ve done for a long time now. Being away from her has helped me become the person I want to be. All I have to do is brush off all her weird rants about my life. It’s mine, not hers. I’ll live to please me, thank you.
I’m a little worried that my need to call her will lead me back into a negative mindset and undo all the work I’ve done to heal myself. I consider something like this worth the risk. Plus, I miss my Maman. The sweet parts of her, that is. If she could show me that care just once, it would be worth it. I haven’t heard her voice be affectionate in so long.
Calling her now is going to be tricky. I’m not doing exactly what she wants with my life. Her micromanaging has worsened over the last couple of months.
Maybe she’ll lighten up if I admit I found my One.
She’ll finally realize that I’m here for me alone and let it go. I’ll get some peace from her never-ending crusade to turn me into another person.
It sounds like it would never happen.
Maybe I shouldn’t call.
I debate it all day. Every time Poe’s eyes meet mine, the need to jump him or run gets worse. I’m a mess by the time he leaves for the night.
As soon as he disappears from the windows, Damon turns to me with a scowl.
“Will you please put that man out of his misery? It’s gotten uncomfortable for me to watch this. I’m ready to slip you a muscle relaxer so you’ll give in. You want each other, go for it. What’s the big deal?”
I’ve explained the One theory to Damon before. He thinks it’s hilarious hoodoo and hasn’t let it go. I’m not saying anything about this to him.
“I’m nervous,” I mutter as I clean up my table.
“Which means you’re really into him.” Damon nods with wide eyes like I’m an idiot. Maybe I am.
“I’m scared,” I say, sitting up and glaring at him. “I’m afraid that being with him is going to change everything for me.”
“Would that be so bad?” Damon glances around in confusion. “What’s he going to do? Force you to close up shop? We both know he’s the reason we’re getting paid this week.”
“And when he loses interest and walks away? All that will go away, too.” I don’t believe the words. It’s fear driving them out of me while my heart refuses to listen.
“Addie, this place is going to shut down at some point,” Damon tries to be gentle about saying it, but it hits me in the gut. “That doesn’t mean everything is over. It’s just a new chapter. We’ll both be fine. It’s ok to be sad about it. Angry too. But life won’t stop because of it unless you let it.”
He slings his ratty backpack over a shoulder and gives me a hard look.
“ I’m taking it as a sign. He’s already flipped things around for you. Let it happen for once. Grab something happy and enjoy it. Half the people we’ve seen lately tell us the same thing. Find happiness wherever you can because life isn’t guaranteed.”
I have heard that a lot this week, mainly to Damon, who shares his life with anyone who asks. I’m a lot more private than that. I have so many secrets I keep for so many different people, I’ve gotten used to dodging questions with flippant answers.
So why is it that if Poe asks me a personal question, I blurt out my answers without pause?
“Go. For. It,” he insists, and leaves.
I lock the door behind him and pause. He’s on the sidewalk with Grace. She gives him a beaming smile as he slides his arm around her waist. The kiss he gives her is chaste, which shocks the hell out of me.
Damon is always ready for a good time. He doesn’t do sweet boyfriend stuff.
He’s going for it. And he’s happy enough with it that he’s telling me to do the same.
I back away before either of them catches me snooping. Seeing that decides me. I’m calling Maman. Ass chewing or not, I need answers.
I’m tearing up my lip on the walk home. It’s gotten dark. This is the first time in months I’ve worked so late. It’s rewarding but exhausting. We need to go back to scheduling people instead of going balls to the wall and taking every person who walks in. It’s a recipe that will have people leaving before we get a hello out.
I’m stalling.
I force myself to hit her contact name and listen to it ring.
“Hi, girlie,” Maman’s voice washes over me, amping up my anxiety.
She calls me girlie now instead of baby or even by my name. Sometimes, I wonder if she remembers it or if I’m that girl now. But she sounds in a good mood.
“Hey, Maman,” I sigh with a smile of cautious relief. She hasn’t sounded this happy to hear from me in a while. Usually, it’s her calling me to lecture me. This is a nice surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
I can’t force the words out, my nerves taking over. Instead, I deflect.
“Does it bother you that I don’t call much?” I ask and want to smack myself for the useless question.
“You know better,” she clicks her tongue to scold me without words. “How is Asher? Are you calling about him?”
“No, he’s doing good.” I try to keep that avenue as closed off as possible. He’s not ready for her yet. My lips are sealed.
“And his angel?” Maman presses with just the right amount of gentle firmness that makes me sweat.
“Also doing good.” I chew my lip.
“Have you met her yet?”
“No,” I wince. I shouldn’t have called. I should get off the phone. All she wants is information about Asher. Those conversations never go well because I barely tell her anything. “I need to go, Maman-”
“No, you don’t. Don’t you try to fool me.”
My voice chokes off at her blunt dismissal. This is the new bitter tone she’s started using on me. It makes my shoulders slump in defeat. This is going to go bad. I never should have called.
“You call me when you have doubts, girlie. What is it? Is something going on with my baby?”
The fact that she still calls Asher that says it all. I tease him about it all the time. Mainly because he’s the youngest, but also because Maman never wants him to grow up.
I clear my throat, hurrying to unlock the door to my apartment and gain some relief from my tension in the form of my stuffed animals.
I have a massive pile of raccoons in various sizes and several more on my bed. I drop into the plushies in the living room as if they’re a giant bean bag chair. The pile is thick enough that I barely sink.
“I know you’re there,” she huffs in frustration. “Being shy is not in your nature. Let it out.”
Might as well. Maybe I’ll get something out of this mess. I take a deep breath and steel myself for whatever comes next.
“I’ve got something to ask you. It’s not about Asher or his angel. Does the One ever walk away? Do they feel it when you do?”
The silence that follows confuses me. Usually, she’s a wellspring of information and excitement when anyone brings up the One theory. I heard her talking to Suzette when she met her first guy, comforting her and reassuring her it would all work out. Asher said she was the same with him, to the point that he almost had to hang up on her to get her to stop.
“Are you sure this isn’t about Asher?”
I rear back in surprise, giving the phone a baffled look before I return it to my ear. “No, Maman-”
“I know you’re jealous, girlie. Don’t deny it.”
My eyes widen in surprise. Jealous of what? Asher finally getting his head out of his ass and becoming a real boy?
“I can and will deny it. Mainly because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She lets out a harsh puff of air. I know that when she gets her breath back, I’m in for it. We usually butt heads, probably because I don’t roll over and play dead like my sisters. I stopped blindly giving in when it didn’t net me any results like it does with the rest of the siblings.
Maman is a force. Usually, it’s a good force. At least for the rest of her children, it is.
“Right. I’m telling you this for the last time. You move back home. Leave my baby alone.” Her tone has darkened a bit. The “you’re on my last nerve” sound I’m more than familiar with.
“Maman,” I groan in frustration. “I’m not calling you about Asher .”
She keeps on without pause. “I didn’t say anything when you moved out there to be with him.”
That’s a lie. She told me it was a bad idea and that my art wasn’t good enough to be a tattoo artist. Then she accused me of trying to leech joy off of Asher as if he had any. I would have starved if that were my only sustenance. I ignored her, which pissed her off more. She’s still convinced I’m here to cause trouble for him.
She keeps talking while I debate hanging up. If I do that, she’ll call back even madder.
“Now it’s gotten to be too much. He’s settled. It’s time for you to get settled, too.”
“I couldn’t possibly be happy with my life as it is. I’m sure you’re going to tell me how it should be done,” I bitterly mumble.
“Stop this nonsense with the tattoos and come home. I’ll find someone perfect for you. You don’t need to worry about some soulmate.”
That startles me into sitting up straight. She’s the biggest believer in the myth. I’ve seen it in Suzette and Asher. I know it’s real, especially now that I’ve met Poe. She has never, not once, urged us not to find them.
“What does that mean?” I ask in disbelief. “You’re telling me to walk away from something you’ve made sure we believed our whole lives for some random man you think is right for me? What happened to the One being it for us, and holding out until you found them?”
Her response is a frustrated sigh.
“Maman?” I push harder as dread begins to build in my stomach.
“I think things will go a bit different for you, girlie.”
That’s news. And what the hell does it mean? I’m already aching in my chest. Like my heart knows something is coming that’s going to leave a deep scar.
“Why?”
“You’re different from the rest of us. You constantly buck the system without thinking of anyone else.”
“What?” I let out a breathless laugh that doesn’t have any humor in it.
Yeah, I’m not much for authority, but I’ve never hurt anyone with my hard-headedness. I think of my family nonstop. I sacrificed a lot of myself to make them see me as a part of the family instead of the interloper I became. The only brunette in a sea of blonds. It’s one of the things I was hoping to get away from out here. That need to give in to whatever they need from me. Therapy has taught me that I can be an individual, and I want to keep it that way.
After everything with Asher and the guilt of not knowing something that had been happening right down the hall from me, I started paying more attention to what they needed. I never want something like that to happen again. To anyone. In the middle of it all, I lost myself. My self-care was non-existent.
“I don’t want you worrying about it,” she insists firmly. “Don’t make someone up just to get attention.”
“Wow,” I mumble in shock. This is a lot farther than she’s ever gone before. “You think I’d do that?”
“Just like dying your hair?” She reminds me grimly. It’s like she’s trying to lead me to a realization, and I’m not following. “To look more like us?”
She’s the one who wanted that first, not me. She taught me to dye my hair and ordered me colored contacts so I’d look more like her other children. I knew it was wrong as a kid, and I still let her do it to keep the peace. I even tried out losing my accent because everyone else was doing it. Until I hit my rebellious faze and decided to keep it.
“You aren’t like us. I can see it every time I look at you.”
Tears well up in my eyes because I know exactly what she means.
I see my father’s genes, even when I dye my hair blond. Every time I put in contact lenses to darken the blue of my eyes; I see it. I stopped doing the contacts, at least, but the hair still lingers like an obsession.
Hearing her say it directly to me is agonizing. It’s one thing to wonder if that’s why she’s been so down on me all these years. It’s another thing to have it confirmed without a shred of remorse.
My heart cracks, the tiniest bit, to let pain come out.
I try to ignore her remark as she continues, but it’s hard.
“We all know you moved to be close to Asher. And the tattoo thing? It’s a way to get closer to him.”
“I don’t see it that way,” I protest with a frown. “Yeah, I had the idea about tattoos because of Ash, but I’ve been drawing forever. I love it, Maman. It’s rewarding for me.”
“It’s a bandage that’s keeping you from seeing who you really are. It’s time for you to take it off and live your own life. You can’t follow Asher around forever.”
“I’m not following Asher,” I protest uselessly. It always comes back to this, and I can’t explain to her the real reason why I’m here. I didn’t want to tell her before, and that decision has paid off ever since she started getting worse. I can only imagine what she would come up with if she knew I left because I couldn’t deal with her manipulations every day.
“I want you to think before you do anything. I mean it. Don’t cause waves for him.”
“How is this me making waves?” I ask, baffled by how this conversation has gotten twisted all around.
I foolishly thought she might be excited. It’s solid proof that my life doesn’t revolve around Asher.
Instead, it’s a lie made up for attention and jealousy because I’m not like them.
“It’s not going to happen for you, girlie. There’s no soulmate out there for you. There’s not enough Broussard in you for it.”
I almost choke on that one. The knife that digs into my heart leaves me bleeding inside, where no one can see.
Not enough Broussard? I’m her daughter, too. How can she say that?
This concentrated hate is nothing like what she’s ever done before. I’m used to small, belittling comments. Reminders that my roots are showing, or ignoring my good grades on a report card, while she threw parties for anyone else who got more than a C.
I thought I hurt then. This is total agony that I don’t know if I can come back from.
My shocked silence allows her to go on.
“Don’t discuss this with your siblings. I don’t want you embarrassed by it.”
Not enough Broussard. That’s her maiden name. We all have it ever since her divorce, even after she married Joseph.
Does that mean she thinks I’m more like my biological dad than just in looks? How is that possible? And she wants me to keep it to myself so I won’t be ashamed like she is?
Where did my sweet Maman go?
I can barely remember what she was like before our world flipped upside down. I just remember her smiling at me. When was the last time she smiled at me like that?
Am I finally getting to see her hate in its rawest form?
“I’m going to get off the phone now. I want you to think about your life. Hard . Like you never have before. I think you’ll see how right I am and how badly you need to change before it gets worse.”
The call disconnects without my reply. My hand falls to my lap as I mutter, “I love you, too.”
When did she stop saying that to me?
I blink as I realize it’s been a long while. Even before I moved. I was too deep in my own depression to notice.
I don’t bother getting ready for bed. I curl up in the safety of all the stuffed animals and stare into the darkness without any hope for sleep as my mind slowly begins to dissect where I could have gone wrong in my life. And how my own Maman could believe that I could ever be a monster like him .