Chapter 14
Jolie—aged eighteen
I'd avoided leaving my room for days, too confused by my changing emotions to face the people that caused their vacillating switches.
I’d avoided reality for as long as I could, slipping into dreams of a different present, one where my dad hadn’t been killed, and where I wasn’t here, living as a regulator for a boy who couldn’t be controlled.
But I couldn’t escape into my mind this morning, my rumbling stomach and Nessie’s nightmare fueled wriggling was too much of a distraction.
My mood was lower than ever. The diary under my pillow called me to use it as an outlet. But I didn’t. I couldn’t word these feelings.
I lay in the top bunk, surrounded by a dozen stuffed bears, with sheets up to my chest, though I wasn't cold. Nessie slept at my side, wedging me to the purple railings of the over-occupied bed. The song I'd sang her to sleep played in the background of my busy mind.
I stared at the ceiling, at the tiny spider with bandy legs bungee jumping from its silver web. . .
A web, that was what I was caught in—an invisible yarn.
Its beauty only seen in the illuminations of burning daylight, or when it captured tears from the clouds.
Something not noticeable in the darkness.
. . not until you walked into one. That was what I did.
And now I was trapped in this web. Forever.
I stayed silent as I thought of Woodrow, who I needed and avoided. Thought of how I hated what he did, but of how I couldn't get through the aftermath of it without him.
A tear fell, joining the hundreds of others that had moved home to Nessie's pillows overnight.
I thought of how all men hurt you. And damn, that was the truth.
Going forward, I knew Woodrow would hurt me constantly as Hell—a monster inside him he couldn’t control. Ville would hurt me more by watching him do it while he sat comfortably with a drink in his hand and a cigar between his lips. Even my dad hurt me . . .by dying.
Another thought hit me—was it really so bad to love someone who caused you pain? Especially when they did everything they could to make it go away afterwards.
That thought never got an answer, interrupted by the bedroom door creaking open and then closing behind a guest I didn't bother to glance at.
I heeded the sound of a plate setting on the dresser. My nostrils welcomed the warm scent of breakfast, and my tummy rumbled in greeting. Buttermilk pancakes. I'd know the scent anywhere.
My head turned to see Woodrow blocking my view of the food. He stood in his regular attire, sweat pants and a tee harboring a band that Wynter wouldn’t allow him to listen to in this house.
“I thought you'd be hungry,” he said, eyes sweeping over the toy-cluttered floor.
I simply nodded in agreement. I was hungry. I hadn't eaten for the last two days.
Wynter was still in bed, living off coffee and chocolate.
. . and that thing she was married to, well, he hadn't attempted to cook. He’d popped out the day he brought her home from the hospital, a little while after settling her in bed, and he returned about an hour later with some fast food.
. . three children's meals. One for each of us brats, he'd snorted.
I didn't eat mine. And I doubted Woodrow did, either, given he was vegetarian, and these meals certainly weren't. Nessie had enjoyed hers, and half of my cold fries later that night. . . but she enjoyed the small toys that accompanied them more and had quietly played with them for most of the night after her tears subsided. She was sad after being kicked out of her parents’ room with a scolding for being too clingy, causing further discomfort to her mother's leg.
Yesterday, no one had cooked, at all, as far as I was aware, at least. This poor child at my side had survived off half a packet of damp cookies.
“I made enough for you and Ness.” Woodrow stepped aside, moving to the scattered toys. He began clearing them away, giving me the space I needed to step down from the bunk.
“Should we wake her?” I wondered, creeping from the bed, leaving Nessie behind as I picked up one set of shiny silver cutlery.
“No; she's such a miserable child when she's tired,” he answered without looking back. “She’s not fussy; she’ll happily eat them cold. . . but if she does want them warm, I can make more.”
“You like being in the kitchen.” I dipped a perfectly cut chunk of pancake into the small bowl of syrup at its side. So sweet, so good.
“I do.”
“Would you like to be a chef if the vet thing doesn’t work out?”
“I don't know. I don't exactly make anything restaurant worthy.”
“With a little guidance.”
He turned to me, an insincere smile on lips, appreciative of my pathetic attempt at small talk. “Maybe. . . but veterinary medicine is where my heart is at. Though no one is going to pay tuition fees.”
I placed another syrup-glossed chunk on my tongue, and my tastebuds danced. . . as amazingly as my father—a man who supported all my hopes and dreams.
“My father wants me to work with him. I don’t even know how I’ll get out of it.” He lowered his head, realizing that speaking of Ville would make me uncomfortable.
I pushed my feelings aside, probing. “And what does he do exactly?”
“Something to do with traffic management. I’m not sure.”
The words hit me with the impact of a truck, the pancake getting stuck in my dry throat as I tried to swallow. I almost choked.
Traffic. . . Ville worked in traffic. . . trafficking.
That was why there were other girls. That was how he got me.
“I should have gotten drinks.” Woodrow’s comment came as my hand reached for my throat, trying to dislodge my discomfort. A feeling he knew well. “I'll get you something.”
I called him back as his hand turned the doorknob, my throat now clear of its congestion. “Woodrow. . .”
He turned back to me, the morning light shining onto his handsome face through the parted curtains. I didn’t know what say. . . well, I didn’t know how to say it. There was no easy way of saying your father is involved in human sales.
“Believe in your dreams. You can be more than he is.” I smiled a small smile.
I couldn’t be sure Woodrow would ever find college funding.
I couldn’t be sure he would be able to work with his conditions, but I knew one thing, if he was able to get a job, it was easy to see that it wouldn’t be in trafficking.
I knew that for a fact. . . even after what had happened the other night.
The guilt would rip him to shreds, and all his alters would drain out with the blood he’d spill.
. . leaving him to deal with the trauma.
“I'm not sure anyone would hire someone like me. But I can dream. And hopefully, I’ll have a future where my home life is good.” He sighed heavily.
“I could settle for that. Cooking at home, surrounded by cats and dogs, a pretty wife singing as we laugh with each other, making a mess of whatever we were trying to cook.” His tone dropped, his eyes too, back to the carpet, carefully avoiding the stains.
“My parents never do that. They never do anything together.
They don't bond. That's not what I want. I don't want to be like them.”
I nodded, daring another piece of pancake, hoping that this one wouldn't attempt to kill me.
He stepped out of the room, back a second later, barely able to look at me as he found enough courage to whisper the words, “You're a good singer, Moonlight.”
And then he was gone again, silent steps carrying him away.
I finished off my pancake, swallowing as much as I could in three mouthfuls before moving on to the next, leaving two others on the plate for Nessie.
I thought over how he must have been listening at the door last night as I sang his sister to sleep.
I stepped out into the hallway; the dust and shadows didn’t shy away from the misery seeping from my every pore. No doubt as soon as Wynter was up and about, able to hop on that leg, I’d be given orders to rid them of their current habitat.
I wouldn’t wait for her instruction; I’d clean today—a needed distraction.
I gazed back to the stain I’d left on the rug. Gone. Woodrow really had taken care of it. I guess he needed the distraction, too.
I stopped dead, only inches from the door to Wynter’s room. I could hear movement beyond the wood, and it prevented me from knocking, my hand floating in thin air. I retracted, the question I had for her—to ask how she was?—still floating in my mouth as I stepped away and rushed for the stairs.
I found Woodrow in the kitchen, his back to me as he poured two glasses of chocolate milk. His hands were shaking again as he set down the carton. With a glass in each hand, he turned to me, and my presence had him spooked.
“I didn’t hear you.” He steadied himself, stretching a glass through the air.
“I wasn’t quiet.”
I took my first sip, and it led to a dozen more. I handed the glass back, and he offered me the other.
“I’m done, thank you.” I wiped the milk moustache from my face.
The smell that Nessie had moaned about was still here, still strong. Stronger, maybe. But I couldn’t see any bad meat in the open refrigerator.
My eyes clocked the made-up salad at the side.
“Where is she?” I asked, wondering of Bonny.
“The hutch, I’m hoping. I was going to take her breakfast after sorting out yours.”
“What did you have?” I asked, pulling out a chair at the table, the chain below, once again, catching my toes.
“I’m not hungry.” He smiled, sad enough to show all his pain. The pains he’d stolen from me when he’d taken my virginity and dignity.
“I’ll take this up for Nessie.” He raised the chocolate milk into the air and moved around the table, closing the refrigerator door, gripping the empty carton from the countertop on his way.
I listened to the sound of his foot moving to the pedal and the lid of the trash bin springing into the air.
I waited for him to pass, for the tension in the room to leave with him, then I turned, my voice finding him through the ever-dark hallway. “Woodrow…?”