Chapter 4
JADE
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed, hunched forward, I chew on the end of my pencil as I decide what else I wanna add to my current sketch that’ll eventually end up inked on someone’s body.
It’s a knife, sticking out of a person’s back, and there’s blood.
It’s rocking the traditional vibes. I bite the yellow number two between my teeth and pick up a sharper pencil from the pile fanned out beside me.
Focusing on art is my only semi-sane way of coping.
Torturing Josh is another. I hum to "Bye, Bye, Bye," knowing the loud music is making his ears bleed, as I draw an old-school banner on my sketch pad. Sure, most of us artists these days use a tablet for our work, but there’s just something about doing it this way. It almost feels like high school all over again, sitting here in my room, drawing, listening to the same stuff I did back then. I was a loner—the Goth kid who didn’t fit in with the jerks in my tiny school in the middle of a cornfield, where football was God, and girls who weren’t skinny, blonde, and preppy were ridiculed.
That seems like forever ago.
I have a teenager now and a job, doing something I love. I have friends that I consider family, and I have Josh, the thorn in my side. Theoretically, all that should make me happy. All of that should make me want to live, not kill myself. But it’s just not that simple. Nothing ever is.
Spitting the chewed-up pencil onto my black comforter, I finish the drawing before I toss the pad to the side and flop back onto my stack of pillows.
What now?
Besides numbness.
I suppose the numbness is good. It beats the anger or the sadness.
It beats the haunting memories that pop up whenever they please.
Last week in the grocery store, I got a whiff of cured meat, and suddenly, I’m back there, on the table, in that room with them—the men who made me this way.
Other times, I’m fine. I haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time in over a year, except in the hospital, when my body didn’t give me a choice.
I miss sleep. I miss happiness and hope.
I miss waking up in the morning excited to see my son and Loretta, who, without fail, would drop by for coffee every day.
It’s been over a year since she’s done that.
I miss visiting the Sacred Sinners’ compound and hanging with the sisters.
There’s a tap on the door. When I don’t respond, because Josh shouldn’t even be here, I wait for him to walk away. But he doesn’t. Another tap leads to another, and the noise grows in intensity. When the music switches to LMFAO, I hear Josh’s hopeless groan through the door.
For a moment, I consider getting up to make sure he’s okay.
To talk to him. But it’s easier this way.
It’s easier for us both. The quicker he gets tired of me, the quicker he’ll move on with this stupid white knight routine and do what any young adult should do.
Party. Have sex. Ride his motorcycle. Not babysit a broken, single mother, a decade his senior.
But he’s always been like this. Too caring.
It shouldn’t be a fault, I get that, but it’s to his detriment.
With a wild mom like Loretta, he never had a normal childhood.
He was too busy protecting her from the shitbags she brought home or making her breakfast after a wild night at the compound.
He’s always been eager to help, eager to please.
He’s also stubborn to a fault. Most people never see that side of him, but I do.
Which is why I hoped he wouldn’t join the club, and he'd go off to college instead. Somewhere far away. Somewhere, he could soar, not be stuck in the same town he grew up in, surrounded by the same people he’s known his whole life.
Sure, there’s comfort in that, but there are shackles, too.
He made his choice forever ago, and Hunter is following right along in his footsteps.
They’re damn near carbon copies of each other, apart from their looks.
There’s a rough jiggle of my knob, and my door bursts open a second later with a winded Josh, welcoming himself inside.
“Don’t lock your fucking door,” he growls, marching over to my speaker, picking it up, pushing the button to shut down the music, and tucking it under his arm.
“Mind your business. That’s mine,” I snarl, eyeing the meddlesome thief.
“You are my business, and I’ve had enough of this shitty music for the day.”
“Then I guess that means you should probably leave then.” I put my hand out for him to give me my speaker. When he stands at the foot of my bed and doesn’t hand it over, I snap my fingers. “Josh. Give it.”
“No.” He huffs. “I’m keeping this for now.”
What a stubborn asshole.
I lean up on my elbows. “This is my house.”
“Tough shit. I made you dinner. Come eat.” He turns and marches out of my bedroom, grumbling under his breath. The jerk even leaves my fucking door open.
Ugh.
Kicking my bed like a toddler for the count of ten, I then grit my teeth as I stand and storm after him.
My heels thunder across the floor, and I’m ready to punch him in the nose when I reach the dining room, to find him sitting at the stupid table that I never eat at.
He pushes another chair out with his foot and nods for me to sit.
On a dramatic huff, I fall into the seat.
“Thank you,” he comments and sets the speaker in the center of the table. “You can have this back after we talk about your choice of psychological torture.”
Stabbing my fork into a piece of grilled chicken, I snort at his dramatics. “It’s music.”
“It’s horrible music.”
“Says you.” I happen to love it.
“You only play it to drive me crazy.”
“Yes. Because you won’t leave.” Like I’ve asked of him a million times.
“Pretty sure we’ve been over this, but you tried to kill yourself just a few days ago.”
Again, with this crap. That was a few days ago.
I wave my fork at the front door. “I’m fine now. You can go.”
Rolling his eyes, Josh chews a bite of dinner before replying. “No, you stubborn dick. We are full-time roomies now. You thought I was around a lot before, but you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Releasing a loud, obnoxious sigh to get my point across, I carefully set my fork beside my plate, lean back in my chair, and tuck both arms under my breasts. “Josh. Don’t do this.”
“Jade. I’m not doing anything except keeping you alive.
You don’t want to talk about what happened?
Fine. You don’t wanna get help with your PTSD and depression?
Fine. I can’t make you. But I am moving in for now to keep a closer eye on things.
I should have seen the signs before what happened, happened, and I didn’t.
Which is on me.” To prove some macho point, he jabs two fingers at his chest.
It should warm me to have someone in my life who cares so much. If it were anyone else but him, I might. But this is far too much for him to shoulder. I’m not his responsibility. “None of this is on you.”
“You’re my family,” he retorts, like that’s the answer for everything.
“You’re twenty-three, Josh. Not forty. You should be out living your life, not here.”
“Wherever you are, I am. Wherever Hunter is, I am. You’re family—end of story.”
See what I said about stubborn?
Ugh.
“What about Bitty?” I test, knowing he likes her. They’ve been together for a while.
He pops a fry in his mouth. “What about her?”
“She can’t be happy about this.” I wave my hand around. Any woman in her right mind would not want her man hanging out with another female.
Josh shrugs and devours another bite of dinner.
“I don’t care if she likes it or not.” He speaks around a mouthful of food.
“If you’re dead, that leaves me as a single dad to a teenager, who is already going through enough shit.
He doesn’t need to add dead mom to the list. Just as I don’t wanna be a single dad. Bitty wouldn’t like that either.”
A single dad? Since when? I… Never mind.
On a sigh, I reply, “That’s not how it works, Josh. Hunter would be safe. The club would protect him. Bink could take him in, or Jez, or Deke. It wouldn’t have to be you.”
“I’m not letting someone else raise him, Jade. If it ain’t you, it’s me.” For emphasis, he points the fork at his chest.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“If you’re dead, yes, I do. What are you gonna do? Stop me? Oh. Wait. No. You’ll be gone.” He huffs a humorless laugh.
“I had instructions all written out.” In detail. He wouldn’t have had anything to worry about.
“I’m sure you did. But fuck your instructions.
We’re doing this my way. I’m cookin’ healthy meals.
You’re goin’ back to work, full-time—no more of this when-I-feel-like-it crap.
You love your job, and you’re avoiding it.
We’re going to start exercising together and taking supplements.
I’ve been reading up on what vitamins work best for anxiety, depression, and shit.
We’re taking those. And we’re reading books, which sucks because of my dyslexia, so maybe we’ll listen to the audiobooks instead. ”
Sorry, but I’m not doing any of that. Even if I should work more. Even if working out and eating better is healthy for anyone. It’s just too much. Everything is too much. It has been for some time now.
Dragging a palm down my face, I sigh. “Josh.”
“What? Are you gonna argue with me about this, too?”
Yes.
“I…”
“No.” Staring me in the eye, he slams his palm on the table, rattling our plates.
“No fighting with me on this. You get one hour a day to torture me for funsies with whatever horrific music you want. I’m bunking in Hunter’s room for the next two weeks, and when he comes home, we’ll figure out better sleeping arrangements.
I’ll drive you to work every day, then pick you up.
Pixie already said she’d keep an eye on you for me. ”
Sweet Jesus.
“You really planned all this out,” I state in equal parts anger and awe.
He hums. “Yeah. I had a lot of downtime in the hospital.” Reaching across the table, Josh takes my hand into his. It’s warm, firm, and my heart gives a strange little thump when his thumb caresses the top of my fingers. “We’re gonna do this, Jade. Together.”
Tears well in my eyes, and for a silly moment, I believe him.
Maybe, just maybe, I can get through this. Maybe Hunter doesn’t have to lose his mom.
Fuck.
Hope is a nasty bitch. She’s never liked me before, so how’s it gonna be any different this time?