Chapter 2 #2
Slowing my pace, I used the short walk to try and calm my frayed nerves.
Hearing those names was a blast from the past I had no desire to revisit.
I knew why I’d received that invitation.
It wasn’t because either of them wanted me there on their big day.
No, it was meant to be a slap in the face from the girl who’d once been my best friend.
A reminder of what she’d said the last time I ever saw her.
“You were delusional if you actually thought Nick would pick you over me. You aren’t the girl a guy keeps. You’re the one he screws when he wants fast and dirty to brag to his friends about. You’re a joke, Gypsy. Just like your mom. A poor, slutty piece of trailer trash.”
That hadn’t been the first time I’d been called those names, and it certainly wasn’t the last. But hearing them from a girl I’d loved with all my heart—who I’d stupidly thought loved me just as much—had made the pain of her betrayal so much worse.
It had been that conversation that sent me on a downward spiral that had taken me far too long to pull myself out of.
But once I did, I was forever changed. It took me years to construct the reinforced steel wall around my heart, complete with rabid pit bulls and razor wire, but once it was done, I was determined to never, ever let anyone through again.
Determined not to let that vile bitch infect me with her poison more than she already had, I stiffened my spine and held my chin high as I took the steps to Odette’s front door. “Detty?” I
pushed the door open and called out in lieu of knocking.
“In here, child.”
I rounded the corner into her living room and immediately felt the last of the tension ebb from my shoulders as my baby brother looked up at me with a big drooly smile. “Cee Cee! Cee Cee!”
Every day, Raleigh seemed to add a handful of new words to his vocabulary. But since he started talking, my name had been a challenge for him, so I’d been lovingly dubbed as his Cee Cee.
“Hey there, punk.” I smiled so wide my cheeks ached as I lowered to my haunches and held my arms wide.
“How’s my baby, huh?” He ran across the room as fast as his chubby little legs could carry him—which wasn’t fast at all—and crashed into me.
I peppered his cheeks and neck with kisses until he gave me that squeal I loved. “Did you behave for Auntie Det?”
“He was a perfect little angel, like always,” Odette declared.
“Angel?” I snorted. “I love this turkey with all my heart, but I think you meant to say monster.”
“Angel, monster—same thing when you’re talkin’ about a toddler,” she teased, standing slowly from her rocking chair.
She’d been doing everything slower than normal lately, and it was really beginning to concern me.
I tried not to let it show, because she couldn’t stand to be fussed over, but knowing me as well as she did, she caught my look before I could hide it.
“You can just go ahead and wipe that worry from your eyes right now, honey. There’s nothin’ wrong with me other than my body not agreeing with my mind about just how old I am. ”
I let out a giggle, bouncing Raleigh on my hip as Odette shuffled into her kitchen and started pouring each of us a glass of fresh lemonade. “What’s that saying? You’re only as old as you feel?”
She scoffed. “I’m calling bullshit on that one. My brain’s still sharp as a whip, but these damn hips just won’t get with the program.”
“You know, you’re just as bad as Rhodes with that mouth of yours. I blame you for his foul language.”
“I’ll accept that.” She grinned cheekily, her brilliant white smile beautiful against her dark brown skin.
“I’m seventy-three years old, Gypsy girl.
I’ve accepted that I am who I am, and there’s no changin’ that.
And who I am is a proud woman with a mouth that could make a sailor blush.
Now sit,” she ordered, tipping her head toward a chair and placing a glass on her small kitchen table.
“And tell me what’s caused that sadness in your eyes. ”
Sometimes her ability to read me like an open book was a pain in the ass.
“Now who’s the one worrying?” I grumbled but did as I was told. When it came to Odette, it was just like that. My brothers and sisters and I would never dream of disrespecting her.
Raleigh began to squirm, eager to get back to the floor so he could play with the toys Odette kept stocked just for him. I placed him on his feet and watched as he teetered off and plopped down on the living room floor before turning back to Odette.
“You might be a grown woman, Gypsy, but you’ll always be my baby girl. And as you’re well aware, the kind of worry that comes with raising kids never goes away, so quit stallin’ and start talkin’.”
“Our water heater’s finally shot,” I admitted, giving her a piece of what was weighing on me in the hopes that she wouldn’t keep digging.
“Well, you know my door is open to you and the rest of the rug rats any time of any day, so that can’t be all that’s got you so blue. Gimme the rest, child.”
I flopped back in the chair with a weary sigh and took a sip of the lemonade. “Just the past rearing its ugly head. It happens every now and again. I’ll get over it.”
“It wasn’t Danny or Peggy, was it?” she asked, her face like thunder as she mentioned my parents’ names.
“No, nothing like that. They’re long gone.” I started chewing on my thumbnail, a nervous habit I hadn’t noticed myself doing until Odette reached across the table and pulled my hand away. “Got a wedding invitation in the mail today. It caught me by surprise and dredged up some nasty memories.”
“Whose wedding?”
I pulled in a fortifying breath before admitting, “Nick and Trina.”
The clouds in her eyes didn’t disappear at all. In fact, she began to look even madder. “That hateful bitch,” she sneered several seconds later.
“Detty!” I cried on an astonished laugh.
“Well, she is!” Odette proclaimed, smacking the tabletop for emphasis.
Odette was the only person in my life who knew me completely.
She’d earned my love long before that wall formed around my heart and had proven herself worthy of it time and time again, so she was the only one I’d ever trusted with everything. The good and the bad.
“Never did like that girl,” she continued. “Even before she showed her true colors. You couldn’t see it, but she never fooled me. There was something seriously ugly lying beneath the surface.”
“Yeah, well, I learned the hard way, didn’t I?”
“Well, she’ll get her comeuppance. People like her always do, and my guess is hers’ll be in the form of a miserable marriage to a terrible man, ’cause that’s exactly what that boy’s always been.
A bad seed. You lie with a dog, it’s just a matter of time before you get fleas, baby girl.
I promise you, in no time, that girl’s ass is gonna be itchin’ like the dickens. ”
I threw my head back on a loud belly laugh, unable to keep it in. Odette had a way with words that just made everything so much better.
“God, Detty.” I sighed, feeling a thousand times lighter. “I love you like crazy. You know that?”
She rolled her eyes at me like I was clueless. “Pfft. Of course you do. I’m the best.”
“That you are, sweetie.”
Finding Odette was the only time in my life that Lady Luck had deemed me worthy enough to shine her light upon me. And in spite of all the pain I’d suffered through, I’d be forever grateful, because the truth was, Odette was the only reason I was still standing today.