FORTY MAC
FORTY
MAC
“Phone,” Sage grumbles, slapping my chest and waking me up. I look around the room. It’s early, obviously my alarm hasn’t gone off yet. The apartment is just starting to fill with light from the rising sun.
Why the fuck is he hitting me? “Phone, asshole,” he repeats with another smack to my chest. He rolls over, turning his back on me and curling himself around a pillow.
Then I hear it, the vibrating phone rattling against the hot plate on the small nightstand.
I scrub my face, wiping away the last remnants of sleep.
Without looking at the screen, I swipe answer and bring it to my ear. “Hello?” My voice rough and raw from sleep.
“This is a collect call from an inmate at Hartford Correctional facility. To accept charges, press 1,” an automated voice speaks into my ear. My entire body goes rigid. Cold. Like a bucket of ice was dropped over my head. The only possibility of an inmate calling me is my mom.
June texted two days after she overdosed, telling me Karen was released from the hospital and taken into police custody.
I didn’t reply. Didn’t ask for more information.
I just went on like I always do. Pretending my mom doesn’t exist. Losing myself in Sage and letting her chips land where they may.
But now she’s attempting to call me. Now she’s waiting on the other end of this call for me to answer. I freeze. The automated voice repeats the preprogrammed words, but I can’t hear them over the ringing in my ears.
I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to ever hear her voice again.
Don’t want her excuses, apologies, or more realistically, her requests.
She’s probably asking for my help. For me to send money or defend her when she goes to court.
I will be doing neither. She made every single one of her choices, now it’s time for me to make my own.
I pull the phone away from the side of my face and stare at the name and number on the screen.
The call timer ticks higher with every second that passes.
I jab my finger down on the bright red button to end the call.
Cutting off Karen. The seconds stop, the call ends, and it returns to my home screen.
I just sent the fuck you I should have done years ago.
I release the air I’ve held hostage in my lungs. The cold sweat starts to fade, the nerves that the call created dissipating. The line between Karen and myself is severed with a simple press of a button. I know it’s not that easy, but for a second, I want to believe it is.
I open the call log and quickly block the number. I have no idea if that’s the only one she can call from. No idea if that will stop her from trying again, but it feels good, nonetheless. Afterwards, I shut off my phone and set it back down.
Sage mumbles into his pillow, “Everything ok?” Like me, he knows late-night calls, or early morning ones, are never good. Only bad news comes with a call before 10:00 a.m. I scrub at my face again, digging my palms into my eye sockets.
“Yeah.” And it’s the truth. I’m good. I lay back down, pulling Sage into my arms. Feeling the heat he radiates like an oven. Feeling free and settled having cut one tie to my mom. He scoots back against me, and his hand lands on my arm.
“I love you,” I whisper into his ear before kissing his temple. Since we first said those words, I haven’t said them enough. I want him to never question how I feel. That no matter what happens next, or what moods we swing through, that will always be true.
“I love you, too, asshole. Now go back to sleep.” I laugh, my chest shaking his back. But I listen. I settle back into my pillow and close my eyes.
Images of a future that’s actually bright for once fill my thoughts. One where my parents aren’t a constant threat, one where I wake up with Sage. Where we laugh, and play, and enjoy this shit life together.
Yeah. That’s all I need.
“You can’t fuck people in the garage.” Henry’s gruff voice welcomes me into the front office. I ignore him for a moment, instead moving towards the table with the coffee machine.
I fell into a deep sleep after the phone call. I didn’t want to wake up when my alarm blared. Didn’t want to leave Sage naked in my bed. But I’m here, mature and responsible. Only thirty minutes late.
“You shouldn’t watch people fuck, you perv,” I tease. I pour coffee into the shitty paper cups, adding in some sugar before I turn around. But I feel Henry’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head the entire time.
“It’s my damn garage,” he argues. Yeah, that’s fair, but he didn’t have to lurk in the dark corner with Aken for a free show. He could have said something, stopped us somehow, but he didn’t. He watched it all play out, then disappeared without a word.
“Fine,” I relent, leaning back on the table. I take a small sip of the coffee, burning the roof of my mouth in the process. “I won’t fuck in the garage. You don’t go all peeping Tom. Deal?” He shakes his head and scoffs.
“Just keep your dick in your pants while in the garage area. Especially with the doors wide open.” He rises from his chair, towering over the desk.
“Can do, boss. One time thing.” A total fucking lie. Last night opened doors I never knew existed. I’m not ready to shut them. The look Henry gives me tells me he sees right through it but decides to say nothing.
So I do. “How’s things going with Aken?”
Holy shit. He’s blushing! A deep red coloring his cheeks. I didn’t know he could do that! I didn’t think he could be bashful, or shy, or anything in between. But here he is, blushing.
“Fine,” he says, busying himself with papers that scatter the desktop, stacking them up into messy piles.
“Just fine?” I press, which earns me his signature glare.
“Drop it, son. It’s none of your business.” I roll my eyes and step away from the table, the paper cup starting to burn my hand.
“One day you’ll open up, Henry. One day,” I say wistfully, but it definitely sounds more like a threat. Henry shakes his head at me until I walk from the office.
Sage’s Mustang sits waiting for me. I can practically see him sprawled out on the hood now. His flushed skin, his face washed with ecstasy while I bred his tight ass.
“What did he do to my girl?” Henry asks, joining me in front of the shit car.
Now I’m the one blushing, heat rising up my neck onto my face.
He’s once again caught me hard as shit, but he seems too focused on lifting the hood of the Mustang to notice.
The scene he watched last night forgotten in favor of fixing whatever Sage did to the car.
“You need better taste in men,” he grumbles, leaning down to look at the engine. He continues to say some more bullshit, but I ignore it. He obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
So Sage treats his car like shit. He treats me better than I deserve.