Kristen Ashley - Creed

That time was not now. I was over it. I’d gotten out, moved on, lived my own life how I wanted to live it, not how someone forced me to live it. It wasn’t easy. It was fucking hard. It nearly ended me.

But I did it and I was here. I liked my life.

And I didn’t look back.

Not ever.

Not fucking ever.

So that wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. It was my mind playing tricks on me.

Not the first time and, the way he fucked me over, I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

I’d learned to live with it.

I came unstuck, rounded my girl, got in, started her up and headed to Slade.

* * *

I screeched to a halt in my driveway, threw open the door, angled out, slammed the door and ran across my yard to my neighbor’s.

Shit, I was five minutes late. And five minutes for Charlene was five minutes too many.

I knocked loud twice on her front door then turned the knob and walked in.

“I’m here! I’m here!” I shouted over what sounded like pandemonium. “I had work. Sorry I’m late.”

He came around and slammed into my legs.

“Sylvie! Sylvie! Sylvie!” Adam cried. “Toads are slimy!”

Then he pounded a fist hard into my thigh and raced away.

I followed him, walking from the entry into the living room, rounding through the dining room before I hit the kitchen which was bedlam.

Charlene was in a robe looking harassed. Adam was bumping repeatedly into the side of the counter. Theo was in his high chair, slamming his fists into the tray. Leslie was sitting in her booster seat, slamming her feet into the chair.

I went to Adam and gently led him away from the cabinets to the kitchen table, my eyes on Charlene.

“Sorry, I should have called,” I said quietly. “Something went down. I got here as soon as I could. You go shower. I’ve got this.”

Her eyes were brimming with tears, none of which had flowed over yet. That would happen in the shower. She’d go to work with puffy, red eyes again and hope they didn’t notice she was strung out emotionally and physically.

“Thanks, Sylvie,” she whispered before she took off and thus began the morning ritual.

“Cocoa Puffs!” Leslie shouted, still banging her feet into the chair.

“Right, Cocoa Puffs,” I agreed. “And you’ll get them if you stop making so much noise. Adam, up,” I ordered, guiding him carefully into his chair then I got down to business.

I’d lived next to Charlene since I bought my house four years ago. Six weeks ago, her husband Dan took off on her. They went to bed and when she woke up, he was gone and so were most of his clothes, the flat screen TV they’d just bought, the string of pearls he’d given her two anniversaries before and, upon inspection, half their checking and savings accounts.

He hadn’t cleaned her out. He’d left everything else.

He’d also left her with Adam, who was six and had Down syndrome, Leslie, who was three and Theo who was one and a half. He also left her a mortgage, daycare and special schools bills she couldn’t afford on her salary. She had a job as a bank teller and family that all lived in New Mexico.

She was fucked financially, heartbroken and barely holding it together.

She said, over wine that faded into tequila and tears, that she had no idea Dan was over it. Money wasn’t great, they were always struggling but they had a good family and lots of love.

It was my opinion that many women lived in denial and Charlene was one of them. Her husband’s eyes followed my ass enough that she couldn’t miss it; she just chose to ignore it. Dan would often stare off into space as if he was imagining himself somewhere else, not there. And for the last year, the rare times I was home to notice it, he got home from work later and later.

She was pretty clueless, her being surprised by Dan’s defection was proof of this fact, but she was a fun drunk, loved her kids and her husband and she always took care of my cat when I went to Vegas or hit a beach. She made me a huge tin of Christmas cookies and brought it over with eggnog every year for Christmas. She also made me a massive birthday cake and brought it over with a premium bottle of bourbon or tequila.

Further, she was open and friendly. She told me she only ever wanted the simple life. A husband, a home, kids. She knew Adam was Down’s before he was born and she didn’t care. Didn’t give it a second thought. Before Dan left, she was happy as a clam. Adam’s special needs didn’t seem to touch their lives. He was high functioning but he still needed more care and attention. She never complained.

“Pure joy,” she told me on a smile. “Wake up to it, go to bed with it and it comes from Adam. How lucky can I get?”

She meant that shit. That was Charlene.

And that was probably why, last year on the fifteenth anniversary of it happening, when she brought over birthday cake and bourbon, I got sauced with her and laid it out.

All of it.

Everything about me.

Then I let it out, bawling like an idiot for the first time in years, clutching onto her like I could fuse onto her healthy, happy family cheerfulness.

I could count my friends on two hands.

But I could count those I was tight with on two fingers.

Knight and Charlene.

The only two people who knew everything about me.

So when Dan took off on Charlene, I stepped in. Every morning I came over and while Charlene got ready for work, I got the kids breakfast, got them dressed and helped Charlene get them in the car so she could get them to their different schools and daycare. If I was around in the evenings, I lent a hand then hung to give her some company. I’d also corralled Rhash’s woman Vivica and Knight’s woman Anya into helping her out a couple of times, looking after the kids so I could take Charlene out to get her hammered and forget her husband was a dickhead and that life could be fun.

Dan had not contacted her, not once in six weeks. My guess, he was wind. She’d never hear from him again. I’d offered to track his ass down so, at the very least, she could divorce it and hang a massive child support payment around his rat bastard neck but she refused.

She was certain he’d see the error of his ways and come back, tail between his legs.

I was certain he was banging as much tail as he could find in an effort to turn his thoughts from the fact he was a total fucking douchebag and he’d never come home to a lifetime of shit he was not man enough to deal with. Not to mention guilt over the fact that he’d given up and fucked over a decent, kind, good woman who loved him. Charlene wouldn’t serve up that guilt. But he’d feel it. And he’d do all in his power to avoid it.

Thus I’d already done a few searches and made a few calls. If he turned up, I’d be all over his ass whether Charlene said yes or not.

She showered and got ready for work. I fed the kids, cleaned them up and got them dressed. This was not an easy task but I was not a Mom who needed to be at work on time at the same time worrying about how I was going to pay bills so I had nothing on my mind but them and making it fun, which I did.

When Charlene was ready, we corralled them and got them out to her sedan.

“Work?” she asked me why I was late as she was strapping Theo in his car seat.

“Yeah,” I answered, strapping Adam into his.

Her eyes found mine over the roof of the car and I saw her brows go up. “Bad?”

“Not good,” I told her.

She pressed her lips together. She knew my history, she knew my work. She didn’t agree with it but she was a good friend, she kept her mouth shut. Or, at least, she didn’t lecture me too often, just enough for me to get her and for her not to be that annoying.

I leaned in and blew a raspberry on Adam’s neck.

He giggled and shoved at me, shouting, “Sylvie! Toads are slimy! Raspberries too!”

I grinned at him and looked into the backseat to check that Leslie was secure. Then I tossed a smile at Adam who smiled back so huge I was sure I could see all his teeth.

Yeah. Pure joy. The world would be a poorer place without Adam in it.

Or, at least, mine would.

I leaned in, touched my forehead to his, pulled back and slammed the door.

I rounded the hood of her car on my way home when Charlene said what she always said.

“Thanks, honey.”

My eyes caught hers as I passed her.

“You, me, them until the me in that equation isn’t needed anymore. Know it.”

I watched her pull in a breath to control the tears.

I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Such a girl,” and kept walking.

“You are too, you know!” she shouted at my back as I sauntered across her yard toward my house.

I lifted a hand and flicked out two fingers.

“And by the way, you keep walking through my yard, you’re gonna wear my grass down to dirt!” she kept shouting.

“Such a girl!” I shouted back, not bothering to turn. “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

“Whatever,” she yelled and I grinned.

I hit my front door, pulled out my keys and watched as they drove away, both Leslie and Adam waving at me through their windows.

I waved back and let myself in, so focused on Charlene and her kids, so exhausted from zero sleep, mind so consumed by what Knight shared in the meeting that I missed something I normally would never miss.

The black Expedition parked right across the street from my house.

I locked the door behind me and walked directly to my bedroom. When I hit the door, Gun, who was curled in a ball pressed at the bottom edge of my pillow, looked up at me.

I was wrong earlier. I could count those I was tight with on three fingers.

Knight, Charlene and my cat, Gunsmoke.

She was white with a round head, kind of flat-ish ears and her fur was unbelievably thick. She looked like a big fat cat but she wasn’t. She just had a shit ton of short, thick fur. It also had a shimmer of gray at the very ends with vague gray rings on her tail. She was talkative. She was loving. She was superior. And she liked me and only me.

Not true, she adored Adam.

But she couldn’t bear Leslie and especially Theo. She might let them in when they weren’t so loud and manically active. Now it was just me and Adam, who was also full of exuberance and energy but not around Gun. He was quiet and gentle with Gun and she showed her appreciation.

She watched me walk in, sit my ass on the side of the bed and pull off my boots and socks. She then scooted away when I got up, turned toward the bed, fell forward and did a face plant in it.

And as I closed my eyes, sleep claiming me, I felt her curl up in the dent of my waist.

I knew she was probably hungry. It was time for breakfast.

But she was my Gun. She knew me. She had my back.

She’d wait.

A cold, dark night in the hills of Kentucky, twenty-eight years earlier, Sylvie is six…

I heard them yelling.

“Fuck you!”

“You wish, dirtbag! Fuck you! You piece of shit!”

“Don’t call me a piece of shit!”

“Don’t tell me what I can say!”

“You eat my food, live in my house, suck my dick for diamonds, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want!”

“I hope you have a good memory, asshole, because the last blowjob you got was the last you’ll get from me! I. Am. GONE!”

Then I heard it, the thump and I jumped.

I knew what that meant.

I knew what it meant.

I knew. I knew. I knew.

She’d have bruises tomorrow and walk funny.

I didn’t like it when she had bruises and walked funny.

“Come on, Bootsie, come on,” I whispered and my doggie, a sweet, white, West Highland Terrier’s, head cocked as I waved to her on my way to the door. She didn’t want to come. She always tried to keep me in the room. She didn’t like the yelling either, I knew it. She was a dog, she couldn’t tell me but I still knew it. She also knew what would happen if we got caught. She was there and Daddy had even kicked her once when they found us.

But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t listen anymore. We’d only been caught a few times but we’d gone walking loads. I didn’t like getting caught but I heard the words in my head over and over again. I never forgot them. I didn’t need any more of the words.

“NO!” I heard her screech.