Sunday Morning: A Damaged Novella (6 page)

A
fter our first kiss, Kirk stumbled over himself to
avoid me. I laughed at his awkwardness
. At first anyway
. Then I felt him
pulling away. Not just physically but his heart was closing off from me.

I knew what it was like to live with someone who
cared less about you than you cared for them. I’d felt that way all my life.
Now Kirk and I were falling into the same sinkhole.

Picking me up became a chore for Kirk. He began
showing up late. He would say nothing before dropping me off and driving away.
No more long drives or dinners together. Kirk didn’t have the balls to admit we
were over. He said it in every other way.

My heart hurt in a way it hadn’t for a long time.
I’d never had a moment where I knew my mom didn’t really care about me. That
knowledge was always there, taunting me.

I did remember the day I realized my dad was a
monster. I felt so fucking dirty like his evil was genetically transferred to
me. Beyond the shame of having such a violent pervert for a father, I also
realized he wasn’t capable of loving me. I had no value to him. In fact, if he
were free to raise me, I’d likely end up abused by him.

As the product of two awful people, I probably
shouldn’t have wanted a violent man. In theory, I could find someone else, but
who in the fuck else would I love besides Kirk? No other man would ever do.
Unfortunately, the one who owned my heart wasn’t capable of letting me own his.

On the last day of school before Christmas break,
one of my mom’s junkie lovers was waiting for me at the apartment. The guy was
as thin as a rod from too many drugs and not enough food. He sported a mullet
and droopy jeans. While I couldn’t remember his name, I suspected he was most
likely in love with Mom. All of the others realized she was a loser. Not this
schmuck. He actually thought they would live happily ever after in a haze of
drugs and wedded bliss.

“Your mama wants you to come see her,” he said to
me as I climbed off Kirk’s Harley.

“I’ll think about it.”

“She misses you.”

I frowned at him, wondering if he was lying or
simply stupid. The guy smiled at me, and I realized he wanted to be some kind
of father figure to me. He’d bring me home to Mom, and we’d sing Christmas
carols. The guy was more than just high. He was delusional.

Kirk didn’t say a single word. He was as silent
with Robin’s lover as he was with me most days. Rather than speak, he walked to
the man and punched him square in the mouth.

I flinched at the sudden brutality. The guy dropped
to the ground without even breaking his fall. He lay stunned, barely wiping his
bloodied mouth. His eyes widened as Kirk stomped down on him.

I didn’t know if I should try to stop Kirk. My
loyalty remained with him, but the guy was a harmless errand boy. Dealing with
weeks of being ignored by Kirk left me filled with anger and fear. The first
one was always easier to deal with, and I grabbed Kirk’s arm.

“Stop it.”

Kirk shot me a nasty look that made me feel
worthless.

“Don’t come back,” Kirk told the injured man.

After snapping his fingers at me, Kirk pointed to
the apartment entrance. He couldn’t even manage to speak two words to me to
order me inside.

I obeyed him because I didn’t know what else to do
anymore. I couldn’t leave him, yet staying made me feel like shit.

In the elevator, I noticed Kirk’s bleeding
knuckles. Instinctively, I reached for them, but he yanked away his hand with
the ferocity of someone touching fire. I stared at him the entire ride up to
his apartment.

Once inside, Kirk walked to the kitchen sink and
ran cold water over his knuckles. I followed him and stared until he finally
gave in and acknowledged me.

“Is this what you want for your life?” he demanded.

“You being an asshole? No. If you mean seeing you
beat up on losers, I don’t care about that.”

“You sure seemed to care a few minutes ago.”

“You were taking out your shit with me on that
idiot’s face.”

Kirk studied me with his dark eyes, and I realized
he hadn’t really, truly looked at me in weeks. Not since our kiss when he let
down his guard and broke some internal Kirk rule.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he muttered.

I grabbed a few paper towels off the roll and
dabbed his damp and still bloodied knuckles.

“You’re punishing me for making you feel
something.”

Kirk looked at me for a long time, and I tried not
to fidget under his gaze. My hands still held his injured one.

“Having you stay here was a mistake,” he said, and
his words cut me. “I mean I know why I did it, and I know your place is shit.
It still makes sense, but I was fucking stupid to think I could have you here
and not push things.”

“You haven’t pushed anything,” I balked. “That
doesn’t make you some prince. You’ve been mean to me lately. I get ignored
enough from everyone else. I don’t need that shit from you too.”

“I’m trying to do the right thing.”

“No, you’re not. You’re mad at us for doing what
you don’t like, so this is our punishment.”

“I’m an asshole, huh?”

“Yeah, but I’m a bitch, so I try not to hold things
against you too much. We’re flawed.”

Kirk wanted to smile, and I caught him fighting
with his lips to avoid giving in.

“You have time to change,” he said.

“So do you.”

Kirk sighed. “This is why I can’t talk to you.
Everything you say sounds so rational, and I think you’re right, but you’re
not.”

“I’m not arguing about this with you, but I am
right, and you are wrong. Trust me. I know things.”

“You do, huh?”

Smiling slightly, I let go of his hand and stepped
back. “Be nice to me, Kirk Johansson.”

He finally shared my smile and then surprised me by
cupping my jaw. “I’ll do my best, but that ain’t saying much.”

“It’ll do for now.”

After our mini-blowout, Kirk and I fell into an
uneasy acceptance of what we had become. We were lovers who didn’t fuck and
friends who didn’t trust each other. Well, I figured Kirk mostly didn’t trust
himself. He still ignored me too much, and I still resented him for being so
damn stubborn.

That year, we enjoyed a quiet Christmas. He bought
me a yin yang necklace. I bought him a skull design lighter. Before he opened
it, I teased him by saying it was a box of condoms. He wasn’t amused, but I
laughed so hard at his expression that I nearly peed myself.

E
very night for weeks, I imagined climbing into
Kirk’s bed. I always chickened out, fearing he might reject me. The night I
finally took the plunge wasn’t so different than any other night. I wasn’t sure
why I needed to know on that particular Tuesday, but I forced myself off the
couch at a little after two am.

First, I used the restroom. After cleaning up, I
stared in the mirror. I wasn’t ravishing with my tired eyes and bedhead.
Despite not feeling the least bit sexy, I stripped out of my clothes and walked
into Kirk’s bedroom.

He’d fallen asleep an hour earlier. I often
remained awake and listened to him moving in bed. That night, he stirred more
than usual.
Had he been restless like me? Had he craved my touch the way I
did his?

I pulled back his sheet and crawled into bed. Kirk
slept naked, and I shivered at the sight of him. His tanned and tatted skin was
dark against the white sheets. Even tempted to touch him, I still hesitated.

Kirk sat up with a start, thinking he was under
attack. I flinched at his sudden moment and then waited for him to wake enough
to understand.

“Jodi?” he asked. He blinked rapidly in the
darkness and said, “Jodi.”

The second time he said my name, his voice was
filled with warmth.

“Please,” I whispered, placing my shaking hand on
his chest.

Kirk’s expression was unreadable in the shadowy
room. He pulled back the covers enough for me to slide closer. Once we were
under the sheets, his smile erased my fears.

I was a woman before that night, but Kirk made me
his woman with every kiss and hushed word. He was always tender even while
demanding everything I could give. Kirk once said he would never take my
innocence, and I’d laughed about having no innocence left.

In fact, our night together rekindled my innocence.
My childlike belief in love and happy endings returned because of Kirk.

For as long as I could remember, I hadn’t felt
loved. With Kirk, I was overcome with the feeling. It wasn’t a sweet,
redemptive love, but the desperate sort. Kirk made me believe my presence alone
could save him.

In the dark room on a cold winter night, Kirk
looked at me with the gaze of a man drowning in a hell of his own making.

T
he morning after I took Jodi’s virginity, I
suffered the retribution of my selfishness.

I awoke next to the best woman I’d ever known. She
was beautiful and strong, and I was a fucking loser for having her in my bed.
With my lust sated, I could see clearer how I’d given into my basest needs
while ignoring my common sense.

Jodi was still a kid in a thousand little ways I’d
chosen to ignore. I only focused on the thousands of ways she was a woman. I
hated myself for taking the easy, selfish route.

I blamed Jodi too. At seventeen, she was too young
for me, but she was too old to believe in fairytales. She looked at me as her
savior. She believed love healed all wounds. That together we could defeat
every obstacle. These were the fantasies of a hurt child in the dark, not the
beliefs of a strong woman.

Pissed at us, I stayed awake long after Jodi dozed
off next to me. I clearly saw my past and future.
Fuck Jodi and fuck me and
fuck life for putting us in the position to think we mattered.

Our hopes didn’t mean anything more than the dreams
of the people at the Princess Farms Trailer Park. The men in my club had no
chance of having something beautiful. To think I was better than them was a
fucking loser move.

With Jodi, my common sense left me.
So I left
her.

Sneaking out just after dawn, I didn’t leave a note
before riding off on my Harley.

I rode for hours. The sun warmed the day before
shifting lowering in the sky that evening. I stopped to eat once, maybe twice.
Nothing felt real anymore. I had to keep driving until I found the path back to
a world, and a Kirk, that made sense.

Long after the sun disappeared, I raced through a
foggy night on a lonely road deep in Georgia. Only when the cold and fog grew
too overwhelming did I stop to sleep. The motel looked as beat-up as I felt.

I didn’t check my beeper to see if anyone contacted
me. Before climbing into bed, I didn’t even take off my shoes. I collapsed face
down on the bed, closed my eyes, and let the world fall away.

In the morning, I planned to return to Chesterfield and Jodi. I’d make things right by ending what I should never have started.

That night, though, I let myself dream the way Jodi
often did. Love and destiny were all that mattered. Despite the beautiful lies,
I knew in the morning I would give up the only beautiful thing I’d ever known.

K
irk left before I woke and he didn’t return for two
days. I skipped out on school so I could stay at the apartment and wait for
him. Classes didn’t matter. Nothing did until I saw Kirk again.

At first, I thought he needed time to think. When
he didn’t return that evening, I worried he was hurt.
Had he tried taking
out his frustrations in a fight and lost? Was he in the hospital? Jail? The
morgue?
The last thought left me in a panic, unable to do more than sit on
the couch and stare at the door.

Kirk left like a whisper, but he returned like a
tornado. Tearing into the apartment, he stopped for only a second when he found
me sitting on the couch where I’d been for over a day.

“New plan, kid. You’re moving out. I’m moving on.”

His words didn’t register. I was so shocked to see
him. Relieved yet in disbelief, I struggled to understand what was happening.
After a minute, I accepted he was alive and well. I still didn’t understand
what he was saying.

“What?”

“Get packing.”

“I don’t understand. Where have you been?”

“None of your fucking business. Get your shit. I’m
taking you back to your place.”

I stood up and looked around, still stunned by his
sudden reappearance. I’d convinced myself he was in danger.
Where had he
been all this time? Did he shack up with some whore while I sat around worrying
about him?

“Where were you?” I asked again.

“I want you out of the apartment.”

“No.”

“Not a request. I’m leaving,” he said, reaching for
the doorknob. “When I get back, I want you out of here.”

Seeing him ready to walk out again, I ran to Kirk
and slapped him across the face. I hadn’t planned to hit him, but my hand had a
mind of its own. Kirk lifted his hand as a reflex, and I braced for his
retaliation. Once his dark eyes registered who attacked him, he lowered his
hand.

His expression made me even angrier. “So you’ll
break my heart, but you won’t fight me. Do you think that makes you a good
guy?”

“I know exactly what I am, Jodi. I’ve been fucking
trying to tell you I’m shit since we met. I don’t have a white horse, and I
can’t save you. All your fairytale lies don’t change that I stole something
from you that should have been saved for a better man.”

“Stole?” I laughed bitterly. “Fuck you and your
well-meaning bullshit. You didn’t have the balls to steal anything from me. I
had to throw it at you. Slap you upside the head with it. Everything I gave you
was forced on you. From the moment we met, I called all the damn shots because
you were too scared. You might be older, but I’m smarter. I gave us what we
needed. Now you’re gonna throw it all away.”

“You think you love me, don’t you? Well, darling,
that ain’t smart.”

“I know I love you. I feel it in my bones,” I said,
struggling to make sense of my tears. “You treat me like a child, but I know
what I fucking know. You’re scared. Love comes with responsibilities, and
you’ve been hiding from them your whole life. It’s why you don’t run the club
or have a woman. It’s why you’d throw me away when you love me too.”

“Love ain’t enough, Jodi.”

“You know how I know I’m brilliant? I picked a man
willing to suffer to protect me. I picked a man willing to go without so I can
be safe. Too bad that man’s too stupid to realize the only way I’ll ever be
safe is with him. My heart can’t belong to anyone else. You’ve claimed it, and
you have no right to close the door on me now.”

I saw him trying to weasel out of the painful
moment. Grabbing his hand, I held it tightly in both of mine.

“If you do reject me, it’ll be the cruelest
bullshit you’ve ever done. Worse than any crime you’ve committed because you
love me. You are supposed to protect what you love. You think you’re doing that
by tossing me out, but you’re wrong. This right here with you rejecting me is
more dangerous than you calling me your woman.”

“You’ve got all the answers, huh?”

His words didn’t hurt as much as the chill in his
voice. Kirk really planned to walk away from me, and I’d never get him back. I
felt him leaving, and his rejection tore away all my confidence.

Giving into my tears, I let go of his hand. “I
don’t have shit besides you. You’re the only person who’s ever mattered. I know
you don’t care, and I know I’m just talking to talk because if I stop, you’ll
leave and I’ll be alone. Without you, I’ll always be alone. No one can know me
like you do. I might try to find someone else, but he’d be my second choice,
and he’d always feel that.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know, and you know it too.”

Kirk reached out and wiped my cheeks with his
thumbs. He cupped my face and studied me.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I look at you and see a shiny thing with so much light. If I dulled that light
or fucked it up somehow, I’d hate myself. I realized long ago that no one would
ever care about me, so I better care about myself. If I destroy you, I wouldn’t
be worth caring about.”

“But you’re not the only one who cares about you
now. You have me.”

“Yeah but for how long?”

So there was the real issue.
Deep inside, past all of his worries about my age
and being a good guy, Kirk’s big worry was that I’d reject him. He’d rather
tear us apart now than wait for me to spring the rejection on him later.

“You think I’ll outgrow you.”

“Why wouldn’t you? You’re seventeen.”

Wiping my eyes, I tried to calm myself. “You’re not
done growing. I see you sometimes thinking about shit, and I think you want
more than to settle with life. You want to do more, but you’re stuck. That’s
not age. That’s a choice. Your life was stale because you settled. You don’t
have to do that.”

I blew my nose and took a deep breath. “I know
about settling because I was going to settle before I met you. I was gonna find
the best shitty job I could and hook up with the best shitty man I met, and I
was going to find little moments of happiness in my otherwise shitty life. That
was it. With you, I don’t even think about the future. It’s too big to know and
way too big to fucking control.”

“You really are a smart chick.”

“And you’re a good man when it comes to me. I don’t
care about what you do with other people. Well one day if we have kids, I’ll
want you to treat them good. I know you will too. You treat your own like
magic. That’s not something you need to be taught. You just do it.”

Kirk stared at me for a long time, and I saw him
working shit out in his head. By the time he spoke, he looked rather defeated.

“I wanted you out of the apartment.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I just fucking told you I did a few minutes ago.”

“Never happened.”

Kirk laughed quietly. “Stubborn Jodi Sears will be
the end of me.”

“Do you want it any other way?”

Kirk’s dark eyes studied my face again, and then he
wrapped his strong arms around me. “Hell no.”

“Then you never wanted me to leave. None of that
happened.”

“How do we explain the bruise you gave me?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, feeling guilty for
hitting him. “Never happened. I wouldn’t hurt the man I love.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“And you wouldn’t send me away.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“It was a bad dream,” I whispered as his lips
nuzzled at my throat. “Now we’re awake, and none of it happened.”