Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
I found I liked the rhythm of the clubhouse, the men who lived there. I enjoyed the club life, learning about a different way of existing. I might’ve enjoyed it a lot more if my world hadn’t been rocked once again in the bathroom of my mother’s little house she shared with Swiss.
The one I had to get out of, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being what I found out in that bathroom.
I convinced my mom I did not need to be under the same roof as her and her new fiancé where even the thickest of walls couldn’t contain the evidence that my mother was happy. And satisfied.
It didn’t give me the ick that most might’ve had hearing their mother having great sex. Well, it gave me the ick, but just a little. Mostly, it made me happy. Amongst some other very complicated feelings.
I had never heard my mother and father have sex. Then again, we’d lived in a large, sprawling house.
I’d never heard him beat her either.
But that had happened.
My entire fucking life, my father had beat my mother.
And she’d taken the opportunity of me going studying abroad as a window to escape. To drive across the country, find herself at a biker compound and fall for an outlaw biker. Then my father had also driven her across the country to try to beat her to death.
I’d learned all of this … less than two weeks ago.
And I was still processing the shattering of my entire childhood. Of everything I thought my mother was.
In addition to what I’d carried with me across an ocean. The weight of which was almost impossible to carry but a weight I could not transfer to my mother. Not now, not when she was finally happy for the first time in her life.
I had never seen my mother happy. Not truly free. Not once in my entire life. Until right then. So yeah, I would not be the reason that happiness was shattered.
Hence the Jack and the joint.
I wasn’t a habitual smoker. Sure, I’d tried it a bunch in high school along with the plethora of drugs available at all the rich kid parties our parents didn’t know we threw or attended.
I’d enjoyed drugs. Still did enjoy them. A little truth that my mother thankfully didn’t know, even though I told her almost everything.
But recently, I’d come to realize how much we’d been hiding from each other.
My casual drug use being the least of it.
I realized that there were going to be many things I kept from my mother. Not because I didn’t want to tell or because she wouldn’t want to know. I knew she’d want to know, to be there for me, to give me all she could give. Which was the problem. My mom had already done that. My mom was her own complete person with her own traumas, with her own set of battles. I couldn’t expect her to always fight mine.
She’d spent her whole life protecting me from a truth that would shatter my world. It was my turn now.
She was opening her own restaurant. We’d had a party celebrating a few days ago. She’d been glowing with excitement, happiness. A purpose. Something of her own. I’d been struck with inspiration of what to create for her and had been spending a lot of time on my computer, planning out the space. It had been a very welcome distraction, focusing all of my energy on creating something for my mother, being a part of this new life she’d created. But there was only so much time I could spend in front of my computer. The second I closed the screen, reality rushed back in.
Movement in the corner of my eye jolted me out of my thoughts. But because my thoughts were so thick and thorny, because my mind was cloudy from the booze and weed, the man had been able to come close to me without me noticing.
Which was no mean feat since you had to climb up a ladder on the edge of the building in order to get up to the flat space on the roof cluttered with patio chairs and a side table with an overflowing ashtray. I was not the only one who sought out this place. Because of that, the ladder, while sturdy, creaked a little when you ascended it.
I didn’t hear the creak.
Or the thump of motorcycle boots on the concrete as he walked toward me.
None of my survival instincts kicked in to let me know this man was near. And they should’ve. Because one look at him and you’d know … you’d know that he was dangerous. Something would prickle at the back of your neck. Your leg muscles would tense as if preparing to run, but your feet would grow roots to keep you in place. Your heart would beat so wildly in your chest that the bones would rattle. Your thighs would press together, you skin would turn damp.