Sons of Mayhem 2 Chaser (Sons of Mayhem Novels, #2) (16 page)

Ever the helpful neighbor/boyfriend/fiance Dewey had taken to spending ever increasing amounts of time over at our house. He would sit next to my mother in the evenings, talking to her. I listened to him sometimes, and his comforting words always made my blood boil. “Don’t worry Mrs. Levinson, I’ll take care of Karen,” he’d say to her. Or, “Shhh, go to sleep. Sleep as long as you like. Karen and I will be just fine together.”

I had to sit there and listen to his sickly platitudes mixed in with subtle hints at her impeding death. If I tried to escape to my room, he’d give a wounded comment like “You’re not going to leave your poor mother with boring ol’ me are you?”

This would make Dad turn around and glare at me between sips from his can of beer. I’d slink back in, doing my homework on my knees on the couch or at the small card table if I cleaned the empties off it first.

It was impossible to break up with him then. It would have broken poor Mom’s already-dying heart, and Dewey was too deeply entrenched in our family life now. He’d even started to stay over two or three times a week, telling people that it was to help out with Mr. And Mrs. Levinson who were having such a hard time of it, with Dad’s messed up back and Mom’s terminal cancer.

This was of course understood, but there were always whispered comments and implied statements about
young love
. People thought he had noble intentions, but that he was also getting to spend a lot of
quality time
, as they put it, with me. They meant we were fucking. And we were, I guess. I was being fucked, at least.

I hated how I loved it. His hot, hard body thrusting in to mine. How he made me moan, and whimper. He liked to do it when I’d been crying, when Mom had had a bad day, or Dad had said something mean. He’d comfort me, hugging me, and in those desperate moments of loneliness I’d welcome his warmth and strength, even while I hated him the rest of the time.

There was one brief moment of respite in the unending misery that was my life at the time though. Dewey got a job at the Walmart, stacking shelves (
paid strength training!
) It was only two nights a week, but it was two nights where I was free to do whatever I wanted. And what I wanted to do was plan my escape.

The answer, of course, was college. Not the community college he wanted me to go to, but somewhere far, far away. I trawled university websites, the University of Nebraska, the University of California at San Diego, the University of Idaho; anywhere that was far away from there, far away from Dewey.

A lot of the websites had little forms you could fill in to have a free catalog sent to you. I remember staring at those forms, desperate to fill them in, but knowing that if I did
he’d
find them. I couldn’t keep anything from him.

Instead of ordering the physical catalogs I looked at them online. It wasn’t the same; I wanted to feel the paper between my fingers, hold the photographs up to my eyes and read the text on something other than my flickering computer monitor. But I couldn’t risk it.

I did something foolish at school one day. I talked to my adviser about out of state universities and colleges. He looked at me wide eyed. “Are you and Dewey thinking of leaving? I would never have guessed!”

“No, no. I was just curious. Asking for a friend!”

The bespectacled adviser pushed his glasses up his nose and gave me a quizzical look. “Well, tell your friend to come and see me herself.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll do that.” I said, scurrying away.

But luckily for me (or unluckily?) he realized I hadn’t been asking for a friend. He tracked me down again.

I will always have a soft spot for Mr. Leigh. I think he must have seen something in my eyes when I’d first approached him, he’d seen that something was wrong.

I told him a few things, not everything of course, but just enough. I said that I was thinking it might be better for Dewey and me if we could put some distance between us for a while, after all, we’d hardly spent more than a few hours apart in years.

He nodded understandingly. “And you don’t want anyone to know about your applications?”

I nodded fearfully, biting my lower lip as I gave him an imploring look.

He let out a sigh. “It would be best if you just told him, you know? Running away won’t solve anything.” I think he saw that I was about to cry, because he quickly abandoned that line of advice. “Well, I probably shouldn’t, but I’ll help you anyway. I’ll get you everything you need on the school end, and I’ll sign off on your applications. Write you a recommendation if you need it. But your parents will be okay with this, won’t they? I don’t want an angry call from your mother!”

I nodded. “Of course.” I didn’t want to tell him that my mother was weeks away from death.

When Mr. Leigh told me he’d help me I was elated. Surely
some
school would accept me, and then I would be free! Free from him, free from the hell that my life had become.

How could I have been so stupid? I should have known he’d find out, he always seemed to know everything.

I don’t know whether the counselor gossiped with a colleague and a rumor spread to Dewey, or maybe Dewey  went through my computer and found the websites I’d been visiting. But somehow he found out. I didn’t know he knew. Not then. He could keep secrets too.

Oh God, why did he have to find out? Why did I have to try and run away like a coward? Why did this have to happen to
me?

Anyway, the bastard found out. And that ruined everything.

K
aren

Mom finally passed, and I hated that Dewey was right when he told me it was a relief. It was. Those last few weeks were hell for her, for me, for Dad, and I guess even Dewey.

Dad managed to put on a suit, and for once Dewey didn’t complain about me not wearing ‘his’ nail polish, instead watching me remove it before the funeral. “You can put it back on again tomorrow,” he said, with a soft smile. I wanted to stab him.

It was late March and I hated how good I felt without Mom there. The ghost she’d become those last few months was not the one who’d raised me, she was a sickly shell of a woman whose slurred words often ended up repulsing me, which then made me feel repulsed at myself.

Dewey had a new excuse to spend excessive amounts of time at our house, of course. Dad. Dad was still sitting in his chair, bloated and miserable as he drank can after can of
Natty Ice
, keeping the ghost of Mom company. Sometimes he forgot she wasn’t there anymore and tried to say something to her, often tailing off into nothing, other times completing his sentence and then letting out a loud laugh. It wasn’t funny.

So Dewey claimed he was helping clean the house and looking after me. Technically he
was
doing those things, but I wished to hell he wasn’t.

Maybe with Mom gone I could have broken it off then, but I imagined the fallout. His parents, the neighbors, the teachers, the other kids at school. I didn’t have the strength or energy to deal with that, not when the end of school was in sight and my college admissions results due. If I was accepted I could
flee
, I could disappear and avoid all the small town gossip that would result when I broke up with him by phone. It would be less than six months, not even that long if I headed to my new college town early.
If
I was accepted.

And I was! I got into
three
different schools. Mr. Leigh called me to see him, and he handed me three envelopes with a smile. University of Ohio. University of South Carolina. Minot State University, North Dakota.

I laughed and cried and even gave him a hug, burying my bleached blond hair into his shoulder. He held me for a second then broke away, no doubt afraid of physical contact with a student.

I knew where I wanted to go - North Dakota. It had some of the cheapest tuition in the country, and since I wasn’t likely to get any scholarships with my only mediocre school performance the cheapness of the tuition was vital. But even more importantly, it was in North Dakota! It was prohibitively far for weekend or impromptu trips. No one would be coming to visit me without a serious outlay of time and money. It would be perfect.

For the next week I was walking on clouds, smiling at people I didn’t know in the hallways, participating more in class, even making small talk with the cashier at the market.

While life wasn’t good yet, after all I was still with Dewey, I knew it was going to get good soon. I
knew
it. North Dakota here I come!

But I was wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong if I’d tried.

Maybe Dewey had noticed my chirpiness and did some investigating, or maybe he’d known for a long time and had just been biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to ruin everything. To ruin me.

K
aren

The school year was ending and it was the night of the senior prom, the supposed social highlight of the year. For many people in our small town - and across the nation - it would be the social highlight of their lives.

Dewey and I had chosen my dress together, and for once he and I had been in agreement about what I should look like and how I should dress. It was a stunning black number that hugged my body in a manner much more pleasant than how Dewey hugged me.

“Wow, love. You look fantastic,” he said, looking me up and down.

I couldn’t help but grin as I stared back at myself in the mirror. The blond hair still jarred me, though not as much as it had at first, but the dress looked great on my body. I even began to entertain thoughts that perhaps Dewey had been right to pay such close attention to my diet.

“You’ll be prom queen, I just know it,” said the matronly sales clerk. I grinned at her, knowing it was impossible, but secretly, just a little bit, entertaining the idea.

Dewey grinned at me too. “We will, you know. We’ll be king and queen of the prom. You’re graduating from being my princess to being my queen.”

I let out a little laugh. Then I remembered that I was planning to flee him, to run away to North Dakota and I was suddenly flooded with guilt. Was I making the right decision, I wondered. Maybe it was just me, maybe I was having some kind of breakdown and I should call the whole thing off.

“What’s the matter, love?” he asked me.

“Nothing. I just can’t believe we’re graduating already.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “The years sure fly by fast, huh?” He looked down into my eyes. “Especially when you’re with the one you love, the one you’ll be with forever.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. As always when he said something like that I felt my heart beat a little faster — not because of the ‘romance’ of his words, but in fear that we really would be together forever. I swallowed and continued to act normal, as I always did.

The night of the prom started off uneventfully. There was no hired limo for us, we weren’t doing it in that kind of style. Most of Dad’s income (aka his disability check) went to simply keeping us in our house, and keeping him in beer. There wasn’t much left for luxuries like a limo.

I had a small inheritance from my mother, but it wasn’t much. Dewey planned for us to use it toward a deposit on a house. I secretly planned to use it to fund my tuition for the first year, after which I hoped to get a scholarship (though I was secretly expecting I’d have to take loans.)

So on the night of the prom I drove us there in Dad’s truck. He hardly used it these days, staying in most of the time, but even though I was the one who drove it most of the time it was still
his
truck, at least in my mind.

There wasn’t much to say about the night. It was fine, even almost fun in a couple of places. I cringed inside though when the DJ did a small set of songs from his generation, songs from the 70s and 80s.

I knew what was going to happen as soon as he played the first Michael Jackson song. I knew
our
song was going to be played, like it was our destiny.

Sure enough, the third ‘old’ song the DJ played was Joy Division’s
Love Will Tear us Apart
. I couldn’t believe it.

“I don’t believe it,” Dewey whispered in my ear, the excitement in his voice palpable.

“Nor do I,” I said to him.

“It’s our song! Come here!”

We put down our mocktails and he grabbed me, dancing us slow to a song that wasn’t really a slow dance song. I could feel his body pressing against mine, and shuddered when I realized it was his hard on digging into my leg. He mistook my shudder.

“Nothing will tear
us
apart, love,” he whispered in my ear, “Nothing. I’ll never let you go.” He squeezed me tighter and I panicked for a moment, thinking he might have somehow found my plan and he was going to stop me somehow. I regained my composure when I realized how ridiculous I was being. He’d have been a lot more direct and a lot more outspoken if he’d discovered my plan. Or so I thought.

We weren’t crowned at the prom. I wasn’t surprised of course, but I still felt a twinge of disappointment. I
had
looked good in that dress, I knew. But of course I was glad in a way too. I wouldn’t have wanted to be crowned with him anyway.

Dewey decided we wouldn’t be going to any of the after parties, and that was fine with me. I was ready to be done with that part of my life entirely, and quite frankly, if I never saw my schoolmates again it would have been okay by me. I was ready to move on, start fresh, start new.

“I’ve got something for us to celebrate with,” he said to me as I drove us home.

“Oh yeah?” I feigned some enthusiasm in my voice.

“Yep, it’s in your refrigerator.”

I turned my head and gave him a quizzical look. “Cake?”

He laughed. “Don’t be stupid. You know I’m on low-carb at the moment.” He often told me I was stupid, and often I believed him.

I guessed it was booze of some kind. You’d think I’d avoid it, what with my Dad and all. But no, I didn’t, in fact I often snuck one or two of his beers away. It helped numb my feelings.