Finding Fate (14 page)

Which I probably should do right now.

It’s close enough to closing and the walls of this place feel like they are slowly collapsing on me. 

I text back to Becca-Ann, offering a gentle reminder that Stevey really does like her and that I hope she keeps her hands in dough and not in the pants of some Paris boys.  She just replies with a winky face, almost annoying me.  But I wouldn’t expect anything less from Becca-Ann.  She’s perfect and beautiful in her own way. 

I linger for another few minutes, not because I’m waiting for customers, but because I’m waiting for Colt to appear.

He doesn’t.

I walk to the front door and place my fingers to the lock.  As I turn, I can feel the metal against metal and the thickening scrape as the lock engages.  It’s like the rusty call of a family dying.  I close my eyes and turn, not wanting to see the street outside.  Sometimes I swear I can see the ghosts of my grandparents.  I can see them holding hands - their old, wrinkly, vein filled hands - smiling, Grammie resting her head on Grandpa’s shoulder. 

I feel terrible but isn’t the dream of any person to live a dream?  Or at least have a dream?

Being stuck in these four walls isn’t a dream.  I used to think it was a bandage but it’s only a blanket on me.

My keys are in my hand when the phone to the bakery starts ringing.  I consider just walking and ignoring it but then I think about the people in town.  All those people who have come to the bakery, choosing this place first over all the big grocery stores who could probably bake faster and cheaper. 

I have to get the phone.

I pick it up and offer my best perky greeting.

Then my face drops.

“Isabella... I.  Am.  Hurt.”

My mother.

She’s drunk and she’s dialed the bakery out of the number being deep seeded in her memory. 

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Well... I tripped on the rug in the hallway.”

“You tripped?  Are you on the floor?”

“No.  I’m not.  I tripped.  I fell.  I hit my head on the bathtub.  Now I’m bleeding.  I’m at the kitchen table, but I’m still bleeding.”

I hang up the phone and rush to the back door.  There’s no possible way she could have tripped from the hallway to the bathtub, but she definitely sounds out of it.  Worse than being drunk. 

By the time I get to the house, I’m beyond shaking.  I can feel the color draining from my face as I live out one of the nightmares I always feared.  And that’s find my mother hurt or dead.  The drinking can only go so far before something happens.  I remember Grandpa telling Grammie that my mother would need to hit bottom before she’d accept her decisions.  Each time I thought my mother hit bottom, she’d dig and find more space to fall. 

I bust through the front door and run.  I ignore the mess and the horrible smell of the house.  In the kitchen, she’s just sitting there, staring straight at head.  A burning cigarette in her right hand, the smoke creeping out the open window.  Her left hand is tight around a bottle and as she stares straight ahead it doesn’t look bad. 

“Mom?” I ask.

She turns her head and that’s when it looks horrible.

There’s a big cut at the top of her forehead, leaving a waterfall of blood running down her face.  The blood runs between her eyes, down her nose, and forms crimson droplets on the tip of her nose before they fall off, hitting her shirt, her pants, the floor.

“Isabella, I tripped...”

“Sure you did,” I say.

I spring to action and grab a dish towel.  I get close enough to my mother to actually smell her.  It’s terrible what she’s become.  A mix of booze, smoke, and general body odor.  As she bleeds, she sweats, only making it all worse by the second. 

After I wipe the blood I see it’s just a small cut.  It’s at the right spot though, allowing it to bleed like it is.  I peel my mother’s fingers off the bottle and force her to hold the towel to her head.  I take the bottom and dump it down the sink.

“You took all the money,” I say as I turn around.  “You took the money from the bakery.  That was supposed to be used to buy supplies.”

“It’s my money,” she says.  “I need a paycheck too.”

“Speaking of which, I won’t be able to cash mine.”

“Oh well.  Sell more bread.”

Sell more bread.

That’s where it was left.  Sell more bread.  As though I am doing something wrong and I’m the one killing the business.

“I don’t know what else you want from me,” I say.  “Look at yourself, Mom, please.  You don’t think things are hard for me too?”

“Hard?  Isabella, you’re twenty... something years old...”

“You don’t even know how old I am.”

My mother moves the towel from her head and looks at it.  It’s saturated so she unfolds it and finds a dry spot.  The blood has mostly stopped.  I try to imagine what could have happened and I know asking her will only offer lies.  My mother is really good at lying... I guess not really good but she truly believes her lies.  She’s so into them that her mind actually can paint the events happening that didn’t.

I leave the kitchen and the first thing I notice in the hallway is that the carpet looks normal.  It doesn’t look like someone tripped over it and there’s nothing messy about it that would allow someone to trip over it.  I look to my left, into the bathroom, and see where it all happened.  What my mother failed to tell me was that she had been sick.  There was a sick mess on the toilet, running down the sides... you get the picture.  My guess is that she stood up from being sick and got dizzy and fell.  On the edge of the tub is a blood spatter, right where my mother's head smacked it.

 That's all I need to see for now.  And I'm not cleaning it up. 

I walk back to the kitchen and my mother is at the sink.  The dish towel is soaking in water, turning an eerie shade of red.  The cut has stopped bleeding but is already obvious that not only will there be a cut there will be bruising around it.

"What do you want from me, Isabella?"

Wow, what a loaded question.  What do I want?  How about a mother to start.  How about feeling comforted, trusted, and having the ability to feel like I have someone to rely on.  Someone to talk to.  Someone to love.

I don't say this because I've said it before.

"I want you to be safe."

That much is true.

"I want you to care about the business your parents built.  I want you to stop drinking all day."

"I don't drink all day," she snaps at me.

"Okay... I don't want you to drink then.  You have a house, a business, all given to you."

"It's yours too."

"No, it's not.  I should be in Paris but I'm not, because of the bakery... and you..."

My mother sighs and lowers her head.  She finally looks defeated.  Maybe the hit to her head knocked sense into her, but I doubt it.  When she looks up, she's crying.

"I never wanted this for us."

Now all of a sudden I'm part of an 'us'.  Something I've never felt before.

"Then do something about it."

"What do you want me to do, buy you a ticket to Paris?"

I laugh, I have to.  It's so dumb to hear coming from her mouth.

"No.  I just want you to care."

"I do care," she says, her voice raising.

"Blood and puke in the bathroom isn't caring.  It's killing yourself."

"Maybe you should leave then."

I open my mouth and my phone beeped and vibrated.

A text.

I need to look at it.

I can't sense it and feel it...

It's Colt.

I'm at your apartment.  If you want a chance at truth, meet me.

A chance at truth.  It sounds beautiful, poetic, and romantic. 

"I'm leaving," I say while my eyes read the text again.

"Go.  You'll see, Isabella.  Trust me."

"I'll believe when I see."

I look at her and for a second I think we're going say something but we don't.  We leave love implied, if any exists.

I turn and walk away, my body feeling chilly.  I’m actually anything but chilly but my body argues otherwise.  It’s an odd feeling, one that I don’t want to feel again.

When I’m in my car I think about texting Colt back but I figure it’ll be better to just show up.  If he really believes in whatever it is he wants to share with me -
a chance at truth
- he’ll wait for me. 

That’s just what Colt does because as I turn into the parking lot of my apartment I see him leaning against his motorcycle, his arms folded, his stare straight ahead looking at nothing but concentrating on everything.  He’s a man possessed, deep within his own life and pain.  Not to mention the loss of his mother.  Seeing him just reminds me of the way our last conversation ended.  How he left.  How I forced him to share something so intimate with me.

I park the car and hurry from it, rushing towards Colt with my heart bleeding with something like romance.  He turns his head at the last second even though I know he knows I’m right there.  My arms are open and I grab him.  He stands stiff and I don’t care.  I move to my toes and my lips touch his.  They’re everything I remember and everything I want.  He doesn’t kiss back but that doesn’t stop me as I kiss him again... and again... and finally...

Colt growls and turns, allowing our bodies to face each other.  His hands are fast, at my hips, lifting me off the ground.  I wrap my legs around him, almost instinctive, and he takes the lead on our kiss. 

It’s as hot as ever.  We act as though we’re forbidden to do anything else so we have to make the kiss count for all the pleasure we want to experience from each other. 

It works for me.

By the time I put my legs back on the ground, my knees are wobbly and I feel like I could stumble and fall.

He stares at me, then licks his lips.

“Family emergency?” he asks.

My eyes widen.

Has he been looking for me?  Going to the bakery?  If so...

“Why didn’t you come here… if you knew?”

Colt shrugs his shoulders.  “The counter keeps you at a distance somehow.  So I don’t lose control.”

My right hand touches his chest, my fingers casually searching for definition.  “I want you to lose control, Colt.”

“Why?  So I can send you outside to get murdered?  Like I did to that man... oh, excuse me, that
gay
man.”

His eyes are like dark stones.  I’m not sure if I can see into them right now.  He has himself so blocked, so hidden, I almost feel like slapping him and walking away.  But I think about his mother.  I think about the man on the street who tried to come after him.

Colt is dangerous in so many ways and I can’t help myself.  I want him to be dangerous... with me.

“You talk as though I judge you,” I say.  I take a step back.  I need the space.  Without it, I’m liable to launch at him again.  My body is fighting my brain.  Heart versus lust.  What a horrible fight to feel.

“No need to judge,” Colt says.  “You have all the answers, don’t you?  You did your research.”

“That’s not fair to me.  Not at all.  I told you why I looked up your name.  And I swear to you, Colt, I’ve regretted it since.  It’s bothered me everyday because I don’t believe a thing.  Okay?  And I want you to tell me, when you want to tell me.”

“Then I’ll tell you.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“What the hell... you are so confusing.”  He pushes from his bike, shaking his head.  He’s walking towards the door to my apartment building like he lives there, but trust me, I’m not going to stop him.  I want Colt in my apartment, preferably back in my bed. 

I take one step and he looks over his shoulder.  “Do you want me to want to tell you?”

“What?”

“That’s what I thought.  Stick to baking your crappy bread.”

He smiles before he walks again and seeing that smile fills with a sense that maybe things will be okay.  Or maybe it’s just the calm before the storm, his way of smiling to ease me into his dark world. 

Once we’re inside my apartment he chooses the couch.

Damn, not what I wanted, but I’ll take it.

He looks up at me, waiting for me to sit.  I do, close to him, but not too close.

“Is your family okay?” he asks.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.  Are you okay?”

“I haven’t been okay since you left.  Actually, I haven’t been okay since you showed up to the bakery.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.”

He half smiles and his eyes look cool now.  Open and honest.

“My mother stole all the money from the bakery, got really drunk, and fell.”

“She dead?” he asks so casually.

I don’t flinch.  It doesn’t bother me.

“No, she’s fine.  She swears she’s going to change.”