On the Plus Side (27 page)

“No sir, but I’m here. What can I do for you?”

“Are you Devin?”

“That’s me.” I suddenly felt uncomfortable with him being here.

He reached out his hand for me to shake it.

“My name’s Dan Archer. It’s nice to meet to you.”

I shook his clammy hand, but I couldn’t say the same. It wasn’t nice to meet him. If anything, he was slowing me down and keeping me from my girl.

“Can I ask what this is about?”

“I’m here about your mom, Laura Michaels.”

I hadn’t heard her name said out loud in so long and it was like slap in the face. He needed to leave.

“She doesn’t live here anymore,” I said dryly.

I turned and rudely walked away. I didn’t know who he was or what the hell he wanted, but anything that had to do with
her
I wanted no part of.

“Devin, you need to hear this!” He called after me.

“Don’t talk to me like you know me, and I don’t need to hear anything except my shower water. Get lost.”

I turned again.

“Your mom and I were together for the last seven years,” he said loudly.

“Good for you. Although, I wouldn’t be too proud of that if I were you.” I was halfway across the yard when I realized he was following me. “Dude, if you don’t get the hell off of my property I’m
gonna kick your ass!” I started back toward him.

I would, too! I didn’t need this shit. My dad and Jenny didn’t need it, either. We were moving on with our lives. My life was just starting to make sense and the last thing I needed was anything that had to do with the woman who birthed me.

He didn’t move as I got in his face.

“Devin, just listen.”

“One,” I started to count.

I was already passed being pissed off. I was giving him a chance to turn and leave.

“There are things you need to know.” He started to panic.

“Two.” I swear if he was still standing there when I got to three I was going to punch him square in the face.

“If we could just wait until your dad’s here, I really have something I think you all should know.”

Oh, hell no! He was not rubbing this crap in my dad’s face. My dad didn’t need to see the man my “mother” was fucking. He didn’t need to know that this man even existed.

“Time’s up, Fuck face…three.” I snatched him up around the collar and hauled his scrawny frame upward.

He pulled back as if he was going to run, but I was much stronger. I pulled back my arm ready to feel his nose against my fist.

“Devin, your mom passed away last week!” He shouted in a panic and I could see the sadness in his eyes.

Everything stopped. My fist sat suspended in the air and all the oxygen left my body. Black spots danced in my vision and I felt my other hand loosen around his collar.

“Are you OK, buddy?” I heard him ask.

“I’m not your fucking buddy.” I shoved him away. “How’d she die?” I croaked.

“Lung cancer. I only came because I thought you and Jenny should know. I would’ve liked to talk to your father about this. I bare no ill will with him. Your mother and I met a year after she moved to Maryland.”

Maryland. That’s where she ran off to. That’s where she’s been all these years, living her life as if Jenny and I never existed and now, she was dead.

I never got a chance to tell her how badly she scarred me. I never got to tell her how I felt, how I hated her for turning me into a heartless bastard. I hated her for leaving me and Jenny. I hated her, and now she was gone. She’s been gone for many years, but I think there was always a part in the back of my brain that thought I’d see her again one day.

I was disgusted by the fact that as much I as hated to admit it, I’d hoped to see her again. She was gone. My mother was dead. 

“Leave.”

“Devin, I think I should talk to your father.”

“I’ll deal with my father, you leave.”

I’m not sure what it was in my face that made this guy turn and leave, but he didn’t hesitate.

I watched as he walked back to his luxury car and pulled away. I felt as though my feet had grown roots. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, and the worst part was it hurt so bad knowing she was dead. She didn’t care about me a bit, yet here I was deep inside mourning her.

No way could I tell dad and Jenny. No way.

Suddenly, all I felt was anger. How dare she die without saying goodbye to us? She died from lung cancer, not a sudden death. She didn’t die in a car accident or have a fucking massive heart attack.  She had found out that she was dying and she still didn’t come to say goodbye.

I lost all control of myself as I rampaged through the garage. I pulled over tool-boxes and busted out car windows with a tire iron. Poor Lucy got the brunt of it.

After I destroyed the garage, I was inside tearing through the refrigerator. I sucked down one of Dad’s beers, but it wasn’t enough. I could still feel. I ripped open the liquor cabinet and grabbed dad’s large bottle of Crown Royal. I didn’t even bother with a shot glass as I downed the burning liquid. The fire in my throat seemed to relieve the pain in my chest.

I needed to not feel. I didn’t want to feel anything.

I wished to Hell that Dan Archer had stayed so I could pound my fist into his face. I was full of anger and now I was also full of liquor and I needed a release of some sort before I fucking exploded.

That’s how Jenny found me, drunk out of my mind, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Devin!” She came busting in the back door. “Are you OK? Someone destroyed the garage and busted a window in your car. What the fuck happened?” She was panicked.

Her wide green eyes beat into me…so innocent. She was just a baby when that bitch left us and now she had the nerve to leave again.

I’d kill anyone who ever tried to hurt her…anyone. Actually, I had a date with a baseball bat and an attempted rapist’s face. If he was man enough to beat a female senseless, then he was man enough to take the beating that was coming his way.

My chair skidded across the floor as I jumped up.  Eric Fitch. I knew where he lived. He thought he was going to hurt my Jenny and my Lilly and get away with it. Well, he had another thing coming.

“Are you drunk? Devin, what the hell’s wrong? What’s going on?” The worry in her eyes fueled my rage.

I turned away and headed for the back door. The screened door was ripped off of its hinges as I tore through it. Then I was at my car. I was drunk, I could feel myself dragging, but it didn’t matter.

I couldn’t find a baseball bat, so instead I picked up the tire iron I had used before and hopped into my car, broken glass and all.

“Devin!” I heard Jenny scream after me as I squealed tires down the road.

The ride to his house was a blur. I had drunk too much and I could still feel. I was so angry I was seeing red.

I ran into the back of a car when I finally made it to Eric’s driveway. I beat the hell out of the door for what felt like hours and then finally he answered. It pissed me off more when I saw the look in his eyes. He remembered me and he knew why I was there. He knew it was my baby sister.

I didn’t even say two words to him.

“Look, man, I’m sorry.” He held up his hands like a little bitch.

I yanked him down the front porch steps to the middle of his yard and then I began to unmercifully beat the living shit out of him. I’d left my tire iron in the car, but I think using my fists felt better. It hurt so good to beat him in the face. My knuckles cracked with each hit. 

He called for help and at one point I was almost positive someone else was screaming for me to stop, but I couldn’t and I didn’t want to. I wanted him to hurt the way Lilly and Jenny had hurt. I wanted to break him the way that I was broken.

Once he stayed down and I didn’t see him moving anymore, I dropped to the ground next to his limp body. There was blood everywhere, but I didn’t care. That bastard needed to bleed.

When I stood I could feel myself leaning. I hoped that I could make it to the car, but the liquor was in my veins and no matter how badly I wanted it to numb me, I still could feel.

I felt like I was coming apart, like there were pieces of me trying to run away from each other in opposite directions, and it was ten times worse than before.

How was I ever going to feel centered again? How was I ever going to feel anything other than pain and anger again? I needed to feel centered. I needed to be alive and I needed to be balanced again.

I turned back to my car and hopped in. I needed Lilly.

Twenty-Six

Comfort

I hadn’t heard from Devin pretty much all day. My first day back at work sucked and I’d spent the day excited to see him. He was supposed to come over, but he never did. I called him and texted, but I heard nothing.

At one point, Jenny called and asked if I had heard from him. I could tell by her voice that something was wrong, but when I asked she said nothing. That of course made me worry more.

As much as I hated it, the idea of him and another woman popped into my head. He was gorgeous and I knew women found him attractive. It would hurt to find out he was seeing someone else.

I sat up in bed watching TV with my phone in hand. I kept almost dozing off and jumping, and then finally, at some point, I fell asleep.

A loud pounding on the door woke me. I waited for a bit hoping that Shannon would get it, but then I remembered she wasn’t home. I peeled the comforter back and climbed out of bed. Then I remembered I was worried about Devin and ran to the door.

  Once I got to the door, I checked the peep hole and saw his face. Relief filled me and I suddenly felt a rush of happiness. I opened the door with a smile on my face that soon melted when I saw his messy appearance.

The doorframe held him up as he leaned all of his weight against it. Expressionless, bloodshot eyes stared back at me as he lifted his hand and ran it roughly down his unshaved face. His hair was disheveled and there was blood on the front of his shirt. Panic rose up as I took him in. I rushed to him and ran my fingers down his body, as I checked for injuries.

“You’re bleeding! Oh my God, Devin! What happened? Are you OK?” I went on and on as I checked him over.

“It’s not my blood,” he slurred.

I took a better look at his gorgeous face. His unfocused eyes attempted to meet mine and it was then that the smell of liquor reached my nose.

“You’re drunk?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” He attempted to move toward me and almost fell over.

I wrapped my arms around him and helped him into my apartment. Once we made it to the couch I let him collapse onto the cushion before I went straight to work on his clothes. I removed his blood-stained shirt first and threw it to the side. Quickly, I checked him over again just to be sure that he wasn’t injured somewhere. His skin felt cold and clammy against my fingertips.

His knuckles were busted open, so I went to the bathroom and got a wet towel and the first aid kit. I cleaned his fingers then wrapped them up.

I felt fingers in my hair and looked up to see a very drunk Devin starting back at me.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered as his heavy head fell against the back of my couch again.

Shaking my head, I dropped onto my knees on the floor and removed his boots.

Once I was done getting Devin out of his shoes, I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a blanket for him. When I got back to the couch, he was standing there looking back at me in all his tattooed, muscled glory. He was still leaning a bit to the side when his eyes locked on mine.

“Come here,” he rasped.

He looked as if he was about to crumble and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or if something was really breaking him down.

“Are you OK,
baby?” I asked.

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I love it when you call me baby.”

I went to him and he groaned as I softly ran my hands up his chest and put my arms around his neck. On my tiptoes, I softly kissed the line of his neck and his chin.

“Tell me what happened, Devin.”

When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at me differently. The calm and collected Devin was gone and an anxiety-ridden shell of a man stood before me. His shoulders felt tense beneath my fingers and his eyes held a crazed demeanor.

“I need you, Lilly.” He captured my face softly in his hands as he slurred the words.

“Please tell me what happened?”

“Make it go away, baby,” he whispered as he leaned in and started to kiss me.

I let him as I melted against his body. He collapsed against the couch once more, but this time he took me with him. Not once did he break our kiss, and soon, I felt his velvet tongue against mine. I kissed him back and let my fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck.