Rewind (23 page)

Then I noticed
her
, a brown haired, hazel eyed, spunky, happy, sweet cheerleader.  How I had never noticed her before was beyond me.  I would watch her at practice, the way she smiled and was so full of energy made me smile.  Numerous times I caught her looking at me, every time she would blush and look away.  What I didn’t like seeing was the way the male cheerleader always had his hands on her.  I was officially jealous of him, jealous because it was his hands on her and not mine.  Every practice, I would watch her.  I asked one of my team mates about her he shrugged his shoulder, “She’s got a man and you’re taken too dickhead.”  He bumped his fist against my shoulder pads. 

“I fucking know that.”  I snapped.  He gave me a strange look then averted his attention back to what the coach was saying.  No matter how much I tried to ignore that she was on the sidelines, I couldn’t.  Shelby was starting to ask questions about who I was looking at all the time, her jealousy was fucking annoying.  In my mind I had never given her a reason to not trust me. 

Over time I accepted that the cheerleader was off limits, Shelby had finally caught on and threatened to go tell the woman everything about me.  So, I decided to keep the girl safe from Shelby’s wrath I would just leave well enough alone.  After a major victory one night though, I took my chances and wrapped my arms around the sweet little cheerleader’s body as spectators and students flooded the field to congratulate the team.  She smelled so like strawberries, her hair smelled like lavender.  Her smile, though, that smile was what attracted me to her even more.  When her friend pulled her away I missed her tight petite body instantly.  Shelby glaring at me snapped me back to reality, so I pushed my thoughts of the other woman to the back of my mind. 

With it being Shelby’s senior year and my junior year I started to worry about what would happen between us after she graduated.  I wasn’t ready to lose her for good since our relationship had been going pretty fucking good for a change.  My anger was under control and we were inseparable.  Nothing prepared me for the shit storm that would roll through my body when she went home one weekend and everything started to fall apart.  Text messages popped up on her phone from a guy she claimed was her cousin, I immediately called bullshit and wanted to call him myself.  Her refusing to let me pretty much told me she was cheating on me.  So, before she could break it off with me I had her meet me at our normal spot out by a creek.  Numerous times she had taken me out there so we could relax and get away from the hectic college life.  I was going to prove to her that she was screwing up by cheating on me, so with the same ring I had bought years prior for a girlfriend, I patiently waited for Shelby to show up.  Her smile was beaming as usual when she showed up, and that pissed me off even more.  How could she smile when she had cheated on me?  We sat on the tailgate of my pickup, our feet dangling brushing the tall grass back and forth. 

“You know I love you right?”  I said to her. 

She grabbed my hand and smiled, “I love you so much things have been going really good.  I’m so proud of you.”  Shelby said to me then leaned in and kissed my cheek. 

I reached inside my hoodie pocket and pulled out the small white velvet box, “This ring means just that to me.”  I told her as I flipped the lid up. 

Her hands flew to her mouth and tears formed in her eyes, then she looked up at me, “Really?” she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek. 

I nodded once, “Everything, like you.” 

She gasped as I started to pull it out of the box, “Oh Ronnie.” 

I stopped, “You use to mean everything, but not anymore Shelby.  You’re a lying cheating fucking whore.”  I said in a flat tone.  Then I looked at her, got off the tailgate and put the ring back in my pocket.  “Past tense Shelby, I’m not marrying a woman that fucks around on me.”

She pushed at my chest and jumped off of the tailgate, “You’re an asshole, that was my cousin wanting to know when we would finish building his website.”  Shelby threw her hands in the air, “Why Ronnie?  Why can’t you just trust me?”  She screamed.  “You know,” she shook her head and laughed, “Your mom showed that to me and told me the story behind it.  I wouldn’t marry a person like you ever.”  She turned to start walking to her car.  I grabbed ahold of her arm and yanked her against my body.  She tried pushing me away but I wasn’t going to let her go until she felt the same pain I was feeling.  “Stop it!  NO!”  she tried to push me away but wasn’t strong enough.  I pinned her against the bed of my pickup and quickly unfastened my jeans.  She clawed at my arms and tried to kick me away, and repeatedly cried No.  After I ripped her panties off of her and shoved her skirt up she began to cry harder.  I knew I should stop but I couldn’t.  I needed the release first, then I would let the bitch leave. 

“Get the fuck out of here.”  I said to her as she cried harder and pulled her skirt back down.  I threw her panties at her and glared at her. 

“You…you just raped me.”  She sobbed and shook as she started towards her car.  I ran to my driver’s door and grabbed the pistol from under the seat, squeezed the trigger and shot at her car the red plastic of her tail light exploding and falling to the ground.

“FUCK YOU…FUCK YOU!”  I screamed after her. 

That summer I couldn’t stop from trying to see her, I knew that she was going to turn me in for what I had done.  What I was hoping she wouldn’t do was tell the cops about my anger issues and abusive behavior.  After a month she was sociable with me again, no matter how much I begged for her to give us another chance, she wouldn’t.  “I just can’t Ronnie, I can’t go through that again.  I’m not a strong enough woman to help you.”  She told me when I cornered her one night at a party.  I had to move on and let her go.

Sydney Phillips, the brown haired, hazel eyed, beautiful cheerleader.  Her happy go lucky personality was like a ray of sunshine to me.  So when she agreed to go on a date with me, it was the first time in a long time I was actually nervous.  I worried if she had heard about what kind of person I was in the past.  I say past because I was going to do whatever I had to, to prove that I wasn’t that asshole anymore.  How could I be?  One look at Sydney and my day was better.  We took things slow, I really did want things to work out between us.  Like I said, one look at her and the darkness inside of me seemed to disappear. 

After about four months everything was still going amazing, until my step dad Peter called with the news that Shelby had tried to file charges against me for abuse and shooting at her.  “Boy you know how much this is going to cost us to keep this shit from sticking?  When did you get to be so god damn stupid?”  He yelled into the phone. 

I tried not to let it show that I was beyond fucking pissed at Shelby.  How could she do that to me?  I had apologized until I was blue in the face.  The phone call from Peter set off a slow brewing storm of anger and rage inside of me.  I managed to keep it under control, taking it out on the other players during practice and spending more time in the gym.  I didn’t want to hurt Sydney, she had turned into the perfect woman for me.  The only problem I had was the jealousy, I had every right to get jealous though.  All the guys took notice of her when she would walk by, her co cheerleader being a male didn’t help much at all.  I swear the asshole was looking up her tiny skirt while he held her in the air by one foot. 

One weekend she insisted that she had to go home for her dad’s surprise birthday party…and she didn’t want me to go.  Red flags went up in my head, why wouldn’t they?  Every kind of bad thought crossed my mind.  I wasn’t stupid, she simply didn’t want me there for a reason.  Maybe she was just like all the other women, just like Shelby.  Rather than sit back and let her go the following morning I followed her and stayed far enough back she never even noticed me on my motorcycle.  That weekend ended up being the last snap of my inner strength.  For starters she wasn’t happy when I showed up at her parents’ house, but she didn’t make me leave.  Later when I met her dad and asked how I could get involved in his motor cycle club he laughed at me.  The mother fucker laughed, “Boy that’s not an American made bike.  There’s clubs just for those kind, mine isn’t one.”  He told me.  I wanted to punch the son of a bitch.  THEN, then the asshole wouldn’t even let me stay with Sydney that night.  He made me go stay at a hotel in town.  Sydney knew I was pissed when I left that night, I knew that getting away from her was the best thing for the both of us.  That night at the hotel I put several holes in the sheet rock with my fist. 

When I got home the following day I tried, I tried to calm myself down.  But the anger had taken over.  Her tears after the first hit only triggered more anger inside of me, her eyes searching mine for why I was doing this didn’t even stop me.  How could she let her dad talk to me like that?  Watch as the other bikers in the so called motorcycle club looked at me and treated me like I was a piece of shit.  What finally made me stop was seeing the red hand print on her face and the sheer terror in her eyes as she stared at her reflection.  I lost it, I crumbled at her feet.  I couldn’t lose her; I didn’t want to lose her.  I had fallen in love with Sydney, tears stung my eyes and hurt filled my chest.  I had done it again, but, at least she knew where I stood and that I wasn’t going to stand back and let her parents rule her life OR mine. 

Things would get better then things would get worse.  My internal struggle was like a tennis match that was stuck on loop.  I focused more on school and football, football was proving to be my only outlet for my anger.  My step dad Peter had quickly turned into a trigger for my anger, calling and texting me all the god damn time telling me that Shelby wouldn’t agree to take any amount of money to keep her mouth shut and drop charges against me.  I would text her and call her but she ignored me--Infuriating me even more.  One thing right after the other, it was all getting to be too much.  Sydney was on the receiving end and I had no way of stopping myself until I could physically see the marks.  It wasn’t the hurt that I could see in her eyes that would make me stop, it was the fear that I would lose her.  Over and over in my head I would say, “I love her, she loves me, but she doesn’t love me as much as I love her.”  It made sense to me. So when she told me that if I didn’t get help for my problems, I knew that I needed to talk to somebody.  I didn’t miss the way the tattooed asshole Cade McAllister looked at her that night at her dad’s birthday party, and I didn’t miss the way he looked at her now.  I don’t know why he and the asshole Bryan were even here.  We were taking a quote un quote
break
, so Sydney could take time to herself.  I knew my up and down moods were proving to be more than she could handle.  I sure as hell wasn’t going to willing watch as she ran into the arms of her biker friend though. 

So, I made the decision I was going to talk to her without her friend Theresa there or either of those mother fuckers from the club.  Sydney beamed with joy when I asked her to go with me, what she didn’t know was I wasn’t’ going to a counselor.  The look on Cade’s face when Sydney walked away from him that night made my chest swell with pride.  She loved me enough to choose me over him.  I was going to see my old high school coach. 

Sydney waited in the library of his house while I spoke with him first.  “She doesn’t know about everything in my past and I want to keep it that way.  I can’t lose her, I love her.  There’s just a bunch of shit going on that’s my trigger, once it’s settled and done I’ll be fine.”  I told coach. 

He nodded, “Understandable, at least you’re showing her you are going to try.”

That visit seemed to make Sydney happy.  Hearing her talk about how much she loved me and didn’t like seeing me under so much stress made me feel like a million dollars.  She cared, she loved me, she didn’t want to lose me. 

When I finally took her home to meet my parents I knew that she would fall in love with the main house and wouldn’t understand why my living was separate from the main house.  Supper was definitely uncomfortable, I could tell right away that my mom was not happy I was in yet another serious relationship but I wasn’t going to let her hold my past over my head.  I wanted to be able to take the next step in life with Sydney after we graduated.  I left her at my place the following morning when mom told me I needed to go to the office with Peter.

We walked in his office, he rounded the dark oak table and sat down in his black leather chair and pointed at the one in front of his desk.  Obviously he didn’t bring me here to move the massive desk.  “Well your past sure has a way to come back and bite you in the ass.”  He said with a light laugh and slid a paper across to me.  The manila envelope had already been opened so I pulled the flap from inside and pulled out a sheet of paper. 

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”  I said as I stared at the paper.  There in bold print:

State of Wyoming vs Ronnie L. Thomas

Child Support for Vivian G. Winston

Please sign and date the attached document and return to our office at your earliest convenience.

Peter’s laugh drew my eyes away from the document, “She’s two fucking years old, if you ever checked your stack of mail you would know you have a daughter.  So now you have no choice, you owe back child support that absolutely has to be paid and you need to decide if you want to sign your parental rights over.”

I wanted to throw up, she had the kid after I told her to abort it.  I hadn’t heard from her, I couldn’t even bring myself to say her name.  “I’ll pay it but I don’t want anything to do with her.”  I told Peter.

“Well I’ll be damned you do have a fucking brain up there.”  He tapped his temple.  “I’m not gaining any ground with Shelby either.  I suggest you ditch Sydney before she finds out about all of this, you’ve fucked up enough women for a life time.”

I shot up out of the chair and lunged across his desk, papers fell to the floor, the computer keyboard cracked under my weight, “You’re to fucking blame…you, you fucking did this to my mom all the time.  You fucked me up too.”  I spat in his face.