She sat down next to Cowboy on the couch. He put an arm around her and pulled her close. I saw them both hold their breath some as their brands pulled, but then they settled. Watching them did something strange to me inside. Both blond. Both blue-eyed . . . both matched in every way that I didn’t.
“I’m taking a shower,” I announced and ducked into the bathroom. It was only the middle of the afternoon, but I needed to get away. I turned on the shower and stood, watching my reflection in the mirror. I lifted my arm and ran my fingers down my skin. Skin that had caused so much fucking grief in my life. I stared at my blue eyes, a legacy from my mother. The eyes that screamed to people that I wasn’t one or the other. Not black or white, but both.
I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you, gullunge, my mamma would say to me as a kid and kiss each eye. The very best of us both.
As a bright-eyed kid I’d believed her. Then, every year, as I would be knocked further and further to the ground by words disguised as bullets, daggers disguised as fists, the compliment slowly tarnished.
And as the home I loved so much was incinerated before my eyes, taking my heroes with it into the flames, I realized it was all bullshit.
Even this club couldn’t give me the acceptance it promised. When our former prez in New Orleans died of a sudden heart attack, the VP took over. The VP who’d been the only brother to vote against me making full patch. Not Cowboy, only me. And from the minute he’d been given the gavel, I was a target. Always sent on the bad runs. The butt of all the jokes, and finally, the fucking lie that I had stolen from the club. Just like your kind to do something like that, Titus had accused. No white brother would’ve ever betrayed his brother like this.
We went nomad before the situation could even make it to church. Asshole agreed in a second. Anything to get the coon from his club and an excuse for where the money had gone. I bet that fucker told them my decision on going nomad had guilt written all over it.
Cowboy, as always, told any brother we met on the road that we left because of him. That was typical Cowboy. Having my back, every fucking time. He followed me all around the states until we found ourselves in Austin.
Titus refused any prospect trying to join the New Orleans chapter who had even an ounce of color in their skin. Caramel, brown, black . . . anything that wasn’t a shade of beaming white. Instead of fucking confronting the racist cunt, I’d just left. Thought I could get away from that shit, but just like everything else, it caught up with me anyway.
I didn’t seem to belong in any fucking world.
I stripped off my clothes. Naked, I stared at the tattoos that covered the skin I wished I never had. I belonged to no one. Had no fucking family but Cowboy.
I wasn’t black enough.
Not white enough.
Never fucking enough.
I touched the scar I would have forever. The “N” branded on me at sixteen. I was twenty-six now, and people still hadn’t fucking changed. There had been fuck-all progression.
And I was tired. So fucking exhausted with fighting their shit.
I ran my fingers down my arm again, scraping my nails along the skin. Digging further and further into the flesh until blood began to drip from the marks. I panted, wanting to shed who the fuck I was. Change into something else. Someone who wasn’t a plague on everyone he let in.
Mamma, I listed in my mind. Papa . . . Aubin . . . Sia.
The names played on repeat in my head. Circling, swarming like sharks. Biting at my fucking soul, until all that was left was the bloody corpse of the person I could have been, if things had been different. If I had been different. If people hadn’t cast me aside. Hadn’t pushed and pushed. Chipped and chipped away at me until there was nothing.
Nothing.
One word that summed me up.
My feet led me to the shower. I hung my head, letting the scalding spray batter my body. My palms pressed against the wall. I turned the water up higher and higher until it was at maximum temperature. My flat hands fisted as the water slapped like a million hands at my skin.
I pictured my parents in my head. I saw them in the attic window. Saw my mamma’s hand on the window pane. I opened my eyes, staring at my hand on the wall. The heat rose, the steam robbing me of my breath. I wondered what they felt in that moment . . . wondered what they saw as they looked at me standing on the grass, watching the fire climb higher and higher, licking at their feet.
And I wondered what had happened before I got there. I never knew how it happened. I never knew if they saw their murderers. I never knew if men in pointed hoods turned up at their door to deliver their sentence.
My body shook, unable to tolerate the temperature. I gasped and slammed the control to cool. My forehead hit the tile, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Finally, I let myself ask the question that had always lurked in my mind, but that I’d never let myself entertain. I wondered if they thought it was worth it. Wondered if I was worth it. If having me was a regret. To the bigots who attacked them daily, it wasn’t just the fact they’d fallen in love and vowed to be everything to each other. It was the fact that they’d created me.
I was the abomination that offended the Klansmen in Louisiana so much that they bypassed the planting of the burning crosses on my parents’ land, instead setting them and their house alight, murdering their love and any happiness I dared let myself hope for one day.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood under the spray. I got out and dried myself off. I slipped on my boxer briefs and walked out of the bathroom. The curtains in Cowboy’s room were closed. I heard the sound of crying before I saw them. Cowboy was on the bed, holding Sia in his arms as she fell apart. Racking sobs poured from her mouth. She was dressed in a nightgown. Cowboy was in his boxers too. He saw me at the doorway.
“We’re exhausted. Decided to come to bed and wait for you. Thought we could catch up on sleep.” He wiped Sia’s eyes. She turned to look at me, eyes red and face mottled with sadness. “But she can’t forgive herself,” Cowboy explained. I watched as Sia’s face crumpled and she turned her head back into Cowboy’s muscled chest. Her sobs grew louder. Clara and Michelle’s families had been told they had died. Not the truth, of course. Cops had been paid off for that luxury. But at least they knew they’d gone. Funerals would be had. Loved ones could move on.
I remained frozen in the doorway. Sia was better off with Cowboy. He always knew what to say. He was good for her . . . He was meant for her. I realized that now. I ignored the slash across my chest my resolve caused.
I was about to turn and leave when Cowboy said, “Val. She needs us.”
If I was going to go anywhere, it was blown apart when Sia, head still buried in Aubin’s chest, held out her hand for me. I stared at her fingers—shaking, trembling . . . reaching for me.
Tethered to her need, I found myself walking toward the bed and climbing in beside them. I lay on the pillow and closed my eyes, exhaling when Sia wrapped her arms around me. And I held on. I wrapped my arms around her and fucking held on.
“It isn’t your fault,” I murmured. Sia cried harder. I pictured her friend in my head. A glimpse of what would have happened if Sia hadn’t gotten out. My hand moved under her nightgown to press against her scar, the remains of the acid burn that had been her original punishment. I held her so tight I worried she couldn’t breathe. My hand edged north, near the newest wound. But I stopped myself from touching it. My hand stilled. Cowboy’s hand came on top of mine. Fucker was trying to stop us both from falling apart. Or maybe he actually needed the comfort too. He was so good at taking care of me, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever truly been there for him.
Another thing I’d fucked up.
Sia’s cries drifted away until I thought she was asleep. I closed my eyes, hearing Cowboy breathing beside me. Sia had shifted until she was in between us. One hand on my chest, one on Aubin’s. The center of us both. The Sun to our fucking Earth and Moon. Then her hand shifted, and in the complete silence that had descend
ed on the room, she whispered, “Make love to me.” I held my breath. Sia didn’t move to look at either of us. “Both of you. Together. Just . . . make me feel something else but . . . this . . .” Her voice broke on the last word and took my fucking heart with it.