He didn’t seek me out either.
It hurt. Even though I was a woman, was capable of making the first move, going out and getting what I wanted. I couldn’t make that choice. Couldn’t decide to go and ruin both of our lives.
And as horrible as it was for me, I resented him for not making that choice either.
It hadn’t rained in two months.
Which was why I didn’t hear from him.
The bitter cold brought biting wind, dreary days and the threatening prospect of snow. But it never did.
And it didn’t rain.
So Elden didn’t call.
Even though I’d been faced with hard truths in Garnett, after Declan’s birth, I’d had some kind of warped idea that that night might’ve changed something. Might’ve shifted things between us.
But of course, Elden was still beholden to the club, though he never said it out loud. I knew I’d never be his. Not with my stepfather being his brother in everything but blood. I may not have had a huge amount of experience with outlaw motorcycle clubs, but I was quickly understanding the dynamics, and it was easy to see how seriously they took their commitment to the club.
It sent me into a spiraling depression. Probably not entirely because of Elden. I assumed at least part of it was about my father’s death and everyone tiptoeing around me, waiting for me to have some kind of reaction. Any kind of reaction. Sariah was worried. She’d gently suggested I go to see her therapist—it had helped her greatly. It was a good idea, I knew that. It was healthy. And it was irresponsible for me to shove things down. Still, I’d refused just as gently as she’d offered.
She also didn’t leave me alone, dragging me to and from every party she went to—which was a lot—even though we were both bogged down with work due before the Christmas break.
There was barely a moment to pause, to suck down coffee and scarf some muffins that Ollie made before I was out the door, back only to shower and change into whatever outfit suited the theme of whatever party we were going to.
One of the many parties was where I met him.
When I was vulnerable, angry and vicious enough not to gently rebut his advances. Because as much as I wanted to tell every guy who hit on me to go and fuck himself, I couldn’t since once a man was rejected, he was unpredictable. He could’ve spiked my drink, followed me home to try to rape me... That kind of thing.
Or maybe I was just sick of rejecting them. Maybe I was sick of looking down my nose at college boys, measuring them up against a man I would never have.
The reason didn’t matter much. All that mattered was that I met him, let him flirt with me, let him take me out on dates. When he mentioned his parents were in Europe for Christmas and he didn’t have the time to go because of his winter internship—I didn’t even know those were a thing—I invited him back to Garnett with me.
I don’t know why I brought him. No, that was a lie. I knewexactlywhy I brought the nice, square jawed lacrosse player home for the holidays. To the Sons of Templar clubhouse where there was a Christmas Eve party happening.
This time of year was tense for the club, I’d come to learn. It was the anniversary of the massacre that happened when some rivals—I was sketchy on the details since no one told me them because I was too young, too sheltered, whatever the fuck—had come in and killed almost everyone in the entire club.
It felt faraway yet much too close at the same time. Faraway because, up until the time I found myself in Garnett, New Mexico, I had lived a sheltered life.
My father’s death had been the only time I’d been touched by death. And even that I had forced away, hadn’t let myself think affected me.
Death hung heavy over the club, the loss they’d endured. I hadn’t experienced it fully last year, not with my mom being adamant to keep me away from the club this time of year.
Now they were her family. Now, although she was worried about me, we were fully immersed in the club.
Not that there weren’t smiles, happiness, and gleeful children running around with candy canes in their little fists. There was all of that. But I didn’t miss the sadness tinged in the eyes of Macy, one of the only survivors of the massacre. Her, Hansen and Jagger. They didn’t make itfeelsad … yet that sadness silently seeped from each I of them, just as it invisibly did from the paint on the walls.
A chaotic Christmas, bursting with family. I’d never experienced anything like it. All of our Christmases had been decorated, curated to perfection. Although I’d only truly seen this with the gift of hindsight. As a child, I hadn’t known any better. I’d been excited for Santa, for the gifts, the food, the special kind of magic that only came in December. It was only now that I realized the way my mother, already tightly wound, was tenser than usual, skittish, obsessed with the decorations, the cookies, the Christmas party we threw every year. It was only now that I understood my mother was doing everything in her power to avoid getting the shit beaten out of her by my father.
But even then, even being as naïve as I was, I understood there were rules. That I wasn’t supposed to rip my presents open with abandon, I was to carefully pull them apart, not to make a mess. There was no screaming, no acting out in front of my father’s guests at the Christmas party. There was a specific way to act. It went unsaid, but the silent words were spoken loud enough for even a five-year-old to hear.
It was never as stark, what I hadn’t had, what my father had taken from us, as it was the first Christmas we had with the Sons of Templar. The first Christmas I saw my mother with a man who respected her. Adored her. Worshiped the ground she walked on. Who was completely hands on with my brand-new brother. Who didn’t expect my mother to take care of everything while his life remained the same. No, he changed diapers, he got up at night. He did whatever he could to make my mother’s life easier.
She moved differently. Floated around the kitchen of the house he bought her, not worrying if a gingerbread man had wonky legs or was fatter than his counterpart. There was a lightness to her eyes that I didn’t know existed.
Of course, these things brought about feelings of joy, but it wasn’t that simple. There was the guilt. The overarching and near crippling guilt that I’d been too preoccupied with the latest makeup set, doll or pair of sneakers to see the sheer terror underneath my mother’s false smiles. That I had lived an entire lifetime not noticing what she was going through. Then there was the sadness that came along with that. Sadness that my mother had gone through that. Then the more shameful anger, the constantly simmering fury that my mother went through that. For years. Resentment that she didn’t leave, didn’t take me away so I wouldn’t have to carry around this burden for the rest of my life. I knew that was a selfish and disgusting way to think, but I couldn’t help it.
I hated myself for it. But it didn’t stop the way I felt.