Chapter 12

Gigi

Rejected. Again.

Always. Rejected.

I sniffle and straighten my back as I walk out the back door of the clubhouse and into the front door of my parents’ home. I waited until everyone was asleep before sneaking down the sidewalk to Jameson’s room. I couldn’t care less if I wake the three people sleeping in this house now. Indirectly, my father is once again controlling my life. I can’t even choose Jameson if I wanted to. Dad made sure of that.

My tears have dried, and a sense of calm resolve has settled in that gaping hole in my heart that never seems to be filled with anything else but the need to get away. So that’s exactly what I plan to do.

I didn’t unpack my bags when Jaxon brought them up the first day I got back, so too much of the room inside is filled with trinkets and shit I have no use for on the road. It takes a mere fifteen minutes to get them emptied and refilled with necessities.

“You’re leaving already?”

I’m not surprised to find Ivy standing in the hall when I leave my room. Even the tears on her cheeks and the heartbreak in her voice isn’t new.

“I wish I could be more like you,” I confess. I blame the rum still in my system for that slip-up of honesty.

She shakes her head. “You’re fine just the way you are.”

I try to swallow the lump forming in my throat. Saying goodbye to her is always the hardest. You can’t really share a womb with someone and not have a connection so deep it’s unexplainable.

“I wish Mom and Dad felt the same way.”

I put my bags down and wrap her in a hug, holding on just a little longer than the last time I walked away from New Mexico. Something in my gut tells me this time is going to be much different. This time feels like forever.

“You’re not running from Dad this time.” The truth burns my ear, but I ignore it just the same.

“I’ll miss you the most,” I tell her as I pull away and reach for the straps of my two bags.

“You can call and text,” she offers.

“I will,” I lie and walk away.

The cab I called for earlier is idling out front when I make my way around the clubhouse.

The lone Cerberus member standing on the front porch having one last smoke before calling it a night doesn’t even faze me. I know he won’t try to stop me. There’s only one living Cerberus member who ever physically touched me without my father’s permission, and he made sure to make me burn.

“Prez won’t stop looking for you,” he says on a thick puff of smoke.

I ignore him and climb inside of the cab. Just like always, I keep my eyes closed until the bump in the road three miles away. I never look back. I never second guess my decision to leave this place. Well, I never did until tonight.

***

“Hey, sweetie?”

I startle awake, looking right into the soft, tired eyes of the elderly woman that sat beside me on the bus out of Farmington.

“You said you were heading to Phoenix, right?”

I nod, draw in a lung full of air, and stretch my back out.

“We’re only a few miles away,” she informs me and points an arthritic finger toward the window.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, dear.” She begins humming again with her eyes closed. It’s what lulled me to sleep to begin with a couple of hours ago when she got on at the Tucson stop.

Even though I don’t use my cell phone very often, traveling from Farmington after having tossed it in the trash hasn’t been the most pleasurable. At least with a burner and a pair of headphones, I can ignore the world around me. Traveling and circling back, going out of the way has always been how I traveled.

It’s how I found myself in an all-but-deserted bus station at three in the morning. Unable to buy a phone then, I knew in daylight hours I’d be able to grab one in Phoenix.

When the hiss of the bus’s brakes make their final gasp, I wait for the elderly woman to stand. She manages on her third attempt, and I find myself uncharacteristically worried about her. I help her traverse the steep stairs at the front of the bus and wait for her while the attendants pull her suitcases off.

When she tells me that her son will be there to pick her up in an hour, I forgo my seat on my original bus to catch the one later in the evening.

“Thank you,” she says in the sweetest voice I imagine a grandmother would have, as I pull out her chair and hand her a small ice cream cup.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have an elderly family. My dad’s mom met an awful fate at the hands of my grandfather when he was only a teen. My mom doesn’t have any family to speak of. Ivy and I have had some interaction with grandparent-type figures. Shadow’s parents came around often enough, and her obsession with Griffin always ensured we’d be where he was. Doc and Rose have been very active in our lives as well.

“You didn’t have to miss your bus for me.”

“I have a little shopping to do,” I tell her before filling my mouth with a huge bite of chocolate frozen yogurt.

“Where are you heading again?”

I know she’s just curious, but cautious no matter who we are around is something that Dad drilled into our heads.

If you’re not with family, you’re not entirely safe.

“San Diego,” I lie, a little weirded out and cautious since I never mentioned where I was heading before, just that I needed to grab some things in Phoenix.

“That’s right,” she says with a sugary sweet smile before diving back into her ice cream.

My nerves relax a little when she starts re-telling me the story about her travels and the three grandchildren she’s visiting. It’s the same story she told me when she got on the bus. She speaks of how busy her son is. My heart hurts for this woman. She’s closer to eighty than seventy and shouldn’t be traveling alone, and yet her family couldn’t be bothered to drive two hours to get her.

“The world is heavy,” she says in her soft, weak voice.

“I’m sorry?” I put my ice cream down and look over at her. “I was lost in my own head.”

“You have the weight of the world all around you,” she repeats. “It’s too heavy of a burden to carry yourself.”

I placate her with a smile but keep my mouth shut. In thirty minutes, I won’t have to worry about her rambling. I’ll make sure she’s safe with her family, and I’ll head North-West to Vegas just like I’d planned.

“You’ll carry it on your back until you stop running and give someone the chance to love you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I cajole and stir my spoon through my melting ice cream.

“Mother?”

We both look up to see a middle-aged man walking toward us.

“Oh, Dave,” she says in a near giddy tone. “Meet my new friend Annie. She’s traveling to San Diego.”

“Nice to meet you,” he placates his mother without as much as a nod in my direction.

Asshole.

He helps her stand, taking no care to allow her to straighten and be firm in her stance before he releases her and reaches down for the handles on her suitcases. I stand, hand near her back, just in case she’s not as sure-footed as he presumes she is.

“The next time he finds you,” she whispers in my ear. “Stick around long enough that he can prove how much you deserve to be loved.”

I watch, stunned and a little confused at her words, as her son shuffles her away almost faster than she can walk.

It’s minutes after they’ve disappeared through the crowd of people buying tickets that I find myself wanting to yell, to chase her down and inform her that he, if she’s referring to Hound, rejected me just like every guy I got close to did. I wasn’t enough for him to go against my father’s wishes. I can’t imagine him changing his mind.

He’s thirty-four years old, and I’m sure has had more women than he can count. There’s no way he’d ever be interested in me for more than what he already got.