Lana
All through the night, I expect Kade to knock on the door and tell me he loves me, tell me he doesn’t want me to go, tell me he can’t stand the idea. But he doesn’t; he just tells me I can’t go. And that makes me want to go even more. I sleep with the door locked just in case Scud tries anything. Part of me wants Kade to beat up Scud, despite what I said. But he doesn’t do that, either. His mind is on his club and it’s like I’m an afterthought. I try and see it from his perspective. In a matter of hours I’ve gone from a casual fuck-buddy to a massive commitment. Sure, that would scare a man. I can understand that. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me to accept.
I roll over and close my eyes. I don’t know I’m sleeping until I open then again and sunlight slants through the windows, patchy sunlight pockmarked with clinging raindrops. I lean up, groan, check my phone. Terry has texted me. She’s picking me up in two hours.
I go to my writing desk and begin collecting my things, and then pack my clothes into my bag. I’ve only been at the clubhouse for a few weeks but the idea of leaving it saddens me. I’ve begun to see it as my home. I pile my bags on the bed. Two bags, one filled with books and writing materials, the other with clothes: two bags, my entire existence. I sit on the edge of the bed and place my hands on my knees, waiting. I feel oddly calm. Accepting. This is it, then. This is how it’s going to happen.
Kade is out, somewhere, on club business. I can’t even blame him for that. Two of his men—his friends—have been killed by the Italians. Of course he has to focus on that. But to look into my eyes when I’ve told him I love him and not say it back. To just let it hang there. To let it hang there making me feel more rotten and ridiculous as each second passes by. That’s the worst part. I truly thought he loved me. Perhaps that was naïve of me. Perhaps I was letting storybook ideas get ahead of reality. I saw Kade wrapping his arms around me, kissing me deeply, whispering tenderly close to my ear so I felt his breath on my skin: “I love you.” I saw all of that in my head dozens of times. But in the end all we did was stand under a rain-battered roof with more unsaid than said words passing between us.
I mutter, “There once was a girl who thought her man loved her until she brought it out in the open and realized it was all ash and broken and nothing and—” I snort, fighting back tears. An unladylike sound, but I’ve already made it clear I won’t sit around here being a beck-and-call biker lady. I shouldn’t have let it go on for so long as it is. Maybe that’s why Scud got so many absurd ideas.
Even now, with Terry less than an hour from picking me up, if Kade knocked on the door and asked me to stay, told me he loved me, said he’d stand by me. Not ordered me to stay, like he has already. But asked me. Asked me like I am a real person and not another task on his to-do list.
But he doesn’t, and soon it is time for Terry to pick me up. I check my phone: I’m here, hon.
I stand up, coughing back tears. Leaving anywhere can be upsetting. Leaving the father of your child without a proper goodbye is . . . No, I won’t cry. I won’t let that happen. I fight back the tears, push them deep inside of me, wipe my eyes and pick up my bags. I will not cry.
I walk through the clubhouse, empty apart from the pledges who hang around to alert anyone if the Italians attack, and out onto the street. Outside, two Tidal Knights sit in a pickup. They’re the same ones who watched me and Kelly at the café. They’re going to follow us to Seattle, I know; Kade told me. Despite not being willing to admit he loves me, he’s willing to take two of his men away from the Italian trouble and put them on following duty.
I guess that’s men for you. He won’t open his heart but he’ll open his wallet.
Terry walks across the parking lot and takes one of the bags from me. She’s dressed in a woman’s suit, pale blue, which makes her look imposing and professional. Thick-framed glasses are perched on her nose.
“Didn’t know you wore glasses,” I say. I hear the choking noise in my voice, on the precipice of falling into Tear Valley. I clear my throat. It does nothing to push back the impending tears.
I will not cry.
“I usually wear contacts,” Terry says, carrying the bag to the trunk. I drop in my rucksack and we go to the front of the car. Terry nods at the pick-up across the road. “That our escort?”
“For the time being, yes.”
“Your man really doesn’t take any chances.”
“He’s not my man.”
Terry looks at me.
I wave my hand. “Just leave it.”
“Okay, then. Let’s get going.”
We climb into the car and make the drive to Seattle in silence. I stare out of the window at the passing scenery, which blurs in my vision. I don’t ask myself if it blurs because the car is moving fast or if because tears brim in my eyes. I can’t afford to ask myself that. All I know is that with each passing moment, Kade gets farther away. It doesn’t matter that two Tidal Knights follow us to Seattle.
Finally, we stop outside a tall apartment building on the outskirts of the city. As we walk toward the entrance, an artsy-type couple walks out holding hands, one of the ladies with short dyed-pink hair, the other lady wearing a beautiful multicolored scarf. They talk loudly about F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the pink-haired one opens the door for us.
“They seem nice,” I comment.
“A lot of nice people here,” Terry agrees.
Her apartment is on the third-floor. It’s a modern two-bedroom with refurbished kitchen and bathroom, sleek, and hardwood flooring. My bedroom has a desk and an en-suite.
“Home sweet home,” I say, and even though this place is beautiful, I can’t help but think about the clubhouse. I can’t help but think how, tonight for the first time in weeks, Kade will not be visiting me. Tonight, if I get cold, or scared, or lonely, I will have to stay cold and scared and lonely. Tonight, I won’t be able to rest my head against Kade’s hard body for comfort. I place my clothes in the wardrobe, my books on the shelf, and my writing material on the desk.
Then I join Terry in the living room.
She tilts her head at me, looks at me with her mother’s eyes.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say, sitting on the white-leather couch.
“You’ve barely said a word since you got into the car.”
“I—” Damn these eyes and damn these hormones and damn these persistent tears. “There isn’t much to say. That’s all.”
My voice rises and falls as sobs try and sabotage my words. I bite down. I keep thinking about that moment under the shelter at the town hall, the moment where the rain pounded, where everything could’ve been so different. He could’ve pulled me close to him and told me he loved me and—
“Oh, hon,” Terry says. She moves from the chair to the couch, shimmying along it until she’s close to me. “Oh, hon.”
“Don’t,” I mutter. “Don’t, Terry.”
“You’re hurting and you’re my friend. I don’t want to see you hurting.”
“I told him—”
I explain about the café and the walk in the rain. I leave out the business with Scud. Terry would probably drive back to Evergreen and take care of him herself if I told her about that.
“You were expecting more,” she says softly, when I’m finished. She places her hand on my back, rubbing it much as she did back at the Twin Peaks when the morning sickness first hit me. “You were expecting him to say it back.”
“Y-yes.” I swallow. My voice quivers.
But I won’t cry. I can’t cry.
I have to be strong now.
As if reading my mind, Terry says, “You don’t have to stay strong on my account, hon.”
And that’s enough to break down my defenses.
Those simple words, spoken kindly, are enough to push aside my resolve. I collapse into the folds of her shirt, weeping violently, belly tight with the sobs, eyes burning with the tears. I wrap my arms around her and cry for a long time. As I cry, I remember Kade walking out of the morning mist and getting rid of Chester. I remember the way he put his arm around me at the waterfront bar. I think about these past nights, the sex, the intimacy; I think about waking with my cheek resting against his chest. I think about the child inside of me. Our child. Tears surge from me and I shake and whisper words I myself do not even hear, but I understand them. They are words of love and longing. Words wishing all of this could be different. Words wishing the father of my child would stand by me when it mattered.
I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but it’s too difficult. I don’t just cry; sobs explode out of me with same body-shaking reverberations. I bury my face as deep into Terry’s chest as I can, thinking as I weep that this is the first time I’ve had a mother figure to cry upon. My own mother was never much use in that area.
After what feels like a long time, I disentangle myself and lean back.
“I’m okay,” I say. “I’m fine. I just . . .” I wipe tears from my eyes. “I just need to be alone for a little while.”
Terry nods, and I walk into my bedroom, close the door behind me, fall onto the bed.
I lie on my back with my hand on my belly, wondering when the baby will start kicking, wondering why its father isn’t here. I imagine Kade’s hand atop mine, both of us waiting in anticipation for the first signs of life.
I close my eyes and I see a clear image: a blue-eyed toddler and I are sitting up in a huge king-size bed. It is summer and petals of sunlight blossom in all corners of the room. Where is Daddy, Mommy? the child asks me. I kiss the child’s forehead and before I can answer Kade walks in, wearing a bathrobe and holding a tray of toast and soft-boiled eggs. He carries them to the bed and drops down next to me, nudging me with his shoulder. We made it, Lana. We made it.
I open my eyes, banishing the fantasy. I shouldn’t let myself dream like that; dreams like that can be dangerous. This is reality and this is what I have to get used to.
But for the next month, as I look for work and try (and fail) to write and watch for signs of Kade, that fantasy returns to me every night.