Delicate
Immediately after we experience something horrific, there is a period when we are our most delicate. Time has not passed. Healing has not begun. We have not had an opportunity to suppress our experience. Our emotional state is fragile. It hurts to breathe, and we are ever on the verge of tears. Our family is at a loss for words; afraid they will say something to break us. It is the worst place emotionally a person can be. But, it is when we are most delicate we discover the amount of fight inside of us.
BREEZE
A FEW DAYS prior, I used to think I was the luckiest girl in the world. Sure it was a little strange to see my parents back together under the same roof as if they had never been separated. But it was also humbling and I had Shame to thank. Before he came into my life, I was on the fast train to being a teenage mom, living off the system in one of the affordable housing projects at the end of my street. I can remember thinking it would be cool if Pocket and I had one of the units right next to each other.
What was the saying about the writings on the wall?
Mine was clear. Then Shame helped turn my life around, like he showed up to grant all of my wishes. But at some point the clock struck midnight and it was The Villains’ turn.
As I stared at Shame, asleep in the chair at my bedside, I kind of believed I deserved what happened to me. No one stays lucky. Eventually wishes run out. I should have seen it coming. When life went badly, there was always a sense it could only get better. What I failed to realize was when things were going well, it couldn’t last forever. That’s how the streets operated. Life in Southie was a roller coaster. Up and down. Up, down, and loopy-loop. You weren’t supposed to be complacent. That was my grand mistake.
Something was bound to happen to break my string good of luck, but I turned a cheek on fate. There was a lesson to be learned. And it was the thing Shame had been trying to teach me all along, that I didn’t belong with him. Lady luck was a powerful bitch that I should have never messed with.
I couldn’t stand being in the hospital room. Most of the time, I pretended to be asleep so I didn’t have to listen to everyone blaming each other. Except for Shame, who blamed himself, they all pointed fingers at one another. No one was to blame. What happened to me was a serious case of bad luck. I hated how I wouldn’t be able to convince my parents or Pocket or Shame that there was nothing anyone could have done, except for me. Luck was unpredictable. I pushed mine and it pushed back. Simple as that. Those were the breaks. They always had been.
Shame stirred awake as I stroked the side of his unruly hair. “Are you okay?” he asked, bolting upright in the chair, his gaze moving over me with concern.
“I’m fine, but I want to go home. I can’t stand it here.”
“I’ll make it happen.” Even in his misery, Shame was a pillar of strength. If not for the deep crease between his brows, I wouldn’t have even known he was upset.
“It isn’t your fault,” I whispered.
Shame sucked in a sharp breath, as if afraid to exhale and allow me to see his regret. “It is, but I swear to you, I’ll make it right.”
I had no doubts he would. The war between clubs was all he knew and Dixon had raided his camp. Retaliation was the only option, but at what price? “And then what?” I asked. “Does it ever stop?”
A nurse entered my room before Shame had an opportunity to answer me.
Being delicate means being vulnerable, which leads to being afraid. We don’t want to reach for that offered hand. We don’t want to be in the dark, but we are afraid the light will expose how fragile we truly are. So, we put on a brave face, smile and do our best to face one day at a time.
SHAME
“Looks like you’re doing better,” the nurse said to Breeze. “You should try and shower.” She took Breeze’s vital signs, logging them on a chart before she left.
Breeze’s eyes looked the palest green as she silently begged me to open up to her. I didn’t know how because rage consumed me while surveying the discoloration around her eyes and her cheekbones. Looking at her made me murderous.
If the damn voices in my head would simply stop. They were the voices of fear and uncertainty and anger. The only other time I had heard them so violently was when I buried my pop. With Breeze, they were even louder, screaming, making me queasy as my blood pounded in my temples. The decisions mercilessly waiting for answers made me want to throw up. The shouting of my thoughts was madness. “Send her far away,” contradicted, “Never let her go.” I also contended with the endless desire to kill every member of Dixon’s family and crew because that was truly the only way to end the war and gain justice for Breeze. One side had to be annihilated and it damn sure wasn’t going to be mine. Breeze waited for me to say it, but all I could whisper was, “I don’t know if it ever stops. This is all I’ve ever known.”
She winced in pain as she sat up and tried to get out of bed. I caught her by the waist as she attempted to stand on shaky legs.
“Do you want me to get the nurse?” I asked.
“No. I don’t want some stranger bathing me. Help me get to the shower.” I guided her at her own pace into the bathroom. “Untie me.” With one hand, I kept her steady and used the other to release the ties on the back of her johnny.
I hissed a breath when I saw the prune-colored bruises sprinkling her back along the ridge of her spine. As she lowered the robe, I continued to breathe in through my nose so I didn’t punch the wall. Never in any scenario where I wanted her to be naked did it happen when I was engulfed with intolerable suffering. The dark angry markings on her soft, creamy skin pained me beyond words. Nothing I could say would ease the pain for her. Each mark represented how helpless she had been, how much she had needed me and how I couldn’t save her.
Without thinking, I let my fingertips land on a bruise above her shoulder blade. Breeze looked over her shoulder but didn’t flinch. Together we watched my finger slowly trace the border of the misshapen circle, again and again as if I could make it go away. It only appeared to grow angrier, meeting my frustration equally, until Breeze laid a warm hand over mine. “It’s nothing.”
I shook my head to clear the fury of my thoughts. My hand fell away as I swallowed hard and turned on the water. She was so small and fragile. It was weird to handle her delicately. It contradicted with the girl I knew her to be—strong-willed and independent.
The men who hurt her would be dead soon. I planned a personal visit to an old friend in Concord before those animals were transferred in from the barracks. Those pigs would never settle into their new cages. Visor, one of the original Bastards, had went down for armed robbery years ago. While inside, he offed a dude for fucking his wife and earned himself a life sentence. Since he had nothing left to lose, he had been the club’s personal hit man on the inside.
After the water ran warm, I helped Breeze into the shower.
“I want to sit,” she mumbled, lowering to the floor of the tub.
My eyes burned as I watched her bring her knees to her chest before tears poured out of her eyes. She glanced up at me. “I can’t remember any of it . . . So why does it hurt so badly?”
My eyes moistened and I swallowed hard, choking back tears so I could provide Breeze with the strength she needed. Words evaded me. There was no way I could tell her she had me, that I would keep her safe. I had already failed to protect her.
I grabbed the bag of toiletries off the counter Viv had brought to the hospital. I didn’t know what to say to ease Breeze’s sorrow. As she continued to cry, I shampooed her hair and used a washcloth to clean her body with gentle strokes. It took effort not to scrub her skin raw. I wanted to. I wanted to take away the bruises and the sense of being dirty I knew she had to feel. But the stains on her soul weren’t something I could cleanse away with a towel. They were permanent.
Time would heal her wounds, but the emotional scars would be with her forever. The dried blood along her hairline finally calmed the voices in my head and brought one into clarity. All that mattered in that moment was Breeze. Revenge could wait.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered softly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said without looking at me.
It wasn’t okay. Nothing about her life had ever been okay. I was supposed to make her life better. Instead I made it infinitely worse. She would hate me for my next words, but she needed to hear them. “You have to go. Move far away from Southie and never look back. Forget about me.”
She whipped her head around and glared at me. “How can you say that?”
“Because, I’m dying.”
“No,” she cried, shaking her head. “We can get through this.”
Breeze would for sure. I would see to that. The things I had planned, though, would destroy me. “I can’t. My plans . . . I’m a dead man.”
“Don’t say that to me,” she ordered, now visibly shaking. “Don’t you ever say that to me. I love you. I need you. You hear me? You can’t leave me . . . Ever.”
Plagued by the look of hope staring back at me, I leaned over and took her face in my hands. Our foreheads connected. For a moment, I closed my eyes and let the love I felt for her own me, before I whispered, “I’m here. I’ll always be here. I promise.”
Breeze was right—I couldn’t leave her. My hope was to push her to leave me. She was too emotional to see reason. I wanted her to be able to smile again, to love again. I also loved her enough to want those things for her to be with a man who deserved her. It was a sacrifice I had to make to keep her safe. It hurt like hell but it was the only way. Dixon wasn’t finished with me, and Breeze was the easiest way to bring me down.
I flinched when her delicate fingers curled around my wrist. She placed a gentle kiss on my forearm. The gesture made my chest heave forcefully, but I would not cry. I would be the strength she needed for as long as she needed me. That I silently promised.
How one rises from defeat defines their character. I planned to channel all of my rage, seek retribution, and allow my ruthlessness to determine what kind of man people saw me as. Never again would someone use me, or get close to me. I intended to instill a deep fear in my enemies. No one was ever even going to consider hurting those I cared about.
It would cost me everything, take my soul, but I would be victorious.
“Forgive me.”
When someone we have always known to be strong is suddenly delicate we become lost. We feel like failures. We fight against closing ourselves off completely. We want to because it is easier than the horrific feeling of not being able to restore the faith a person once had in you.
BREEZE
Surviving Shame wasn’t easy. I wasn’t referring to the defeated man begging my forgiveness. Rather, real shame that comes from growing up poor, having addicts for parent, and not being able to make friends. I’m talking about the humiliation of losing your dignity and not remembering any of it, but hearing about it in the whispers of others. The disgrace and the loneliness, the feeling no one else could understand was my shame to bear. But not the man . . . my Shame . . . he was easy. I was his burden and he was my constant and I had loved him since I was thirteen.
Living with Shame had never been easy.
It had always hurt.
But, of course I would forgive him.
I loved him.
I would always love him.
Finding ourselves in an emotionally delicate place can feel stifling. If we can somehow find the strength to take a breath, and reach for the person closest to us, we can survive. We can once again find our strength. We are only as fragile as we choose to be.